she sat between her mountains, having the sea as of old at her feet, and "abating not a tittle of her state," albeit my countrymen had forsaken her.

As Genoa was the first city in Italy which I beheld, and as first impressions are not only liveliest, but liveliest in the order in which they occurred, I will resort to the journal I kept, and notice objects as they struck me day by day. It was at two o'clock on the 15th of June that our vessel entered the harbour. After travelling the great "world of waters wide and deep," it was every way a pleasant thing to feel one's-self embraced in the Genoese harbour, which is one of the most encircling there are. We were full, at that time, of happy thoughts of a dear friend; and we felt as if the country he was in embraced us for him.

June 15. Our arrival in the harbour did not diminish our idea of Genoa: but our notions of the Italian countenance were formidably startled by the pilot-boat, which came out to offer it's assistance in conducting us by the mole. The mole had been injured greatly by the storms of the preceding winter. The boat contained, I think, as ugly a set of faces as could well be brought together. It was a very neat boat, and the pilots were singularly neat and clean in their persons; but their faces! My wife looked at me as much as "are these our fine Southern heads." The children looked at me: we all looked at one another: and what was very inhospitable, the pilots all looked at us. in their eyes; and there they sat on their oars, grinning up at us, and bargaining with the Captain. The older ones were like monkies; the younger like half-withered maskshard, stony, and even pale. One young man however was handsome both in face and person: he had the fine black eyes and brown colour we expected to meet with; and luckily, driving a less hard bargain than the rest (which was to

to say,

The sun was

be expected of him), the Captain agreed with him, and he came on board. His dress and appearance we found might be taken as a specimen, and by no means an uncommon specimen, of the better order of boatmen, upon this and the Tuscan coast for we soon had the pleasure of being agreeably disappointed with regard to the slovenliness we had looked for. It was that of a smart English apprentice with his coat off. He had a very neat black hat on, in the modern style, good shoes and silk handkerchief, and blue linen pantaloons coming up high, and fastened over his shoulders with braces. Though aware that one style of dress, with little modification, prevails now-a-days all over Europe, one cannot help feeling a kind of disappointment, and even surprise, at seeing Italians dressed like Englishmen. It seems a disgrace to them, not because they are like us, but because they look unlike themselves and their climate, and disappoint us of a becoming variety. We thought how well our pilot would have looked in his cap and cloak. But we were thankful for his face. I asked him where the Doria palace stood. "Behold it!" said he, pointing to the left; and we looked upon the handsome yet comparatively humble mansion, which Andrew Doria built for himself and his descendants, when he was at the height of his power. It is a low long building, with an arcade, and a garden before it, and looks over the harbour which he rendered so eminent. We were in the Genoese harbour for two weeks, and it was no small pleasure to us to have this republican palace always in sight.

We had scarcely got rid of our ugly men, when we were assailed with a much worse sight, a gang of ugly boys. They were a set of young knaves, poking about for what they could lay their hands on; and came loitering and hanging about the vessel under pretence of asking charity. Their

fathers and mothers, or their fathers and mothers, or manners and customs ad infinitum, had much to answer for in contriving such a set of juvenile vagabonds. They clung about the sides of the vessel, with faces, and hands too, like monkies. They had no foreheads, and moved their hands as if they were paws. Never did we see a more striking look of something removed from humanity; and the worst of it was, they had no sort of comfort in their faces; their laugh was as melancholy yet unfeeling, as their abject and canting whine. They looked like impudent squalid old men of the world, in the shape of boys; and were as pale, and almost as withered. They were like the sordid imps of Massinger or Decker. Sinbad's old man of the sea would have had such children, only stronger. Certainly both men and boys might have made a huntsman himself hypochondriacal.

Boats with awnings were rowing backwards and forwards, many of them, particularly as the afternoon advanced, containing bathers, who dressed and undressed themselves, as they went along, in the most unscrupulous manner. One of the very commonest sights was to see men in their shirts; and not a very uncommon one, ladies in their company. People bathed among the shipping at all times of the day, and ladies would pass them, nothing wondering, in boats. This grossness, which indecency itself would diminish, I witnessed afterwards at Leghorn; and I have seen people bathing in the Arno in the very middle of Pisa. I am not squeamish ; and think some of our northern notions as gross as any thing else; but where there is neither innocence nor even a refined sensuality, there is something more than gross in these public expositions of the person; the extreme of formality is better, inasmuch as it approaches nearer to one of the two. But something, in the progress of such customs, is to be allowed for difference of climate.

The first handsome countenance that came near us, aftér the pilot's, was that of a boy who accompanied a customhouse officer, and who was going to bathe. But he had no modesty in his aspect, and the want of it was not bettered by his ear-rings and the cut of his hair, which made him look like a girl. Numbers of lads had the same look, on the same accounts; even when apparently seventeen or eighteen years old. The short, thick custom-house officer, grave, obsequious, and yet indifferent, was like a man made of dough; and he had the most exaggerated cocked-hat and worsted epaulets which we had ever beheld out of the pale of a pantomime.

The first sight of Italian women disappointed us almost as much as Italian men, because we expected still more of them. Of course, had we seen them first, they would have disappointed us more. But I afterwards found, that as you ascended among the more educated classes, the faces improved; and I have reason to believe, that most of the women whom we saw in boats, deceived us as to their rank in this respect. In Italy, gentlemen do not look so much like gentlemen as in England, but there are greater numbers of women who look like ladies. This is partly owing to their dress. In Genoa particularly, the out-of-door headdress for women of all ranks is a white veil; and an Englishman, unaccustomed to see this piece of drapery upon common heads, and observing besides the stateliness with which female Italians carry themselves, thinks he is oftener looking at gentlewomen than he is.

We had not been long in harbour before we inquired, with all the eagerness of voyagers, for our fresh provisions. In Italy, we also looked for our heaps of fruit; and we had them -in all the luxury of baskets and vine-leaves, and a cheapness that made us laugh. Grapes were not in season; but

there were figs, apricots, fresh almonds, oranges, pears, and gigantic cherries, as fine as they were large. We also took leave of our biscuit for excellent bread; and had milk brought to us in bottles, which were stopped with vineleaves. The mutton turned out to be kid, and lean enough; but it was a novelty, and we eat it upon a principle of inquiry. An excellent light wine accompanied our repast, drunk, not in little cautious glasses, like our "hot intoxicating liquor," but out of tumblers. It was just threepence English a quart. It had, notwithstanding it's lightness, a real vinous body, and both looked and tasted like a sort of claret; but we were sorry to find it was French, and not Italian. As to the fruit,-to give a specimen in one word, -the apricots, very fine ones, were two-pence a gallon.

16. To-day I went on shore. I shall never forget the sensations with which I first set foot in Italy; but they will not do to dwell upon now. The quay is a handsome one, profuse of good pavement, gate, &c. and the abundance of stone every where, the whiteness of the houses, and the blueness of the sky, cast, at first sight, an extraordinary look of lightness and cleanliness upon every thing. Nor are you disappointed in Genoa, as people are at Lisbon, between the fairness of the look outside and the dirt within. The large wrinkled features of the old women, with their uncapped grey hair, strike you at first as singularly plain : so do the people in general: but every thing looks clean and neat, and full of the smart bustle of a commercial city. What surprises you is the narrowness of the streets. As soon as you have passed the gate, you think you have entered upon a lane, remarkably good indeed for a lane, -a sort of Bond-street of an alley, but you have no conception that it is a street, and of the ordinary dimensions. The shops also, though neat, are blind and open,