from the lake and marshy land about it, and there is but a scanty population.  Grass grows in the streets and it is the dullest and indeed the only dull town in all Italy.  Everything in this city announces decay and melancholy, and I met with several men looking full as halfstarved and deplorable as Shakespeare’s Apothecary in Romeo and Juliet.  Yet the city is by no means an ugly one.  The buildings are imposing, the streets broad and well paved, and there is a fine circular promenade in the centre of which is a Monument erected in honor of Virgil by the French general Miollis, who had a great veneration for all poets.  The Palazzo pubblico and the Cathedral are the most striking buildings.  The latter contains the tombs and monuments of the Gonzaga family, the whilom Sovereigns of Mantua.  There are also several monuments in honor of some French officers, who were killed in the campaigns of Italy under Buonaparte and erected to their memory by his direction.

Outside the town, at a short distance from the causeway and tete de pont, is the celebrated palace called the T, from its being in the form of that letter, which was the usual residence of the Dukes of Mantua.  It is a noble edifice and its gardens are well laid out.  These gardens have this peculiarity, that at the entrance of each of the grand avenues is a figure of a man on horseback caparizoned in armour, like the Knights of old.  This is all I have to say about Mantua.  The Mincio beset with “osiers dank” flows into the lake.

CREMONA, 16th June.

From Mantua I directed my course to this city, which is large and fortified, situated on the Po which forms many little islands in the environs.  This city is of great antiquity, and has a number of Gothic buildings.  You do not find here the specimens and imitations of Grecian architecture as at Vicenza and Verona.  The campanile of the Cathedral is of immense height, but one is repaid for the fatigue of ascending by the extensive view from its summit.  There are 498 steps.  I put up at the Colombina, a very good inn.  The Cremonese seem to be an industrious people.  There is a great deal of pasture land in the environs of this city and much cheese is made here and in the Lodesan.  Several ricefields are also to be met with between this place and Lodi.

MILAN, 25 June.

I have been on a visit to the ancient and venerable city of Pavia, which is about eighteen miles distant from Milan, thro’ a rich highly cultivated plain.  The road lies in a right line the whole way.  About three miles distant from Pavia on the Milan side stands the celebrated Certosa, which we stopped to visit.  The church of the Certosa contains the greatest quantity of riches in marbles, and precious stones, of any building in the world, probably.  The architecture is Gothic, and the workmanship of the exterior exquisite; but the ulterior is most dazzling; and at the sight of the rich marbles and innumerable