common things; not so much as a miracle.  Well, but you don’t expect it, do you?  Except pictures. and statues, we are not very fond of sights; don’t go a-staring after crooked towers and conundrum staircases.  Don’t you hate, too, a jingling epitaph (178) of one Procul and one Proculus that is here?  Now and then we drop in at a procession, or a high-mass, hear the music, enjoy a strange attire, and hate the foul monkhood.  Last week, was the feast of the Immaculate Conception.  On the eve we went to the Franciscans’ church to hear the academical exercises.  There were moult and moult clergy, about two dozen dames, that treated one another with illustrissima and brown kisses, the vice-legate, the gonfalonier, and some senate.  The vice-legate, whose conception was not quite so immaculate, is a young personable person, of about twenty, and had on a mighty pretty cardinal-kind of habit; ’twould make a delightful masquerade dress.  We asked his name:  Spinola.  What, a nephew of the cardinal-legate?  Signor, no:  ma credo che gli sia qualche cosa.  He sat on the right hand with the gonfalonier in two purple fauteuils.  Opposite was a throne of crimson damask, with the device of the Academy, the Gelati; and trimmings of gold.  Here sat at a table, in black, the head of’ the academy, between the orator and the first poet At two semicircular tables on either hand sat three poets and three; silent among many candles.  The chief made a little introduction, the orator a long Italian vile harangue.  Then the chief, the poet, and the poets,-who were a Franciscan, an Olivetan, an old abb`e, and three lay,-read their compositions; and to-day they are pasted up in all parts of the town.  As we came out of the church, we found all the convent and neighbouring houses lighted all over with lanthorns of red and yellow paper, and two bonfires.  But you are sick of this foolish ceremony; I’ll carry you to no more -.  I will only mention, that we found the Dominicans’ church here in mourning for the inquisitor:  ’twas all hung with black cloth, furbelowed and festooned with yellow gauze.  We have seen a furniture here in a much prettier taste; a gallery of Count Caprara’s:  in the panels between the windows are pendent trophies of various arms taken by one of his ancestors from the Turks.  They are whimsical, romantic, and have a pretty effect.  I looked about, but could not perceive the portrait of the lady at whose feet they were indisputably offered.  In coming out of Genoa we were more lucky; found the very spot where Horatio and Lothario were to have fought, “west of the town, a mile among the rocks.”

My dear West, in return for your epigrams of Prior, I will transcribe some old verses too, but which I fancy I can show you in a sort of a new light.  They are no newer than Virgil, and what is more odd, are in the second Georgic.  ’Tis, that I have observed that he not only excels when he is like himself, but even when he is very like inferior poets:  you will say that they rather excel by being like him:  but mind, they are all near one another: