preservation. He was the merriest, cleverest fellow I ever knew. Wherever he went, he brought joy; and whenever any one was melancholy, the sight of him was enough to make him cheerful again. He walked so actively, you might have taken him for a dancerhe joked- he laughed-Oh! he was such a Frate as I never saw before, nor ever shall again!' "He told me that he had himself planted all the cypresses in the cemetery; that he had the greatest attachment to them and to his dead people; that since 1801 they had buried fifty-three thousand persons. In shewing some older monuments, there was that of a Roman girl of twenty, with a bust by Bernini. She was a Princess Barlorini, dead two centuries ago: he said, that on opening her grave, they had found her hair complete, and as yellow as gold.' Some of the epitaphs at Ferrara pleased me more than the more splendid monuments at Bologna; for instance: Can any thing be more full of pathos? Those few words say all that can be said or sought: the dead had had enough of life; all they wanted' was rest, and this they implore! There is all the helplessness, and humble BOLOGNA. hope, and deathlike prayer, that can arise from the Bologna is finely situated. On approaching it, the country gradually improves and becomes better wooded. The extreme fertility of the rich plain in which it stands is indicated by the luxuriance of its vegetation, the city is provided with all the necessaries of life, and the portion of good society which it contains is of easy access to the stranger. The climate is reckoned salubrious; but Bologna is deemed one of the coldest places in Italy in winter, and one of the hottest in summer. Few strangers, however, rest here: it has the disadvantage of being within twenty-four hours' distance of Florence, with the attractions of which city it cannot compete. But there are many objects of interest to the traveller at Bologna-its gallery, which possesses some of the finest works of Guido, Domenichino, and the Caracci-its beautiful gardens, and those remarkable buildings, the leaning towers. From that of Asinelli, which is four hundred and seventy-six feet high, the fertile plain of Lombardy lies spread out below the observer, half-surrounded by the snowy Appennines; whilst the city of Bologna itself, with its towers, its palaces, churches, monasteries, and gardens, lies like a splendid map before the observer. |