their natural fieriness of temper, affect always to appear sober and sedate; insomuch that one sometimes meets young men walking the streets with spectacles on their noses, that they may be thought to have impaired their sight by much study, and seem more grave and judicious than their neighbours. This difference of manners proceeds chiefly from difference of education: in France it is usual to bring their children into company, and to cherish in them, from their infancy, a kind of forwardness and assurance: besides that, the French apply themselves more universally to their exercises than any other nation in the world, so that one seldom sees a young gentleman in France that does not fence, dance, and ride in some tolerable perfection. These agitations of the body do not only give them a free and easy carriage, but have a kind of mechanical operation on the mind, by keeping the animal spirits always awake and in motion. But what contributes most to this light airy humour of the French, is the free conversation that is allowed them with their women, which does not only communicate to them a certain vivacity of temper, but makes them endeavour after such a behaviour as is most taking with the sex.

The Italians, on the contrary, who are excluded from making their court this way, are for recommending themselves to those they converse with by their gravity and wisdom. In Spain, therefore, where there are fewer liberties of this nature allowed, there is something still more serious and composed in the manner of the inhabitants. But as mirth is more apt to make proselytes than melancholy, it is observed that the Italians have many of them for these late years given very far into the modes and freedoms of the French; which prevail

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more or less in the courts of Italy, as they lie at a smaller or greater distance from France. It may here worth while to consider how it comes to pass, that the common people of Italy have in general so very great an aversion to the French, which every traveller cannot but be sensible of, that has passed through the country. The most obvious reason is certainly the great difference that there is in the humours and manners of the two nations, which always works more in the meaner sort, who are not able to vanquish the prejudices of education, than with the nobility. Besides that, the French humour, in regard of the liberties they take in female conversations, and their great ambition to excel in all companies, is in a more particular manner very shocking to the Italians, who are naturally jealous, and value themselves upon their great wisdom. At the same time the common people of Italy, who run more into news and politics than those of other countries, have all of them something to exasperate them against the king of France. The Savoyards, notwithstanding the present inclinations of their court, cannot forbear resenting the infinite mischiefs he did them in the last war. The Milanese and Neapolitans remember the many insults he has offered to the house of Austria, and particularly to their deceased king, for whom they still retain a natural kind of honour and affection. The Genoese cannot forget his treatment of their doge, and his bombarding their city. The Venetians will tell you of his leagues with the Turks; and the Romans of his threats to pope Innocent the eleventh, whose memory they adore. is true that interest of state and change of circumstances may have sweetened these reflections to the politer sort, but impressions are not so easily worn

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out of the minds of the vulgar. That, however which I take to be the principal motive among mos of the Italians, for their favouring the German above the French, is this, that they are entirely per suaded it is for the interest of Italy to have Mila and Naples rather in the hands of the first than o the other. One may generally observe, that th body of a people has juster views for the publi good, and pursues them with greater uprightnes than the nobility and gentry, who have so private expectations and particular interests, whic hang like a false bias upon their judgments, an may possibly dispose them to sacrifice the good o their country to the advancement of their own for tunes; whereas the gross of the people can have n other prospect in changes and revolutions, than o public blessings that are to diffuse themselves throug the whole state in general.

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To return to Milan: I shall here set down th description Ausonius has given of it, among the res of his great cities.

Et Mediolani mira omnia, copia rerum :
Innumera cultaque domus, facunda virorum
Ingenia, et mores læti: tum duplice muro
Amplificata loci species, populique voluptas
Circus, et inclusi moles cuneata theatri:
Templa, Palatinæque arces, opulensque Moneta,
Et regio Herculei celebris sub honore lavacri,
Cunctaque marmoreis ornata peristyla signis,
Maniaque in valli formam circumdata labro.
Omnia quæ magnis operum velut amula formis
Excellunt, nec juncta premit vicinia Roma.

Milan with plenty and with wealth o'erflows,
And num'rous streets and cleanly dwellings shows
The people, bless'd with nature's happy force,
Are eloquent and cheerful in discourse;

A circus, and a theatre, invites
Th' unruly mob to races and to fights.
Moneta, consecrated buildings grace,

And the whole town redoubled walls embrace;
Here spacious baths and palaces are seen,
And intermingled temples rise between ;
Here circling colonnades the ground inclose,
And here the marble statues breathe in rows:
Profusely grac'd the happy town appears,
Nor Rome itself her beauteous neighbour fears.

BRESCIA, VERONA, PADUA.

FROM Milan we travelled through a very pleasant country to Brescia, and by the way crossed the river Adda, that falls into the Lago di Como, which Virgil calls the lake Larius, and running out at the other end, loses itself at last in the Po, which is the great receptacle of all the rivers of this country. The town and province of Brescia have freer access to the senate of Venice, and a quicker redress of injuries, than any other part of their dominions. They have always a mild and prudent governor, and live much more happily than their fellow-subjects; for as they were once a part of the Milanese, and are now on their frontiers, the Venetians dare not exasperate them, by the loads they lay on other provinces, for fear of a revolt; and are forced to treat them with much more indulgence than the Spaniards do their neighbours, that they may have no temptation to it. Brescia is famous for its iron works. A small day's journey more brought us to Verona. We saw the lake Benacus in our way, which the Italians now call Lago di Garda; it was so rough with tempests when we passed by it, that it brought into my mind Virgil's noble description of it:

VOL. IV.

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Adde lacus tantos, te Lari maxime, teque
Fluctibus et fremitu assurgens, Benace, marino.

Here vex'd by winter storms Benacus raves,
Confus'd with working sands and rolling waves;
Rough and tumultuous like a sea it lies,

So loud the tempest roars, so high the billows rise.

This lake perfectly resembles a sea, when it is worked up by storms. It is thirty-five miles in length, and twelve in breadth. At the lower end of it we crossed the Mincio.

-Tardis ingens ubi flexibus errat

Mincius, et tenerâ prætexit arundine ripas.

VIRG. GEORG. iii. 14.

Where the slow Mincius through the valley strays;
Where cooling streams invite the flocks to drink,

And reeds defend the winding water's brink. DRYDEN.

The river Adige runs through Verona; so much is the situation of the town changed from what it was in Silius Italicus his time.

Verona Athesi circumflua.

Verona by the circling Adige bound.

Lib. 8.

This is the only great river in Lombardy that does not fall into the Po; which it must have done, had it run but a little farther before its entering the Adriatic. The rivers are all of them mentioned by Claudian.

-Venetosque erectior amnes

Magnâ voce ciet. Frondentibus humida ripis
Colla levant, pulcher Ticinus, et Addua visu
Carulus, et velox Athesis, tardusque meatu
Mincius, inque novem consurgens ora Timavus.

Sexto Cons. Hon.

Venetia's rivers, summon'd all around,
Hear the loud call, and answer to the sound: