Whence I went for my very first airing to Casa Simonetti, in search of the echo so celebrated by my country-folks and fellow-travellers, but did not find all that has been said of it strictly true. It certainly does repeat a single sound more than seventy times, but has no power to give back by reverberation a whole sentence. I have met too with another petty mortification; having been taught by Cave to expect, that in our Ambrosian library here at Milan, there was a MS. of Boethius preserved relative to his condemnation, and confessing his design of subverting the Gothic government in Lombardy. I therefore prevailed on Canonico Palazzi, a learned old ecclesiastic, to go with me and beg a sight of it. The prÆfect politely promised indulgence, but referred me to a future day; and when we returned again at the time appointed, shewed me only Pere Mabillon’s book, in which we read that it is to be found no where but at Florence, in the library of Lorenzo de Medicis. We were however shewn some curiosities to compensate our trouble, particularly the skeleton of the lady mentioned by Dr. Moore and Lady Millar with some contempt. This is the copy of her inscription:

ÆGROTANTIUM
SANITATI
MORTUORUM
INSPECTIONE
VIVENTES
PROSPICERE
POSSINT
HUNC
S???????
P.

A MS. of the Consolations of Philosophy, very finely written in the tenth century, and kept in elegant preservation;—a private common-place of Leonardo da Vinci never shewn, full of private memoirs, caricaturas, hints for pictures, sketches, remarks, &c.; it is invaluable. But there is another treasure in this town, the prÆfect tells me, by the same inimitable master, no other than an alphabet, pater noster, &c. written out by himself for the use of his own little babies, and ornamented with vignettes, &c. to tempt them to study it. I shall not see it however, as Conte Trivulci is out of town, to whom it belongs. I have not neglected to go see the monument erected to one of his family, with the famous inscription,

preserved by father Bouhours. The same day shewed me the remains of a temple to Hercules, with many of the fine old pillars still standing. They are soon to be taken down we hear for the purpose of widening the street, as Carfax was at Oxford.

My hunger after a journey to Pavia is much abated; since professor Villa, whose erudition is well known, and whose works do him so much honour, informed me that the inscription said by Pere Mabillon still to subsist in praise of Boethius, is long since perished by time; nor do they now shew the brick tower in which it is said he was confined while he wrote his Consolations of Philosophy: for the tower is fallen to the ground, and so is the report, every body being now persuaded that they were composed in a strong place then standing upon the spot called Calventianus Ager, from the name of a noble house to which it had belonged for ages, and which I am told Cicero mentions as a family half Placentian, half Milaneze. The field still goes by the name of Il Campo Calvenziano; but, as it now belongs to people careless of remote events, however interesting to literature, is not adorned by any obelisk, or other mark, to denote its past importance, in having been once the scene of sufferings gloriously endured by the most zealous christian, the most steady patriot, and the most refined philosopher of the age in which he lived.

I have seen a fine MS. of the Consolations copied in the tenth century, not only legible but beautiful; and I have been assured that the hymns written by his first wife Elpis, who, though she brought him no children, as Bertius says, was yet fida curarum, et studiorum socia[46], are still sung in the Romish churches at Brescia and Bergamo, somewhat altered from the state we find them in at the end of Cominus’s edition of the Consolations.

Tradition too, I find, agrees with Procopius in telling that this widow of Boethius, Rusticiana, daughter of Symmachus, spent all the little money she had left in hiring people to throw down in the night all the statues set up in Rome to the honour of Theodoric, who had sentenced her husband to a death so dreadful, that it gave occasion to many fabulous tales reported by Martin Rota as miraculous truths. His bones, gathered up as relics by Otho III., were placed in a chapel dedicated to St. Austin in St. Peter’s church at Pavia four hundred and seventy-two years after his death, with an epitaph preserved by Pere Mabillon, but now no longer legible.

We are now cutting hay here for the last time this season, and all the environs smell like spring on this 15th September 1786. The autumnal tint, however, falls fast upon the trees, which are already rich with a deep yellow hue. A wintery feel upon the atmosphere early in a morning, heavy fogs about noon, and a hollow wind towards the approach of night, make it look like the very last week of October in England, and warn us that summer is going. The same circumstances prompt me, who am about to forsake this her favourite region, to provide furs, flannels, &c. for the passing of those Alps which look so formidable when covered with snow at their present distance. Our swallows are calling their clamorous council round me while I write; but the butterflies still flutter about in the middle of the day, and grapes are growing more wholesome as with us when the mornings begin to be frosty. Our deserts, however, do not remind us of Tuscany: the cherries here are not particularly fine, and the peaches all part from the stone—miserable things! an English gardener would not send them to table: the figs too were infinitely finer at Leghorn, and nectarines have I never seen at all.

Well, here is the opera begun again; some merry wag, Abate Casti I think, has accommodated and adapted the old story of king Theodore to put in ridicule the present king of Sweden, who is hated of the emperor for some political reasons I forget what, and he of course patronises the jester. Our honest Lombards, however, take no delight in mimicry, and feel more disgust than pleasure when simplicity is insulted, or distress made more corrosive by the bitterness of a scoffing spirit. I have tried to see whether they would laugh at any oddity in their neighbour’s manner, but never could catch any, except perhaps now and then a sly Roman who had a liking for it. “I see nothing absurd about the man,” says one gentleman; “every body may have some peculiarity, and most people have; but such things make me no sport: let us, when we have a mind to laugh, go and laugh at Punchinello.”—From such critics, therefore, the king of Sweden is safe enough, as they have not yet acquired the taste of hunting down royalty, and crowing with infantine malice, when possessed of the mean hope that they are able to pinch a noble heart. This old-fashioned country, which detests the sight of suffering majesty, hisses off its theatre a performance calculated to divert them at the expence of a sovereign prince, whose character is clear from blame, and whose personal weaknesses are protected by his birth and merit; while it is to his open, free, and politely generous behaviour alone, they owe the knowledge that he has such foibles. Paisiello, therefore, cannot drive it down by his best music, though the poor king of Sweden is a Lutheran too, and if any thing would make them hate him, that would.

One vice, however, sometimes prevents the commission of another, and that same prevailing idea which prompts these prejudiced Romanists to conclude him doomed to lasting torments who dares differ from them, though in points of no real importance, inspires them at the same time with such compassion for his supposed state of predestinated punishment, that they rather incline to defend him from further misery, and kindly forbear to heap ridicule in this world upon a person who is sure to suffer eternal damnation in the other.

How melancholy that people who possess such hearts should have the head thus perversely turned! I can attribute it but to one cause; their strange neglect and forbearance to read and study God’s holy word: for not a very few of them have I found who seem to disbelieve the Old Testament entirely, yet remain steadily and strenuously attached to the precedence their church claims over every other; and who shall wonder if such a combination of bigotry with scepticism should produce an evaporation of what little is left of popery from the world, as emetics triturated with opium are said to produce a sudorific powder which no earthly constitution can resist?

But the Spanish grandee, who not only entertained but astonished us all one night with his conversation at Quirini’s Casino at Venice, is arrived here at Milan, and plays upon the violin. He challenged acquaintance with us in the street, half invited himself to our private concert last night, and did us the honour to perform there, with the skill of a professor, the eager desire of a dilletante, and the tediousness of a solitary student; he continued to amaze, delight, and fatigue us for four long hours together. He is a man of prodigious talents, and replete with variety of knowledge. A new dance has been tried at here too, but was not well received, though it represents the terrible story which, under Madame de Genlis’ pen, had such uncommon success among the reading world, and is called La sepolta viva; but as the duchess Girafalco, whose misfortune it commemorates, is still alive, the pantomime will probably be suppressed: for she has relations at Milan it seems, and one lady distinguished for elegance of form, and charms of voice and manner, told me yesterday with equal sweetness, spirit, and propriety, that though the king of Naples sent his soldiers to free her aunt from that horrible dungeon where she had been nine years confined, yet if her miseries were to become the subject of stage representation, she could hardly be pronounced happy, or even at ease. Truth is, I would be loath to see the spirit of producing every one’s private affairs, true or false, before the public eye, spread into this country: No! let that humour be confined to Great Britain, where the thousand real advantages resulting from living in a free state, richly compensate for the violations of delicacy annexed to it; and where the laws do protect, though the individuals insult one: but here, why the people would be miserable indeed, if to the oppression which may any hour be exercised over them by their prince, were likewise to be added the liberties taken perpetually in London by one’s next door neighbour, of tearing forth every transaction, and publishing even every conjecture to one’s disadvantage.

With these reflections, and many others, excited by gratitude to private friends, and general admiration of a country so justly esteemed, we shall soon take our leave of Milan, famed for her truly hospitable disposition; a temper of mind sometimes abused by travellers perhaps, whose birth and pretensions are seldom or ever inquired into, whilst no people are more careful of keeping their rank inviolate by never conversing on equal terms with a countryman or woman of their own, who cannot produce a proper length of ancestry.

I will not leave them though, without another word or two about their language, which, though it sounded strangely coarse and broad to be sure, as we returned home from Florence, Rome, and Venice, I felt sincerely glad to hear again; and have some notion by their way of pronouncing bicchiere, a word used here to express every thing that holds water, that our pitcher was probably derived from it; and the Abate Divecchio, a polite scholar, and an uncommonly agreeable companion, seemed to think so too. His knowledge of the English language, joined to the singular power he has over his own elegant Tuscan tongue, made me torment him with a variety of inquiries about these confusing dialects, which leave me at last little chance to understand any, whilst a child is called bambino at Florence, putto at Venice, schiatto at Bergamo, and creatura at Rome; and at Milan they call a wench tosa: an apron is grembiule at Florence I think, traversa at Venice, bigarrol at Brescia and some other parts of Lombardy, senale at Rome, and at Milan scozzÀ. A foreigner may well be distracted by varieties so striking; but the turn and idiom differ ten times more still, and I love to hear our Milanese call an oak robur rather than quercia somehow, and tell a lady when dressed in white, that she is tutto in albedine.

On Friday the 22d of September then we left Milan, and I dropt a tear or two in remembrance of the many civilities shewn by our kind and partial companions. The Abate Bianconi made me wild to go to Dresden, and enjoy the Correggios now moved from Modena to that gallery. I find he thinks the old Romans pronounced Cicero and CÆsar as the moderns do, and many English scholars are of the same mind; but here are coins dug up now out of the Veronese mountain with the word Carolus, spelt Karrulus, upon them quite plain; and Christus was spelt Kristus in Vespasian’s time it is certain, because of the player’s monument at Rome.—Dr. Johnson, I remember, was always steady to that opinion; but it is time to leave all this, and rejoice in my third arrival at gay, cheerful, charming