[1]. Assassination is of frequent occurrence in Italy: these are perpetrated chiefly from jealousy. There are crimes frequent with us and the French of which they are never guilty. Brutal murders committed for “filthy lucre” do not occur among them. We never hear of hospitality violated, or love used as a cloak that the murderers may possess themselves of some trifle more or less of property. Their acts of violence are, indeed, assassinations, committed in the heat of the moment—never cold-blooded. Even the history of their banditti was full of redeeming traits, as long as they only acted for themselves and were not employed by government. There is plenty of cheating in Italy—not more, perhaps, than elsewhere, only the system is more artfully arranged; but there is no domestic robbery. I lived four years in Tuscany. I was told that the servant who managed my expenditure cheated me dreadfully, and had reason to know that during that time she saved nearly a hundred crowns: but I never at any time, when stationary or travelling, was robbed of the smallest coin or the most trifling article of property. On the contrary, instances of scrupulous honesty are familiar to all travellers in Italy, as practised among the poorest peasantry.
[2]. We have since imported wine from him, and the transaction has turned out quite successful.
[3]. Crossing lately from Boulogne to Folkestone, I find, that in the new hotel still in progress, but partly opened, at the latter place, they are following this plan; and a printed tariff is hung up in each room. All is clean and comfortable, and the attendants civil and willing. If it keeps its promise, it will do well; and strangers especially will be glad to avoid the pretending exorbitancy of Dover.—(Note 1844.)
[4]. Mr. Hayward, in the interesting account with which he has favoured his friends of his perilous journey over the Splugen in 1834. Mr. Hayward says, that the storm in question was what is called there Wolkenbruch, (cloud-break or water-spout). A mass of clouds, surcharged with electric matter and rain, which had been collecting for weeks along the whole range of the Alps, came down at last like an avalanche from the sky. I once witnessed a phenomenon of this sort at Genoa. The Italians called it a Meteora. A cloud, surcharged with electricity and water, burst above our heads in one torrent of what was rather a cataract than rain. It lasted about twenty minutes, and sufficed to carry away all the bridges over the Bisanzio, flowing between Genoa and Albaro, and to lay flat all the walls which in that hilly country support the soil—so that the landscape was opened and greatly improved. Cottages, cattle, and even persons were carried away. In the Alps, such a rush of water from the heavens was aided by the torrents that rushed from the mountain tops, and a sudden melting of snows.
[5].
“______________________retired leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure.”
Milton’s “Penseroso.”
[6]. Dante. Paradiso; Canto 33.
[7]. Wordsworth.