A shadow hath fallen
O'er my young years;
And hopes when brightest,
Were quench'd in tears.
I make no plaint—
I breathe no sigh—
My lips can smile,
And mine eyes are dry.
I ask no pity,
I hope no cure—
The heart, tho' broken,
Can live, and endure!
We left Milan two days ago, and arrived early the same day at Brescia; there is, I believe, very little to see there, and of that little, I saw nothing,—being too ill and too low for the slightest exertion. The only pleasurable feeling I can remember was excited by our approach to the Alps, after traversing the flat, fertile, uninteresting plains of Lombardy. The peculiar sensation of elevation and delight, inspired by mountain scenery, can only be understood by those who have felt it: at least I never had formed an idea of it till I found myself ascending the Jura.
But Brescia ought to be immortalized in the history of our travels: for there, stalking down the Corso—le nez en l'air—we met our acquaintance L——, from whom we had parted last on the pavé of Piccadilly. I remember that in London I used to think him not remarkable for wisdom,—and his travels have infinitely improved him—in folly. He boasted to us triumphantly that he had run over sixteen thousand miles in sixteen months: that he had bowed at the levée of the Emperor Alexander,—been slapped on the shoulder by the Archduke Constantine,—shaken hands with a Lapland witch,—and been presented in full volunteer uniform at every court between Stockholm and Milan. Yet is he not one particle wiser than if he had spent the same time in walking up and down the Strand. He has contrived, however, to pick up on his tour, strange odds and ends of foreign follies, which stick upon the coarse-grained materials of his own John Bull character like tinfoil upon sackcloth: so that I see little difference between what he was, and what he is, except that from a simple goose,—he has become a compound one. With all this, L—— is not unbearable—not yet at least. He amuses others as a butt—and me as a specimen of a new genus of fools: for his folly is not like any thing one usually meets with. It is not, par exemple, the folly of stupidity, for he talks much; nor of dullness, for he laughs much; nor of ignorance, for he has seen much; nor of wrong-headedness, for he can be guided right; nor of bad-heartedness, for he is good-natured; nor of thoughtlessness, for he is prudent; nor of extravagance, for he can calculate even to the value of half a lira: but it is an essence of folly, peculiar to himself, and like Monsieur Jacques's melancholy, "compounded of many simples, extracted from various objects, and the sundry contemplation of his travels." So much, for the present, of our friend L——.
We left Brescia early yesterday morning, and after passing Desenzano, came in sight of the Lago di Garda. I had from early associations a delightful impression of the beauty of this lake, and it did not disappoint me. It is far superior, I think, to the Lago Maggiore, because the scenery is more resserrè, lies in a smaller compass, so that the eye takes in the separate features more easily. The mountains to the north are dark, broken, and wild in their forms, and their bases seemed to extend to the water edge: the hills to the south are smiling, beautiful, and cultivated, studded with white flat-roofed buildings, which glitter one above another in the sunshine. Our drive along the promontory of Sirmione, to visit the ruins of the Villa of Catullus, was delightful. The fresh breeze which ruffled the dark blue lake, revived my spirits, and chased away my head-ache. I was inclined to be enchanted with all I saw; and when our guide took us into an old cellar choked with rubbish, and assured us gravely that it was the very spot in which Catullus had written his Odes to Lesbia. I did not laugh in his face; for, after all, it would be as easy to prove that it is, as that it is not. The old town and castle of Sirmio are singularly picturesque, whether viewed from above or below, and the grove of olives which crowned the steep extremity of the promontory, interested us, being the first we had seen in Italy: on the whole I fully enjoyed the early part of this day.
At Peschiera, which is strongly fortified, we crossed the Mincio.—
O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood,
Smooth-flowing Mincius crowned with vocal reeds.
Its waters were exquisitely transparent; but it was difficult to remember its poetical pretensions, in sight of those odious barracks and batteries. The reeds mentioned by Virgil and Milton still flourish upon its banks, and I forgave them for spoiling in some degree the beauty of the shore, when I thought of Adelaïde of Burgundy, who concealed herself among them for three days, when she fled from the dungeon of Peschiera to the arms of her lover. I was glad I had read her story in Gibbon, since it enabled me to add to classical and poetical associations, an interest at once romantic and real.
The rest to-morrow—for I can write no more.