id stench, strewn with the dead; and
we could perceive how pestilence and fear had played strange antics,
chasing the luxurious dame to the dank fields and bare cottage; gathering,
among carpets of Indian woof, and beds of silk, the rough peasant, or the
deformed half-human shape of the wretched beggar.

We arrived at Milan, and stationed ourselves in the Vice-Roy's palace. Here
we made laws for ourselves, dividing our day, and fixing distinct
occupations for each hour. In the morning we rode in the adjoining country,
or wandered through the palaces, in search of pictures or antiquities. In
the evening we assembled to read or to converse. There were few books that
we dared read; few, that did not cruelly deface the painting we bestowed on
our solitude, by recalling combinations and emotions never more to be
experienced by us. Metaphysical disquisition; fiction, which wandering from
all reality, lost itself in self-created errors; poets of times so far gone
by, that to read of them was as to read of Atlantis and Utopia; or such as
referred to nature only, and the workings of one particular mind; but most
of all, talk, varied and ever new, beguiled our hours.

While we paused thus in our onward career towards death, time held on its
accustomed course. Still and for ever did the earth roll on, enthroned in
her atmospheric car, speeded by the force of the invisible coursers of
never-erring necessity. And now, this dew-drop in the sky, this ball,
ponderous with mountains, lucent with waves, passing from the short tyranny
of watery Pisces and the frigid Ram, entered the radiant demesne of Taurus
and the Twins. There, fanned by vernal airs, the Spirit of Beauty sprung
from her cold repose; and, with winnowing wings and soft pacing feet, set a
girdle of verdure around the earth, sporting among the violets, hiding
within the springing foliage of the trees, tripping lightly down the
radiant streams into the sunny deep. "For lo! winter is past, the rain is
over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of
birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; the fig
tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines, with the tender grape,
give a good smell."[2] Thus was it in the time of the ancient regal poet;
thus was it now.

Yet how could we miserable hail the approach of this delightful season? We
hoped indeed that death did not now as heretofore walk in its shadow; yet,
left as we were alo