the Germans loudly debated its nationality. The Englishmen grinned,
and the Americans blushed in silence. Of all my memories of that hot
day on Lake Como, this is burnt the deepest; for the flag was that
insolent banner which in 1862 proclaimed us a broken people, and
persuaded willing Europe of our ruin. It has gone down long ago from
ship and fort and regiment, as well as from the shallop on the
fair Italian lake. Still, I say, it made Como too hot for us that
afternoon, and even breathless Milan was afterwards a pleasant
contrast.

STOPPING AT VICENZA, VERONA, AND PARMA.

I.

It was after sunset when we arrived in the birthplace of Palladio,
which we found a fair city in the lap of caressing hills. There are
pretty villas upon these slopes, and an abundance of shaded walks and
drives about the houses which were pointed out to us, by the boy who
carried our light luggage from the railway station, as the property of
rich citizens "but little less than lords" in quality. A lovely grove
lay between the station and the city, and our guide not only took us
voluntarily by the longest route through this, but, after reaching
the streets, led us by labyrinthine ways to the hotel, in order, he
afterwards confessed, to show us the city. He was a poet, though in
that lowly walk of life, and he had done well. No other moment of our
stay would have served us so well for a first general impression of
Vicenza as that twilight hour. In its uncertain glimmer we seemed
to get quite back to the dawn of feudal civilization, when Theodoric
founded the great Basilica of the city; and as we stood before
the famous Clock Tower, which rises light and straight as a mast
eighty-two metres into the air from a base of seven metres, the
wavering obscurity enhanced the effect by half concealing the tower's
crest, and letting it soar endlessly upward in the fancy. The Basilica
is greatly restored by Palladio, and the cold hand of that friend of
virtuous poverty in architecture lies heavy upon his native city in
many places. Yet there is still a great deal of Lombardic architecture
in Vicenza; and we walked through one street of palaces in which
Venetian Gothic prevailed, so that it seemed as if the Grand Canal had
but just shrunk away from their bases. When we threw open our window
at the hotel, we found that it overlooked one of the city gates, from
which rose a Ghibelline tower with a great bulging cornice, full of
the beauty and memory o