are sometimes called the "better classes" (though I
believe they are here _no_ better), I have seen little, and have not
spoken specially. Of the great majority who, here, as everywhere, must
exert themselves to live, whether by working, or begging, or petty
swindling, I have seen something, and of these certain leading
characteristics are quite unmistakable. An Italian Picture-Gallery seems
to me a pretty fair type of the Italian mind and character. The habitual
commingling of the awful with the paltry--the sacred and the
sensual--Madonna and Circe--Christ on the Cross and Venus in the
Bath--which is exhibited in all the Italian galleries, seems an
expression of the National genius. Am I wrong in the feeling that the
perpetual (and often execrable) representation of such awful scenes as
the Crucifixion is calculated first to shock but ultimately to weaken
the religious sentiment? Of the hundreds of pictures of the infant
Jesus I have seen in Italy, there are not five which did not strike me
as utterly unworthy of the subject, allowing that it ought to be
represented at all. "Men of Athens!" said the straight-forward Paul, "I
perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious." I think the
Italians, quite apart from what is essential to their creed, have this
very failing, and that it exerts a debilitating influence on their
National character. They need to be cured of it, as well as of the vices
I have already indicated, in order that their magnificent country may
resume its proper place among great and powerful Nations. I trust I am
not warring on the faith of their Church, when I urge that "To do
justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than
sacrifice"--that no man can be truly devout who is not strictly upright
and manly--and that one living purpose of diffusive, practical
well-doing, is more precious in the sight of Heaven, than the bones of
all the dead Saints in Christendom.

Farewell, trampled, soul-crushed Italy!

XXXI.

SWITZERLAND.

LUCERNE, July 12, 1851.

I left Milan at 5 o'clock, on the morning of the 10th, via Railroad to
Como, at the foot of the Lake of like name, which we reached in an hour
and a half, thence taking the Swiss Government Diligence for this place,
via the pass of St. Gothard. Even before reaching Como (only some twenty
miles from Milan), the spurs of the Alps had begun to gather around us,
and the little Lake itself is completely embosomed by them. Barely