_chaussee_
is broad and admirably well kept up and lined on both sides with poplars.
The roads in Lombardy are certainly the finest in Europe. I entered Milan
by the gate which leads direct to the esplanade between the citadel and the
city, and drove to the _Pension Suisse_, which is in a street close to the
Cathedral and Ducal palace.

MILAN, 12 October.

I am just returned from the _Teatro della Scala_, renowned for its immense
size: it certainly is the most stupendous theatre I ever beheld and even
surpassed the expectation I had formed of it, so much so that I remained
for some minutes lost in astonishment. I was much struck with the
magnificence of the scenery and decorations. An _Opera_ and _Ballo_ are
given every night, and the same are repeated for a month, when they are
replaced by new ones. The boxes are all hired by the year by the different
noble and opulent families, and in the _Parterre_ the price is only thirty
soldi or sous, about fifteen pence English, for which you are fully as well
regaled as at the _Grand Opera_ at Paris for three and a half francs and
far better than at the Italian theatre in London for half a guinea. The
opera I saw represented is called _L'Italiana in Algieri_, opera buffa, by
Rossini.

The _Ballo_ was one of the most magnificent spectacles I ever beheld. The
scenery and decorations are of the first class and superior even to those
of the _Grand Opera_ at Paris. The _Ballo_ was called _Il Cavaliere del
Tempio_. The story is taken from an occurrence that formed an episode in
the history of the Crusades and which has already furnished to Walter Scott
the subject of a very pleasing ballad entitled the _Fire-King_, or _Count
Albert and Fair Rosalie_. Battles of foot and horse with real horses,
Christians and Moslems, dancing, incantations, excellent and very
appropriate music leave nothing to be desired to the ravished spectator. In
the _Ballo_ all is done in pantomime and the acting is perfect. The
Italians seem to inherit from their ancestors the faculty of representing
by dumb show the emotions of the mind as well as the gestures of the body,
and in this they excel all other modern nations. The dancing is not quite
so good as what one sees at the Paris theatre, and besides that sort of
dancing they are very fond in Italy of grotesque dances which appear to me
to be mere _tours de force_. But the decorations are magnificent, and the
cost must be great.

It was a fine moonligh