aparte, besides the other claims it has on the traveller's attention
as the birth place of Virgil. This place is of immense strength, as a
military post; being situated on a small isthmus of land, separating two
lakes, and communicating with the rest of the country by an exceeding
narrow causeway. This position, added to the strength of the
fortifications, render the fortress impregnable, if well garrisoned and
provisioned. The city is, however, unhealthy from the lake and marshy land
about it, and there is but a scanty population. Grass grows in the streets
and it is the dullest and indeed the only dull town in all Italy.
Everything in this city announces decay and melancholy, and I met with
several men looking full as halfstarved and deplorable as Shakespeare's
Apothecary in Romeo and Juliet. Yet the city is by no means an ugly one.
The buildings are imposing, the streets broad and well paved, and there is
a fine circular promenade in the centre of which is a Monument erected in
honor of Virgil by the French general Miollis, who had a great veneration
for all poets. The _Palazzo pubblico_ and the Cathedral are the most
striking buildings. The latter contains the tombs and monuments of the
Gonzaga family, the whilom Sovereigns of Mantua. There are also several
monuments in honor of some French officers, who were killed in the
campaigns of Italy under Buonaparte and erected to their memory by his
direction.

Outside the town, at a short distance from the causeway and _tete de pont_,
is the celebrated palace called the T, from its being in the form of that
letter, which was the usual residence of the Dukes of Mantua. It is a noble
edifice and its gardens are well laid out. These gardens have this
peculiarity, that at the entrance of each of the grand avenues is a figure
of a man on horseback caparizoned in armour, like the Knights of old. This
is all I have to say about Mantua. The Mincio beset with "osiers dank"
flows into the lake.

CREMONA, 16th June.

From Mantua I directed my course to this city, which is large and
fortified, situated on the Po which forms many little islands in the
environs. This city is of great antiquity, and has a number of Gothic
buildings. You do not find here the specimens and imitations of Grecian
architecture as at Vicenza and Verona. The _campanile_ of the Cathedral is
of immense height, but one is repaid for the fatigue of ascending by the
extensive view from its summit. There are 498