to Tasso." The cell
itself is miserably gloomy and wretched, and not above twelve feet
square. How amply has posterity avenged the cause of the poet on his
tyrant!--and as we emerge from his obscure dungeon and descend the
steps of the hospital of St. Anna, with what fervent hatred,
indignation, and scorn, do we gaze upon the towers of the ugly red
brick palace, or rather fortress, which deforms the great square, and
where Alphonso feasted while Tasso wept! The inscription on the door
of the cell, calling on strangers to venerate the spot where Tasso,
"Infermo piu di tristezza che delirio," was confined seven years and
one month--was placed there by the French, and its accuracy may be
doubted; as far as I can recollect. The grass growing in the wide
streets of Ferrara is no poetical exaggeration; I saw it rank and long
even on the thresholds of the deserted houses, whose sashless windows,
and flapping doors, and roofless walls, looked strangely desolate.

I will say nothing of Bologna;--for the few days I have spent here
have been to me days of acute suffering, in more ways than I wish to
remember, and therefore dare not dwell upon.

_At Covigliajo in the Apennines._--O for the pencil of Salvator, or
the pen of a Radcliffe! But could either, or could both united, give
to my mind the scenes of to-day, in all their splendid combinations of
beauty and brightness, gloom and grandeur? A picture may present to
the eye a small portion of the boundless whole--one aspect of the
every-varying face of nature; and words, how weak are they!--they are
but the elements out of which the quick imagination frames and
composes lovely landscapes, according to its power or its peculiar
character; and in which the unimaginative man finds only a mere chaos
of verbiage, without form, and void.

The scenery of the Apennines is altogether different in character from
that of the Alps: it is less bold, less lofty, less abrupt and
terrific--but more beautiful, more luxuriant, and infinitely more
varied. At one time, the road wound among precipices and crags,
crowned with dismantled fortresses and ruined castles--skirted with
dark pine forests--and opening into wild recesses of gloom, and
immeasurable depths like those of Tartarus profound; then came such
glimpses of paradise! such soft sunny valleys and peaceful
hamlets--and vine-clad eminences and rich pastures, with here and
there a convent half hidden by groves of cypress and cedars. As we
a