l in England (but I
hope it will not), we might perhaps go happily through the whole book of
God's Revenge against Murder, or the Annals of Newgate, on the stage, as
a variety of pretty stories may be found there of the same cast; while
statues of Hercules and Minerva, with their insignia as heathen deities,
might be placed, with equal attention to religion, costume, and general
fitness, as decorations for the monuments of _Westminster Abbey_.

The country we came through to Cremona is rich and fertile, the roads
deep and miry of course; very few of the Lombardy poplars, of which I
expected to see so many: but Phaeton's sisters seem to have danced all
away from the odoriferous banks of the Po, to the green sides of the
Thames, I think; meantime here is no other timber in the country but a
few straggling ash, and willows without end. The old Eridanus, however,
makes a majestic figure at Cremona, and frights the inhabitants when it
overflows. There are not many to be frighted though, for the town is
thinly peopled; but exquisitely clean, perhaps for that very reason;
and the cathedral, of a mixed Grecian and Gothic architecture, has a
respectable appearance; while two enormous lions, of red marble, frown
at its door, and the crucifixion, painted by Pordenone, with a rough but
powerful pencil, strikes one at the entrance: I have seen nothing finer
than the figure of the Centurion upon the fore-ground, who seems to cry
out, with soldier-like courage and apostolic fervour, Truly this is the
Son of God.

The great clock here too is very curious: having, besides the
twenty-four hours, a minute and second finger, like a stop watch, and
shews the phases of the moon, with her triple rotation clearly to all
who walk across the piazza. Yet I trust the dwellers at Cremona are no
better astronomers than those who live in other places; to what purpose
then all these representations with which Italy is crowded; processions,
paintings, &c. besides the moral dances, as they call them now? One word
of solid instruction to the ear, conveys more knowledge to the mind at
last, than all these marionettes presented to the eye.

The tower of Cremona is of a surprising height and elegant form; we
climbed, not without some difficulty, to its top, and saw the flat
plains of Lombardy stretched out all round us. Prospects, however, and
high towers have I seen; that in Mr. Hoare's grounds, dedicated to King
Alfred, is a much finer structure than th