in many parts of Italy, unable to comprehend the dialects,
with their lively abbreviations and witty slang. That of Venice I had
understood somewhat, and could enter into the drollery and _naivete_
of the gondoliers, who, as a class, have an unusual share of
character. But the Milanese I could not at first understand at all.
Their language seemed to me detestably harsh, and their gestures
unmeaning. But after a friend, who possesses that large and ready
sympathy easier found in Italy than anywhere else, had translated for
me verbatim into French some of the poems written in the Milanese,
and then read them aloud in the original, I comprehended the peculiar
inflection of voice and idiom in the people, and was charmed with it,
as one is with the instinctive wit and wisdom of children.

There is very little to see at Milan, compared with any other Italian
city; and this was very fortunate for me, allowing an interval
of repose in the house, which I cannot take when there is so much
without, tempting me to incessant observation and study. I went
through, the North of Italy with a constantly increasing fervor of
interest. When I had thought of Italy, it was always of the South, of
the Roman States, of Tuscany. But now I became deeply interested in
the history, the institutions, the art of the North. The fragments
of the past mark the progress of its waves so clearly, I learned to
understand, to prize them every day more, to know how to make use of
the books about them. I shall have much to say on these subjects some
day.

Leaving Milan, I went on the Lago Maggiore, and afterward into
Switzerland. Of this tour I shall not speak here; it was a beautiful
little romance by itself, and infinitely refreshing to be so near
nature in these grand and simple forms, after so much exciting thought
of Art and Man. The day passed in the St. Bernardin, with its lofty
peaks and changing lights upon the distant snows,--its holy, exquisite
valleys and waterfalls, its stories of eagles and chamois, was the
greatest refreshment I ever experienced: it was bracing as a cold bath
after the heat of a crowd amid which one has listened to some most
eloquent oration.

Returning from Switzerland, I passed a fortnight on the Lake of
Como, and afterward visited Lugano. There is no exaggeration in the
enthusiastic feeling with which artists and poets have viewed these
Italian lakes. Their beauties are peculiar, enchanting, innumerable.
The Titan of Ri