I recollect nothing more interesting until we reached Milan, in the low grounds about which a great deal of rice is raised. Some parts of them are said to be not less than eighty feet below the surface of the Lago Maggiore; they can therefore be watered at pleasure, like the Savannahs of Louisiana, and the grass, produced by this profuse irrigation, is said to be cut as often as five or six times in a year.

Milan is a large and populous town; but not very pleasant to a stranger, from the lowness of its situation, and the narrowness, and dampness of the streets.

It was often however the temporary residence of the Roman Emperors, when in the decline of the Empire, they found it necessary to defend their frontiers from the

the incursions of the Barbarians.-In one of the streets may still be seen a Doric Colonnade of Roman Antiquity, and in the Church of St. Ambrose, the antiquated Choir is yet inclosed by the identical bronze gates, which the holy Father is said to have shut, with indignation, in the face of the Emperor Theodosius, on account of the Massacre at Thessalonica.

In the Refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria della gracie, is the celebrated Last Supper of Leonardo da Vincimuch damaged by time-probably more by injudicious repairs. There is not now a single fine head in the groupe; and among the Twelve Communicants you are ready to suspect half a dozen Judas's, instead of one.-A story goes, that the Painter, provoked by the parsimony of

one

one of the Friars, put him down for the false Disciple that carried the bag.

The Cathedral of Milan is an immense pile of gothic architecture executed, at an incredible expense, in white marble. It was begun about four hundred years ago: but the front of it is still unfinished; though the building has been richly endowed with posthumous donations, and large sums were annually expended on it, until the Revolution, by the devout House of Austria.

The sides of this superb edifice, are ornamented with an amazing number of statues-how many I shall not say, as I did not count them, and wonders of that sort are too apt to be exaggerated to be taken on report-Suffice it that the Steeple storied

has been completely finished in the richest open work.-Figured buttresses, and storied pinnacles, support, or seem to support, a spiral stair-case, which terminates in a cone. It is surmounted by a colossal statue of the Virgin Mary, at the foot of which there is a boundless prospect of the plains of Lombardy, from the Alps to the Appenines.

The interior of this majestic edifice is strikingly impressive of religious veneration. Its dark and lofty arcades are drawn into undistinguishable length by five dun aisles. These open at last into the secluded Choir, embowed with ribbed arches, and clustered columns, between which painted windows of prodigious size are scarcely penetrated by rays of coloured light,

N.

light, sufficiently to render visible scarlet canopies, and painted banners suspended in the dusky air.

Beneath the High Altar, is an open stair-way, descending to a subterraneous chapel, in which is deposited, in a chrystal shrine, the body of San Carlo; and the history of the Saint was once narrated, upon the walls, in bas-reliefs of solid silver.

Returning to the twilight of the nave, the lamps that twinkle over the sepulchre serve but to make darkness visible; and the long arcades-dripping with the dampness of a vault, reverberate—at intervals the solitary footstep-or the slamming door.

I leave