with the interior concerns of that Court, and never extended either to the deliberations or to the final decrees of the Council. In the second place, many a benevolent man, many a true friend of the peace and union of the Christian body; has deplored the degree of precision, with which the articles in debate: were defined, and a line was drawn between the contending parties, to separate them perhaps for ever! Real union, indeed at that time of delirious contest, was not to be hoped for; but some latitude allowed to the wanderings of the human mind, a greater scope given to interpretation, and a respectful silence recommended to the disputants on subjects too mysterious to be explained, and too awful to be bandied about in scholastic disputation, might, perhaps, at a more favorable season, have soothed animosity, and disposed all temperate persons to terms of accommodation. Remote, however, as we now are from that aera of discord, and strangers to the passions which then influenced mankind, it might seem to border upon temerity and injustice, were we to censure the proceedings of an assembly, which combined the benevolence, the sanctity and the moderation of

the Cardinals Pole, and Sadoleti, Contari

ni and Seripando.*

February 18th. From Trent the road continues to run through a narrow valley, watered by the Adige (or Athesis) and covered with vines conducted over trellis work, or winding from tree to tree in garlands. High mountains rise on each side, and the snow, though occasionally deep, was yet sensibly. diminished. After the first stage, the snow appeared only on the mountains, while in the valley we enjoyed some share of the ge

Vida has made a beautiful allusion both to the City and the Council of Trent, in the form of a devout prayer, at the end of one of his hymus.

Nos primum pete, qui imsedem convenimus unam,
Saxa ubi depressum condunt praerupta Tridentum
Hinc, atque hinc, variis acciti e sedibus orbis,
Ut studiis juncti; atque animis concordibus una
Tendamus, duce te freti, succurrere lapsis
Legibus, et versos revocare in pristina mores.
Teque ideo coetu celebramus, et ore ciemus,
Sancte, veni, penitus te mentibus insere nostris,
Aura potens,amor omnipotens, caeli aurea flamma!
Hym. Spir: San.

gial influence of an Italian sun. The number of neat villages seemed to increase on both banks of the river; though in all, the ravages of war and that wanton rage for mischief which, upon all occasions, distinguishes an invading army, were but too discernible. Cottages destroyed, houses burnt or damaged, and churches disfigured forced themselves too frequently upon the attention of the traveller. A fortress covering the brow of a steep hill, rises on the left at some distance from the road, and forms too conspicuous an object to pass unnoticed. Its ancient name was, according to Cluverius, Verrucca Castellum; it is now called Castello della Pietra, from its site. It was taken and re-taken twice by the French and Austrians during the last war, though its situation might induce a traveller to consider it impregnable.

Roveredo, anciently Roboretum, the second stage from Trent, is a neat little town in the defiles of the Alps, situated, geographically speaking, in the German territory, but in language, manners, and appearance, Italian. The entrance on the side of Trent looks well, though the main street is narrow. An inscription over the gate, relative to the marriage

and passage of the Princess of Parma, pleased me much, as it affords a specimen of the good taste. of this little town.

Isabellae

Philippi Borb. Parmae ducis
Josepho Austriae duci nuptae
Viennam proficiscenti

Felix sit iter

Faustusque thalamus
Roboretanis gaudentibus.

In fact, as you approach Italy, you may perceive a visible improvement not only in the climate of the country, but also in the ideas of its inhabitants; the churches and public buildings assume a better form; the shape and ornaments of their portals, doors and windows are more graceful, and their epitaphs and inscriptions, which, as Addison justly observes, are a certain criterion of public taste, breathe a more classical spirit. Roveredo is situate in the beautiful valley of Lagarina, has distinguished itself in the literary world, and has long possessed an academy, whose members have been neither inactive nor inglorious.

VOL. I.

The descent (for from Steinach, or rather a few miles south of that village, three stages before Brixen, we had begun to descend) becomes more rapid between Roveredo and Ala; the river which glided gently through the valley of Trent, assumes the roughness of a torrent; the defiles become narrower ; and the mountains break into rocks and precipices, which occasionally approach the road, sometimes rise perpendicular from it, and now and then hang over it in terrible majesty.*

* Amid these wilds the traveller cannot fail to notice a vast tract called the Slavini di Marco, covered with fragments of rock torn from the sides of the neighboring mountains by an earthquake, or perhaps by their own unsupported ̧ weight and hurled down into the plains below. They spread over the whole valley, and in some places contract the road to a very narrow space. A few firs and cypresses scattered in the intervals, or sometimes rising out of the crevices of the rocks, cast a partial and melancholy shade amid the surrounding nakedness and desolation. This scene of ruin seems to have made a deep impression upon the wild imagination of Dante, as he has introduced it into the twelfth canto of the Inferno, in