Cannot a knowledge of Latin be attained without the minds of our English youth being polluted by a perusal of the licentious Latin poets? is a question worthy the attention of those who undertake the education of boys, and one which ought to be suggested by parents.

MILAN. Although prepared to see a fine city, Milan has surpassed my expectations. It is indeed a beautiful town, with its stately palaces, public buildings, and clean streets; yet, strange to say, there is not a single good inn to be found in it. The one in which our courier had engaged apartments for us looked so untempting, that incredulous of his assertion that no better could be had at Milan, we made a circuit of nearly all the hotels before we could find rooms at all comparable with those generally to be met with in every large town; and even the ones we now occupy, though spacious, are very deficient in the furniture suitable to a first-rate inn.

If civility and attention can atone for ill-furnished rooms, and a médiocre cuisine, we may be satisfied; and on this consideration I forbear naming the hotel where we have taken up our abode, trusting that our good advice may induce our host to render his house more comfortable in future.

I could not resist hurrying off to see the Duomo, while the servants were unpacking imperials and chaise seats, and the courier was endeavouring to aid the cook in preparing a dinner for us. Never did I behold so beautiful an edifice; and so white and fresh does it appear, that one might imagine it was only lately built. Its snowy pinnacles, with their delicate tracery, and the multitude of statues equally white, with which it is decorated, rising towards the bright blue sky, look like some exquisite piece of sculpture executed in molten silver, and delighted me.

The taste of the Duomo has been much criticised by connoisseurs; who assert, and with reason, that as a purely gothic church, it is very defective, wanting the solemnity and grandeur which generally is, and ought to be, a characteristic of such buildings.

Nevertheless, I confess that the most faultless specimen of the gothic never occasioned me so lively a pleasure as did my first glance at the Duomo ; although the sentiment, if analysed, would have been found not to be the sort of one experienced on beholding a fine gothic cathedral, for there was nothing of contemplative gravity in it. The Duomo gives me the notion of a temple erected by some

enamoured monarch for the solemnization of his nuptials with his young queen, whence every thing solemn or gloomy was purposely banished, and the edifice made to emulate the purity and delicate beauty of the fair personage for whose marriage it was erected.

Many protest against the whiteness of the Duomo, and assert that it is painfully glaring to the eyes, but to mine it did not produce this effect; nay, the purity of the snow-like pinnacles standing out from the deep azure of the sky, invested the building with greater charms, to my taste.

We drove to see the Duomo by moonlight, last night, and it lost nothing of its beauty, beheld by that mild luminary. Some portion of the building, with the statues that rest on it, were thrown into shade, while others stood out in bold relief, glittering like silver beneath the moonbeams.

Let fastidious critics say what they will, the effect of this cathedral is, at least in my eyes, charming; and the only defect I can consent to admit is, that it is not completed. Whether seen by daylight, in all the glowing radiance of a summer sky, or by moonlight, it strikes me as being equally beautiful; and I can only wonder how people can be found who are so insensible to the general effect, as to

dwell on the defects of the details which they detect. The truth is, one half of the travellers who infest Italy are more anxious to lay claim to connoisseurship, by the easiest of all modes, that of finding fault with what pleases the mass, than to indulge in the natural, as well as rational pleasure, which the sight of fine objects confers.

The first awaking in a new place the morning after arrival, gives a very agreeable sensation. Anticipations of fresh beauties to be seen, new information to be acquired, present themselves to the imagination almost on opening the eyes, and impart such an impulse to the mind, that one starts with much more than ordinary activity from bed, and hastens through the operations of the toilette with unusual alacrity. Great, indeed, is the enjoyment of travelling, particularly in a country like Italy, where, while the eye dwells with delight on scenery and objects so well calculated to confer it, the imagination soars into regions of its own; and the memory, as if touched by the wand of an enchanter, opens its long-hoarded stores, and enjoys them anew on the spots identified with the scenes and facts it treasured.

Milan has been repeatedly said to resemble Paris, but the similarity does not strike me. It is true it

differs very much from all the other cities in Italy that I have seen; nevertheless its aspect is not French. I suppose the equipages and dresses of the upper class, which are certainly copied from those of Paris, led people to institute the comparison; which, had the Emperor Napoleon longer reigned, and completed the embellishments commenced under his reign, would have been more strikingly borne out.

The number of palaces, the greater portion of which are highly decorated on the exterior, give an air of great splendour to Milan; and the elegance of the equipages, as well as of the dresses of those who occupy them, add much to it.

Among the palaces, those of Belgioso, Serbelloni, Tezzoli, Cusani, and Litta, attracted my attention the most to-day, though the latter is more remarkable for grandeur than good taste.

While driving through the streets, which are peculiarly clean, I admired the becoming costumes

of

many of the female pedestrians; they consisted of black, or dark-coloured silk dresses, with a long scarf of black silk or lace worn over the head and falling over the bust, as the Genoese women wear the mazero. Tall and slight, there is something very graceful in the air and movements of the Milanese