books, in a spirit worthy of the darkest of the dark ages; there was also a large press, inscribed "prohibited books;" 1 felt great curiosity. to open it. They tormented my little sacks, unfolded every parcel, and pryed into every corner; my two or three books were severely scrutinized; a German dictionary and a book of roads were examined, as if they had been the productions of Martin Luther, or of Lady Morgan. To give the devil his due, I must confess the fellows were very, civil; as I had nothing to lose, I was quite the contrary, and they did not ask for money, a demand which, though of small importance in itself, is an indubitable proof of a shabby mode of doing business. Having lost much time in these absurd investigations, we mounted our carriage, and continued our ride by the side of the lake, and then quitting it, crossed a pleasant hill, and came to Mangiano, where a scanty, but not a meagre dinner, relieved us, tired and famished.

In a paltry church they were celebrating a Cutafalco of nine days, for the benefit of the dead; in the middle of the church was a stage or scaffold, the Cutafalco of four degrees, with abundance of lighted candles on each degree, or story; and at the top were two wax-work figures of a large size, one like a Roman soldier, the other a child crowned with roses; a priest was saying mass, and the church was crowded with people.

We went into a little coffee-house, to take a cup of such coffee as the place afforded. In looking over the Gazette of the Lake of Thrasimene, or a newspaper with some such title, savouring of the Punic wars, I found an instance of the more than Punic faith, and same crooked policy of the court of Rome in little matters, which formerly distinguished it in great ones. There was a long discussion about executing some robber contrary to alleged promises, and a laboured justification of the see, stating that some bishop had interfered, as a mediator of grace and favour only.

66

We arrived at Perugia about four o'clock in the afternoon; we met with swarms of friars issuing from its gates, black, white, and black and white: Dominicans, pied, like magpies, that it was evident we were no longer in the dominions of a mere earthly monarch, but of your most humble man's man, Emperor Peter." I was frightened by the accounts of the exactions practised at the Poste; I went therefore to the Crown, a comfortable and reasonable inn. I did not find one English name in the book; but they showed me a journal, which had been left there by a young English lady, to see if I knew the hand. I looked at it, to satisfy them that I did not. It was in the writing of a young person; the only sentence which I read, said, that "the walls of Perugia are remarkably strong."

Sunday, Nov. 13th.-Perugia is built on a steep hill; but some of the streets are wide and handsome, especially the Corso. The general appearance of the city is striking; the inhabitants have plenty of house-room, walls, and arches, for it is thinly inhabited. The gate of St. Peter is ancient and noble, and that called the Arch of Augustus is a fine old gateway. The cathedral, dedicated to St. Lawrence, is heavy; the church of the Dominicans is heavy and dark; the church of St. Peter's is rich and finely painted, and abounds in pictures by Raphael, especially his early works and first fruits; the admirable

productions by Pietro Perugino, the master of Raphael, and the pictoral grandfather of Raphael, the master of Pietro: a large convent of Benedictines is annexed to this church. The view from the folding doors behind the altar is so beautiful, that it brings to mind the painful reflection,-this is one of the lovely things I shall only see once, which is, perhaps, worse than not seeing it at all.

I saw many pretty women in the streets; the Corso was much crowded at dusk, but I was told that all the Perugians had gone to pass the day in the country, as it was the feast of St. Martin. The wine of this district is white, sweet, and better than any I have met with in Tuscany.

Whilst I was at dinner, I heard a woman scolding most tremendously; it was the only thing of the kind I had heard since I left England; the objurgation was so loud and so long, that it drove all the women out of the kitchen; they took refuge in the hall, where I was dining-the chambermaid, her daughter, and a good-looking girl, a daughter of the house as they say, for the children of the landlady are called in all countries, a son of the house, or a daughter of the house. They seated themselves in a row on the table opposite, and told me, that of the four children of the house, the youngest, a boy of ten years, who was his mother's favourite, had been punished by his father for some misconduct, at which the mother was enraged, and had delivered with extraordinary vehemence and pathos the oration which I had heard, to the father, who preserved as strict and as respectful a silence as the pots and pans on the walls.

Travelling in Italy is a solitary thing; there are no tables d'hôte, no public conveyances, no one is to be found at the inns; the Italians are very courteous; but the men are, without exception, the shyest people in the world; and the women, who are not shy, are more guarded, and looked after more strictly and closely than amongst any

other western nation.

Monday, Nov. 14th.-I quitted Perugia at eleven with a vetturino; I had no companions; we descended a long steep hill, and crossed the Tiber by the bridge of S. Giovanni. It began to rain, and it rained so hard as we passed the church of Madonna degli Angioli, a large building with a cupola, in honour of the spot where St Francis died, that I could not descend to view the interior without great inconvenience. As we ascended the hill, the rain fell in torrents, with hail, thunder, and lightning, and as we entered the city of Assisi, the water was running through the streets like a mill-stream. We drove into the cloisters of the convent; I was received by a monk, who had been in Malta and Egypt, and was on board an English ship at the battle of the Nile. He showed me the upper church; it was painted by Pietro Perugino, Raphael, and other great men; but the frescoes are so much defaced as to be hardly visible; the rain and wind were beating against the windows of painted glass, which seemed on the point of being driven in by the frightful storm. The lower church is painted by the same great artists, and their works are in good preservation, but it was too dark under this hostile sky to see them with any advantage. Beneath is a little chapel, lately fitted up in a handsome manner, in which the bones of St. Francis had been found, and were again deposited.

WRESTLING.

--

THE amateurs of athletic performances were gratified towards the end of last month, with an exhibition of the old national feat of wrestling. Several matches were played between Devonshire and Cornwall men, on the 19th, 20th, and 21st, at the Eagle Tavern green, in the City Road. The science displayed on the occasion shows, that we are in some respects the same people as our ancestors were in the "good old times," when rustic games attracted the notice of courts; and that, in recounting the achievements in this line of our forefathers, we may not use Homer's illustration of the feats in the heroic age before him, when he represents Ajax as performing what two men's strength in his times would be unable to accomplish.

The first day, every Cornish and Devon hero was free to throw his hat in the ring, as a challenge to any adversary of the opposing county. Several very pretty contests took place, in which the victory was not always to the strong; there was an agility and pliancy of limb in the diminutive, that sometimes ensured them the throw: some of these seemed incapable of being laid with both shoulders to the ground, as the law of wrestle requires. The variety of movement and attitude far exceeded that exhibited in the pugilistic combat.—If we might hazard a rash observation, we should say, that there is a degree of sublimity in this game, exceeding that attached to more dangerous exertions of bodily vigour. We know, indeed, that it is but play, from which no great injury can ensue, and therefore that the great tragic emotion, fear, which exalts human effort, is absent; but then, so far as it goes, the struggle is no less animated than one of life and death-every muscle is in play, the mind is concentrated upon one object, upon which eye and limb are equally intent. You may imagine it the beginning of a death-grapple, in which two wary, unarmed enemies encounter.-They lace their limbs tightly together, strain every sinew, throw their bodies into violent contortions, till human power is at its utmost stretch, and then one or both come to the ground. With savages this would be but the precursor of the death of one; with Englishmen it is the decision of the contest. They rise, and reciprocate that ancient pledge of honour and good humour, the shake of the hand, submitting to an umpire as to the fairness of the fall. It is at such spectacles as these, that the statuary will imbibe the boldest conceptions of the human form in a state of activity; and probably it is owing to the general neglect of gymnastic sports, that the moderns have made so much less progress in the higher branches of sculpture, than the ancients; among whom, all exercises that tended to liberate and develope the frame were in such high repute. Nor was it to muscular freedom alone, that the emulation fostered by the Olympic games conduced; it was found likewise to excite to great and heroic deeds. As in later days, the spectari dum talia facerit was the impelling motive to efforts almost superhuman. This passion for fame and applause was found to be best promoted by those public exhibitions, in which no reward but a simple emblem of distinction was to be won. It is to be presumed, that the Greeks were not so hard-pinched for subsistence, as our labourers and me

chanics are, or an olive crown would not have had so many charms in their eyes, as the silver crowns for which the Cornish and Devon wrestlers played. But be the prize what it may, the more trifling it is, the less will be the chance of such corrupt venality creeping in, as that which has almost extirpated pugilism. It is for this reason we hope, that if wrestling should replace boxing, the Corinthians will not, by staking large sums, tempt the honesty of the players. There can be but little doubt, that the present degraded state of the Fancy is attributable to the discordant union of the vices of the nobility, with the sports of the vulgar. The gangrene of betting has infected almost all our old games, but we trust that this one of wrestling will survive in those districts which have become celebrated for it, and that it will long prove a recreation to the hardy miners of Cornwall and Cumberland-men whose days are passed in dangerous pits, and whose pastimes, therefore, should be of a rough and fear-dispelling nature. And we hope that the peasantry of England generally, will long preserve among the customs handed bown by their merry ancestors, a game, which proves a good and harmless vent for that untameable love of display and hardihood, that combativeness (to borrow a scientific word) which in other nations finds its issue in savage battles with sticks, swords, and knives, or in lawless associations of bandits of some kind or other.

The above mentioned matches were noticed in The Times of the 23d ult. but in so partial a manner in favour of Cornwall, that we suspect the writer of the paragraph to be from that ancient duchy: or possibly he may be an intended candidate for some Cornish borough, in which the electors are amateurs of this diversion.-Indeed the rottenness of the system there, seems to have altogether infected the natives, even in their sporting transactions.-The Cornish committee had appointed a Cornish referee, and this one would not admit a countryman to have been thrown, even when the dirt on both shoulders proclaimed it to all eyes. His decision obliged Cann, the Devonshire champion, to throw one man, Burdoe, three times; and his antagonist for the first prize, Warren, twice. Previous to the final struggle however, the Cornish Judge was almost unanimously voted off, and a new referee appointed. Another unfairness in the committee, was matching the Devonshire champion against the next best Devonshire wrestler, Middleton, who might probably have carried off the prize from Warren. This accounts for three out of four prizes being assigned to the Cornish side.

The difference in the style of wrestling of these two neighbouring shires, is as remarkable as that of the lineaments of their inhabitants. The florid chubby-faced Devon-man is all life and activity in the ring, holding himself erect, and offering every advantage to his opponent. The sallow sharp-featured Cornwall-man is all caution and resistance, bending himself in such a way, that his legs are inaccesible to his opponent, and waiting for the critical instant, when he can spring in upon his impatient adversary.

The contest between Abraham Cann and Warren, not only displayed this difference of style, but was attended with a degree of suspense between skill and strength, that rendered it extremely interesting. The former, who is the son of a Devonshire farmer, has OCT. 1826.

M

been backed against any man in England for 5007. His figure is of the finest athletic proportions, and his arm realizes the muscularity of ancient specimens: his force in it is surprising; his hold is like that of a vice, and with ease he can pinion the arms of the strongest adversary, if he once grips them, and keep them as close together, or as far asunder, as he chooses. He stands with his legs apart, his body quite upright, looking down good humouredly on his crouching opponent. In this instance, his opponent Warren, a miner, was a man of superior size, and of amazing strength, not so well distributed however, throughout his frame; his arms and body being too lengthy in proportion to their bulk. His visage was harsh beyond measure, and He did not disdain to use a little craft with eye and hand, in order to distract his adversary's attention. But he had to deal with a man, as collected as ever entered the ring. Cann put in his hand as quietly as if he were going to seize a shy horse, and at length caught a slight hold between finger and thumb of Warren's sleeve. At this, Warren flung away with the impetuosity of a surprised horse. But it was in vain; there was no escape from Cann's pinch, so the miner seized his adversary in his turn, and at length both of them grappled each other by the arm and breast of the jacket. In a trice Cann tripped his opponent with the toe in a most scientific but ineffectual manner, throwing him clean to the ground, but not on his back, as required. -The second heat begun similarly, Warren stooped more, so as to keep his legs out of Cann's reach, who punished him for it by several kicks below the knee, which must have told severely if his shoes had been on, according to his County's fashion. They shook each other rudely-strained knee to knee-forced each other's shoulders down, so as to overbalance the body-but all ineffectually.-They seemed to be quite secure from each other's efforts, as long as they but held by the arm and breast-collar, as ordinary wrestlers do. A new grip was to be effected. Cann liberated one arm of his adversary to seize him by the cape behind: at that instant Warren, profiting by his inclined posture, and his long arms, threw himself round the body of the Devon champion, and fairly lifted him a foot from the ground, clutching him in his arms with the grasp of a second Anteæus.-The Cornish men shouted aloud, "Well done, Warren!" to their hero, whose naturally pale visage glowed with the hope of success. He seemed to have his opponent at his will, and to be fit to fling him, as Hercules flung Lycas, any how he pleased. Devonshire then trembled for its champion, and was mute. Indeed it was a moment of heartquaking suspense.-But Cann was not daunted; his countenance expressed anxiety, but not discomfiture. He was off terra-firma, clasped in the embrace of a powerful man, who waited but a single struggle of his, to pitch him more effectually from him to the ground.-Without straining to disengage himself, Cann with unimaginable dexterity glued his back firmly to his opponent's chest, lacing his feet ronnd the other's knee-joints, and throwing one arm backward over Warren's shoulder, so as to keep his own enormous shoulders pressed upon the breast of his uplifter. In this position they stood at least twenty seconds, each labouring in one continuous strain, to bend the other, one backwards, the other forwards.-Such a struggle could not last. Warren, with the weight of the other upon his stomach and chest,