Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. 2 (of 2)

generous and gay; headstrong and violent in their disposition; easy to turn, but difficult to stop. No authority is respected by them when some strong passion animates them to f...

One does not in these countries look out particularly for the works of Roman or Bolognese masters; but I remember a wonderful Caracci at Munich, worthy a first place even in the...

There is a work of art, however, peculiar to this city, and attempted in no other; on which surprising sums of money are lavished by many of the inhabitants, who connect or asso...

The women that run about the town, mean time, take the nearest way to be warm, wrapping themselves up in cloth clothes, like so many fishermen at the mouth of the Humber, and we...

But how, said Cyrus, shall I make men think me more excellent than themselves? _By being really so_, replies Xenophon, putting his words into the mouth of Cambyses. Pius Sextus...

Nothing can be finer, or in its way more tasteful, than a chimney-piece made for the Elector, entirely from the manufacture and produce of his own dominions; that part which we...

Every step towards this comfortable city lies through a country too well known to need description, and too beautiful to be ever described as it deserves. _Les Vues de Flandres_...

But I shall be glad _now_ to exchange lapis lazuli for violets, and verd antique for green fields. Here are more amethysts about Rome than lilacs; and the laburnum which at this...

as Milton says. Pinelli had an excellent taste for pictures likewise, and here at Venice there are paintings to satisfy, nay satiate connoisseurship herself. Tintoret’s force of...

That the situation of the crater changed in this last eruption is of little consequence; it will change and change again I suppose. The wonder is, that nobody gets killed by ven...

I have seen a fine MS. of the Consolations copied in the tenth century, not only legible but beautiful; and I have been assured that the hymns written by his first wife Elpis, w...

Of the noblemen’s feats in the neighbourhood it may indeed be remarked, that however spacious the house, and however splendid the furniture may prove upon examination, however p...

It is time to have done with all this though, and go see the Ambrosian library; which, as far as I can judge, is perfectly respectable. The Prefect’s politeness kindly offered m...

We have just been to see his gardens; they are poor things enough; and the device of representing Vulcan’s cave with the Cyclops, in _water_-works, was more worthy of Ireland th...

So different are the customs here and at Venice, that the German ladies offer you chocolate on the same salver with coffee, of an evening, and fill up both with milk; saying tha...

To hear birds it is however indispensably necessary that there should be high trees; and except in these parts of Italy, and those about Genoa and Sienna, no timber of any good...

On the tenth day of this month we arrived early at Naples, for I think it was about two o’clock in the morning; and sure the providence of God preserved us, for never was such w...

My sepulchral tour is now nearly finished: we have in the course of this journey seen the last remains of many a celebrated mortal. Virgil, Raphael, Ariosto, Scipio, Galileo, Pe...

Van Vittelli’s aqueduct is a prodigiously beautiful, magnificent, and what is more, a useful performance: having the finest models of antiquity, he is said to have surpassed the...

An Historical and Classical Dictionary, containing the Lives and Characters of the most eminent and learned Persons in every Age and Nation, from the earliest Period to the pres...