and in spite of all that over-shadowing hats, and robes of solemn black, could effect in supplying the deficiency of sober years, the youthful air of many of them appeared to us strangely incompatible with the delicate office of the confessional. We afterwards went through some apartments in the Hotel de Ville, where however there is nothing remarkable but a well executed alto-relievo, size of life, of the late King. The Citadel, said to be one of the strongest fortifications in Europe, appears to be in an ungarnished state. We contented ourselves with viewing from the outside, the extensive range of its ramparts, and also the exterior of the arsenal, which stands in its immediate neighbourhood. The rows of trees in the public walk, and some of the houses, opposite these two military appendages to the city, still exhibit the marks of a cannonade in 1797, when the French having gained possession of the fortress, fired upon the Austrians and Piedmontese who occupied the city: some of the balls (24 pounders) still remain half buried in the walls of two buildings in particular; and each shot is numbered in black paint from 1 to 32.-Proceeding by the very handsome gate which bears its name, we continued our walk to the river Po. "Eridanus, that, rolling o'er the plains, "The towering Alps of half their moisture drains; distance This celebrated stream passes at about 300 paces from the city. The stone bridge, which Buonaparte caused to be built over it, is a very handsome structure; its six arches being eliptical and its platform level. The river, though even here a truly fine one, is not navigable at this point, but it is highly picturesque. On its banks, as well as along the little canals that run through the promenade of the Rondeau, the washer-women of Turia perform their laborious tasks in defiance of a scorching sun. We were enchanted with the views from a delightful avenue of elms, leading down to the Palazzo Valentino on the left bank of the Po. On one side is a wide and fertile plain backed by the grandest works of Nature; on the other a nearer prospect of the Monte di Cappucini, a bold and luxuriantly wooded eminence, marked by every description of picturesque objects, natural and artificial, most worthy of embellishing the environs of a royal city.* Returning from this delicious spot, we renewed our perambulations in the town. We passed through the large and handsome piazza or square of S. Carlo. As to its architectural conformation, each angle "but reflects the other." The arcades are commodious, and the church of Saint Charles, formerly belonging to the Augustins, is an elegant structure. The Piazza S. Giovanni is chiefly to be noted for the view which it affords of the west end of the Cathedral, a very unpretending front of the Doric order; and for the lofty clock-tower of St. John, which stands at its northern corner. Opposite the south side of the * Turin is of a square figure, about three miles in circumference, and formerly was fortified as well as the nature of the ground would admit. These ancient defences, however, have long been destroyed.The citadel stands beyond the line of the old walls. It is a very large work, in form a regular pentagon, consisting of five bastions. We ought to have gone in to see a curious kind of subterraneous staircase, "of so easy an ascent (says Nugent) that horses go up and down it without meeting one another; and these are constantly employed in supplying the place with water, which they fetch from a reservoir at the bottom, communicating with the Po." Cathedral are the private apartments of the King, whose windows look out upon one of the dirtiest spots in Turin. It is true, the Court was not in residence there at the time, but we were told that that would not have made any difference. We surveyed the façade, and walked into the Garden Court of the Carignan Palace; it is of stately but ponderous architecture. The Princely owner of this huge fabric is considered by the Liberals of Turin to have betrayed “the cause of the People." And that their cause, if by that phrase be meant their welfare and happiness, is not promoted in the degree which it ought to be in Piedmont, constitutes a fact which even "they who run" as we do, through the country, "may read," in the open face of its natural blessings and resources as compared with the general condition of its inhabitants. That the amelioration however so much to be wished, cannot be brought about through the means of a mere revolutionary change like that which the agitators of 1820, went far to produce, is also a matter of equal conviction on my mind: a conviction first formed from what I had always understood to be the national character, and fully confirmed by what I have seen in this visit. The attempt suddenly and forcibly to introduce "the free representative system" (as it is called) into a State hitherto subjected to the controul of an absolute monarch, and amongst a bigotted and priest-ridden population, appears to me to be a flagrant outrage on common sense. Such a plan of proceeding has indeed, by the fatal experience of our own times, been shewn to be no less mischievous in its practical consequences, than extravagant in its original conception. ""Tis Liberty that crowns Britannia's isle, "And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile;" But let it be remembered that this privilege of every Englishman, his own best birth-right and his country's greatest blessing, is not more liberally consistent in its principle, than wisely regulated in its exercise—that it embraces the combined advantages which flow not only from independence of political opinion and conduct; but also from that toleration of religious faith and freedom of public as well as private worship, which continue to be entirely withheld in these Catholic States.* To emancipate Northern-yea and Southern Italy too-from the injurious weight of despotic and oppressive government, would be a work of real patriotism and beneficence. But, what hope is there of such a consummation taking place, so long as the people hug, as they do, the fetters of spiritual bondage and cling to the grossest absurdities of superstition? Our guide told us that during the early period of the French revolution, he had himself seen the father of the present Prince of Carignan standing sentinel in the Piazza "It is by Roman Catholic courtiers, that the divine right of Kings has been principally asserted, and yet it cannot but have been noticed, that almost all the late revolutionary movements have been in Roman Catholic countries. Protestant subjects are generally less lavish of adulation, but not less faithful in the hour of trial; the truth of which has often been experienced by the Kings of Sardinia. The late King of Sardinia was reminded of this, and requested by a British Minister to ameliorate the condition of the Vaudois. He gave a quibbling answer: "Do you emancipate the Irish Catholics, and I will emancipate the Vaudois." It was rejoined, "We only beg of your Majesty to concede as much to the Protestants of the vallies, as has been conceded to the Roman Catholics of Ireland." The King was silent, but inexorable."-Rev. W. S. Gilly's Researches among the Vaudois, p. 62. before his own house. It seems that the French Government had caused his Highness' name to be inscribed on the list of the national guard, in the expectation that he would pay the heavy fine indispensible to his exemption from personal service. The Prince on being summoned assumed the uniform and arms of a private soldier, and took his turn of duty with the rest. We were greatly pleased with what we saw in the Academy of Sciences. Monsieur Drouetti, a gentleman of learning and enterprise in the service of his Sardinian Majesty, has lately returned from his travels in Egypt, and deposited in the museum here a large and extremely valuable collection of the antiquities of that country: among them is a variety of sculptures of superior execution; hieroglyphic marbles remarkably curious; mummies, of which the exterior cases are more than ordinarily rich in colours, and the bodies, of those unwrapped, in a wonderfully perfect state.-The Cabinet of Natural History is the finest and best classified that I have anywhere seen, always excepting that in the Jardin du Roi, at Paris. The streets of Turin are particularly well pierced, and of tolerably ample breadth. Most of the houses are five or six stories high, built of stone or plastered brick, in a very uniform manner. The general appearance, however, of the private buildings is far from neat; and the expedients with respect to shuttered windows and curtained balconies, to which the excessive heat in summer obliges persons to resort, tend greatly to increase the heaviness and slovenliness of their outside. Of what they are within, it is not perhaps for transient spectators like ourselves to speak; but judging from the few which we did enter, and a King's Palace as well as a Public Inn was among the number, I |