excellent qualities; the Gonfalonier has many more, and the Legate poffeffes every virtue under the fun. If the Pope had entered the room, the too lavish profeffor would not have been able to help him to a fingle morfel of praife which had not been already ferved up.

This town is at prefent quite full of frangers, who came to affift at the proceffion of Corpus Domini, The Duke of Parma, feveral Cardinals, and other perfons of high diftinction, besides a prodigious crowd of citizens, attended this great feftival. The ftreets through which the Hoft was carried, under a magnificent canopy, were adorned with tapestry, paintings, looking-glaffes, and all the various kinds of finery which the inhabitants could produce. Many of the paintings feemed unfuitable to the occafion; they were on profane, and fome of them on wanton fubjects; and it appeared extraordinary to fee the figures of Venus, Minerva, Apollo, Jupiter, and others of that abdicated family, arranged along the walls in honour of a triumph of the Corpus Chrifti.

On

On our way to Milan we ftopped a short time at Modena, the capital of the duchy of that name. The whole duchy is about fifty miles in length, and twentyfix in breadth; the town contains twenty thousand inhabitants; the streets are in general large, ftraight, and ornamented with porticoes. This city is furrounded by a fortification, and farther fecured by a citadel; it was anciently rendered famous by the fiege which Decimus Brutus fuf-tained here against Marc Antony.

We proceeded next to Parma, a beautiful town, confiderably larger than Modena, and defended, like it, by a citadel and regular fortification. The ftreets are well built, broad, and regular. The town is divided unequally by the little river Parma, which lofes itself in the Po, ten or twelve miles from this city.

The theatre is the largest of any in Europe; and confequently a great deal larger than there is any occafion for. Every body has obferved, that it is fo favourable to the voice, that a whisper from the ftage is heard all over this immenfe houfe; but nobody

tells us on what circumftance in the conftruction this surprising effect depends.

;

The Modenese was the native country of Correggio, but he paffed most of his life at Parma. Several of the churches are ornamented by the pencil of that great artist, particularly the cupola of the cathedral the painting of which has been fo greatly admired for the grandeur of the defign and the boldness of the fore-fhortenings. It is now fpoiled in fuch a manner, that its principal beauties are not eafily distinguished.

Some of the best pictures in the Ducal Palace have been removed to Naples and elsewhere; but the famous picture of the Virgin, in which Mary Magdalen and St, Jerom are introduced, ftill remains. In this compofition Correggio has been thought to have united, in a supreme degree, beauties which are feldom found in the fame piece; an excellence in any one of which has been fufficient to raise other artifts to celebrity. The fame connoiffeurs affert, that this picture is equally worthy of admiration, on account of the freshness of the

colouring,

.

colouring, the inexpreffible gracefulness of the defign, and the exquifite tenderness of the expreffion. After I had heard all thofe fine things faid over and over again, I. thought I had nothing to do but admire; and I had prepared my mind accordingly.Would to Heaven that the refpectable body of connoiffeurs were agreed in opinion, and I should moft readily submit mine to theirs! But while the above eulogium still refounded in my ears, other connoiffeurs have asserted that this picture is full of affectation; that the shadowing is of a dirty brown, the attitude of the Magdalen conftrained and unnatural; that she may ftrive to the end of time, without ever being able to kiss the foot of the infant Jefus in her prefent pofition; that she has the look of an idiot; and that the Virgin herself is but a vulgar figure, and seems not a great deal wifer ; that the angels have a ridiculous fimper, and most abominable air of affectation; and finally, that St. Jerom has the ap pearance of a sturdy beggar, who intrudes his brawny figure where it has no right to be.

Distracted

Distracted with fuch oppofite fentiments, what can a plain man do, who has no great reliance on his own judgment, and wishes to give offence to neither party? I shall leave the picture as I found it, to answer for itself, with a single remark in favour of the angels. I cannot take upon me to fay how the real angels of heaven look; but I certainly have seen some earthly angels, of my acquaintance, affume the fimper and air of those in this picture, when they wished to appear quite celestial.

The duchies of Modena, Parma, and Placentia, are exceedingly fertile. The foil is naturally rich, and the climate, being moifter here than in many other parts of Italy, produces more plentiful pafturage for cattle. The road runs over a continued plain, among meadows and corn-fields, divided by rows of trees, from whofe branches the vines hang in beautiful feftoons. We had the pleasure of thinking, -as we drove along, that the peasants are not deprived of the bleffings of the smiling fertility among which they live. They had in general a neat, contented, and cheer

ful