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EXCURSION TO ARRAN.

Christian, though learned only in his Bible, of HIM who is "asa hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest;" and of the strong consolation experienced by those who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before them; which hope they have "as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil."

Near to the south end of the neat and cheerful village, stands Whitehouse, the residence of the Duke of Hamilton's factor. How much, within my remembrance, has this place been improved and beautified! The rising grounds on each side yielded, some twenty years ago, a scanty crop of grass and heather; an extensive plain behind the house, if I remember aright, was full of peat holes; the ground before the house was a quagmire, on which the hungry cattle at times ventured, at the risk of being swallowed up. The quagmire has been converted into a beautiful verdant lawn; the undulating heights and the peat-producing plain are now waving with the richest crops; the house is embowered in flowering shrubs; and the garden is stocked, not only with culinary esculents and common fruits, but it yields also peaches, and nectarines, and figs. The lover of flowers will find here everything rare and beautiful; and, even at Christmas, he may see Camelia Japonica in flower in the open air. On one side of the lawn, the bare walls of an old kiln have been made to assume the appearance of the picturesque ruins of an old chapel; on entering which a person might think that he had made a rapid transit to Madeira, as he sees so many tender exotics in the most healthy and flourishing condition, with no other protection than the ruined walls. One plant of Fuschia discolor is so remarkable, that a friend and I had the curiosity to measure it, and found that it was eighteen feet in height by twenty-two feet in breadth. It sows itself so freely, that a numerous offspring may be seen springing from the border, and even from the chinks and crevices of the walls.

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but what is sour, unsavoury, and unwholesome! Up, then, and be doing, thou servant of the Lord! Thou canst not change their nature, but thou canst bud, and ingraft, and dig, and water, under the directions of the great spiritual Husbandman, who is ready, in answer to thy prayers, to prosper the work of thy hand, and to render it successful. And should not every parent likewise be up and active? The field assigned to him may be small, but is it not precious? and should he not most earnestly desire that it may be as a field which the Lord has blessed-watered, as the garden of the Lord, with wells of living water, and streams from Lebanon-every olive plant grafted and fruitful, and every vine branch from the right stock, and already laden with purple clusters?

We took a walk in the forenoon towards the southern extremity of the bay; but it yielded nothing except the pleasure of the walk. The time has been, when the ground over which we passed must have been five fathoms under water; for, in the wooded bank at this place, about thirty feet above the present sea-level, there is a deposit of post-tertiary marine shells; and I have been told that there is opposite to it, on the Holy Isle, a corresponding deposit. A great treat awaited us in the afternoon. We learned, that the fisherman of late has been in the habit of dredging in the bay for scallop (Pecten opercularis),* to be used as bait; and we had hired his boat and dredging apparatus. There is nothing so delightful to naturalists at all acquainted with the wonders of the deep, as a dredging expedition; for it brings within their reach much that they could not otherwise expect to see. We were disappointed on finding that the larger boat was under repair; and as the small boat would have been unsafe with seven aboard, we set the females ashore on the Holy Isle, with instructions to visit ST MOLIOS' cave, while we were carrying on the dredging operations. While rowing to the dredging ground, we looked with delight around us. Seaward, our view was bounded by the Holy Isle; landward, we had not only the hills and glens around Lamlash, but, towering above these humbler heights, we saw Goatfell and the adjoining cliff's, forming a noble background of rugged grandeur. The bay itself. smooth as glass, reflecting, as in a mirror, the surrounding scene, gave us not only

It is pleasant to see, under the influence of taste, and skill, and active industry, the face of nature assuming a more smiling aspect, and the grateful earth rendering more bountiful returns; but how much more pleasant to see any portion of the moral wilderness beginning to blossom, and, instead of the natural crop of thistles and thorns, rearing trees of righteous-mountains rising to the sky, but similar peaks deness, soon to flourish in a happier land! As we are all bound to have a share in this spiritual husbandry, should we not individually say to ourselves, What have we been doing? Ministers of the Gospel have a great responsibility; for to cach of them a large portion of the field to be reclaimed is assigned. It is not all unproductive. Here and there, there are blossoms of hope, and sweet olive plants that need to be watered; and here and there, there are trees, over which the storms of many winters have passed, and which need to be sustained. Should not the spiritual labourer go often to see whether the vine flourish-whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranate bud forth whether the fig tree put forth her green figs, and the vine with the tender grape give a good smell? But, alas! when he looks for vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates, how often does he find only crab trees and wild olives, yielding, instead of mellow fruit, nothing

scending into the deep recesses of the sea. But we were about to explore these recesses for something else than mountain shadows. Accordingly, the dredging began, and the first haul brought up some dozens of scallops. The scallops (or Pectens) are a beautiful tribe, and both the shell and its inhabitant show forth the praises of the Lord. Are any disposed to think the scallop must lead a joyless life, lying inert in the dungeons of the deep? The Pecten, let me tell them, is a happy, active creature. It can raise itself to the surface, and though unaided by fins, can skim cleverly through the waves. I have seen a little fleet of them skipping about most merrily, as if engaged in some frolicsome dance. On watching their zig-zag evolutions, I found that their valves were to them in the water what wings are to a bird They are better known in Scotland under the name of clams.

in the air. Every time they opened and shut their valves, they were rapidly propelled several yards, and they had only to repeat the operation and their sportive movement was continued. Others may say: "What a pity, poor things, that they are blind!" Your pity is again misplaced. You are happy in having two eyes, and will you pity the scallop which has three dozen? Look at it when it opens its shell. See you a circle of beads around the margin of its body, both in the upper and under valves? These pretty beads are sparkling eyes; so that He who made it, and made it to be happy, left it not to grope its way in darkness, either in the mazes of the dance or when engaged in searching for food at the bottom of the sea. But we were in search of something rarer than scallops, and now for the result.

Though at one haul we had got abundance of scallops or clams, it was not for the clams that we much cared, but for their parasitical accompaniments. Accordingly, we scraped off, with great care, what few would have thought deserving of the smallest notice; for though, in the huddled state in which they adhered to the shell on being removed from the water, we could not precisely say what they were, we were sure that they were well worth attending to. We were not disappointed. On floating them in fresh water, on our return to the shore, we found that we had got several species of rare and beautiful alga. There were some small, but very fine specimens of Laurencia dasyphylla. There were four most beautiful species of Calithamnion-C. plumula, C. byssuides, C. gracillimum, and C. pedicellatum. There were also specimens of Bonnemaisonia asparagoides, deriving its specific name from its resemblance to a branch of asparagus, though, instead of being green, is pink. There were, besides, some specimens of Griffithsia corallina-a beautiful plant, which we had not before met with in the west of Scotland. It has been named Griffithsia as a tribute of respect to a worthy English lady, highly deserving of the honour, whom we sometimes denominate the Queen of Algologists.*

These beautiful algae were not the only parasites on the scallop shells. There was something more conspicuous, as it was about four inches in length, but certainly it did not seem more attractive. It was like a drookit white feather. But place it again in the water, and what does it become? It has recovered its state of collapse, and, though still like a feather, it is one of great beauty and elegance. It is Plumularia pinnata—a zoophyte; for we have risen in the scale of being, and have now got among living creatures. You would not think that that beautiful white feather had life; but it is only the habitations that you see. The alarmed inhabitants have fled into their houses. But place the polypidom, as it is called, in a tumbler of sea water, and when the alarm is over, the inhabitants will again appear. polypes are hydra-form, and spread forth many tentacula in search of food, which they greedily grasp. The feather is formed of calcareous matter, mixed with gelatine, to give it flexibility, so that it may the better stand the buffeting of the waves. Observe *Mrs Griffith's, Torquay.

The

the stem or quill of the feather, and you will see that it is full of red matter. That is the medullary pulp. Every plumule of the feather is a street. Even with the naked eye you may observe on each plumule about a dozen notches or denticles. Each of these is the house or cell, as it is called, of a polype; so that, in a good specimen, we see a kind of marine village, which, under the teaching of God, has been beautifully constructed by the thousand inhabitants which it contains.

Along with this, we got some specimens of a kindred zoophyte, of great beauty-Plumularia Catkarina; specifically so named in honour of a highly accomplished lady,* to whom natural history is under great obligations. Neither of these had been got by us in the west before. There were several other pretty zoophytes, which some will thank me for passing over unnamed. I may, however, mention that on the frond of Laminaria I got several good specimens of Lepralia annulata a zoophyte which was new to Britain when I found it on the Ayrshire coast some years ago.

Every haul of the dredge brought us up something to increase the variety. There were several kinds of star-fishes such as Uraster glacialis (spiny crossfish); Goniaster Templetoni (Templeton's cushionstar-rare); and many others which I shall pass over, that I may attempt to describe one of surpassing beauty, not got on the west coast of Scotland, I be lieve, since the days of our distinguished zoologist, Pennant. This is Comatula rosacea, or the featherstar. It is one which, even in dredging, a person who does not know it is apt to pass over. It has no beauty when entangled among the roots of Lami naria. Fortunately, however, I took the trouble of disentangling it, and great was my delight when, having cast it into a tumbler of sea water, I saw it spreading itself out in all its beauty. Could I place before you Professor Forbes' fine figure of it, you could not help admiring it. If you saw a fine little scarlet ostrich feather in the water, waving with life, you would say: "What a beautiful object!" How much stronger would be your expressions of admiration if, from the disc, or body in the centre, you s proceeding some twenty or thirty of these scarlet plumes, instinct with life, and exhibiting the most graceful evolutions! What gives greater interest to it is, that in its young state this scarlet feather-star is mounted on a stem, and then it is the representstive of a tribe of marine animals now rare, but which, in an early period of the world's history, must have been very common, viz., encrinites, or stone-lilies; for their stems are abundant in almost every limestone quarry, and their detached joints are well known under the name of St Cuthbert's beads. These ancient encrinites must have been giants compared with those of the present day; but great, and nume rous, and lively as they once were, they now lie entombed in the calcareous mud, hardened into limestone, and elevated by some great convulsion from the bottom of the sea. And numerous and mighty

* Mrs Catharine Johnston, Berwick-upon-Tweed, to whom her husband, Dr George Johnston, is indebted for all the drawings, and many of the engravings, in his valuable works.

A WORD TO PARENTS.

as the human inhabitants at present on the face of the earth may appear in their own eyes, the time is fast approaching when the all-devouring grave shall have closed upon them, and the place that now knows them shall know them no more.

But leaving the star-fishes, we came to a kindred tribe-the sea-urchins. Besides the common one (Echinus sphæra), and a less common one (Echinus miliaris), we got one which is certainly very rare in the west of Scotland, for I had never got it before, viz., Spatangus purpureus. Every person knows the common one found so abundantly on the shore, stripped of its spines, and called the sea-egg. The spines of the common one are a yellowish-white colour. Those on the back and sides are hair-like, and pointed. Those on the under parts of the body are spoon-shaped, and are employed as shovels. The wisdom and goodness of God are very evident in the formation of these spines, so well fitted for burrowing. I remember placing one, which had been dug up, on wet sand. It seemed to be motionless; but I soon found that the spoon-shaped spines were busily at work beneath, shovelling the sand from under it, so that it was sinking in the sand, while the long sharp upper ones were soon as busily employed in spreading the loose sand over it. The purple-hearturchin which we now found, is larger and handsomer than the common one. It is a deep purple colour, with pale spines. Some of the spines on the back are very long, corresponding well with the figure of it given in Professor Forbes' History of British StarFishes, &c. It was gratifying to find on it a few specimens of Montacuta substriata, which is well known to be parasitical on the purple-heart-urchin. This beautiful little bivalve was an addition to my cabinet of shells, as I had never seen it before. Why it chooses to nestle among the spines of the purpleheart-urchin I cannot tell; but undoubtedly there is some good reason.

It would exhaust the patience of my readers were I to enumerate the rare and beautiful shells we found. They are, however, objects of great interest; and both the shells and their inhabitants, whether great or small, are well fitted to show forth the wonderful wisdom and goodness of the Lord. As above a hundred species were found now and on a former occasion, and as many of them were rare, I shall not venture even to make a selection. A complete list of them is published in the "Annals of Natural History."

But some of our readers, who like to hear of what can be turned to good account, may perhaps say: "Got you no fish when you were dredging?" Yes; I am happy to say we did get one fish-and that one "What was it, pray?" It was new to Scotland.*

Since I wrote the above, I have received a letter from William Thompson, Esq., Belfast, to whom I had sent the little fish, that there might be no mistake in my statement as to the species. He says: "Lepidogaster bimaculatuscertain. I had it before, if memory fails not, from the Scottish coast; but 'tis a species only to be had by dredging, and consequently known to very few. The L. Cornubiensis is littoral, at least on the coast of Clare, where I took it between tide marks." I may add, that it is littoral also at the Mull of Galloway, where it was taken by the Rev. Mr Lamb, the worthy Free Church minister at Maidenkirk,

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was Lepidogaster bimaculatus! But long though the name be, I must own that the fish itself is not quite so long and large as a whale; so that our Scottish fishermen need not expect any additional hogsheads of blubber. Nay, it is not even so long as a haddock; so that the table will not groan under it when served up. How long was it, then?" It was (for it was fullgrown)-it was nearly. . . . an inch and ahalf in length! But though it may not furnish much nourishment for the body, it is our own fault if it yield not some food for the mind. It has an organ to be found in few of our British fishes; that is, a sucker, by which it can firmly adhere to other bodies. In general, this adhesive apparatus is on the under surface of the body. In one, however, it is on the crown of the head, and by this it has been found adhering to the haddock. God gives no organ in vain. It is probable, however, that this adhesive apparatus is for more purposes than we yet know of. But we see that it may be useful for support and for protection. The Remora, which has the sucker on the upper part of the head, has been found adhering to another fish; and it is thus wafted through the waves without any expenditure of its own strength. Others of them cling by it to rocks and stones; and this may afford protection, and may save them from being dashed to pieces in the storm. There is one kind, called the Lump sucker, which, from it size and clumsiness, might be very apt to suffer in stormy seas, were not its power of adhesion very great. Pennant mentions, "that on placing a fish of this kind in a pail of water, it fixed itself so firmly to the bottom, that on taking it by the tail, the whole pail by that means was lifted up, though it contained some gallons, and that without removing the fish from its hold." Small, then, though the Bimaculated sucker is, which we found on this occasion, is it not well fitted to teach us a lesson of wisdom? Often is the believer placed, as it were, in troubled seas; but there is a rock which no storm can move. That rock is Christ. The little fish may be driven from its hold, and may perish in the storm; but let the believer, in the exercise of faith, cling to Christ, and he is perfectly safe in the greatest tempest; for not only has he a hold of Christ, but Christ keeps fast hold of him, and no power in heaven, or earth, or hell, can pluck the believer out of the Redeemer's hand.

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visited will be always remembered. It stereotypes itself in the mind; and its graceful proportions can be recalled without an effort, nay, sometimes without

a wish.

self-complacency, than their having been easily, and in conformity with prevailing custom, admitted to Christian fellowship-their having, in compliance with counsel and persuasion, "gone forward to the table”—“ taken the sacrament." There are, indeed, in this matter, two extremes. There is the extreme of The season made it requisite for us to leave Milan representing the Lord's supper as a great and fear- towards nightfall, and to travel by night; and as we ful mystery-surrounding it with the barriers of in- were now in the land of brigands and banditti, an timidation" fencing the table" with the terrors of escort was needed for our safety. Two gens-d'armes, hell; thus alarming and keeping back the more well mounted, and equipped for whatever might betimid and self-distrustful, the very class who ought to be encouraged; while the bolder and more conti- fall, were engaged, and we slowly took the road to dent, simply because less seriously impressed and less Brescia, with an armed horseman on either side. worthy of encouragement, are insensible to the de- Pillage, and even murder, had been not infrequent signed restraint, and break through. And there is, about that period along the route, so that every traon the other hand, the extreme of formalism and veller was constrained to journey thus defended; and custom--regarding it as one of the duties which beas we hurried along in silence, and sometimes in come incumbent at a particular period of life, and urging compliance with it when that period arrives; alarm, we had occasion to ruminate again on the parents being uneasy when it passes, till they have strange contrast between the land of Italy and the prevailed with their children to "come to the table;" | Italians-the one rich, luxuriant, and laden with forgetting that, till they have reason to believe them abundance-the other in many cases wretched, deto have undergone that change without which "no one can enter into the kingdom of God," the pressing this contrast? Do we ascribe it to their wretched generate, and reckless even of human life. Whence government? Is it to be traced to their yet more wretched superstition? Have habits of industry been lost by their frequent wars, and the military despotism under which they live? Or is there some peculiarity in the Italian constitution which renders so many of them lawless and wild, just as the Caribs have degenerated into cannibals, and the South Sea Islanders into thieves? Whatever be the explanation, certain it is that the traveller in Italy has sometimes been compelled to become a man of bloodshed, in selfdefence, so rapacious and unbridled are its people in

of the observance of the outward rite is but one of the many modes of deluding their souls. The first object of parents should be to bring their children to Christ; and as soon as, with calm conviction and sweet satisfaction and joy, they see their minds spiritually enlightened, and their hearts surrendered to him; then it becomes more than right, it becomes imperative, to suggest and urge the propriety and duty of "confessing Christ" by uniting in the fellowship of his Church-by applying for a place at his table. Such suggestion becomes specially incumbent, when decision of principle is associated, as it often is, with constitutional diffidence and back

wardness.-Memoir of the Rev. J. Reid of Bellary, by Dr Wardlaw.

THE CITIES OF ITALY.

BY THE REV. W. K. Tweedie, EDINBURGH, ́

BRESCIA VERONA-VICENZA-PADUA-VENICE.

"THE fatal gift of beauty," bestowed on Italy, has made it an object of cupidity to every conqueror from Hannibal to Napoleon. The history of many centuries is crowded with details of its conquest by various masters-its invasion by Goths, Huns, Vandals, Gauls, and other tribes, till every plain is memorable as a battle-field, and every city as the scene of some plot, or siege, or stratagem of war. The whole country seems so obviously designed for the gentle employments of peace, while it has been so thoroughly and so often overrun by devastating war, that the whole history of Italy exhibits the doings of man in direct and manifest conflict with the purposes of God. All around Milan, for example, the country is like one great battle-plain, where the teeming productiveness of earth has an hundred times been trodden down by the iron heel of war.

In leaving that city, and taking a last look of its cathedral, we felt reconciled to another change of scene by the fact, that once seen it could never be forgotten. Like the Apollo in the Vatican, the Falls of the Rhine, the Cascade at Terni, the basaltic caves at Staffa, and some other spectacles which thousands hasten to gaze at, the Milan Cathedral once

certain of its districts. As we travelled along the route from Milan to Venice, we bought whole handfuls of figs for a baiocco (halfpenny). Peaches, and other luscious fruits were equally abundant; and yet the peasantry seemed haggard and wretched, as if, in some way or other, there were something political, municipal, or religious, "grinding the faces of the poor."

Brescia the Brixia of the Romans-is signalized in various respects. It has sometimes been the arena on which men, in this land of despotism, tried to contend for some degree of liberty. Some bold thinkers have appeared in it from time to time; at the Reformation there were converts there who struggled to throw off the incubus under which Europe was groaning; but under such oppression as that which weg's down the Italians, the love of liberty too often becomes a lawless passion, rather than a steady principle; and in consequence of this, those who, in other circu stances, would have been the friends of freedom, bave often been precipitated into measures which hindered rather than promoted the accomplishment of their object. Gentler remedies, they thought, would have been unavailing. Bolder efforts were, therefore, Lade, sometimes by exasperated or destructive passions; and the result of the failure consequent on such proceed ings is ever more grinding bondage than before-more systematic, and what is worse, more defensible oppression on the part of the ruler-more abject prostration on the part of the ruled. It has been thus repeatedly in Italy; and a history of these suppressed revolts-these fruitless efforts at the securing of freedom, would form a curious chapter in the history of

THE CITIES OF ITALY.

the nation. But could the Italians enjoy freedom, in their present state of ignorance, although they possessed it? Is there principle-is there virtue -is there religion enough, either to found or to cement a right political system-a system of steady rule, and not a succession of civil throes and convulsions? While Popery tyrannizes over the mind, is not despotism the only power that can coerce men into social order?

But Brescia, which is an active, stirring town for Italy, is signalized also by the remains of an ancient temple, discovered and disinterred about twenty years ago. It was dedicated or restored from decay by the Emperor Vespasian-burned amid the convulsions of the fourth or fifth centuries, and then buried beneath the rubbish poured from the edifices and rocks on the adjoining hill. The taste of the ruin tells who were the builders; while the fragments of exquisite art discovered among the rubbish exhibit again how cultivated men may become, and yet continue ignorant of the living and true God. The hand that moulded that beautiful image of Mercury, so aerial and light that it seems as if it needed no material support, was the hand of a Pagan. The mind that conceived the ornaments sculptured on that vase and that cenotaph was one in which all the abominations of Heathenism ruled. Jehovah was an unknown God to the builders and beautifiers of that temple. Amid all their delicate perceptions of the fair and the lovely in materialism, they could form no conception of "the beauty of holiness." The Chief Good and the Chief End were alike unknown; and one felt, as he stood on the tessellated pavement of the Temple of Brescia, that the chief pleasure which it occasioned arose from the fact, that such a structure had passed away-that another line of the mysterious history of our race and God's purposes with us had been there decyphered, and another step taken in the accomplishment of that mighty plan, according to which all are to know God, God in Christ, from the least to the greatest. We could admire the taste of the artist, while we deplored the ignorance of God in which he lived-must we addin which he died? At the same time, the thought shot into the mind, that only the objects of man's idolatry are changed since Vespasian's Temple at Brescia became a ruin-not man himself. Accomplished artists then, were without God, and without hope in the world—(Eph. ii. 12), and how many in our own free land-accomplished-lettered-elegant in mind, according to the standard of earth-are equally ignorant of him, and the salvation unfolded by his Son! But why advert to others? Commune with thine own heart. Hast thou acquainted thyself with God? Dost thou know Him whom to know is life eternal (1 John v. 20), apart from whom all is spiritual death?-(1 John v. 12).

But our movements must be onward, like those of time; and as one traverses this fair land, he comes to understand better than when he tried at school to spell and syllable the lines, why Italy was thus apostrophized of old :

"Salve, magna parens frugum, Saturnia Tellus,}
Magna virôm."

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resorted to by Catullus, and still, as of old, a noble lake (thirty-five miles by fourteen) might detain us long, were this the place for classical enthusiasm; but the city of

VERONA

now demands our notice. It claims an antiquity superior to that of Rome; and is famed as the birthplace of Cornelius Nepos and Catullus. It presents such a medley of the modern and the antique, the classical and the grotesque, that the power of contrast makes notable. Its modern history, as the seat of wars and congresses, and the temporary abode of emperors, kings, and princes, has given to it more than usual importance. The Adige, which washes it, has run red with blood; and the houses are still scarred and shattered by the bullets of Massena's army, when he and the Austrians contended here. But these are ephemeral things, already sinking into oblivion, while the effects of Roman rule, and the grandeur that characterized all Roman efforts, still continue to stamp their character on the place, as if the Romans had but lately passed away. Scipio Maffei has added to the modern attractions of Verona by his genius and embellishments; but after all, it is Rome humbled, yet still influential Romethe Rome of eighteen centuries ago, that presides over Verona. The chief street is spanned by a triumphal arch of Roman times; and though the theatre of Palladio, the tomb of the Scaligers, and other marvels, attract attention, one is constantly drawn away from these, as if by a secret charm, to admire the still massive power of Rome, embodied as it is in remains, having for their object the pampering of personal and national vanity, or the feeding of that craving for blood which followed the Romans even into their sports.

We refer mainly to the amphitheatre of Verona, which was reared by Domitian or Trajan, or both. Excavations carried on over its vast extent during the congress of 1822, have laid bare the whole interior of the colossal pile, and in ten minutes, nay, almost in the twinkling of an eye, one learns more of such structures than he ever gleaned from all who ever treated of Roman antiquities. The benches for the patricians, the equites, and plebs-the various approaches and vomitories for spectators-the dens for wild beasts, and the passages for them to enter the arena-the spot where the judges presided, and Roman matrons decided when the gladiator had conquered, or when he must die; in short, all that can indicate how bloodshed was reduced to system, and employed to grace a holiday by this majestic people, can be traced at a glance. The structure has undergone a kind of resurrection; and, in point of duration, may actually be regarded as only in its infancy, so massive and durable does it seem. The height of the exterior wall was one hundred and sixty feet. The highest gallery is about one hundred feet from the ground. The circumference is one thousand three hundred and fifty feet, and it is calculated that the amphitheatre could contain about fifty thousand spectators, or nearly the entire modern population of Verona.

To heighten the effect of this vast pile, a company

The Lago di Guarda (Benacus) sung by Virgil, of players, in a wooden boath erected on the arena,

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