All that it hoped
My heart believed,
And when most trusting,
Was most deceived.
A shadow hath fallen
O'er my young years;
And hopes when brightest,
Were quench'd in tears.
I make no plaint--
I breathe no sigh--
My lips can smile,
And mine eyes are dry.
I ask no pity,
I hope no cure--
The heart, tho' broken,
Can live, and endure!
We left Milan two days ago, and arrived early the same day at Brescia;
there is, I believe, very little to see there, and of that little, I
saw nothing,--being too ill and too low for the slightest exertion.
The only pleasurable feeling I can remember was excited by our
approach to the Alps, after traversing the flat, fertile,
uninteresting plains of Lombardy. The peculiar sensation of elevation
and delight, inspired by mountain scenery, can only be understood by
those who have felt it: at least I never had formed an idea of it till
I found myself ascending the Jura.
But Brescia ought to be immortalized in the history of our travels:
for there, stalking down the Corso--_le nez en l'air_--we met our
acquaintance L----, from whom we had parted last on the pavé of
Piccadilly. I remember that in London I used to think him not
remarkable for wisdom,--and his travels have infinitely improved
him--in folly. He boasted to us triumphantly that he had run over
sixteen thousand miles in sixteen months: that he had bowed at the
levée of the Emperor Alexander,--been slapped on the shoulder by the
Archduke Constantine,--shaken hands with a Lapland witch,--and been
presented in full volunteer uniform at every court between Stockholm
and Milan. Yet is he not one particle wiser than if he had spent the
same time in walking up and down the Strand. He has contrived,
however, to pick up on his tour, strange odds and ends of foreign
follies, which stick upon the coarse-grained materials of his own John
Bull character like tinfoil upon sackcloth: so that I see little
difference between what he was, and what he is, except that from a
_simple goose_,--he has become a compound one. With all this, L---- is
not unbearable--not _yet_ at least. He amuses others as a butt--and me
as a specimen of a new genus of fools: for his folly is not like any
thing one usually meets with. It is not, _par exemple_, the folly of
stupidity, for he talks much; nor of dullness, for he laughs much; nor
of ignorance, for he has seen much; nor of wrong-headedness, for he
can be guided right; nor of bad-heartedness, for he is good-natured;
nor of thoughtlessness, for he is prudent; nor of extravagance, for he
can calculate even to the value of half a lira: but it is an essence
of folly, peculiar to himself, and like Monsieur Jacques's melancholy,
"compounded of many simples, extracted from various objects, and the
sundry contemplation of his travels." So much, for the present, of our
friend L----.
We left Brescia early yesterday morning, and after passing Desenzano,
came in sight of the Lago di Garda. I had from early associations a
delightful impression of the beauty of this lake, and it did not
disappoint me. It is far superior, I think, to the Lago Maggiore,
because the scenery is more _resserrè_, lies in a smaller compass, so
that the eye takes in the separate features more easily. The mountains
to the north are dark, broken, and wild in their forms, and their
bases seemed to extend to the water edge: the hills to the south are
smiling, beautiful, and cultivated, studded with white flat-roofed
buildings, which glitter one above another in the sunshine. Our drive
along the promontory of Sirmione, to visit the ruins of the Villa of
Catullus, was delightful. The fresh breeze which ruffled the dark blue
lake, revived my spirits, and chased away my head-ache. I was inclined
to be enchanted with all I saw; and when our guide took us into an old
cellar choked with rubbish, and assured us gravely that it was the
very spot in which Catullus had written his Odes to Lesbia. I did not
laugh in his face; for, after all, it would be as easy to prove that
_it is_, as that it is _not_. The old town and castle of Sirmio are
singularly picturesque, whether viewed from above or below, and the
grove of olives which crowned the steep extremity of the promontory,
interested us, being the first we had seen in Italy: on the whole I
fully enjoyed the early part of this day.