performed the first three posts (i. e. 15 miles) in an hour. The lower we proceed the finer is the appearance of the trees, corn, and general productions on the side of the mountains, which are still very lofty but verdant. We continue to be carried at an amazing rate, along the edge of gulfs from whose scaring depths we are secured only by the precautionary fences of this grand work of human skill and labour, which, from its having removed so many of those difficulties and dangers that formerly attended the passage, is truly a work of public beneficence. As such indeed every one who has passed it either ascending or descending must regard the road over Mont Cenis. It is with feelings of consideration bordering on gratitude, that we acknowledge it to be an honour to the memory of Napoleon; but we cannot overlook the ambitious obliquity of his views as a Conqueror, even in thus making the "the crooked ways straight" and "the rough places plain" (for the transit of artillery and for all the purposes of war); nor do we forget the impiety of his vain boast, after this work and that of the Simplon were completed, that "the Alps were no more.”*

• The overweening and presumptuous confidence with which the late Imperial Ruler of France, even after the ever-memorable chastisement of his ambition in Russia, looked forward to the security of his then widely extended empire, was never more completely proved than by the decree, which, in June, 1813, he issued from the battle-field of Wurtchen:—“ A monument (said Buonaparte) shall be erected on MONT CENIS. Upon the front, looking towards Paris shall be inscribed the names of all our Cantons of Departments on this side of the Alps. Upon the front, looking towards Milan, shall be inscribed the names of all our Cantons of Departments beyond the Alps, and of our Kingdom of Italy. On the most conspicuous part of the monument shall be engraved the following inscription: The Emperor Napoleon upon the field of battle of Wurtchen, ordered the erection of this monument to his people of France and Italy; and to trans

As we go lower and lower into the Piedmontese territory the prospects, hitherto exclusively distinguished by features of the highest sublimity, exhibit such a combination of all that is both beautiful and grand, as no words can describe. Arrived at Mollaret, we find ourselves on the point of entering more galleries cut in the solid rock, some to render the declivity easier, others to place the traveller in a state of shelter from avalanches. Still further down is the village of Novalese on the left bank of the Cinisella. The rich valley of the Dora (Riparia) bounded by lofty ridges covered with vegetation is hence displayed in a splendid picture, of which the horizontal line is so com prehensive as scarcely to exclude from our sight the neighbourhood of Turin itself:

"Lakes, forests, cities, plains extending wide,

"The pomp of kings, the shepherd's humbler pride."

Pursuing thence a continuation of the same grand route, at half-past eleven in the forenoon, we entered Susa, a small but handsome place, situated at the foot of Mont Cenis, at the confluence of the Cinisella with the Dora. It

mit to the most distant posterity the remembrance of that celebrated epoch, when, in three months 1,200,000 men ran to arms to insure the integrity of the empire and of his allies."-In less than a twelvemonth after, the capital of the said empire was in the possession of an army, not his allies. In another twelvemonth, returned from Elba but routed at Waterloo, Napoleon himself was a captive at St. Helena!

Nugent in his "Grand Tour," published 1778, thus describes what kind of travelling it was at that date, from Novalese to Lans-le-bourg, over Mont Cenis:-"Here you take mules to ascend the hills; the way is broad enough; but uneven and full of stones. In winter, as the ice and snows render it dangerous and difficult riding, travellers generally choose to be carried in sedans, by a sort of chairmen called Maroni, who climb up these mountains like goats, and mind neither wind nor weather."

is the first town of Piedmont. The upper parts command some superb views. It also contains a very interesting proof of its great antiquity, in a triumphal arch, said to have been erected to the honour of Augustus in the 740th year of Rome. I walked a mile, beneath a burning sun, up the steep rock on which the old castle stands, to see these Roman remains. My guide led me through the garden of the Governor's house to a gate opening upon the mountains, and close under the walls outside the town, I beheld the arch, in a hollow way, apparently neglected, and as an object of ancient art, shorn of its best effect by being subjected to a disadvantageous approach. But the object is well worthy of inspection: it is simply elegant in its architectural design, constructed of a light red stone, and tolerably well preserved. The entablature is ornamented with a sacrificial group.

There were extensive decorations about the old edifice, which the Commandant of the town resides in, that instantly reminded me of my being arrived in Italy. Fresco paintings, of scriptural and legendary subjects, in bright colours and by no means ill executed, meet the eye at every turn and corner. Not only are the fronts of their churches and chapels surcharged with these pictorial ornaments; but the municipal edifices, and even the dwellings of private individuals, nay the very walls and signs of inns are dedicated to personal representations, large as life, of the Virgin Mary, St. Francis, St. Anthony, and a whole calendar of Saints and Saintesses.

From Susa an excellent road bears us through a valley, bounded right and left by finely foliaged mountains of the second and third magnitude, and filled with vineyards, orchards of fruit, and fields of clover and Indian corn.

The Dora, issuing from Mount Genévre, flows through this district, and enables the cultivator to irrigate and fertilise what would otherwise be an arid plain. The Gothic castle of Bussolino attracts the regards of the stranger, and reminds him of feudal times, when the town itself might possibly have been more interesting than it now is: as to its inhabitants, I conceive they could at no period have been more wretched than they appear to be at this moment. The recollection of Juvenal's allusion-Quis tumidum guttur miratur in Alpibus? failed even in Savoy to reconcile us to a grievance, not the less revolting to modern travellers because it was known to ancient ones. What however shall we say now? For although no longer among the deep, cliff-encompassed basins of that country, but on the borders of "Fair Italy," and fair indeed are her borders-yet even here we see many goitrous persons, and not a few Cretins.

The next relay to Susa is Saint George, the site of another ancient strong-hold. The barbican, the keep, the baronial-house, the chapel, with other buildings and outworks, surrounded with embattled walls, cover a rocky mound of considerable extent. These fine ruins of castellated architecture again carry us back to days of yore; whilst a street formed of hovels, and their inmates in the most woeful state of destitution, would seem to tell us, that though the country teems with plenty and abounds in beauty; yet its advantages are not destined for the relief of indigence, nor its charms for the solace of age and infirmity. If the importunate and pestering applications of beggars proved a drawback on our satisfaction in traversing the French towns, this entrée into Italy is infested with a still greater annoyance to, our feelings in the

shocking appearance of most of the mendicant train. Many of these poor creatures were truly deplorable objects. One old woman, who approached close to the side of our carriage at "the witching time" of changing horses, presented in her person a portentous assemblage of deformities! Near the little town of Saint Antonin, we observed people employed in a singular mode of thrashing: the work is done by means of a machine resembling the paddles of a steam-boat, drawn by horses round upon the corn as it lies spread out in the farm yard.

A short distance from the town of St. Ambrozio is St. Michael's Mount, on whose pyramidic summit, about 800 feet high, stands a celebrated monastery, which previous to the revolution belonged to the Benedictines. It is now unoccupied as a religious establishment. The extensive buildings, including the church, erected with a whimsical mixture of grandeur and inconvenience on the very edge of the precipice, appear to be going fast into decay.— This hill-convent forms a remarkably striking feature in the landscape of the Dorian valley, which here becomes amplified and enriched, as the nearest range of hills on each side, with few exceptions, gradually lose their loftiness.

Beyond St. Ambrozio, about a mile and a half, is Avigliano, where a very large chateau or monastery stands on an insulated hill of commanding elevation. From almost the first moment of our quitting Susa, we were, as if under some irresistible fascination, incessantly looking back towards the Alpine regions from which we had so recently descended. When in close vicinity, their encompassing grandeur fills-it overwhelms, the sight. But it was from this point that a retrospective glance at