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 our way to Milan we ftopped a fhort 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 fuftained here against Marc Antony.

We proceeded next to Parma, a beautiful town, confiderably larger than Modena,

and

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 whifper from the ftage is heard all over this immenfe houfe; but nobody tells us on what circumftance in the conftruction this furprifing effect depends.

The Modenese was the native country of Correggio, but he paffed moft 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 so greatly admired for the grandeur of the design and the boldness of the fore-fhortenings. It is

now

now spoiled in fuch a manner, that its principal beauties are not easily 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 fupreme 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, the inexpreffible gracefulness of the defign, and the exquifite tenderness of the expreffion. After I had heard all those 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 respectable body

of

of connoiffeurs were agreed in opinion, and I should most readily fubmit mine to theirs? But while the above eulogium ftill refounded in my ears, other connoiffeurs have afferted 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 Jesus in her present pofition; that he has the look of an ideot; and that the Virgin herself is but a vulgar figure, and feems not a great deal wifer; that the angels have a ridiculous fimper, and moft abominable air of affectation ; and finally, that St. Jerom has the appearance of a sturdy beggar, who intrudes his brawny figure where it has no right to be.

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 fhall leave the picture as I found it, to answer

1

for

for itself, with a fingle 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 wifhed to appear quite celeftial.

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 whose branches the vines hang in beautiful feftoons. We had the pleafure 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 cheerful appearance. The women are fuccefffully attentive to the ornaments of drefs,