uncommon-who can say it is wonderful—that the wretched being abbreviates the term of his afflictions, and anticipates the too tardy hand of death in a paroxysm of suicidal mania! It is remarkable that this tendency to selfdestruction very often assumes the form of a desire to consummate that last act of the tragedy by drowning-so much so that STRAMBI, a writer on the pellagra, has given it the name of HYDROMANIA, when this propensity exists. Whatever may be the precise nature of the cause of this dreadful disease, it is certain that it is almost universally confined to those who reside in the country, leading an agricultural life-and to the lowest orders of society. It is not bounded by any age-being frequently seen in the youngest children. The whole of the flat country on both sides of the river Po-but more especially the fertile and level plains between that river and the Alps, are the theatre and head-quarters of pellagra. I have only sketched the more prominent features of the complaint, and I have by no means magnified either its horrors or its prevalency. If those who doubt this statement will consult the native writers on the malady, as Strambi, Trapolli, Soler, Zanetti, and many others, they will acknowledge that I have softened rather than exaggerated the picture. Such is the sweeping and terrible scourge of those beautiful and fertile plains that furnish themes of admiration for the poet, the painter, the no velist, and the romantic tourist ! Had Rogers and Wordsworth, while celebrating the borders of Como and the Lago Maggiore, representing them as terrestrial paradises, been acquainted with the pestilence that afflicted one seventh of the inhabitants, they would have curbed a little their poetic fancies or added a back ground to the picture : Where the world danced Listening to Monti, quaffing gramolata, And reading in the eyes, that sparkled round, Ten thousand love-adventures written there.-ROGERS. of many learned The cause of this frightful endemic has engaged the pens doctors. But it is just as inscrutable as the causes of hepatitis on the coast of Coromandel, elephantiasis in Malabar, Beriberi in Ceylon, Barbadoes leg in the Antilles, goitre among the Alps-the plica in Poland-cretinism in the Vallais or malaria in the Campagna di Roma! It is an emanation from the soil; but whether conveyed in the air we breathe, the food we eat, or the Milan Hospital, the various diseases to which pellagra forms the adjective, as atrophia pellagrina, phthisis pellagrina, hydrops pellagrinus, paralysis pellagrina, mania pellagrina, &c. MALARIOUS PHYSIOGNOMY. 77 water we drink, is unknown. If this, or any of the endemics which I have mentioned, depended on the filth or dirty habits of the people, we ought to have similar complaints in Sion, or the Jews' quarter in Rome, the narrow lanes of Naples, and the stinking allies of all Italian towns and cities. But such is not the case. The Jews' quarter in Rome is the dirtiest and the healthiest spot in that famous city. The inhabitants of Fondi, Itri, and other wretched villages in the Neapolitan dominions, are eaten up with dirt, starvation, and malaria, but no pellagra, no elephantiasis, no goitre, no cretinism is to be seen. The inevitable and the rational inference is, that each country, where peculiar or endemic maladies prevail, produces them from some hidden source, which human knowledge has not yet been able to penetrate. The general opinion among the medical men of the Milanese is, that the pellagra results from the extreme poverty and low unwholesome diet of the peasantry. It might moderate the wailings of the English farmers, and even their labourers, if they knew the condition of their own ranks on those fertile plains so bepraised by our poets and travellers. Let us hear what a recent writer (M. Jourdain) says :—“ Quoique la Lombardie soit une des contrées les plus fertiles de l'Europe, l'habitant des campagnes se nourrit presque exclusivement de végétaux, de pain de seigle mal cuit et aigre, de riz, de bled de Turquie, preparé de plusieurs manieres, &c. Il mange rarement de la viande, et, quoique le sol qu'il foule aux pieds produise de la vigne, sa pauvreté lui interdit le vin. Il n'a, pour etancher sa soif, que des eaux presque toujours impures et bourbeuses. Devoré par le misere, il ne peut se couvrir que de haillons, et souvent il partage sa demeure avec des animaux immondes." The above are the words, not of a political, but a medical writer, who could have no object in exaggerating the miseries of the Lombardo-Venetian peasant. The ordinary traveller is so enchanted with the fertility of the soil, the beauty of the lakes, the romantic grandeur of the surrounding Alps, and the brilliancy of the skies, that he overlooks the misery of the inhabitants, and the diseases that carry them to a premature grave! The poet avoids such scenes: "I turned my prow and followed, landing soon Where steps of purest marble met the wave ;- Soft music came, as from Armida's palace, Breathing enchantment o'er the woods and waters." ROGERS' ITALY. MALARIOUS PHYSIOGNOMY. Between Sesto Calende and the river Po at Piacenza, the inexperienced traveller will be forcibly struck with a sickly cast of countenance among the inhabitants of the rich Lombardo-Venetian plains, totally different from anything which he had formerly seen. The experienced traveller, on the other hand, will instantly recognize a physiognomy quite familiar to his sight. Those who have visited the unhealthy localities within and without the tropics, and who are capable of any observation at all, are well acquainted with the peculiar and morbid aspect which malarious districts impress on the human countenance, in characters which it is impossible to misunderstand. The alluvial debouches of the Scheldt, the Nile, the Oroonoko, the Euphrates, the Ganges, the Danube, the Po, besides ten thousand intermediate places in the four quarters of the globe, have so deteriorated the health of man, and stamped on his visage such indelible marks of disease, that the most superficial observer can never forget the humiliating portrait. Let the inexperienced and curious traveller, then, pass through the towns between Milan and Piacenza on market days, when the peasants are congregated in the streets, and he will see a picture of human nature, little less deplorable or disgusting than that which the cretins of Sion present. He will there be able to form a good idea of the general effects of malaria throughout the world-while the local or peculiar effects, as sketched under the head of Pellagra, will complete the melancholy outline! The complexion is neither yellow nor sallow, but an unsightly and unearthly compound of the two-a never-failing effect of malaria, whatever be the parallel of latitude—whether on the pestiferous plains of Beveland or of Batavia. To the experienced eye, the features, the whole countenance, present infallible indications of a slow poison circulating with the current of the blood, through every organ of the body, and gradually sapping the foundations of health and life. The rice-grounds between the Alps and the Po, irrigated in every direction, and not seldom inundated, are nearly as fertile in the production of the mysterious and fatal malaria, as of grain, fruit, and vegetables. Of this dreadful scourge of Italy's fair fields I shall speak more in the sequel;-but I conjure travellers to be observant of its effects, and they will trace its operations, in more or less activity, through every valley, plain, and mountain, between Como and Calabria. MILAN TO BOLOGNA. Mercy on us, what empires, kingdoms, principalities, and states, have we traversed in 48 or 50 hours! Had it not been for a boat laden with Parmesan cheese, which carried away the Pont Volant over the Po, at Piacenza, imperial Austria would have furnished us with cOFFEE, before day-light— Maria Louisa, ex-Empress of France, would have spread a sumptuous DEJEUNÉE A LA FOURCHETTE for us at the PAONE, in Parma-Modena's proud LADY MORGAN AND MR. EUSTACE. 79 and warlike Duke would have entertained us at DINNER-and our SUPPER would have been blessed by His Holiness the Pope, in Bologna! As it was, the accident to which I have alluded caused us to retrace our steps from the banks of the Po, opposite Piacenza, through the stinking and pestiferous rice-grounds, in the middle of the night, (equalling in coldness a Siberian Winter) to Milan. Thence, we made a detour by Pavia, and had the additional honour of sleeping under the protection of his Sardinian Majesty, after crossing the Ticino and the Po-and after having our baggage carefully examined by the Douaniers, in search of -- LADY MORGAN !* Then what mighty fortresses have capitulated to us on this triumphant march, without firing a gun-indeed without having a gun to fire! How * While I admire the talents, the spirit, the wit, and the censorial powers of my fair countrywoman, I cannot approve her personal satire. The vices of a people, or the actions of public men, are legitimate objects for criticism, or even castigation-but personalities are beneath the notice of the satirist, and motives are beyond his ken. I put it to Lady Morgan's cool reflexion, whether, after traversing the gallery of a prince, it was worth her while to characterise the portrait of the owner, as presenting "the beau ideal of imbecility." But this is not so bad as the repeated attacks on the moral character of the departed Eustace. First, his work is pronounced to be “false, flimsy, and pompous;" then he himself is represented as utterly ignorant of Italy-and, last of all, he is roundly accused of a "premeditated perversion of facts." Lady Morgan had a right to expose his errors, and use as harsh expressions, in doing so, as suited her sanguine constitution-she might even suspect his veracity-but to assert that his "perversion of facts" was “premeditated," is an awful assumption of the omniscient mind's prerogatives, unjustifiable on any principle of religion, morality, or sound criticism. Lady Morgan tells us that it is "less painful to make the assertion, as the author's ear is no longer alive either to praise or censure;" but, in my humble opinion, the circumstance of a man's inability to defend himself in another world, is a sorry reason for stabbing his moral character in this. Lady Morgan had a right to ridicule Mr. Eustace's horror of revolutionary, and his admiration of aristocratic and monarchical principles-but no impartial reader can peruse her ladyship's work, without perceiving that she has herself fallen into the opposite extreme-always palliating the enormities of republican France-and exaggerating the imbecilities or misrule of monarchical or papal states. I am no advocate of Mr. Eustace. I shall freely correct his errors wherever I find them. But Heaven forbid that I should insult the ashes of an amiable clergyman, by burning, biting, savage sarcasms -by cruel judgments on motives, that belong to the DEITY alone-and which are "foul and unnatural" when uttered by the tongue of a female—a lady whose splendid talents suffer a partial adumbration from the fervor (I had almost said fury) of her political prejudices. many gates without walls have flown open, at the sight of Napoleon's trunkless head-a tyrant whose image is now as much adored, as the living original was dreaded and detested, when, in 1796, he was driving Wurmser before him, and levying contributions on every town through which he passed. How many draw-bridges threatened to rise, and portcullises to fall, if our passports were not signed or countersigned by half the ambassadors of Europe! And all this mockery and mimicry of “warlike note” and military precaution, is kept up by petty states and pauper princes, to feed a pack of hungry and rapacious EMPLOYÉES who practise on the traveller, through the medium of their underlings, those extortions which they are too proud to call by the proper name-MENDICITY! Shame on those princes, governors, and magistrates who sanction this perpetual, ignoble, and harrassing warfare, on every stranger who comes within their contemptible walls. The detour by Pavia gave us an opportunity of viewing this once celebrated, but now decayed city-the city of a "hundred towers"! Its long, narrow, and silent streets, its demolished fortifications, its melancholy university, and its sickly, poverty-stricken inhabitants, present a picture which cannot easily be forgotten. Around its ruined ramparts, silent as the grave, and on which the sentinel's measured footstep is never heard, I wandered by moonlight, and enjoyed once more a magnificent view of the long range of snowy Alps. It was full moon-not a leaf was moved by the breeze-and innumerable stars, of dazzling brilliancy, studded the azure vault. The funereal cypress cast its long and pyramidal shadow across the grass-grown parapets-the murmur of the crystal Ticino was distinguishable-but no human voice vibrated on the listening ear-no cheerful light gleamed from lamp or window-not even from Petrarch's chamber-and I could scarcely help fancying that I was wandering round some vast and lonely cemetery, when the midnight hour was faintly heard tolling from the distant Carthusian Monastery, and mausoleum of a murderer, warning me to repair to my hotel. It was in one of Pavia's towers that the prisoner Boethius wrote his treatise, "de consolatione philosophiæ,” and philosophy seems now the only consolation of fallen Pavia. Where Volta raised the galvanic pile, Aldini constructs his fire-proof mantles-while arts, science, and literature are still taught in its learned halls. It is between Voghera and Bologna, while skirting along the Apennines, that the traveller's attention is first arrested by a very striking feature in the natural scenery and the medical topography of Italy-an endless succession of beds of rivers, without water, or with only a trifling rivulet meandering in the centre. While crossing these beds, we generally see a high and narrow bridge in the neighbourhood, which the postillions avoid. Many of these bridges, indeed, are too narrow for a carriage, and consist of a single arch, of immense altitude and span. When rains fall in Italy, thousands of torrents |