odour of soup from the yet uncovered tureen, then the serving-men stepped noiselessly forward, and all the covers were simultaneously removed,-all, save one, and that one stood before Matthew. A moment's pause followed-every eye was fixed with an odd expression upon our unctuous friend, who actually gasped with expectation. His colour went and came like a young lady when first listening to a lover, or like a dying dolphin, only the simile is somewhat the worse for wear-the servant, at a sign from his master, removed the cover-and what a glorious sight!—it was-yes, it was a John Dory!-a fresh John Dory!-a plump John Dory !—fresher, plumper than that for which he had gone through so many trials! Happy, happy, happy Matthew!

(BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY.)

A VISIT TO ITALY.

BY MRS. TROLLOPE.

When, years ago, Walter Scott, according to his brotherpoet, travelled up to town from Scotland, «doing all the gentlemen's seats by the way," the work so attributed to him, of which Rokeby' was a volume, held out the promise of an introduction to customs and costumes, with which the public of that day had little or no familiarity. The hint of a professional progress, of this particular kind, Mrs. Trollope seems to have adopted. Having started in America, where the comparative newness of the soil yielded observations racy and picturesque enough-and which the lively fancy and unhesitating temper of the observer rendered yet more so-the success of her first publication sent her, pen-in-hand, through the great and well-trodden capitals of Europe; and it is not unfair to conjecture that a portion of the civilities which a lady so armed has everywhere received, (and of which her vanity tempts her to make a display,) may be attributed to the knowledge of her purpose and her power. People whose happiness is, to any great extent, dependent on cosmetics and millinery, cannot afford to make an enemy of one who will count the holes in their coats, and the warts on their faces; and as, after the Londonderry fashion, those who are more than commonly courteous to Mrs. Trollope, rarely fail to re

ceive a return in kind, in her pages, it is probable that she may be enabled, with perfect comfort to herself, to push her trading expedition from Lisbon to St. Petersburgh, and from the shores of the Mediterranean, to which we are now following her, to Copenhagen. As a commercial speculation, however, we doubt the success of her undertaking. The tailoring becomes too apparent. Her literary measure, adapted to the rough and salient forms of American life and scenery, is not fine enough to appreciate the consummate forms and their delicate accentuations, amongst which she is getting. The more beaten the ground on which she travels, the less becomes Mrs. Trollope's power to extract amusement from it,—in a degree far beyond what is accounted for by the mere fact of its having been so often surveyed before. Italy is an exhaustless field, yielding up its buried fragments of the past to every new excavator, and its hidden lessons and quaint speculations to all travellers who visit it filly furnished for such discoveries. Its mere highways are all long since mapped out and familiarly known; and to i's churches and picture-galleries we have followed too many cataloguers and critics already, to leave it needful or desirable that we should waste our time in following thither such a guide as Mrs Trollope. We seek from her those original and amusing views which made the success of her first publication, and find fewer of them in this her last, than in any which has preceded it. This time we apprehend that she will disappoint her friends: the mischievous characteristics of her earlier works are here greatly mitigated; and the concurrent diminution of talent will probably force upon them an inference not favourable to its quality in that higher sense to which it is her sex's merit, for the most part, to aspire. Still her faults and her weaknesses are sufficiently represented in these volumes for identity. Our readers know that the manner in which Mrs. Trollope was shocked by the vulgarisms of American life, gave her a great reputation with herself, and thinkers of a certain class, for refinement; and they will remember how superfine she had, in consequence, become by the time she reached Vienna. In Italy, too, she is very fine,-and very vulgar,

according to another code, which is ours. Particularly anxious she is to call attention to the fact of her presence at the Duke of Lucca's card-table, though very fearful lest the flattering partiality shown to our countrymen, in other instances, should lead to the reception of persons not precisely suited to the circle of a Bourbon descendant of fifty kings!* And the readers of the Atheneum may guess what sort of information they are likely to derive from a tourist in Italy, who, being exceedingly desirous to see the Boboli gardens, abandons the hope because there is only one day in the week on which it is fashionable to visit them, and that day she fears she may fail to command

sal from tur

:

On leaving the palace, we made an ignorant attempt to enter the Boboli gardens, which stretch out most magnificently behind it, and which, from the glimpse we got from the windows, appear to be very beautiful in all ways. But as to-day is neither Sunday nor Thursday, attempt was met by a civil, but very decided, refumilitary guard stationed at the gate. This restriction is the more vexatious because it is exceedingly mauvais ton, as I am told, to appear there on the Sunday, the regular endimanchés taking entire possession of it; and a promenade limited to one day in the week, often remains long unvisited, from the difficulty of finding that one day unoccupied.... So the Boboli seems postponed pretty nearly sine die.»

Mrs. Trollope has thought it right to take with her, as part of the necessary stock of an Italian traveller, a sort of enthusiasm, which we should not feel justified in exactly calling simulated, but which we may, at any rate, say is not that sort of enthusiasm which awakens enthusiasm as its echo. Much of the volumes is wasted in its formal displays, and much in a very tedious species of coquetting-and over-andover-again repeated disclaimer of dealing with familiar subjects because of their familiarity, which takes more time than the discussion itself would, and is less amusing, however hackneyed might be the latter add, that the smartness, hitherto Mrs. Trollope's best property, is in these volumes but an effort to be smart-a progeny most unlike its parent, and inheriting none of its popularity-that the style has more than its author's accustomed looseness and diffuseness; and our

readers will not expect too much from these pages. Still, with all these drawbacks, Mrs. Trollope is not a writer to give the public a couple of volumes, from which something curious and something amusing cannot be gleaned and having discharged our conscience by characterizing the volume generally, we will, as faithful caterers, confine our selections to the more pleasant portions, leaving Mrs. Trollope's commonplaces to the guardianship of her own rhapsodies, and following her only where she is reclaimed by nature, or gives her better sense fair play.

Mrs. Trollope passed into Italy by way of France; but we will first take her up at Turin, and the following hint may be useful to such of our readers as may be about to visit the picture-galleries there :

"Of the picture-galleries of Turin I can tell you very little: it is not accounted rich in private collections; and as our stay in the town was to be but short, we gave up the idea of hunting them out. We found the royal collection, however, considerably richer than we expected, for I know no work on the subject in which it makes any great figure; but did it contain no other claim to notice than its Rembrandts and Vandykes, I should consider it a very precious gallery. One reason why it has not hitherto figured in books of travels to the extent which it now deserves, is easily explained by the fact that some of the most valuable paintings attached to the Sardinian crown have been recently removed from Genoa to Turin. .. And this fact is worth the attention of picture-loving travellers, not only to prevent their being disappointed when they arrive at Genoa, but also to prevent their overlooking well-known treasures which they expect to find there, while they are actually within their reach at Turin. One of these is the famous Paul Veronese, of the Magdalen at the feet of our Saviour. »

There is truth, and smartness too, iu the following:

Nothing in the general aspect of Turin struck me more forcibly than the very peculiarly quiet and orderly air of its inhabitants. In leaving London for Paris, one passes, by rather a violent transition, from among a quiet-looking population, all of whom, in their different stations, are clothed according to the custom of the age and country, to the midst of another population where every individual (among the males, and excepting, perhaps, quite the higher classes,) seems to be habited as if he were preparing himself to enact