SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

TzsvEra, A Ride on Horseback to Florence, through France and Switzerland. Described iu a Series of Letters. By a Lady. In two volumes Murray. HISTORICAL CORRISPONDENCE, Memorials or the Great Civil War in England, from 1646 to 1652. Edited from Ori- ginal Letters in the Bodleian Library, by Henry Cary, M. In two volumes.

CONSTM7TIONAL Law, Culburn. The English Constitution ; a Popular Commentary on the Constitutional Law of England. By George Bowyer. ALA Burns.

A LADY'S RIDE ON HORSEBACK TO FLORENCE. THE heroine of these volumes, accompanied by her husband, rode from Calais to Paris, on two favourite horses, in the summer of 1839. They wintered at the French capital in 1840; and continued their equestrian excursion, first to Lyons, then to Geneva by Chain- bery. After making the city of CALVIN their head-quarters during sundry rambles into Switzerland, they proceeded to Florence by Milan, Parma, Bologna, and Modena ; and returned to Chambery by the pass of Mount Cenis. The impressions they received, the adventures they encountered, in what now appears to be a rare mode of Continental travelling, as well as the history of many places they visited, are written down by the lady in the form of letters : and her book unquestionably has the ease and familiarity of epistolary writing, though her chapters are of such a length, that when in manuscript their postage must have cost some money, and their perusal a good deal of time.

In a route the greater part of which is traversed annually by shoals of tourists, much novelty of matter is not to be expected : nor is there much to be found in A Ride to Florence. These agreeable volumes owe their charm partly to the character of the writer, partly to her mode of travelling. Well-informed, espe- cially in the history and antiquities of the places she visited, (though sometimes mistaken—as when she calls WARREN HASTINGS a lord, which was the very thing he wanted, but in vain, to be,) with a sufficient taste for the beauties of art and nature, and a quick apprehension of character and circumstances, our " Lady" culls the most telling circumstances from town, coun- try, books, conversation, and the little incidents of her tour, and presents them in a lively, easy, and attractive manner. Her eques- trian mode of journeying also has its advantages. She could deviate from the common track of post-carriages, diligences, and vetturini ; and, whether on the high-road or by-road, she was thrown more into the country and among the people than is the case with persons cooped up in a coach, and, as she says, sleeping away their time. The care of the horses, alone, required more exertion, and introduced them more closely to the persons about the inns, than can ever be the case with tourists carried and cared for at the pleasure of a conducteur, &c. and who are them- selves passive from beginning to end. The horses also have their peculiarities, and their respective character and conduct ; which occasionally imparts something of the interest of natural history. The lady's riding-habit, her hat, her side-saddle, or perhaps the circumstance of a foreign lady travelling on horseback, excited attention everywhere, very frequently outcries and mobs, and sometimes gave occasion to a little adventure. For instance, the following

CHARGE AT SESTO CALENDE.

Sesto Calende and its environs enjoy a very indifferent reputation. I can say nothing of the honesty of its inhabitants, but a great deal of their incivi- lity. Walking our horses through the town, the boys hooted us as usual; but arrived at the outskirts, they were joined and augmented by youths and men, till there were about thirty of these last following at a few paces behind us, i and shouting with the whole force of their lungs. We bore it till it became insupportable ; and at last turned the horses, who were excited by the noise and fretting at being insulted, and I think perfectly understood they were to scatter the enemy, for they darted on them at full speed ; Fanny, in particular, very warlike, with her small ears laid back and her heels thrown up to make way. The road was clear in a second ; and when our charge was executed and we quietly walked on, I suppose they returned to the town, as no one followed us further. Between Sesto and Somma we crossed wild tracts of melancholy moor, and here and there a stunted copse. At Somma is the ancient and su- perb cypress-tree averred to have been a sapling in Julius Caesar's time, and certainly measuring twenty feet round its stem and a hundred and twenty in height. For the sake of its green old age, the road diverged from the straight line by Napoleon's order.

The points we have indicated give relief to the letters, and sepa- rate them from the usual narratives of travellers, even over less- frequented countries. A rather perilous detour in the Alps, when part of the Simplon was rendered impassable by the great storm of 1839, is not devoid of the interest of difficulty ; and other moun- tain-rides have the novelty arising from the position of the eques- trians. As a whole, however, A Ride to Florence derives its claims from the character of the writer—from the feminine grace, vivacity, and elegance of the style ; and, as in other cases where mate- riem superabat opus, or rather where the workmanship is the prin- cipal merit, the reader befare he reaches the end of the two long volumes finds their unsubstantial sweetness begin to cloy. Part of this feeling, too, arises from want of judgment. The fair writer not unfrequently puts down without selection the things of the day, without considering whether the description, stripped of the life and attendant circumstances that struck her at the time, and might, through his interest in her, have an at- traction to her correspondent, would have the same effect upon strangers. She is also too fond of showing her reading in local history or topography, and perhaps occasionally of ani- mating a guide-book. Her historical anecdotes, her biographical notices, even her history, are well done : looking merely to the skill with which she selects the points to be exhibited, and the ra- pidity, spirit, and grace of her narrative, these passages, in a merely literary view, are among the best of the book. But, strictly speak- ing, they are not wanted, and are out of place. An apt and striking anecdote well introduced, or even a longer narrative, will give interest and relief ; but there is nothing which now requires more judgment in the introduction. The majority of our travellers do not pay sufficient attention to the great change which the last thirty or forty years has produced. When readers and books were few, and what may be termed local history locked up in manuscripts, or in the volumes of antiquarians almost as inaccessible, these episodes not only imparted novelty and variety, but even information. Of late that necessity has no longer existed. Romances of history, popular topographies, notes to historical poems, and historical novels, with countless guide-books, have rendered much of what any traveller can tell in this line well known. Books of every kind, moreover, have so multiplied, that the world is distracted with their claims; and instead of episodes telling something not essential to the subject being a diversion, they are rather, we suspect, felt as an imperti- nence; people who want it well knowing where to get it complete, instead of having it piecemeal. We would not be understood as objecting to every introduction of this kind. REYNOLDS remarks, "some circumstances of minuteness and particularity frequently tend to give an air of truth to a piece, and to interest the spectator in an extraordinary manner," but he adds, that " if there be any thing in art which requires peculiar nicety of discernment, it is the disposition of these minute circumstantial parts." So, in modern travels, especially in Germany, Italy, France, or India, would we warn the traveller against putting large portions of other books into his own. When and to what extent this is to be done, is a point of " peculiar nicety and discernment." As a general rule, we should say that private story is more safe than public history. In the volumes before us, the account of the houses of Savoy and Sforza, and the history of Geneva, are encumbrances ; but the following anecdote gives an interest to the building mentioned, which it would otherwise have wanted.

THE TOWER OF AMIENS.

The Beffroi, a strange-looking tower which rises alone on the Place de l'Hotel de Ville, now serves as a prison for minor offences : it contains the great bell tolled on solemn occasions. It is said that this tower was raised by Louis le Gros; but the town-records make no mention of it till the year 1244. It has been twice consumed by fire ; the first time in 1524, when it was the scene of an awful tragedy. The keeper had ascended to the lantern at its top before the flames broke forth ; and when about to descend, found to his horror that smoke and fire barred his passage. He attempted to force his way, and they drove him back: he rushed to the top once more, and shrieked for assist- ance to the terrified crowd: it was impossible to afford it ; and as the floor heated beneath his feet, he implored, in his agony, that some one present would fire on him. His sad prayer was granted; and having recommended his soul

to God, he fell dead from a harquebuss-shot.

The lover of landscape, and descriptions of works of art, will find plenty to gratify his taste in these volumes. But we will take our remaining extracts from matters relating to life.

SOMETHING BETTER THAN PHILOSOPHY.

When half a league out of Joigny, D— discovered that he had left the small valise in the manger ; and commissioned to return for it a young man, who for some time, walking lightly along, had kept pace with our horses, and had just laughed heartily at an old market-woman, who, riding her donkey in masculine guise, treated with some contempt me and my saddle. He said it was a happy chance for him ; as he was on his way from Bordeaux to Paris, and had spent his last halfpenny, having paid four sous for his night's lodging, and eaten neither supper nor breakfast. He ran to Joigny and back ; and when he came up with us once more, we noticed that his shoe was cut, and praised his diligence. He said he had been a far better walker before the beam of a house, which was taking down, had fallen on his foot and crushed it. As he took from D— the money which was to convey him the remainder of his way, he drew his left hand a moment from his waistcoat-pocket, and I saw it was crippled. So here was a poor fellow, with no breakfast and no money, and no hope of either, walking to Paris miles away, with a useless band and injured foot, neither desponding nor trying to excite compassion, nor asking charity, nor servile when it was bestowed; proving again, what I have observed so often, that the French bear privation and misfortune better than any people in the world. He said he should be well provided for as soon as he arrived in Paris, as he wrote a fair hand, and his brother, established there, had a place of clerk awaiting him. At the first village we came to he stopped for his morning meal, and we saw no more of him.

A MINISTER OF CUSTOMS OUTWITTED.

The French customhouses are extremely severe on the article of Genevese

jewellery; but, notwithstanding all the preventive measures adopted, the impor- tation of smuggled goods into France is considerable, and the cleverness of the Genevese smugglers outwits even the sharp French douaniers. It is an amusing fact, that when the Comte de St. Cricq was Directeur-General des Douanes, he went to Geneva, and there purchased of Monsieur Beautte, one of the principal jewellers, 30,000 francs worth of jewels, on condition of their being smuggled into his hotel in Paris. Monsieur Beautte made no objection ; only presenting the buyer with a paper for signature, by which he obliged himself to pay the usual five per cent on the sum due. The Directeur smiled, took a pen, and signed " St. Cricq, Directeur des Douanes." Beantte merely bowed and said, "Monsieur le Directeur, the jewels you have purchased will be arrived as soon as yourself." At the frontier the Comte de St. Cricq left strict charges of surveillance, and the promise of a reward of fifty Ionia to the employe who should seize the jewels : but, arrived in Paris, he entered his chamber to change his dress ; and the first object he saw there was an elegantly-shaped box bearing his name en- graved on a silver plate : he opened it, and found the jewels. Beautte had come to an understanding with a waiter of the inn ; who, while assisting the Directeur's people to pack the carriage of their master, slipped the aforesaid box among the baggage; and the valet, on reaching Paris, noticing it for the first time, and supposing it to contain some recent purchase of value, imme- diately carried it to the Count's private apartment. Thus, while triple atten- tion examined and tormented the unoffending travellers who crossed the fron- tier, Monsieur de St. Cricq's carriage unmolested smuggled his own contraband purchase to his own hotel.

PAPAL TROOPS.

They are a strange compound of ferocity and cowardice, these Papal vassals. They bring to my mind an anecdote told me of their brethren at Ancona, by

our friend Captain De V-1, whose conduct at Lyons I mentioned to you ; and I write it here, as a story of the Pope's troops will not be misplaced at Bologna. I give it you in almost his own words, as he was present there at the time.

The Conte P—i commanded a battalion of infantry quartered in the laz- zeretto of Ancona ; which is a building of considerable size, and easy to de- fend, as the sea surrounds it. When the Sixty-sixth took, during the night, possession of the town, the lazzeretto, the Pontifical battalion, and the quiet Commandant, were all three forgotten. In the morning, enraged at the neglect, he angrily inquired whether the French General was aware of the presence of a battalion in the lazzeretto. " Very probably," was the reply. " Allora," said the Conte P—, " si vuole una capitulazione; pervhe nella cireostanza aeon necessaria e militare I Sono commandante; la capitulazione Is voglio, vista dunque a visitare it General Francese e la capitulazione si fard."

Such being the Conte P—'s warlike views, he was escorted to the pre- sence of Colonel Combes, who then commanded the Sixty-sixth; and, laughing heartily, willingly satisfied the military scruple of the gallant officer.

THE HOSTESS OF LA PACE BOLOGNA.

La Pace retains the name it bore when a resting-place for pilgrims on their way to Rome: the large vaulted kitchen was then the refectory, and the upper stories of the building have still the same distribution as in those days. Our hostess has known some of life's vicissitudes. Her father had a place in, I think, the financial department ; whose revenues sufficed for the comforts of his family, but wishing to retire, he exerted what interest be possessed to get a friend, who promised compensation, named in his stead. Having succeeded, this man not only refused to fulfil his part of the agreement, but having bor- rowed and given no security for all the ready money the old man possessed, he finally turned into the streets, from the shelter which had been their own, the father and young daughter. The latter wandered over Paris during the day, vainly seeking employment, which, owing to her youth and disbelief in her story, was everywhere refused her. At last, night coming on, and those who passed examining the forlorn girl with curiosity or contempt, in despair, and ashamed to beg, as she crossed the Pont Royal on her way back to the spot where she had left her father, she suddenly resolved on suicide ; and was about to throw herself into the river, when her arm was caught by an old officer, who forcibly held her back, gravely remonstrated with her, and passed on. Soft- ened, and her purpose changed, she knocked meekly at several doors ; and at last found shelter with a poor portress, who received herself and her father for charity. She next took service with a lady resident in the hotel, and accom- panied her to Italy. There, after some years, she married the head-waiter of the inn of San Marco; and they embarked their savings in La Pace. Her father followed when she quitted France ; but be had grown childish from mis- fortune, and died shortly after the change in his daughter's prospects. He used to wander miles away from the inn, saying be would go back to France. The fat black terrier, who sits so petted and caressed on a chair in the kitchen, was his follower and guardian. One day, after a vain search for the old man, he was found sleeping on a mattress in a peasant's cabin, with the dog sitting at his bead: ha had walked further, thinking to pass the frontier ; and fatigued, and unable to speak the language, he sank down at last before the cottage which gave him its hospitality. I think she said it was his last excursion.

It may be added, that our travellers found it the best inn in the city ; having been driven from one of the others by want of accom- modation, and the other evils of crowded Italian inns.