erhead,
and, twenty times a day, the repetition of his name, it is better for
Juliet to lie out of the track of tourists, and to have no visitors but
such as come to graves in spring-rain, and sweet air, and sunshine.

Pleasant Verona! With its beautiful old palaces, and charming country in
the distance, seen from terrace walks, and stately, balustraded
galleries. With its Roman gates, still spanning the fair street, and
casting, on the sunlight of to-day, the shade of fifteen hundred years
ago. With its marble-fitted churches, lofty towers, rich architecture,
and quaint old quiet thoroughfares, where shouts of Montagues and
Capulets once resounded.

And made Verona's ancient citizens
Cast by their grave, beseeming ornaments,
To wield old partisans.

With its fast-rushing river, picturesque old bridge, great castle,
waving cypresses, and prospect so delightful, and so cheerful! Pleasant
Verona! In the midst of it, in the Piazza di Bra--a spirit of old time
among the familiar realities of the passing hour--is the great Roman
Amphitheater. So well preserved, and carefully maintained, that every
row of seats is there, unbroken. Over certain of the arches, the old
Roman numerals may yet be seen; and there are corridors, and staircases,
and subterranean passages for beasts, and winding ways, above ground and
below, as when the fierce thousands hurried in and out, intent upon the
bloody shows of the arena. Nestling in some of the shadows and hollow
places of the walls, now, are smiths with their forges, and a few small
dealers of one kind or other; and there are green weeds, and leaves, and
grass, upon the parapet. But little else is greatly changed.

When I had traversed all about it, with great interest, and had gone up
to the topmost round of seats, and turning from the lovely panorama
closed in by the distant Alps, looked down into the building, it seemed
to lie before me like the inside of a prodigious hat of plaited straw,
with an enormously broad brim and a shallow crown; the plaits being
represented by the four-and-forty rows of seats. The comparison is a
homely and fantastic one, in sober remembrance and on paper, but it was
irresistibly suggested at the moment, nevertheless.

PADUA[16]

BY THEOPHILE GAUTIER

Padua is an ancient city and exhibits a rather respectable appearance
against the horizon with its bell-turrets, its domes, and its old walls
upon which myriads of lizards run and frisk in