y such there were. I passed on,
and drew nigh the centre of the town; and now there began to be visible
some signs of vitality. Struck at the extremities, life had retreated to
the heart. A square castellated building of red brick, surrounded on all
sides by a deep moat, filled with the water of the Po, and guarded by
Austrian soldiers, upreared its towers before me. This was the Papal
Legation. I entered it, and found my passport waiting me; and the tiara
and the keys, emblazoned on its pages, told me that I was free of the
Papal States.

CHAPTER XVII.

FERRARA.

Lovely in its Ruins--Number and Wealth of its Churches--Tasso's
Prison--Renee's Palace--Calvin's Chamber--Influence of Woman on the
Reformation--Renee and her Band--Re-union above--Utter Decay of its
Trade, its Manufactures, its Knowledge.

Even in its ruins Ferrara is lovely. It wears in the tomb the sunset
hues of beauty. Its streets run out in straight lines, and are of noble
breadth and length. Unencumbered with the heavy arcades that darken
Padua, the marble fronts of its palaces rise to a goodly height, covered
with rich but exceedingly sweet and chaste designs. On the stone of
their pilasters and door-posts the ilex puts forth its leaf, and the
vine its grapes; and the carving is as fresh and sharp, in many
instances, as if the chisel were but newly laid aside. But it is
melancholy to see the long grass waving on its causeways, and the ivy
clinging to the deserted doorways and balconies of palatial residences,
and to hear the echoes of one's foot sounding drearily in the empty
street.

I passed the afternoon in visiting the churches. There is no end of
these, and night fell before I had got half over them. It amazes one to
find in the midst of ruins such noble buildings, overflowing with
wealth. Pictures, statuary, marbles, and precious metals, dazzle, and at
last weary, the traveller, and form a strange contrast to the desolate
fields, the undrained swamps, the mouldering tenements, and the beggarly
population, that are collected around them. Of the churches of Ferrara,
we may say as Addison of the shrine of Loretto, "It is indeed an amazing
thing to see such a prodigious quantity of riches lie dead and
untouched, in the midst of so much poverty and misery as reign on all
sides of them. If these riches were all turned into current coin, and
employed in commerce, they would make Italy the most flourishing country
in th