s of attention were sometimes fatigued, till I was myself
qualified, in a last review, to select and study the capital works of
ancient and modern art. Six weeks were borrowed for my tour of Naples,
the most populous of cities, relative to its size, whose luxurious
inhabitants seem to dwell on the confines of paradise and hell-fire. I
was presented to the boy-king by our new envoy, Sir William Hamilton;
who, wisely diverting his correspondence from the Secretary of State to
the Royal Society and British Museum, has elucidated a country of such
inestimable value to the naturalist and antiquarian. On my return, I
fondly embraced, for the last time, the miracles of Rome; but I departed
without kissing the feet of Rezzonico (Clement XIII.), who neither
possessed the wit of his predecessor Lambertini, nor the virtues of his
successor Ganganelli. 3. In my pilgrimage from Rome to Loretto I again
crossed the Apennine; from the coast of the Adriatic I traversed a
fruitful and populous country, which could alone disprove the paradox
of Montesquieu, that modern Italy is a desert. Without adopting the
exclusive prejudice of the natives, I sincerely admire the paintings
of the Bologna school. I hastened to escape from the sad solitude
of Ferrara, which in the age of Caesar was still more desolate. The
spectacle of Venice afforded some hours of astonishment; the university
of Padua is a dying taper: but Verona still boasts her amphitheatre, and
his native Vicenza is adorned by the classic architecture of Palladio:
the road of Lombardy and Piedmont (did Montesquieu find them without
inhabitants?) led me back to Milan, Turin, and the passage of Mount
Cenis, where I again crossed the Alps in my way to Lyons.

The use of foreign travel has been often debated as a general question;
but the conclusion must be finally applied to the character and
circumstances of each individual. With the education of boys, where or
how they may pass over some juvenile years with the least mischief
to themselves or others, I have no concern. But after supposing the
previous and indispensable requisites of age, judgment, a competent
knowledge of men and books, and a freedom from domestic prejudices, I
will briefly describe the qualifications which I deem most essential to
a traveller. He should be endowed with an active, indefatigable vigour
of mind and body, which can seize every mode of conveyance, and support,
with a careless smile, every hardship of the r