with increased
delight. I was there on the last night of its representation, when some
amateurs and people connected with the theatre put in practice what
appeared to mean ill-judged _concetto_, however well merited the compliment
it meant to convey. When the Vestal was about to descend into the vault, a
genius with wings rose from it and repeated a few lines beginning _Tu non
morrai_ and telling her that the suffrages of the Insubrian people had
decreed to her immortality, and printed sonnets were showered down on the
stage from all parts of the house. I think it would have been much better
to let the piece finish in the usual way, and then at its termination call
for La Pallerini to advance and receive the garlands and hommage so justly
her due.

I was in the _loge_ belonging to my friend Mme L-----; there were three or
four _litterati_ with her, and they were all unanimous that it was an
absurd and pedantic _concetto_.

In a day or two I shall start from Milan for Munich thro' Brescia and
Verona and the Tyrol.

CHAPTER XVI

JULY-SEPTEMBER 1818

Innspruck--Tyrol and the Tyrolese--From Innspruck to Munich--Monuments and
churches--Theatricals--Journey from Munich to Vienna on a floss--Trouble
with a passport--Complicated system of Austrian money--Description of
Vienna--The Prater--The theatres--Schiller's _Joan of Arc_--A
_Kinderballet_--The young Napoleon at Schoenbrunn--Journey from Vienna to
Prague.

INNSPRUCK, 15th July.

I had engaged with a _vetturino_ to convey me from Verona to Innspruck for
four _louis d'or_ and to be _spesato_. A Roman gentleman and his lady were
my fellow travellers; they were going to pass the summer months at a small
_campagne_ they possess in the Tyrol. We stopped the first night at
Roveredo. The road from Verona to Roveredo is on the banks of the Adige
(called in German the Etsch) in a narrow and deep valley, shut up on both
sides by mountains, almost immediately on leaving Verona. We found the
weather extremely hot in this valley. Roveredo seems to be a very neat
clean little city, and the Adige flows with astonishing rapidity along this
narrow valley. The women of Roveredo have the reputation of being very
beautiful; and I recollect having seen two Roveredo girls at Venice, who
were models of female beauty. They have a happy mixture of German and
Italian blood and manners, but Italian is the language of the country. The
second morning of our journey we arrived and stopp