e from the madly-bestowed protection these old barons on
the Continent cease not yet to give, to ruffians who profess their
service, and acknowledge dependence upon _them_. In the _town_, however,
little is known of these enormities, and less is talked on; and what
information has come to my ears of the murders done at Brescia and
Bergamo, was given me at _Milan_; where Blainville's accounts of that
country, though written so long ago, did not fail to receive
confirmation from the lips of those who knew perfectly well what they
were talking about. And I am told that _Labbia_, Giovanni Labbia, the
new Podesta sent to Brescia, has worked wonderful reformation among the
inhabitants of that territory; where I am ashamed to relate the
computation of subjects lost to the state, by being killed in cold blood
during the years 1780 and 1781.

The following sonnet, addressed to the new Magistrate, by the elegant
and learned Abbe Bettolini, will entertain such of my readers as
understand Italian:

No, Brenne, il popol tuo non e spietato,
Colpa non e di clima, o fuol nemico:
Ma gli inulti delitti, e'l vezzo antico
D'impune andar coi ferro e fuoco a lato,

Ira noi finor nudriro un branco irato
D'Orsi e di lupi, il malaccorto amico
Ti svenava un fellon sgherro mendico,
E per cauto timor n'era onorato.

Al primiero spuntar d'un fausto lume
Tutto cangio: curvansi in falci i teh,
Mille Pluto perde vittime usate.

Viva l'Eroe, il comun padre, il nume
Gridan le gente a si bei di ferbate.
E sia che ardisca dir che siam crudele.

_Imitation_.

No, Brennus, no longer thy sons shall retain
Of their founder ferocious, th'original stain;
It cannot be natural cruelty sure,
The reproaches for which from all men we endure;
Nor climate nor soil shall henceforth bear the blame,
'Tis custom alone, and that custom our shame:
While arm'd at all points men were suffer'd to rove,
And brandish the steel in defence of their love;
What wonder that conduct or caution should fail,
And horrid Lycanthropy's terrors prevail?
Now justice resumes her insignia, we find
New light breaking in on each nebulous mind;
While commission'd from Heaven, a parent, a friend
Sees our swords at his nod into reaping-hooks bend,
And souls snatch'd from death round the hero attend.

From these verses, written by a native of Bresci