e planning sins anew.
All evils here contaminate the mind,
That opulence departed leaves behind:
For wealth was theirs, not far remov'd the date,
When commerce proudly flourish'd thro' the state;
At her command the palace learn'd to rise,
Again the long fall'n column sought the skies;
The canvass glow'd, beyond e'en nature warm;
The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form.
Till, more unsteady then the southern gale,
Commerce on other shores display'd her sail;
While naught remain'd of all that riches gave,
But towns unmann'd, and lords without a slave;
And late the nation found, with fruitless skill,
Its former strength was but plethoric ill.

"Yet still the loss of wealth is here supplied
By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride;
From them the feeble heart and long fall'n mind
An easy compensation seem to find.
Here may be seen in bloodless pomp array'd,
The pasteboard triumph, and the cavalcade;
Processions form'd from piety and love,
A mistress or a saint in every grove."

Almost every traveller who has visited Italy, agrees in describing it as
the most abandoned of all the countries of Europe. At Venice, at Naples,
and indeed in almost every port of Italy, women are taught from their
infancy the various arts of alluring to their arms the young and unwary,
and of obtaining from them, while heated by love or wine, every thing
that flattery and false smiles can obtain, in these unguarded moments.

The Italians, like their neighbors of Spain and Portugal, live under the
paralyzing influence of a religion that retains its superstitious forms,
while little of life-giving faith remains. Like them they have lively
passions, are extremely susceptible, and in the general conduct of life
more governed by the impetuosity of impulse than rectitude of principle.
The ladies have less gravity than the Spanish, and less frivolity than
the French, and in their style of dress incline towards the freedom of
the latter. Some of the richest and most commodious convents of Europe
are in Italy. The daughters of wealthy families are generally bestowed
in marriage as soon as they leave these places of education. These
matters are entirely arranged by parents and guardians, and youth and
age are not unfrequently joined together, for the sake of uniting
certain acres of land. But the affections, thus repressed, seek their
natural level by indirect courses. It is a rare thing for an Itali