Ch. 8 - By Verona, Mantua, and Milan - Page 2

woman--drying her arms upon her 'kerchief, called 'La tomba di
Giulietta la sfortunata.' With the best disposition in the world
to believe, I could do no more than believe that the bright-eyed
woman believed; so I gave her that much credit, and her customary
fee in ready money. It was a pleasure, rather than a
disappointment, that Juliet's resting-place was forgotten. However
consolatory it may have been to Yorick's Ghost, to hear the feet
upon the pavement overhead, and, twenty times a day, the repetition
of his name, it is better for Juliet to lie out of the track of
tourists, and to have no visitors but such as come to graves in
spring-rain, and sweet air, and sunshine.

Pleasant Verona! With its beautiful old palaces, and charming
country in the distance, seen from terrace walks, and stately,
balustraded galleries. With its Roman gates, still spanning the
fair street, and casting, on the sunlight of to-day, the shade of
fifteen hundred years ago. With its marble-fitted churches, lofty
towers, rich architecture, and quaint old quiet thoroughfares,
where shouts of Montagues and Capulets once resounded,

And made Verona's ancient citizens
Cast by their grave, beseeming ornaments,
To wield old partizans.

With its fast-rushing river, picturesque old bridge, great castle,
waving cypresses, and prospect so delightful, and so cheerful!
Pleasant Verona!

In the midst of it, in the Piazza di Bra--a spirit of old time
among the familiar realities of the passing hour--is the great
Roman Amphitheatre. So well preserved, and carefully maintained,
that every row of seats is there, unbroken. Over certain of the
arches, the old Roman numerals may yet be seen; and there are
corridors, and staircases, and subterranean passages for beasts,
and winding ways, above ground and below, as when the fierce
thousands hurried in and out, intent upon the bloody shows of the
arena. Nestling in some of the shadows and hollow places of the
walls, now, are smiths with their forges, and a few small dealers
of one kind or other; and there are green weeds, and leaves, and
grass, upon the parapet. But little else is greatly changed.

When I had traversed all about it, with great interest, and had
gone up to the topmost round of seats, and turning from the lovely
panorama closed in by the distant Alps, looked down into the
building, it seemed to lie before me like the inside of a
prodigious hat of plaited straw, with an enormously broad brim and
a shallow crown; the plaits being represented by the four-and-forty
rows of seats. The comparison is a homely and fantastic one, in
sober remembrance and on paper, but it was irresistibly suggested
at the moment, nevertheless.

An equestrian troop had