Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/200

188 withered trees, beside a kind of dry ditch, paved at the bottom, into which a carriage can with some difficulty descend, and which affords access (not in an unusual manner) to the ground floor of a large and dreary-looking house, whose passages are dark and confined, whose rooms are limited in size, and whose windows command an interesting view of the dusty trees before mentioned. This is the town residence of one of the Italian noblemen, whose country house has already been figured as a beautiful example of the villas of the Lago di Como. That villa, however, though in one of the loveliest situations that hill, and wave, and heaven ever combined to adorn, and though itself one of the most delicious habitations that luxury ever projected, or wealth procured, is very rarely honoured by the presence of its master; while attractions of a very different nature retain him, winter after winter, in the dark chambers of the Boulevard des Italiens. This appears singular to the casual traveller, who darts down from the dust and heat of the French capital to the light and glory of the Italian lakes, and finds the tall marble chambers and orange groves, in which he thinks, were he possessed of them, he could luxuriate for ever, left desolate and neglected by their real owner: but, were he to try such a residence for a single twelve-month, we believe his wonder would have greatly diminished at the end of the time. For the mind of the nobleman in question does not differ from that of the average of men; inasmuch as it is a well-known fact, that a series