The inhabitants of Bologna carry on a very considerable trade in silks and velvets, which are manufactured here in great perfection. The country produces immense quantities of oil, wine, flax, and hemp; and furnishes all Europe with sausages, Macaroni, liqueurs, and essences. The people seem to be industrious, and to be allowed to enjoy the fruits of their labour; the markets are most plentifully supplied with provisions; fruit is to be had in great variety, and all excellent in its kind; the common wine of the country is a light white wine of an agreeable taste, which strangers prefer to any of the French or German wines to be had here. Those who are not pleased with the entertainment they meet with at the inns in this city, it will be a difficult matter to please; they must be possessed of a degree of such nicety, both in their palates and tempers, as will render them exceedingly troublesome to themselves and others, not only in their travels through Italy, but in the whole course of their journey through life. There are a great number of palaces in this city. What is called the Public Palace, is, by far, the most spacious, but not the most elegant. In this the Cardinal Legate is lodged. There are also apartments for the Gonfalonier; and halls, or chambers, for some of the courts of justice. This building, though of a gloomy and irregular form without, contains some very magnificent apartments, and a few good pictures: the most esteemed are, a large one, by Guido, of the Virgin, and the infant Jesus, seated on the rainbow; a Sampson, by Guido also, refreshing himself with the water which issues from the jaw-bone with which he has just defeated the Philistines; and a St. John the Baptist, by Raphael, a duplicate of that in the Palais Royal at Paris, but thought, by some connoisseurs, greatly inferior. For my part, I think it is to be regretted, that this great painter did not employ the time he spent on one of them, at least, on some subject more worthy of his talents. A single figure, unemployed, can never please so much as a groupe, occupied in some interesting action. It is a pity that a painter, capable, even in a moderate degree, of exciting the passions, should confine his talents to solitary figures. How much more unworthy of _him_ who possessed all the sublimity and pathos of the art!