Milan is better known to the generality of English travellers than, perhaps, any other city south of the Alps; and its older portions afford a fair idea of some of the most salient points of Italian manners and customs, whilst its new and much-vaunted arcades and streets seem to be not only so cosmopolitan as to be un-Italian, but so bald and poor in design as to be repulsive wherever they are! Its narrow busy streets, though they are wanting indeed in the arcading so characteristic of very many other towns we had passed through, have that peculiar charm which life and bustle always give to strange places; the crowds of foot-passengers threading the narrow ways, with no protection from the omnibuses and carts which jostle against them, are full of animation, and lively and picturesque in their costumes. Elbowing our way between them, we soon found ourselves in a piazza, with the Duomo rising before us in all the magnificence of its white marble walls. If it be indeed true that it was designed by a German,[71] there is on the outside even more cause for astonishment at his work than if it had been the work of an Italian. The west front is quite modern, but the rest of the exterior, all in its original state, is as little German in its character as any building I have ever seen, and--shall I add it?--as little really grand as a work of art. I had just caught a glimpse of its general outline and effect by the bright moonlight, on the evening of my arrival, with the music of an Austrian band sounding pleasantly in my ears, and, thus seen, there was certainly something wild and striking in its effect. I saw the brilliantly light colour of the white marble in the full brightness of the moon, and little of the poverty of moulding, or the heaviness of traceries, or the preposterous tenuity of pinnacles, which daylight revealed, to the destruction of any belief I might still have in its beauty; and the more I examined it in detail the less satisfactory did it appear; for neither in its general mass, nor in its detail, does it bear examination. Its walls are panelled all over, the panelling having a peculiarly painful kind of pendulous, unsupported, and unconstructional character, and the string-courses are marked by a continuous trefoil arcading on their under side, which recalls the frequent Italian string-courses [Illustration: GROUND-PLAN--MILAN CATHEDRAL.]