Still ascending I attained the brow of the mountain, and had nothing but the fortress of Belvedere, and two or three open porticos above me. On this elevated situation, I found several walks of trellis-work, clothed with luxuriant vines, that produce to my certain knowledge the most delicious clusters. A colossal statue of Ceres, her hands extended in the act of scattering fertility over the prospect, crowns the summit, where I lingered to mark the landscape fade, and the bright skirts of the western sun die gradually away. Then descending alley after alley, and bank after bank, I came to the orangery in front of the palace, disposed in a grand amphitheatre, with marble niches relieved by dark foliage, out of which spring tall aërial cypresses. This spot brought the scenery of an antique Roman garden full into my mind. I expected every instant to be called to the table of Lucullus hard by, in one of the porticoes, and to stretch myself on his purple triclinias; but waiting in vain for a summons till the approach of night, I returned delighted with a ramble that had led me so far into antiquity. _Friday_, _September_ 16_th_.—My impatience to hear Pacchierotti called me up with the sun. I blessed a day which was to give me the greatest of musical pleasures, and travelled gaily towards Lucca, along a fertile plain, bounded by rocky hills, and scattered over with towns and villages. We passed Pistoia in haste, and about three in the afternoon entered the Lucchese territory, by a clean, paved road, which runs through some of the pleasantest copses imaginable, bordered with a variety of heaths and broom in blossom. Sometimes it conducted us down slopes, overgrown with shrubby chestnuts and arbor vitæ; sometimes between groves of cypresses and pines laden with cones: a red soil peeping forth from the vegetation adds to the richness of the landscape, which swells all the way into gentle acclivities: and at about seven or eight miles from the city spreads into mountains, green to their very summits, and diversified with gardens and palaces. A more pleasing scenery can with difficulty be imagined: I was quite charmed with beholding it, as I knew very well that the opera would keep me a long while chained down in its neighbourhood.