We found Rovigo, where we breakfasted, much smaller certainly, and every way less important than, but with the same air of desertion as, Ferrara. In front of us, after quitting Rovigo, appeared an island of hills in the midst of the plain, and our route lay towards it. At their foot was Monselice, where we passed another night. These hills form an oasis of mountain in the desert of monotony around them. A party of Venetians were at the inn, and the women had brilliant complexions and fair hair; one had hair that was nearly red;—this was a proof that we were drawing near the scene of Titian’s works. The Signora Guiccioli, so well known to the admirers of Byron, is of the same style of beauty. It is odd that Raphael, and indeed most of the Italian masters, painted their females as _blondes_, when the prevalent style of the beauty of the women is that of brunettes. Of the eight Americans of our party, I am the only one that has not light hair and a fair complexion: a circumstance that has excited much surprise in this part of the world, where we are deemed to be, _ex officio_, black. From Monselice we made one stage to Padua, a place that we entered with a good deal of interest. It is a large and, for Europe, a straggling town. As this was the country of Palladio, we here met his architecture. I cannot say I like it so much as I had anticipated. It has more pretension than beauty or simplicity; though it strikes me there is an effort at both. Still, this style is not without the noble. Boston is the only place I know of in America that has any thing resembling it in general outline; though Boston has nothing, within my knowledge, that can be truly termed Palladian. The great hall of Padua pleased us extremely. It is near three hundred feet long, and near one hundred feet wide, though not very lofty. It is the largest room I have seen, with the exception of the galleries. The style is a mixed Gothic, the roof being of open rafters, and the effect is quaint and striking. I prefer it, on the whole, to Westminster-hall; though it is scarcely so noble. A miracle had just been performed in one of the churches of Padua, a Madonna giving some signs of animation. I went to see it, but found that the visit was ill-timed; the image remaining as immovable as any other image, during the presence of a heretic. I believe these things are much less frequent than formerly, the French occupation not only destroying most of the marvels of religion, but, in a great measure, religion itself. It is a grand commentary on human wisdom and on human consistency, that one may now see a king and his courtiers carrying candles in those streets where rulers appeared in their shirt-sleeves attending a trull in the assumed character of the Goddess of Reason! Infidelity no longer comes to us naked; but it wears a mask of philosophy and logic, in the pretended character of a _mitigated Christianity_. The citadel that cannot be stormed, must be sapped.