With a drive of two or three hours, half twilight, half moonlight, we entered _Padua_. It was too late to see the portrait of Petrarch, and I had not time to go to his tomb at Arqua, twelve miles distant, so, musing on Livy and Galileo, to both of whom Padua was a home, I inquired for a _café_. A new one had lately been built in the centre of the town, quite the largest and most thronged I ever saw. Eight or ten large, high-roofed halls were open, and filled with tables, at which sat more beauty and fashion than I supposed all Padua could have mustered. I walked through one after another, without finding a seat, and was about turning to go out, and seek a place of less pretension, when an elderly lady, who sat with a party of seven, eating ices, rose, with Italian courtesy, and offered me a chair at their table. I accepted it, and made the acquaintance of eight as agreeable and polished people as it has been my fortune to meet. We parted as if we had known each other as many weeks as minutes. I mention it as an instance of the manners of the country. Three hours more, through spicy fields and on a road lined with the country-houses of the Venetian nobles, brought us to _Vicenza_. It was past midnight, and not a soul stirring in the bright moonlit streets. I remember it as a kind of city of the dead. As we passed out of the opposite gate, we detained for a moment a carriage, with servants in splendid liveries, and a lady inside returning from a party, in full dress. I have rarely seen so beautiful a head. The lamps shone strongly on a broad pearl fillet on her forehead, and lighted up features such as we do not often meet even in Italy. A gentleman leaned back in the corner of the carriage, fast asleep--probably her husband! * * * * *