Poor fallen Ferrara! Commerce, learning, the arts, religion, had by turns shed a glory upon it. Now all is over; and where the "Queen of the Po" had been, there sits on the darkened plain a poor city, mouldering into dust, with the silence of a sepulchre around it. I entered the suburbs, but sound of human voice there was none; not a single human being could I see. It might be ages since these streets were trodden, for aught that appeared. The doors were closed, and the windows were stanchioned with iron. In many cases there was neither door nor window; but the house stood open to receive the wind or rain, the fowls of heaven, or the dogs of the city, if any such there were. I passed on, and drew nigh the centre of the town; and now there began to be visible some signs of vitality. Struck at the extremities, life had retreated to the heart. A square castellated building of red brick, surrounded on all sides by a deep moat, filled with the water of the Po, and guarded by Austrian soldiers, upreared its towers before me. This was the Papal Legation. I entered it, and found my passport waiting me; and the tiara and the keys, emblazoned on its pages, told me that I was free of the Papal States. CHAPTER XVII. FERRARA. Lovely in its Ruins--Number and Wealth of its Churches--Tasso's Prison--Renee's Palace--Calvin's Chamber--Influence of Woman on the Reformation--Renee and her Band--Re-union above--Utter Decay of its Trade, its Manufactures, its Knowledge. Even in its ruins Ferrara is lovely. It wears in the tomb the sunset hues of beauty. Its streets run out in straight lines, and are of noble breadth and length. Unencumbered with the heavy arcades that darken Padua, the marble fronts of its palaces rise to a goodly height, covered with rich but exceedingly sweet and chaste designs. On the stone of their pilasters and door-posts the ilex puts forth its leaf, and the vine its grapes; and the carving is as fresh and sharp, in many instances, as if the chisel were but newly laid aside. But it is melancholy to see the long grass waving on its causeways, and the ivy clinging to the deserted doorways and balconies of palatial residences, and to hear the echoes of one's foot sounding drearily in the empty street.