The first object to which a traveller hastens, is the leaning tower; and this is certainly a curiosity well adapted to excite his wonder. A picture of it, of course, will show any person what sort of a structure it is, but it can give him no notion of the effect produced by standing before the real object. Imagine a massy stone tower, consisting of piles of columns, tier over tier, rising to the height of one hundred and ninety feet, or as high as the spire of the Old South church, and leaning on one side in such a manner as to appear on the point of falling every moment! The building would be considered very beautiful if it stood upright; but the emotions of wonder and surprise, caused by its strange position, so completely occupy the mind of the spectator, that we seldom hear any one speak of its beauty. To stand under it and cast your eyes upward is really frightful. It is hardly possible to disbelieve that the whole gigantic mass is coming down upon you in an instant. A strange effect is also caused by standing at a small distance, and watching a cloud sweep by it; the tower thus appears to be actually falling. This circumstance has afforded a striking image to the great poet Dante, who compares a giant stooping to the appearance of the leaning tower at Bologna when a cloud is fleeting by it. An appearance, equally remarkable and more picturesque, struck my eye in the evening, when the tower was illuminated with thousands of brilliant lamps, which, as they flickered and swung between the pillars, made the whole lofty pile seem constantly trembling to its fall. I do not remember that this latter circumstance has ever before been mentioned by any traveller, but it is certainly the most wonderfully striking aspect in which this singular edifice can be viewed.