Houses are fallen--fences down-- And men are now much scarcer-- Wild beasts in multitudes are known, That every day get fiercer. Flee gravel--grit--and heartless clay-- Nor corn nor oats will grow there-- To westward hie--away--away! No heartless Clay you'll know there.--_Benton_.] [Footnote 7: The yellow iachimo.--_Shakspeare_. [Cymbeline.]] For the Southern Literary Messenger. A LEAF FROM THE JOURNAL OF A YOUNG AMERICAN TOURIST IN ITALY. The "sable goddess" had been seated for some time upon her "ebon throne," when we passed through the ponderous gate and rattled along the principal street of Genoa the Proud. It was a beautiful night. The firmament was studded with sparkling gems, and the silver queen rode steadily in the heavens, diffusing that pure and hallowed illumination which prompted the ancients to worship her as the goddess of chastity, and uninterrupted by any of those envious clouds whose intervention between her face and the earth furnishes poets with so favorite a figure to express the idea of virtue obscured and oppressed with misfortune. It was not, however, a night in which "creation sleeps,"--or, to use the pompous phrase of Racine, in which "tout dort, et les vents et Neptune,"--for the wind was tempestuously high, and the waves evinced all their usual restlessness at being roughly visited by the subjects of old Æolus. As we whirled along, nothing like an animated being was to be seen; not even a mouse was stirring; and the rush and whistling of the wind through the street, seemed to bring out the solemn stillness which otherwise prevailed, into the strongest relief. How we strained our eyes to catch glimpses of the glorious palaces which have so filled the trump of fame, and to which the city is indebted for her magnificent title! And how impressive, how imposing was their appearance in the partial development and mellowed effect of their splendor, afforded by the beams of the moon! The whole street was one consecutive, uninterrupted row of princely buildings,--and exquisite indeed was the effect of light and shade there exhibited--"leaving that lovely which was so, and making that which was not."