on the old highway, and accordingly we took passage thither in the
omnibus of the Stella d'Oro.

There was little to interest us in the country over which we rode. It
is perfectly flat, and I suppose the reader knows what quantities
of hemp and flax are raised there. The land seems poorer than in
Lombardy, and the farm-houses and peasants' cottages are small and
mean, though the peasants themselves, when we met them, looked well
fed, and were certainly well clad. The landscape lay soaking in a
dreary drizzle the whole way, and the town of Cento when we reached
it, seemed miserably conscious of being too wet and dirty to go
in-doors, and was loitering about in the rain. Our arrival gave the
poor little place a sensation, for I think such a thing as an omnibus
had not been seen there since the railway of Bologna and Ferrara was
built. We went into the principal caffè to lunch,--a caffè much too
large for Cento, with immense red-leather cushioned sofas, and a cold,
forlorn air of half-starved gentility, a clean, high-roofed caffè and
a breezy,--and thither the youthful nobility and gentry of the place
followed us, and ordered a cup of coffee, that they might sit down and
give us the pleasure of their distinguished company. They put on their
very finest manners, and took their most captivating attitudes for the
ladies' sake; and the gentlemen of our party fancied that it was for
them these young men began to discuss the Roman question. How
loud they were, and how earnest! And how often they consulted
the newspapers of the caffè! (Older newspapers I never saw off a
canal-boat.) I may tire some time of the artless vanity of the young
Italians, so innocent, so amiable, so transparent, but I think I never
shall.

The great painter Guercino was born at Cento, and they have a noble