bad qualifications, as he observed, for the amusement of travellers, who
commonly arrive hungry for novelty, and thirsty for information. His
quadrant was very fine, the planetarium or orrery quite out of repair;
and his references of course were obliged to be made to a sort of map or
chart of the heavenly bodies (a solar system at least with comets) that
hung up in his room as a substitute. He had little reverence for the
petrefactions of Monte Bolca I perceived, which he considered as mere
_lufus naturæ_. He shewed me poor Petrarch's tomb from his observatory,
bid me look on Sir Isaac's full-length picture in the room, and said,
the world would see no more such men. Of our Maskelyne, however, no man
could speak with more esteem, or expressions of generous friendship. His
sitting chamber was a pleasant one; and I should not have left it so
soon, but in compassion to his health, which our company was more likely
to injure than assist. He asked me, if I did not find _Padua la dotta_ a
very stinking nasty town? but added, that literature and dirt had long
been intimately acquainted, and that this city was commonly called among
the Italians, _"Porcil de Padua," Padua the pig-stye._

Fire is supposed to be the greatest purifier, and Padua has gone through
that operation twice completely, being burned the first time by Attila;
after which, Narses the famous eunuch rebuilt and settled it in the year
558, if my information is good: but after her protector's death, the
Longobards burned her again, and she lay in ashes till Charlemagne
restored her to more than original beauty. Under Otho she, like many
other cities of Italy, was governed by her own laws, and remained a
republic till the year 1237, when she received the German yoke,
afterwards broken by the Scaligers; nor was their treacherous
assassination followed by less than the loss both of Verona and this
city, which was found in possession of the Emperor Maximilian some years
after: but when the State of Venice recovered their dominion over it in