religious terror-of the reader. Artists should imitate his reverence. and refrain from all endeavours to embody the Infinite Mind in a human figure. How, indeed, can any one with proper views of the Divine Majesty venture on such an effort, or gaze with pleasure upon its result? Yet God is thus insulted and dishonoured in almost every church of Italy; and the original of all that is lovely or glorious in the universe is represented with the aspect of human decrepitude and decay. In Raphael's picture of the Creation, in one of the galleries of the Vatican, the Eternal Father is painted with hands and feet expanded, darting into chaos, and reducing the distracted elements to order by mere physical motion. This might do for the pagan Jove; but it will not do for the Christian God. It is unworthy of the artist's lofty genius. How different the representations of inspired Scripture: 'He spake. and they were made; he commanded, and they were created!' CHAPTER XXXII. HURRYGRAPHIC MISCELLANEA. Environs of Florence-Pisa-Grand Illumination-Past and Present -Leghorn-Pratolina-Summit of the Apennines-Covigliajo -Miniature Volcano-Poveri Infelice-Harvest Wages-Mountain Scenery--Bologna-Ferrara-Padua-Venice again-The Peter Martyr-Fine Churches-Solemn Stillness of the CityAcross Lombardy-The Picturesque-Farewell to Italy-The Alps-The Tête Noir-Magnificent Iris-From Mont Blanc to London. I saw the Alps, the everlasting hills, A mighty chain, that stretched their awful forms, And cast their shadows o'er the realms of noon. DR. RAFFLES. I WILL not detain my reader with a description of Fiesole the ancient; like a royal mother looking down from her mountain throne upon the princely daughter-Firenze la bella-at her feet. I shall say nothing of her Cyclopean wall, some ages older than the earliest substructions of Rome; nor mention the remains of her arx and her amphitheatre; nor sketch the fair prospect towards Valambrosa and the Camaldoli-towards Pisa, and Livorno, and the Mediterranean coast; or tell thee how the City of Flowers, itself a flower of wondrous beauty, opens from its calix before the enchanted gazer; the Duomo and the Campanile in the centre, with the beautiful octagonal steeple of the Badia, and the lofty belfry of the Palazzo Vecchio, with the surrounding spires and towers, forming a cluster to which there is nothing comparable in Europe, shooting forth like the stamens and pistils; while the suburban villas and villages, environed with fragrant vineyards and variegated gardens, and churches and convents clustering on every little hill, are like a vast corolla, spreading its gorgeous circumference, petal upon petal, for many miles around. Pardon this Oriental picture: the idea is borrowed; and the simile falls immeasurably short of the incomparable loveliness which it aims to describe. Charles the Fifth thought Florence was too beautiful to be seen except on holidays; and Ariosto says, if all the fine villas which are scattered, as if the soil produced them spontaneously, over the surrounding eminences, were gathered within the wall, two Romes could not vie with her in beauty. Nor have I much to say of the Villa Mozzi, the retreat of Catiline the conspirator, where his buried jars of Roman coin were recently discovered; the residence of Lorenzo the Magnificent, where he sat sublime in his lofty balcony, amid the encircling Apennines, with his feet dangling over Florence. Nor shall I stop long at San Miniato, with its romantic story of the conversion of Giovanni Gualberto, and its outlook upon the fairest of cities and the loveliest of valleys, 'down which the yellow Arno, through its long reaches, steals silently to the sea.' Nor more than point to the Torre del Gallo, where the starry Galileo' read the open book of heaven; and the villa in which he dwelt on the Bellosguardo, where he communed with Milton, and whence at length his spirit returned to God. To-morrow-the sixteenth of June-is the grand quadrennial festival at Pisa, in honour of its patron, San Ranieri; and we must not miss the brilliant Laminara, the most splendid spectacle of the kind in the world. Two hours by railway, and we are there. It is not yet noon, but the city is swarming with people. A little refreshment, and away to see the superb Duomo, the incomparable Baptistery, the terrific beauty of the inclining Campanile, and the Campo Santo, with its monuments and inscriptions, its numerous statues and frescoes, and its sixteen feet of holy earth, brought from Mount Calvary, and perchance crimsoned with the blood of our Redeemer. It is evening. Throughout the day, up and down the Lungarno, on both sides of the river, extensive preparations for the illumination have been going forward, at immense cost; and now the lamps are lighted, and the front of every building is ablaze from base to battlement, and the temporary structures which have been reared in every part of the city kindle gradually into castles and temples and palaces of fire in every fantastic form; and arches of fire spring over the Arno; and festoons of fire run along its bridges; and gondolas of fire glide to and fro upon its waters; and crosses of fire seem suspended here and there against the ebon sky; and every street is an avenue of fire, and every dome is a hemisphere of fire, and every campanile a column of fire, and the great leaning tower a vision of beauty never to be forgotten. I had seen the illumination of Saint Peter's, and the grand pyrotechnic display from the Pincio; but these were nothing to what I here beheld. It was more beautiful than any dream. It looked as if heaven had rained all its stars upon the city, and made me think of the New Jerusalem which shall one day come down from God! 'A glowing picture, my friend!' Would that you had been there, appreciating reader, to behold with me the far more brilliant original! Pisa was once a proud and prosperous city, flourishing in arts and arms and literature, with a university second only to that of Padua. But her wealth has made to itself wings, and the prestige of her name is gone. We saw Austrian soldiers, at the railway station, riding through the throng to keep them in order; and an inoffensive courier, who was endeavouring to procure billetti for his party, had his beaver cloven through from top to bottom with the sword, and narrowly escaped with his skull. And now, by vettura, with our genial friends, the Olmsteds, on our way to Bologna, we are climbing the piney Apennines. Soon we pass Pratolina, whose beauty, with that of its fair enchantress, Bianca Capella, is inelodiously sung by Tasso. And here is the picturesque convent of Monte Senario, environed with beautiful groves of cypress and cedar and laurel. Then we reached the loftiest point in the route, an altitude of more than three thousand feet, where the road traverses for some distance a narrow ridge, with a steep descent into a deep glen on either side, and a fine view of the mountains in every direction, the blue line of the Adriatic on the eastern horizon, and the vast plain of Lombardy to the north, bounded by the dim wall of the Alps. We found our first night's lodging at Covigliajo, a solitary inn, picturesquely seated on the side of Monte Bene. This Monte Bene is a jagged mass of serpentine, thrust up We through the shattered superincumbent strata. The stone is exceedingly beautiful, and full of large and lustrous crystals. We wandered far up the acclivity, plucking flowers, of which we found fifty-seven varieties in an hour's walk; and then descended into the sweetest of valleys, charmed by the call of the cuckoo and the song of the rosignuolo from the fragrant copses. This inn is much better provided than formerly with conveniences for the travelling public, through a benevolent freak of the Czarina of Russia; who, purposing to spend a night there, and aware of the wretchedness of the place, brought with her from Florence everything necessary for her comfort, even to carpets, tables, and tea-service; all of which, on the morrow, as she departed, she bequeathed to the host. knew not then, or we might not have slept so quietly, that this was the very establishment of which Forsyth tells so horrible a tale. Travellers arrived, departed, disappeared, and were never heard of more. What became of them could not be discovered. Officers were sent to search the mountains for banditti. But the real miscreants were for a long time unsuspected: the padrona, the cameriere, and the curate of a neighbouring village. They secretly murdered every traveller that had money, jewels, or other valuables; and burned his clothes, carriage, or whatever else might lead to their detection. Detected at length they were, however, and their punishment was as prompt and terrible as it was just. As we departed the next morning, we passed a miniature volcano, an emission of carburetted hydrogen gas from the side of the mountain, burning perpetually, with a bluish flame by day, and a brilliant red by night. Having paid liberally for our entertainment, and knowing that we were soon to cross the papal frontier, we pocketed the remnants of our collazione for the poveri infelice we might chance to meet with on our way. In a very short time we re-entered the dominions of His Holiness, and immediately saw and felt the difference. The people flocked out of the villages to meet us, and awaited our approach at the ascent of every hill. One poor creature followed us a long distance, crying, 'Do, dear ladies, give me a little money! Excellent and illustrious |