The sun was wheeling westward, and the cliffs
And nodding woods, that everlastingly
(Such the dominion of thy mighty voice,'
Thy voice, VELINO, uttered in the mist)
Hear thee and answer thee, were left at length
For others still as noon; and on we strayed
From wild to wilder, nothing hospitable
Seen up or down, no bush or green or dry,
That ancient symbol at the cottage-door,
Offering refreshment-when LUIGI cried,
"Well, of a thousand tracks we chose the best!"
And, turning round an oak, oracular once,
Now lightning-struck, a cave, a thoroughfare
For all that came, each entrance a broad arch,
Whence many a deer, rustling his velvet coat,
Had issued, many a gipsy and her brood
Peered forth, then housed again-the floor yet grey
With ashes, and the sides, where roughest, hung
Loosely with locks of hair—I looked and saw
What, seen in such an hour by Sancho Panza,
Had given his honest countenance a breadth,
His cheeks a flush of pleasure and surprise
Unknown before, had chained him to the spot,
And thou, Sir Knight, hadst traversed hill and dale,
Squire-less.--Below and winding far away,
A narrow glade unfolded, such as Spring

Broiders with flowers, and, when the moon is high,
The hare delights to race in, scattering round
The silvery dews.2 Cedar and cypress threw

Singly their depth of shadow, chequering

The greensward, and, what grew in frequent tufts,

1 An allusion to the CASCATA DELLE MARMORE, a celebrated fall of the VELINO near TERNI.

2 This upper region, a country of dews and dewy lights, as described by VIRGIL and PLINY, and still, I believe, called La Rosa, is full of beautiful scenery. Who does not wish to follow the footsteps of CICERO there, to visit the Reatine Tempe and the Seven Waters?

An underwood of myrtle, that by fits

Sent up a gale of fragrance. Through the midst,
Reflecting, as it ran, purple and gold,

A rainbow's splendour (somewhere in the east
Rain-drops were falling fast), a rivulet,
Sported as loth to go; and on the bank
Stood (in the eyes of one, if not of both,
Worth all the rest and more) a sumpter-mule
Well-laden, while two menials as in haste
Drew from his ample panniers, ranging round
Viands and fruits on many a shining salver,
And plunging in the cool translucent wave
Flasks of delicious wine.-Anon a horn
Blew, through the champain bidding to the feast,
Its jocund note to other ears addressed,
Not ours; and, slowly coming by a path,
That, ere it issued from an ilex-grove,
Was seen far inward, though along the glade
Distinguished only by a fresher verdure,
Peasants approached, one leading in a leash
Beagles yet panting, one with various game
In rich confusion slung, before, behind,
Leveret and quail and pheasant. All announced
The chase as over; and ere long appeared,
Their horses full of fire, champing the curb,
For the white foam was dry upon the flank,
Two in close converse, each in each delighting,
Their plumage waving as instinct with life;
A Lady young and graceful, and a Youth,
Yet younger, bearing on a falconer's glove,
As in the golden, the romantic time,

His falcon hooded. Like some spirit of air,

Or fairy vision, such as feigned of old,
The Lady, while her courser pawed the ground,
Alighted; and her beauty, as she trod

The enamelled bank, bruising nor herb nor flower,

That place illumined. Ah, who should she be,
And with her brother, as when last we met
(When the first lark had sung ere half was said,
And as she stood, bidding adieu, her voice,
So sweet it was, recalled me like a spell);
Who but Angelica ?That day we gave
To pleasure, and, unconscious of their flight,
Another and another! hers a home
Dropt from the sky amid the wild and rude,
Loretto-like; where all was as a dream,
A dream spun out of some Arabian tale
Read or related in a jasmine bower,

Some balmy eve. The rising moon we hailed,
Duly, devoutly, from a vestibule

Of many an arch, o'erwrought and lavishly

With many a labyrinth of sylphs and flowers,

When RAPHAEL and his school from FLORENCE came,

Filling the land with splendour 1-nor less oft
Watched her, declining, from a silent dell,
Not silent once, what time in rivalry
TASSO, GUARINI, waved their wizard wands,
Peopling the groves from Arcady, and lo,
Fair forms appeared, murmuring melodious verse,2
-Then, in their day, a sylvan theatre,

Mossy the seats, the stage a verdurous floor,

The scenery rock and shrub-wood, Nature's own;

Nature the Architect.

1 Perhaps the most beautiful villa of that day was the VILLA MADAMA. It is now a ruin; but enough remains of the plan and the grotesque-work to justify Vasari's account of it.

The Pastor Fido, if not the Aminta, used to be often represented there; and a theatre, such as is here described, was to be seen in the gardens very lately.

2 A fashion for ever reviving in such a climate. In the year 1783 the Nina of Paesiello was performed in a small wood near Caserta.

MONTORIO.

GENEROUS, and ardent, and as romantic as he could be, MONTORIO was in his earliest youth, when, on a summer evening not many years ago, he arrived at the Baths of *** With a heavy heart, and with many a blessing on his head, he had set out on his travels at daybreak. It was his first flight from home; but he was now to enter the world; and the moon was up and in the zenith when he alighted at the Three Moors,1 a venerable house of vast dimensions, and anciently a palace of the Albertini family, whose arms were emblazoned on the walls.

Every window was full of light, and great was the stir, above and below but his thoughts were on those he had left so lately; and retiring early to rest, and to a couch, the very first for which he had ever exchanged his own, he was soon among them once more; undisturbed in his sleep by the music that came at intervals from a pavilion in the garden, where some of the company had assembled to dance.

But, secluded as he was, he was not secure from intrusion; and Fortune resolved on that night to play a frolic in his chamber, a frolic that was to determine the colour of his life. Boccaccio himself has not recorded a wilder; nor would he, if he had known it, have left the story untold.

At the first glimmering of day he awaked; and, looking round, he beheld, it could not be an illusion; yet anything so lovely, so angelical, he had never seen before-no, not even in his dreams,—a Lady still younger than himself, and in the profoundest, the sweetest slumber by his side. But, while he gazed, she was gone, and through

I Tre Mauri.