-no bush or green or dry. still used in Italy. There is, or was very lately, in Florence a small wine-house with this inscription over the door, Al buon vino non bisogna frasca. Good wine needs no bush. It was much frequented by Salvator Rosa, who drew a portrait of his hostess. Note 127, page 61, col. 2. Of that old den far up among the hills. Caffaggiòlo, the favorite retreat of Cosmo," the father of his country." Eleonora di Toledo was stabbed A narrow glade unfolded, such as Spring. there on the 11th of July, 1576, by her husband, This upper region, a country of dews and dewy Pietro de' Medici; and on the 16th of the same lights, as described by Virgil and Pliny, and still. 1 month, Isabella de' Medici was strangled by hers, believe, called La Rosa, is full of beautiful scenery. Paolo Giordano Orsini, at his villa of Cerreto. They Who does not wish to follow the footsteps of Cicero were at Florence, when they were sent for, each in there, to visit the Reatine Tempe and the Seven her turn, Isabella under the pretext of a huntingWaters? party; and each in her turn went to die. Note 128, page 61, col. 2. a sumpter-mule. Many of these circumstances are introduced into a landscape of Annibal Carracci, now in the Louvre. Note 129, page 62, col. 1. Filling the land with splendorPerhaps 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. Note 130, page 62, col. 1. Fair forms appear'd, murmuring melodious verse. 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. Note 131, page 62, col. 1. Note 141, page 64, col. 2. Have none appear'd as tillers of the ground. The Author of the Letter to Julia has written admirably on this subject, All sad, all silent! O'er the ear The street of the tombs in Pompeii may serve to Not less admirably has he described a Roman give us some idea of the Via Appia, that Regina Beauty; such as "weaves her spells beyond the Tiber." Methinks the Furies with their snakes, And looks at once both Love and Murder. Note 142, page 64, col. 2. From this Seat. Mons Albanus, now called Monte Cavo. On the summit stood for many centuries the temple of Jupiter Latiaris. "Tuque ex tuo edito monte Latiaris, sancte Jupiter," etc.-CICERO. Note 143, page 65, col. 1. Two were so soon to wander and be slain. La scène des six derniers livres de Virgile ne comprend, qu'une lieue de terrain."-BONSTETTEN. Note 144, page 65, col. 1. How many realms, pastoral and warlike, lay. "Horatiorum quà viret sacer campus."-MART. Note 147, page 65, col. 2. Music and painting, sculpture, rhetoric. Music; and from the loftiest strain to the lowliest, from a Miserere in the Holy Week to the shepherd's humble offering in Advent; the last, if we may judge from its effects, not the least subduing, perhaps the most so. An allusion to Cæsar in his Gallic triumph. "Ad- Once, as we were approaching Frescati in the sunscendit Capitolium ad lumina," etc. SUETONIUS. Ac-shine of a cloudless December morning, we observed cording to Dion. Cassius, he went up on his knees. Note 138, page 63, col. 1. On those so young, well-pleased with all they see. In the triumph of Æmilius, nothing affected the Roman people like the children of Perseus. Many wept; nor could anything else attract notice, till they were gone by PLUTARCH. Note 139, page 63, col. 1. -and she who said, Taking the fatal cup between her hands. a rustic group by the road-side, before an image of the Virgin, that claimed the devotions of the passenger from a niche in a vineyard wall. Two young men from the mountains of the Abruzzi, in their long brown cloaks, were playing a Christmas-carol. Their instruments were a hautboy and a bagpipe; and the air, wild and simple as it was, was such as she might accept with pleasure. The ingenuous and smiling countenances of these rude minstrels, who seemed so sure that she heard them, and the unaffected delight of their little audience, all younger than themselves, The story of the marriage and the poison is well all standing uncovered, and moving their lips in known to every reader. Note 140, page 64, col. 1. His last great work. The transfiguration; "la quale opera, nel vedere il corpo morto, e quella viva, faceva scoppiare l'anima prayer, would have arrested the most careless trav eller. Note 148, page 65, col. 2. And architectural pomp, such as none else; Whoever has entered the Church of St. Peter's or di dolore à ogni uno, che quivi guardava."-VASARI. the Pauline Chapel, during the Exposition of the Holy Sacrament there, will not soon forget the blaze of the side of the rock, and hanging over that torrent, the altar, or the dark circle of worshippers kneeling are little ruins which they show you for Horace's in silence before it. house, a curious situation to observe the Note 169, page 68, col. 2. When they that robb'd, were men of better faith. Alluding to Alfonso Piccolomini. "Stupiva cias There was said to be in the choir, among others cuno che, mentre un bandito osservava rigorosamente of the Sisterhood, a daughter of Cimarosa. la sua parola, il Papa non avesse ribrezzo di mancare alla propria."-GALLUZZI. ii, 364. He was hanged at Florence, March 16, 1591. When along the shore. Tasso was returning from Naples to Rome, and had arrived at Mola di Gaëta, when he received this tribute of respect. The captain of the troop was Marco di Sciarra. See MANSO. Vita del Tasso. Ariosto had a similar adventure with Filippo Pachione. See BARUFFALDI. Note 162, page 69, col. 1. As by a spell they start up in array. "Cette race de bandits a ses racines dans la population même du pays. La police ne sait ou les trouver." Lettres de CHATEAUVIEUX. Note 163, page 69, col. 2. Three days they lay in ambush at my gate. This story was written in the year 1820, and is founded on the many narratives which at that time were circulating in Rome and Naples. Note 164, page 71, col. 2. And in the track of him who went to die. The Elder Pliny. See the letters in which his nephew relates to Tacitus the circumstances of his death. Note 165, page 74, col. 1. The fishing-town, Amalfi. "Amalfi fell, after three hundred years of prosperity; but the poverty of one thousand fishermen is yet dignified by the remains of an arsenal, a cathedral, and the palaces of royal merchants."-GIBBON. Note 166, page 74, col. 2. A Hospital, that, night and day, received It was dedicated to Saint John. Note 167, page 74, col. 2. -relics of ancient Greece. Among other things the Pandects of Justinian were found there in 1137. By the Pisans they were taken from Amalfi, by the Florentines from Pisa; and they are now preserved with religious care in the Laurentian Library. Note 168, page 74, col. 2. Grain from the golden vales of Sicily. There is at this day in Syracuse a street called "I did not tell you that just below the first fall, on La Strada degli Amalfitani. third novel of Franco Sacchetty we read, that a stranger, suddenly entering Giotto's study, threw down a shield and departed, saying, "Paint me my It was in the year 839. See Muratori. Art. Chronici arms in that shield ;" and that Giotto, looking after Amalphitani Fragmenta. Note 170, page 74, col. 2. Serve for their monument. By degrees, says Giannone, they made themselves famous through the world. The Tarini Amalfitani were a coin familiar to all nations; and their maritime code regulated everywhere the commerce of the sea. Many churches in the East were by them built and endowed: by them was first founded in Palestine that most renowned military Order of St. John of Jerusalem; and who does not know that the Mariner's Compass was invented by a citizen of Amalfi? Note 171, page 75, col. 1. The air is sweet with violets, running wild. The violets of Pæstum were as proverbial as the roses. Martial mentions them with the honey of Hybla. Note 172, page 75, col. 1. Those thoughts so precious and so lately lost. The introduction to his treatise on Glory. Cic. ad Att. xvi, 6. For an account of the loss of that treatise, see Petrarch, Epist. Rer.; SENILIUM, XV, i; and BAYLE, Dict. in Alcyonius. Note 173, page 75, col. 2. -and Posidonia rose. Originally a Greek City under that name, and afterwards a Roman City, under the name of Pastum. See Mitford's Hist. of Greece, chap. x, sec. 2. It was surprised and destroyed by the Saracens at the beginning of the tenth century. Note 174, page 76, col. 1. "What hangs behind that curtain ?" This story, if a story it can be called, is fictitious; and I have done little more than give it as I received it. It has already appeared in prose; but with many alterations and additional circumstances. The abbey of Monte Cassino is the most ancient and venerable house of the Benedictine Order. It is situated within fifteen leagues of Naples, on the inland road to Rome; and no house is more hospitable. Note 175, page 76, col. 1. For life is surely there, and visible change. There are many miraculous pictures in Italy; but none, I believe, were ever before described as malignant in their influence. Note 176, page 76, col. 2. Within a crazed and tatter'd vehicle. Then degraded, and belonging to a Vetturino. Note 177, page 76, col. 2. A shield as splendid as the Bardi wear. him, exclaimed, "Who is he? What is he? He says, Paint me my arms, as if he was one of the Bardi! What arms does he bear?" Note 178, page 77, col. 1. Paganino Doria, Nicolo Pisani; those great seamen, who balanced for so many years the fortunes of Genoa and Venice. Note 179, page 77, col. 1. Ruffling with many an oar the crystalline sea. The Feluca is a large boat for rowing and sailing, much used in the Mediterranean. Note 180, page 77, col. 1. Every reader of Spanish poetry is acquainted with that affecting romance of Gongora, Amarrado al duro banco, etc. Lord Holland has translated it in his Life of Lope Vega. Note 181, page 77, col. 2. Here he lived. The Piazza Doria, or, as it is now called, the Piazza di San Matteo, insignificant as it may be thought, is to me the most interesting place in Genoa. It was there that Doria assembled the people, when he gave side of it is the church he lies buried in, on the other them their liberty (Sigonii Vita Doria); and on one a house, originally of very small dimensions, with this inscription: S. C. Andres de Auria Patriæ Liberatori Munus Publicum. The streets of old Genoa, like those of Venice, were constructed only for foot-passengers. Note 182, page 77, col. 2. Held many a pleasant, many a grave discourse. See his Life by Sigonio. Note 183, page 77, col. 2. A house of trade. When I saw it in 1822, a basket-maker lived on the ground-floor, and over him a seller of chocolate. Note 184, page 78, col. 1. Before the ocean-wave thy wealth reflected. Alluding to the Palace which he built afterwards, and in which he twice entertained the Emperor Charles the Fifth. It is the most magnificent edifice on the bay of Genoa. Note 185, page 78, col. 1. The ambitious man, that in a perilous hour Fiesco. See Robertson's History of the Emperor A Florentine family of great antiquity. In the sixty-Charles the Fifth. 97 Miscellaneous Poems. ODE TO SUPERSTITION.1 I. 1. HENCE, to the realms of Night, dire demon, hence! Clot his shaggy mane with gore, With flashing fury bid his eye-balls shine; Thy touch, thy deadening touch has steel'd the breast, Whence, through her April-shower, soft Pity smiled; When, with a frown that froze the peopled earth,3 And, brooding, gave her shapeless shadows birth, Ha! what withering phantoms glare! As blows the blast with many a sudden swell, At each dead pause, what shrill-toned voices yell! The sheeted spectre, rising from the tomb, Points to the murderer's stab, and shudders by; In every grove is felt a heavier gloom, That veils its genius from the vulgar eye: The spirit of the water rides the storm, And, through the mist, reveals the terrors of his form. I. 3. O'er solid seas, where Winter reigns, Each potent spell thou badest him know. Smit by the scorchings of the noontide beam. She hurls the torch! she fans the fire! To die is to be blest: She clasps her lord to part no more, The Sisters sail in dusky state, While the lone shepherd, near the shipless main,' Sees o'er her hills advance the long-drawn funeral train. II. 1. Thou spakest, and lo! a new creation glow'd. And at its base the trembling nations bow'd. Grasp'd the globe with iron hand. spheres ; The indignant pyramid sublimely towers, And braves the efforts of a host of years. Sweet Music breathes her soul into the wind; And bright-eyed Painting stamps the image of the mind. II. 2. Round their rude ark old Egypt's sorcerers rise! But ah! what myriads claim the bended knee!" II. 3. On yon hoar summit, mildly bright High o'er the world, the white-robed Magi gaze 5 The Fates of the Northern Mythology. See Mallet's An- 1. 131. tiquities. 9 En. VI. 46, etc. |