attractive, but it is curious. These protesters | vineyards casting garlands and festoons from tree of injured innocence are like the Devil-worshippers. They cannot, it is true, conceal the existence of their idol (would that they could!); but they deny it as religiously. Differences of climate, country, and race vanish before the mysterious bond which unites all landlords and land ladies in one unfailing falsehood-they are one people, speaking one language all over the world. No matter where the traveller may be assailedin Naples, Archangel, Madrid, or Londonon couch, divan, French bed, or four-poster -the same wonderfully concerted answer meets your ear the next morning ;-host or hostess are ready to pledge their souls that you are the first person ever so disturbed under their roof. You protest that you never closed your eyes-they are perfectly unmoved: you show the burning fires which the enemy have kindled in their passagefires, alas! which no ingenuity can quench until they expire of themselves-your friends suggest gnats or ants;-finally, you display a trophy of fallen foes-but the defence is ready-you brought them with you! The stronger your evidence, the bolder their denial. Never was there a community whose unity was so complete, or whose idol so abominable! You may possibly hope to reclaim a cannibal, convince a Brahmin, or convert the Pope; but you need never dream of inducing one of these detected householders to own the truth. The departure from Genoa is another beautiful moving panorama, set to music too.. "On leaving Genoa we entered upon the loveliest drive, I believe I may say, in the world! the Riviera di Levante. The road begins almost immediately to ascend after passing the environs of the city, and from the first summit of the overhanging mountains, there is a magnificent view of Genoa with its harbor and ships, its towers, domes, and spires, with thousands of white houses dotting the sides of the bills which surround it. We stopped here and looked back on the proud city below, and out upon the blue Mediterranean, impressing that panorama on our memory as perhaps lovelier than we had ever seen or were likely to see again! and yet, as we proceeded, new scenes of beauty opened upon us, such as do indeed baffle description, though one cannot help at least trying to convey an idea of what has given such intense enjoyment. The sides of the hills, abruptly sloping to the coast, are covered with the brightest vegetation, and shrubs that seem more suited to tropical climes, grow in the richest profusion. There are olive and fig trees, with their many sweet and scriptural associations, carrying one's mind to the times of our blessed Lord-his beautiful parables and lessons of heavenly wisdom; to tree, and giving added grace to each; orange and lemon groves, with their dark green leaves and golden fruit; pomegranates and palms; cystone pine, beautiful in itself, but still more so presses, like tall spires, towering above; and the landscapes of Claude Lorraine. from its associations in one's mind with the lovely Hedges of the swordlike aloe, and every where the cactus or Indian fig grow in the greatest luxuriance on the very edges of the rocks which rise from the sea-shore. Here and there the rich berries of the Arbutus appear from every little nook; and all this but as the like bunches of coral, while sweet roses bloom minute finishing of the grander features of the landscape. One lovely bay succeeds another :some soft and still, with a pebbly beach on which the waves seem to flow gently, as though whispering sweet music; others again have bold and rugged shores, overhung with dark rocks and precipices, the hidden breakers underneath only reurged by the swell of the sea upon them; while vealed by the angry foam of the receding waves, though vainly seeking its reflection in the troubled the hardy pine hangs over the very brink, as waters below. Stretching far away, in its calm bright loveliness, till lost in a flood of dazzling light, is the blue, the ever beautiful Mediterranean. gables, scattered here and there, stand sometimes The houses and villages, with gay and painted how human power could have placed them there. so high on the mountains, that it seems a marvel The terraced gardens, with statues peeping out from the flowers and other gay decorations, strike one at once as so in harmony where all is bright, and where sky, and earth, and sea seem enjoying a continual holiday. Onward we went through this paradise, till, after climbing a very steep part beautifully situated on the side of a wooded bank, of the mountain, we stopped at a little inn most with a grove of acacias before it. Here the view already enjoyed as we ascended, opened out still more magnificently; such a panorama of varied picturesqueness I never looked on. The air, too, not only breathed fragrance, but seemed pouring forth its joyous notes. It was just twelve o'clock when we reached the village inn, and all the bells of the churches were chiming.”—p. 66. Rome and Naples, with all the beauties and wonders in and around each, pretty much divide this volume. There is plenty of temptation to quote, but we must content ourselves with this description of an angry Vesuvius by night, witnessed, it may be, by many, but seldom described so accurately. Prognostications of a coming eruption had been afloat for some weeks-the mountain had been uneasy, rumbling noises had been heard, the wells at Resina were dried-and, at length, lava was reported to have burst forth on the on the 31st of January (1846), a stream of side next Naples. This was the time for English spirit and daring to inspect the menacing volcano, and accordingly a party was arranged to ascend and remain above till the darkness of night. The day was misty, but as they approached the Hermitage, the smoke from the descending lava became visible. "Leaving our animals upon the level platform above the Hermitage, to which has been given the name of the Sala di Cavalli, we started amid the good-humored cheers of the guides on our toilsome way. About a fifth of our ascent from this point had been accomplished, when, on pausing and looking upwards, we could very plainly both hear and see the slow downward progress of a body of lava, hissing and rattling among the loose cinders, as it overwhelmed or dislodged them, and occasionally sending huge pieces bounding down the steep declivity in a way that endangered not a little those below. Soon after, we came opposite the lower end of this smoking stream, and approached cautiously to obtain a nearer view of it. Even here it was of a glowing red heat upon the surface, though often so covered over with floating cinders and enveloped in smoke, that the actual deep red of the fire was obscured. On looking to the summit we could see against the sky-as one does on looking from below up to the shoot of a cataract above the stupendous torrent slowly lipping over the edge of the large crater, like a huge, hissing, fiery snake, deliberately crawling forth from its lair down upon its victims beneath. The motion is peculiarly steady and slow, even where the angle of its descent is most abrupt, and accompanied, from the movement of the loose cinders which impede or attend its progress, with a kind of trinkling sound, somewhat resembling that caused by fragments of ice hurstling each other in a half-frozen river. On reaching the summit we found a considerable change in the appearance of the large crater since our former visit. Instead of the comparatively level platform of hard lava, lying 10 or 12 feet lower than the edge on which we stood, and extending to the cone of the active crater in the centre, we found the whole surface greatly elevated, broken up and heaved into irregular piles, evidently from the recent throes of the volcano beneath. Across this space, slowly winding among its chasms and irregularities, on came the moving lava towards the outer verge, where, after making a circuit almost beneath our feet, it swept round the mound on which we were stationed, and poured over the edge, sending up a heat and a sulphuric atmosphere almost intolerable within a few yards. After a little breathing space here, we went round the verge to a spot at some distance from the running lava, where the surface was not too hot to tread on, and there bivouacked comfortably, producing our basket-stores wherewith to beguile the remaining hours till sunset. After this event takes place, an Italian twilight does not long try the patience of those who long for darkness, as on this occasion we did. And now it was we found the fog amid which we had ascended an advantage to the scene. As evening drew on, the darkness was rendered by it doubly obscure, and the reflection of the lava upon the misty atmosphere, dispersing a fiery tinge above and all around, was beautiful and grand be yond description. Hitherto, during the time we waited, the volcano itself had been peculiarly quiet and inactive-only one slight explosion occurring -so much that we feared a disappointment, and a party who had arrived before us actually took friend Salvatore made us act more wisely, and we themselves off in despair. A hint from our good were abundantly rewarded. "At six o'clock we were startled from our resting-place by a tremendous outburst, which seemed the beginning of a continued series for the whole evening. We sprang to our feet, and stumbling with great difficulty over the jagged masses of lava, scarcely half-cooled, and through an atmosphere at times pungent and stifling to an intolerable degree, we traced the fiery stream to its fearful source. Taking up our position immediately below the crater, we stood in breathless admiration, watching its convulsive throes succeeding each other at intervals of one or two minutes. At times it seemed to pause a little as though for breathing space, then to increase in fury, sending up its roaring volleys of blood-red stones and dazzling meteors five or six hundred feet into the deep black night of the sky, rendered yet more black and dark by the smoke of the volcano, which at this hour usually collects in murky clouds about the mountain top. These brilliant messengers, after describing a graceful parabolic curve, fall round the sides of the cone in a shower of splendor, mingling much of the beautiful with the terrible. The scene and our position were extraordinary indeed, and the feelings of awe, fascination, and subdued excitement, such as are likely to be but seldom called forth in the same degree during a lifetime. Again and again the idea arose, Can we ever forget the sensations of this moment?' And yet there was little mingling of fear or nervous apprehension, though surrounded by objects that might well have caused such. We were conscious rather of an elevation of spirit corresponding in some degree with the sublimity of the scene, and the vastness of the power whose operation we witnessed-a more than ordinary realization of the presence of Him to whom earth and air, fire and water, yea, all the powers of heaven and earth, are but ministers of His will! Yet it were presumptuous to say that there is no danger to spectators in such a position; danger there must always be from the perfect uncertainty at what moment or in what place the volcano is next to find a vent. We were made to feel this especially as we stood on a little mound of lava near the mouth of the crater. On one side of this mound, and not above eight or ten feet from us, the eye looked directly into a cavern of fire, not of flame, but of clear, quivering, glowing fire, like the heart of a fierce furnace seven times heated. This aperture might be about six feet in diameter; its depth, that of the mysterious world of terrors below! It was not a little appalling to discover, by looking at the ragged edges of this opening, how thin and slight is the crust interposed between the foot and the abyss over which it treads. Indeed, this had already been evident from the innumerable rents and chasms that seamed the surface over which we had passed, and through which the red one. fire was often visible, at the depth of not more than must have experienced who has made the usual two inches; and yet so firm and nietal-like feels descent from Vesuvius. The guides conducted the resistance to one's step, that without this aw- us to a place where there was no lava or cinders, ful proof the fact could scarcely be believed. but only loose sand, in which the feet sank deep, From somewhere between this mound and the foot and which yielded under the step. It is as nearly of the volcanic cone, although invisible for a few perpendicular as the place of ascent. The manyards from what must have been its actual source, ner in which we set off, by the direction of the oozed forth, slowly and quietly, with a motion and guides, who must have all done according to use consistency not inaptly likened to that of thick and wont, was more like the act of casting one's honey, the deep red glowing river of lava winding self headlong from a stupendous precipice than its deliberate but irresistible way over the black anything else; yet, in truth, it is an act of wisdom, rugged surface of the large old crater, which, as and of some degree of pleasure too. One has but already explained, forms the whole table summit to throw the feet forward, and the downward imof the mountain, creeping over the precipitous petus of the body does the remainder of the work. ledge, and then down, down, far into the thick The soft yielding sand completely breaks the darkness of the world below. No description, no shock. The fresh exhilarating air seems half to painting can give an idea of the intense and glow- bear you on its wings. The sensation is one ing red of this molten lava, as it issues fresh from something between skating and flying, and, while the bowels of the earth. Liquid metal flowing strength and breath endure, decidedly a pleasant from the furnace of an iron foundry is the only This is the poetical part of the proceeding thing that conveys an idea of it, yet falls short of to those actually engaged in this Rasselas-like its vivid glare. A thin white vapor rose from adventure. But to a looker-on-the foolish, frantic, the surface, and the light reflected from it, and headlong pace-the involuntary, but most lunaticcoloring its ascending wreaths with a deep, rich, like gesticulation of arins and legs-the breezy ruddy tint, as it rose into the darkness, marked its fluttering of ladies' dresses, dishevelled hair, and downward course, rendering it visible from a bonnets with cracking strings straining to be left great distance, and lending a strange, wild, awful behind-the giant strides, streaming coat-tails, character, powerfully affecting the imagination. and clenched teeth of the sterner sex-all laughOne can approach as near the running lava as the ing, shouting, leaping, and anon precipitated overpowering heat will permit, without the slight-helplessly on each other's shoulders, forms a picest apparent danger. We approached quite to the ture of the most unmingled absurdity."-p.112. edge of it, and holding the ends of staves, with which we were provided, to the lava, they flamed even before touching the liquid fire. One of our party availed himself of it to light a cigar; another did his best to roast an apple, but found the heat too great to complete the operation. Of course, in our cautious movements over the crackling surface, we were implicitly led and assisted by our guides, who bore flaming pine torches to light our footsteps-little needed, indeed, while the artillery of the mountain was flashing in the sky, but very necessary in the deep darkness of the intervals. Strangely picturesque were the figures of these men, seen in the flickering torchlight, standing in various attitudes upon the little eminences around, leaning on their long white staves, or grouped together round some fiery chasm, the ruddy glare of the fire thrown upwards on their swarthy visages and strange dresses. At times, too, one of them would start the first notes of a simple air, and then those around would catch it up, and conclude each verse with a burst of one of those wild and most musical choruses which characterize the old native airs of Italy."-p. 154. Nothing can take from the impressiveness of this description, the reality of which gives only a wider field for the imagination: we may, therefore, venture to wind it up with a finale in a very different key-namely, the descent from the mountain on an earlier and that a daylight visit: "Every one knows there is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and this every one As a describer of "Nature under an Italian Sky," our authoress is sufficiently vindicated. The refreshing difference between Nature and Art, in the mental power of judging of each, is that with the first no one can admire amiss. All that glitters with her is gold. She has nothing meretricious to mislead the eye. We may not admire enough—we never can admire enough; but though our homage reach but to our great mother's commonest gifts, they are sure to be more than worth the tribute. Knowledge, therefore, though it may immeasurably increase our pleasure by widening our view, yet can never be called strictly necessary in a study where there is no wrong road. But where the judgment is to be applied to Art, education becomes indispensable because discernment is so, for, wherever man has part, the false is sure to Here there are traps mingle with the true. for the ignorant, delusions for the ardent, and false coin for the rash. We are caught at first with that which we learn afterwards to despise; and though a fine natural taste may frequently discriminate those objects deserving homage, yet, as a rule, whatever the ignorant admire in art, and all its branches, is generally, if not the wrong, the inferior thing. The lady's "Art beneath an Italian Sky" is therefore not to be compared with her "Nature," though by no means without its merits for the gallery at Hamilton Palace, | and doubtless other opportunities, had not left her totally untaught. Nor will her taste be arraigned for having been caught by a style of art which has recently attracted great popularity here. We allude to those two examples of what Eustace calls "the patient skill of the sculptor"-the Pudor and the Disingannato, by Corradini, at the chapel of S. Severo at Naples. The Pudor will be recognized as the original of those "veiled figures" so much admired in the Great Exhibition, though those have carried what may be called the trick much further than their model. Where the effect is so pleasant to the eye it is difficult to persuade ourselves that it requires no great art, and therefore presumes no high merit, to produce it but whoever observed these heads very attentively will have discovered that the apparently mysterious process is a very simple one. A head is modelled by the sculptor in a general form, and strips of clay in the shape of folds disposed at intervals over it, leaving cavities between, through which portions of the features are seen, but which the eye, carrying on the idea suggested by the folds, imagines to be covered with the most transparent medium; whereas they are covered with nothing at all, but only duly deficient in sharpness. A highly-finished and well-expressed head thus concealed would be labor lost;--in point of fact, therefore, instead of overcoming the difficulties inseparable from a fine work of art, the sculptor has only avoided them: the veil is much easier to execute than the human countenance divine. The "patient skill" is more properly attributable to the other figure-a man enveloped in the meshes of a net; yet this again is only intended to conceal the absence of a higher artistic power, for the sculptor was not capable of modelling a figure correctly, and therefore cast this covering of mere labor over his ill-understood forms. The covering, it is true, is a marvel of labor and manual dexterity, but, if this be art, the workman in Bacon's studio who carved a bird in a cage has as high a claim to the title of artist, and the Chinaman who sends us a nest of balls, one within the other, and each with a surface of the most exquisite fret-work, a better claim still. In treating of pictures tourists would do well to acquaint themselves a little with the usual phraseology. "The Madonna Seggiola" has no meaning whatever, and "The Ascension of Mary," instead of "The Assumption of the Virgin," is a needless novelty, and might be called a profane one, since the word Ascension is only applied to our Lord. A little attention to correcting the press also is not beneath such an able writer's notice. The "lingua Toscano in bocca Romano" might induce an ill-natured reader to think she did not know better. We would remind a tourist also, that nothing requires greater discretion than the introduction of private persons and affairs into a narrative intended for the public. Individuals may be very interesting and dear, but unless they are famous for something more than rank they should never be directly paraded, but treated rather as abstract beings, with no more of personality attached than just to whet the curiosity of the reader. But these errors in judgment will be soon forgotten by this lady's readers:-not so the vivid impressions of reality which she well understands to conjure up. GEN. GASCOYNE.-The Liverpool Albion narrates that General Gascoyne, a member of Parliament from that city in years past, once betrayed his imperfect education in a very amusing manner. In some debate touching the extension of political privileges to the Dissenters, one of the orators had dwelt eloquently upon the beauty of harmony between different sects. Gascoyne rose to do a bit of bigotry for his friends, and thus commenced his reply: "I hate to hear all this cant about the harmony and union which ought to exist between different sexes.' ." He got no farther. A regular "hurra" of laughter burst from every corner of the House. The same worthy was once dreadfully puzzled when a schism occurred among the leaders of toryism. On that occasion he wrote to a leading friend in Liverpool: "Dear ——, I cannot as yet see my way clearly, or make out which section will prevail and obtain the government. Until that is decided, I shall vote according to my conscience.” From Bentley's Miscellany. MARIE DE MEDICIS.* ANY one, who knows what it is after listen- | and Madame de Verneuil, who was Henri's ing to a solid lecture, or after enduring a principal favorite after the death of La Belle long colloquy on business with a worthy Gabrielle, fill many an animated page, which man, to enjoy an hour's conversation with a is only saddened by reflections on the cruel clever and accomplished woman, may form injustice to which poor Queen Marie was an idea of the pleasure which Miss Pardoe's subjected, and the exceeding shabbiness with volumes will give him, after he has burdened which the chivalrous Henri could behave, his brains with some of the regular historical when his selfish passions prompted him. Afproductions of our learned lords of the crea- ter his death Marie appears as Regent; and tion. Women are incomparably the best bio- then comes the strange story of the rise and graphers, especially when the subject of the fall of her Italian favorites, Concini, afterbiography is a woman. They have a vivacity wards Maréchal d'Ancre, and his wife, who and a dramatic power surpassing those of the came to France as Leonora Galigaï, in the sons of Adam. They appreciate details bet- train of Marie de Medicis. After that periter than we do; they hunt out more inquisi- od the bitter series of persecutions commences, tively, and group more effectively the thou- which Queen Marie was destined to undergo sand little nothings, that make up the some- from her son, the saturnine Louis XIII., and his thing (and often the everything) of life, for favorites De Luynes and Richelieu. An infinite princesses and queens, as well as for ordinary number of episodes are introduced in the narmortals. They are at least our equals in de-rative, each of which illustrates the character picting great catastrophes, when the number of figures on the canvass is small, and when the feelings of individuals, rather than great national impulses, are to be displayed. They beat us out and out in anatomizing the secret springs of action, and in tracing the petty jealousies and vanities, the desires, the hopes, and the fears, that so often have been the originating causes of the most important vicissitudes in the history of states and empires. Miss Pardoe excels in all these qualifications for a biographer, and she is moreover free from the besetting weakness of some lady-writers of lady-lives, which leads them into violent political disquisitions, not at all required by their subject, and which, we venture to add, are not exactly suited to their capacity. The life of Marie de Medicis is a subject which could hardly fail of being interesting, even in less skilful hands than those of Miss Pardoe. We first are introduced with her to the gay and dissipated court of Henri Quatre, in whom she found a remarkably faithless husband, even considering the lax morality of The feuds between Queen Marie the age. * Life of Marie De Medicis, by Miss Pardoe. and the career of some of the distinguished personages of the period; and we believe that, independently of the interest which attaches itself to the narrative of the chequered fortunes of Marie de Medicis herself, every part of the book will be found attractive to the desultory reader, as well as to the more regular student. We select as favorable specimens of Miss Pardoe's powers, part of her description of the great catastrophe in the fortunes of Queen Marie, when Louis XIII. and his favorite Du Luynes destroyed the Concinis, and completely overthrew the domination which Marie, as regent, had exercised. Du Luynes and the young king had arranged everything for the assassination of the maréchal, without the suspicions of their victim, or of the queen-mother having been awakened. Miss Pardoe remarks, "There is something singularly appalling in all the circumstances which formed the prelude to this contemplated tragedy. Hitherto the Queenstarted at shadows, and distrusted even those who mother had created dangers for herself-had sought to serve her; while her son, silent, saturnine, and inert, had patiently submitted to the indignities and insults which had been heaped upon |
