to such mementos; and when they recal most strongly what has been, the thought of what may yet be, brings home an exquisite and almost forgotten delight. While melancholy even imparts its sad hue to the moral observer of Rome's relics and ruins, something of hope, of instinctive anticipation, bears out the mental gratification which ever flows from them.

"Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps
Her corn and wine and oil, and Plenty leaps
To laughing life with her redundant horn;
Along the banks, where smiling Arno sweeps,
Was modern Luxury of Commerce born,

And buried Learning rose, redeemed to a new morn.'

"Search within,

Without; all is enchantment!

'Tis the Past

Contending with the Present; and in turn

Each has the mastery."

1

LOCALITIES.

THE prevalence of broad-sweeping vales, thickly studded with olive trees, and relieved by a background of snow-covered mountains, uniquely embosoming a picturesque city, through the midst of which a river courses, spanned by several finely arched bridges-these are local circumstances which clearly assure us that we are in the delightful capital of the garden of Italy, as Tuscany is appropriately called. A merely conventional view of Florence inspired me with a strong predilection for it as a residence. It possesses that medium character

as regards extent, population, and activity, which is essential to the comfort of those who would find in their place of abode a moderate degree of liveliness combined with something of quietude and beauty. Its compactness and broadly-paved streets, and the general magnitude and antique cast of its buildings, are features which almost immediately prepossess the visitor.

One cannot wander long in Florence without coming out upon the Piazza Grand Duca. This square seems to possess something of the local interest of the Edinburgh grass-market, as described by Sir Walter Scott; not that peculiar events transpire there, but the place is a kind of central resort, the post office and custom house being there situated, and that curious specimen of Tuscan architecture called the Palazzo Vecchio. There, too, stand the colossal and time-hallowed figures, sculptured by Buonarotti; seen at night how mystic their snowy distinctness! The illuminated figures upon the old tower designate, at that season, the hour, and a solitary sentinel standing in the shade of the buildings, with the equestrian statue of Cosmo in the centre, complete the romanticity of the scene. In the daytime a far more bustling appearance is presentedgroups awaiting the sorting of the mails, venders crying at their scattered booths, and, most unique of all, a quack mounted upon his cùleche, eulogizing his nostrums most eloquently.