to attend strangers, was so obliging as to defer dinner till a late hour, in order to enable us to make our intended excursion to the summit of the mountain; and after breakfast we set out, crossing first the little plain in which the abbey stands; and then passing a stream that descends from the cliff, we began the ascent by a narrow pathway which winds up the acclivity, but is yet sufficiently steep and laborious. However, as the heat was by no means oppressive, and we walked under a deep shade the whole way, the ascent was not very fatiguing.

The trees that form the forest through which we passed are generally old, shattered, and venerable, and the silence that reigned around us interrupted, perhaps I might have said heightened, by the murmurs of the wind unusually deep in such a vast mass of foliage, was extremely impressive, and gave the savage scene around us a grand, a melancholy solemnity. The channels of several torrents now dry, but encumbered with fragments of rock and trunks of trees hurled down by the fury of the mountain stream, furrowed the sides of the steep, and added to its rude magnificence. Down one of these channels a rill still continued to roll, and tumbling from rock to rock formed several cascades, whose tinklings were faintly heard amidst the hollow roar of the forests.

When we reached the summit we walked up and down to enjoy the cool breezes that always fan the higher regions of the Apennines, and to contemplate at the same time the picture expanded beneath us; on one side, the declivity shagged with wood, and enclosing in an oval sweep the lawn and Abbey of Vallombrosa; and on the other, a long ridge of bleak rugged mountains. We then reclined under a thicket on the brow of

the eminence, and compared the scenery immediately under us with Milton's description, of which it is supposed by many to be the original. Many features without doubt agree, and may be considered as transcripts beautiful as poetry can be supposed to give of nature.

So on he fares, and to the border comes
Of Eden, where delicious Paradise
Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green
As with a rural mound, the champion head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides
With thicket overgrown grotesque and wild,
Access deny'd; and overhead upgrew
Insuperable high of loftiest shade.

Cedar and pine, and fir and branching palm
A sylvan scene, and as the ranks ascend
Shade above shade, a woody theatre
Of stateliest view.

Par. Lost, IV.

Most of these lines are so far applicable as to form a regular description, and the prospect large is too obvious a consequence from the preceding features to be considered as an allusion. So far, therefore, the poet may have described what he had seen; but his genius that soared above the Apennines, and passed extra flammantia mundi, kindled at the contemplation of Vallombrosa, and created a Paradise. It may, perhaps, be observed with more probability, that the imagination of a love-sick maid, aided by the muse of Pope in one of her happiest humours, has given undesignedly the best poetical description of Vallombrosa that perhaps exists, a description which can have no reference to any scene which either the poet or Eloisa had ever beheld, as neither the one nor the other had ever visited the countries where alone such scenery occurs. The following beautiful verses, so applicable to the prospect before us, as well as the emphati

cal expressions of which they are an amplification, were inspired by that melancholy which so often melts the heart of the lover, and lulls the imagination of the poet.

While thus employed on the summit, we heard the bell tolling below for afternoon service, and immediately began our descent. The tolling of a church bell is one of the few sounds that disturb the silence, without lessening the solemnity of solitary scenes. In our descent we stopped occasionally to listen to its deep roar, re-echoed from the opposite woods, and re-bellowing from steep to steep. It occurred to me as I worked my way down the dry bed of a torrent, and now and then stopped to breathe and admire the rupes*, et vacuum nemus ;

* When editions differ we may be allowed to prefer the reading that suits our object best, and quote rupes in the old way for ripas.

that these forests and dells that now resound with the toll of the church going bell, once perhaps repeated the screams and shouts of the Bacchanalian throng. They delighted in the savage scenes that bordered the Hebrus and the Rhodope, in the depth of forests, in the hollows of lonely mountains or deserts, places all well adapted to their dark orgies and odious rites; fortunately the wisdom and gravity of the Romans did not permit them to adopt these foul inventions of Greek licentiousness. They had indeed been introduced into Etruria at an early period, and an attempt was made, at first with some success, to establish them in Rome itself, but they were soon observed and repressed by the vigilance of the Consuls*. This event took place about the year of Rome five hundred and sixty-six, that is, before power and luxury had impaired the virtue of the Romans.

Another but a shorter excursion from the abbey leads by a winding pathway, where

the Etrurian shades

High over-arch'd imbower

to an hermitage, or rather a little convent, erected on the flat surface of a rock projecting from the sides of the mountain. This retreat is a very commodious house with a little garden behind, and a fountain clear as crystal bubbling out from a cleft in the rock; it has a chapel annexed to it, and is divided into a variety of little galleries, oratories, and cells, very neatly furnished and adorned with pictures and prints, and the whole in a style totally different from every

other dwelling, fancifully pretty, and peculiarly conformable to its destination. This romantic hermitage is called, partly I suppose from its situation and prospect, and partly from its internal conveniences, Paradisino; and I must confess, that I never visited an abode better calculated to furnish the hermit with all the aids of meditation, and all the luxuries of holy retirement. From his window he may behold the Val d'Arno, and the splendours of Florence, at a distance too great to dazzle; around him he sees spread all the grandeur and all the gloom of rocks, forests, and mountains; by his fountain side he may hear the tinkling of rills and the roaring of torrents. Sometimes too, while absorpt in meditation, the swell of the distant organ and the voices of the choir far below may steal upon his ear, and prompt the song of praise. This retreat, so suited to the genius of a Gray or a Milton, is now occupied by a lay-brother, who resides in it merely to keep it clean, a task which he performs with great care and success. We found among other portraits that of Father Hugford, an English Benedictin, who in the beginning or middle of the last century passed several years in this retreat, and by his piety, learning, and skill in mosaics, acquired a great reputation not only among his brethren but at Florence*.

On the ascent from the abbey to Paradisino, close to the path and on the brink of the precipice, is a stone, the history of

* Father Hugford was a man of talents, and excelled in the various branches of natural philosophy. He is said to have carried the art of imitating marble by that composition called Scagliuola, to its present perfection. He died I believe Abbot of Vallombrosa.