CHAP. IV. Gothic the pile, and high the solid walls, With warlike ramparts; and the strong defence DRYDEN. A FEW years previous to the horrors and devastation which the French revolution spread throughout the Italian states, on the banks of the river Metremo, in the romantic passes of the Appennines, the picturesque ruins of the ancient Castle di Montranzo, in many a huge and shapeless mass, rose to contemplation.. From the beaten tract, often would the travelled admirer of antiquity turn to gaze upon E 6 upon the dilapidated bastions of former strength, now crumbling into dust, now tottering, falling beneath the pressure of the mountain blast; often sigh, in sympathetic sadness, as the ruddy streaks of glory, bespangling its moss-clad towers, seemed as though it marked more clearly the lapse of time and the fall of empires. Man, puerile and insignificant, could there trace the proud boast of his strength, could there look into futurity, and read the symbol of his own weakness. But from the enlightened strides of false philosophy, whose brilliant climax' so plainly and so fatally illumined the era of 1790, we must revert to the sombre superstition of the fifteenth century; or rather, to when Montranzo, in frowning majesty, at once registered the smile of beneficence, or, coloured by the hearts of its chiefs, hurled vengeance in the reverberating roar of thunder. The castle was an immense structure, scited scited on the deep ridgy hollow of clustering rocks, forming a complete square, and flanked on all sides by watch-towers, erected on the impregnable bulwark of its beatling steeps. Its heavy battlements, resisting the inroads of time, frowned in gloomy grandeur; while the sloping rugged bastions, bounded by the rapid eddies of the river Metremo, rushing down the shelving sides of the mountains, and crouching beneath the shadow of mossincrusted walls, formed a phalanx against assault and invasion. The spot which sustained the ramparts of the castle was of solitary wildness; on one side, its view was closed by a dark and almost tractless forest, whose awful gloom the sun's cheerful rays could scarcely penetrate the intersecting and glossy surface of the translucent stream, breaking from the mazy wilds of its obscurity, and meandering, in peaceful, undisturbed security, through scenes of picturesque.va 5 riety, riety, formed a pleasing contrast to the eye; while on the other, yawning, as it were, over a bottomless abyss, from whose rough sides, rushing over immense pro-jections, tumbled a furious torrent, andprecipitated itself into the cavity below, whose flinty bosom sternly re-echoed the mighty sound. Mountain towered above mountain, of various forms and sizes; some, whose rocky, thorn-clad precipices. scowled like the sheltered haunts of wolves and banditti; others, sinking gradually: into dells, smiled in the rich culture of olive-grounds, citron-groves, and vineyards. Here the eye wandered over the verdant meadow and bespangled pasture; there again it rested on the more awful range of “misty mountain tops.” From a low terrace, which ran along the south side of the castle, extended the gardens and pleasure-grounds; their cultivated beauties forming a striking contrast: to the wild and irregular features of na ture :: ture the promising blossoms of fruitage smiled in well-ranged uniformity; while in an inclosure, interspersed with clumps of variegated hues, browsed herds of parent deer, regardless of the playful gambols of the young fawns, now sporting in the warm sunbeams, now chasing each other to their shady coverts. From the eastern turrets, or watchtowers, separated from the main body of the castle by a low parapet running along the platforms, and forming the supporters of the huge portcullis which opened immediately from the drawbridge, through a narrow cleft, or broken fissure, in the rock, might be discovered the distant spires of the Camaldoli Convent of St. Romuald, which, in the golden splendour of a setting sun, reflecting the bright, tints from the high and storied windows, formed a bass-relief to the prospect. Hid from the temptations of the world, and the allurements of human vanity, amid towering |