scend the steps in front of the pedestal.
his knees, and raises his hands and
heaven.)
Immortal Gods! Venus, Galatea!
of a furious love!

He falls on

eyes towards

(Galatea touches herself and says) Me! (Pygmalion transported) - Me!

O, illusion

(Galatea touching herself again) — It is myself. (Pygmalion) Ravishing illusion, which even reaches my ears! O, never, never abandon me.

(Galatea moves towards another figure and touches it) Not myself.

(Pygmalion in an agitation, in transports which he can with difficulty restrain, follows all her movements, listens to her, observes her with a covetous attention, which scarcely allows him to breathe. Galatea advances and looks at him; he rises hastily, extends his arms, and looks at her with delight. She lays her hand on his arm; he trembles, takes the hand, presses it to his heart, and covers it with ardent kisses.) (Galatea, with a sigh) - Ah! it is I again. (Pygmalion) —Yes, dear and charming object – thou worthy masterpiece of my hands, of my heart, and of the Gods! It is thou, it is thou alone — I have given thee all my being — henceforth I will live but for thee.

-

1820.

ON THE SUBURBS OF GENOA AND THE COUNTRY ABOUT LONDON.*

DE

EAR N.: I could bear my large study † no longer; so I have mounted into my third story, and intrenched myself, as usual, in a little corner room. It is about the size of the study in where we all adjourned on the morning of Twelfth Night, to take breakfast. Do you remember that night? how we sung "To ladies' eyes a round, boys;" and how the eyes were as sparkling and triumphant at six o'clock in the morning, as they were at six in the evening? "Can I forget it?" say you : "Can anybody forget it?" I think not. The very walls must remember it. A living poet, whom we were near killing with laughter at two in the morning, has doubtless written his best things upon eyes since the appearance of that ocular constellation. I am sure a living novelist would have made his heroines equal to the rest of his characters, and done himself a world of good into the bargain, had he not

This essay was carefully corrected for republication by the author, who ruthlessly drew his pen through many of its graceful sentences. Though we gladly avail ourselves of most of his verbal emendations, we have not the heart to omit the pleasant passages which he marked for suppression, and therefore reprint the article in its entirety, without the loss of a paragraph. We do not think the reader will blame us for retaining the anecdote of Shelley, and the description of the suburbs of Genoa. ED.

+ There is a description of this study in the chapter on My Books, in the IndiThe "dear N." to whom this article is addressed is Vincent Novello, my good Catholic friend Nov.," of Elia's Chapter On Ears. - .ED.

cator.

had that extra-judicious hackney coach call for him at one. Be assured, that pleasant spirits have haunted that house ever since. I know (without the maid servants informing me) that a noise of crystal ringings and sweet voices is heard every Twelfth Night through the rooms; and that the gallant occupier and his wife cannot sleep for the life of them, for exquisite imaginations.

But you must know I have another reason for mounting into this nest of mine, in addition to those I have given to B. It lifts me above a sense of the lanes and stone walls of this suburb of Genoa. Albaro is a pretty name, and a very pretty looking hill at a distance. It has also some fine retreats and gardens, for those who can afford them. But for a place to walk about in, and enjoy one's neighbor's goods (to which you know I have a propensity), it only shows me how very pretty some hills as well as women can look at a distance, and what stony-hearted creatures they turn out upon inspection. When you behold Albaro from the sea, you cry out, "What a delicious place to live in!" Imagine a gentle green hill, full of olive trees, vineyards, and country seats, beheld from a blue sea, glittering under a blue sky, and with the Apennines at the back of it. Enter it, and the charm is dissolved. Eternal lanes, with eternal stone walls, intersect it in all directions. The best are paved like the carriage part of the London streets, with a stripe of smoother walk in the middle, made of tiles laid edgewise. The worst are compounded of bits of broken walls, stones, and occasional pushings forth of the native rock. Some are

merely the beds of torrents: but all are lanes, lanes, lanes, all stone, brick, and mortar, with seldom even a hole to look through. Your only resource, as in the worst passages of human life, is to imagine what may be on the other side; but then the tantalization is in proportion. In the summer, the vines look over the walls, here and there, and afford a relief; but the lanes, for the most part, are then hot and close, and in those that lead down to the sea the footing is still a nuisance. Furthermore, the sea has no beach. In winter (which is quite severe enough in this quarter of Italy to make you feel it) the promenade is intolerable. Sometimes a wind comes down from the snowy mountains, sharp set as a wolf, and more searching than any east wind with us. Besides, Genoa being situate between the sea and the mountains, is famous for wind; and Albaro, I suppose, is the most famous place for wind about Genoa. Last winter one would have thought the whole army of tempests had come by sea to pass over the mountains, and go and trample down some incorrigible tyranny. The whole cavalcade seemed to sweep over us with their "sightless horses," their whistling hair, and mad outcries.

It is little better, for the most part, in the rest of the suburbs; in some of them, not so good. There is one good road, which circles the hill; and on the other side of Genoa, there is a wider piece of plain to get footing upon. But, generally speaking, your path lies up and down hill, through the stoniest of all stony alleys. Even the road which I speak of, round Albaro, and which would make a beautiful figure in

a picture, presenting depths of olive grounds below, and the sea in the distance, tantalizes you with the sight of pleasant places in which it is impossible to enter, and which, if you did enter, it would be impossible to walk in. The olive grounds are all walled in, as usual, and all raised upon terraces of artificial earth, lest the torrents should wash them away. But what care the Genoese? Nature, with them, is but a slave in the hands of the slave merchant. All her beauties consist in what they will fetch. Their olive trees produce nothing but quattrini and minestra; their bunches of grapes are but so many purses of soldi. They care for nothing but care itself, and a good oleaginous dinner to make it worse.

Now, tell it not in Scotland, lest the cocknies of the Canongate rejoice; but give me, dear N., before all the barren suburbs in the world (bits of mountain included) the green pastures and gentle eminences round about glorious London. There we have fields: there one can walk on real positive turf; there one can get trees that are of no use, and get under trees, and get among trees; and have hedges, stiles, field-paths, sheep and oxen, and other pastoral amenities:

"Sometimes walking, not unseen,

By the hedge-row elms on hillocks green;
While the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrowed land,
And the milkmaid singeth blithe,

And the mower whets his scythe,
And every shepherd tells his tale

Under the hawthorn in the dale."

How pleasant it is to read one of our poets in a foreign country! I pass from page to page, as I