Ye drink the sunshine in your morning revels, While we are sleeping, And stars, invisible at lower levels, Their vigils keeping, In nebulous depths of blue, to your keen focus, Yet know ye, Mountains, more than the gold crocus Have ye the knowledge of a Power sustaining, Than thrills throughout its delicate gold veining, Wist ye what mighty Arm, Oh Rocks, hath driven Those snow-flakes o'er ye? When, to their base, surrounding hills were riven, What hands up-bore ye? Have ye more knowledge of the Love that showers Its dew, caressing, Than the small weeds that lift their thankful flowers, To drink the blessing? Image of intellectual power, the glory In your great solitudes, Oh Mountains hoary, Breathing an atmosphere of rarer essence, Sending the shadow of their mighty presence And in those heights where soar the eagles only, The pride of human intellect dwells lonely, Striving to reach that yet-unfathomed power- What fuller knowledge than the humblest flower Of that great Love pervading all creation, The subtle problem of our destination Knowledge of "Power and Glory" never-ending Are not the heights and depths of understanding The lessons, these, Oh Mountains, that ye teach, The loftiest human intellect cannot reach The low-believe them! HAMILTON AIDE. he Last Day at San Salvatore. be BY T. ADOLPHUS TROLlope. MONG the many specially notable features which have been fixed on as pre-eminently characterizing the age we live in, HURRY, it seems to me, is the most unmistakeably pre-eminent. The nineteenth century is the age of Hurry. Everybody-at least among those nations who lead the van of civilization-is occupied in the constant endeavour to make each four-and-twenty hours hold more, whether of work or pleasure, than can be packed into it. Hence the innumerable contrivances in every department of life for shortening processes, and methods of saving time; hence the absolute necessity for all who make appeal to the public, to ask, whatever else they may demand, as little of their time as possible; hence undertakings which can be thrust under the noses and into the path of this hurry-skurry public, prosper, while those which lie but a stone's-throw out of the way, fail and perish ; hence a grocer or a mercer in a great thoroughfare shall make a large fortune, while another, selling, mayhap, better goods round the corner, shall go into the Gazette. No man has time to go far out of his way in search of even that which he absolutely requires; and no attention or interest whatever can be hoped for by things indispensable, unless they lie absolutely in his way. One curious result of this tendency of the times is the shape into which English familiarity with the other countries of Europe has fashioned itself. If every four-and-twenty hours in the year are to be crammed to overflowing, much more so is this the case with those of the thrice precious month or three months devoted to an autumn holiday, and the trip on which it is to be expended. Above all else, our pleasure sight-seeing is done at high-pressure and in hot haste; and the consequence is, that English acquaintance with the most frequently visited parts of Europe is confined to certain lines and strips of country. The course of a navigable river or a railway makes a certain series of cities and scenes familiar and famous, while it condemns all that lie out of its track to obscurity and oblivion. The old-world city, however storied its streets and walls, however rich in artistic or natural beauties it may be, if it lie but a mile or two out of the beaten track, is condemned to the same fate which awaits the dealer, how ever good his wares, who hoists out his ensign in a thoroughfare deserted by the tide of traffic; and no country has from this cause been more whimsically divided into thoroughly well-known and almost utterly unknown districts than Italy. Who has not seen and lionized Siena, Perugia, Terni, Viterbo, &c., &c.? Who knows anything about Gubbio, Urbino, Pitigliano, or Volterra? The first lie in every traveller's way, and the others out of it. Like the heroes before Agamemnon, who missed their meed of fame for want of a sacred bard to sing their deeds, these, and hundreds other such luckless cities, are left unwatered by the fertilizing showers of the flying tourist's interest-and cash, for want of a favouring post-road or rail. How It was at the last of the above mentioned neglected places that the circumstances occurred which I am about to recount; and of course the reader has never been at Volterra. should he? It does not lie in the way to any place. Unless he had started from Florence, Leghorn, or Siena, with malice prepense to visit Volterra, and then come back the way he went, nothing could ever have taken him there. And with the rare exception of here and there an energetic student of Etruscan antiquities, few are likely to have found time for penetrating into such a cul-de-sac. Yet Volterra, with its matchless Etruscan arch, Etruscan walls, Etruscan tombs, and Etruscan museum, has in this, and in many other respects, more to interest almost any traveller than most towns. My present business, however, does not need that I should either give the reader extracts from, or supply the omissions of, the guide-books. But any one who had been on the spot, would comprehend more clearly the nature and appearance of certain very remarkable and peculiar features of the place—a due conception of which is necessary to the full understanding of my story—than, I fear, those who have never been there will be able to do from my description. I must do my best, however, to make the nature and appearance of the "Balze" at Volterra (so the spot is called) as intelligible as may be. The city is situated on the top of a mountain, one of the furthest outposts of the great chain of the Apennines, |