shrunk not, as in our time, from observation, beneath the ignoble concealment of Wellington boots and Petersham trowsers. No; they shone gaily forth in glittering glory, with embroidered clocks for gallants, or comfortably rolled over the knees for your ancient gentry; such as aldermen, sheriffs, burghers, and justices of the peace.

The square-toed Shoes, with capacious buckles, sparkling with all the magnificence of paste, completed the pedestal of man, and formed a worthy base for the image of the gods. Shoe-strings (ignoble makeshifts!) degraded not the feet even of the poorest citizen. Chimneysweeps and tinkers,-nay, the very mendicants, would have shuddered at the thought. And then for the other ornamental appendages: think on the diamond, the gold, the silver, and the cut steel hilted swords, "more for show than use," shining at the side, with the valiant blade reposing in the peaceful scabbard : reflect too on the richly mounted snuff-box, the gold-headed cane, and the splendid kneebuckles; forming a tout-ensemble of sterling grandeur.

In those times, dress was the ostensible indicator of rank and consequence. The man of wealth carried a fortune on his back, that set the competition of the vulgar at defiance. Men's stations in life were marked by a garb peculiar to their profession. Parsons, doctors, and lawyers, had their distinct and appropriate costume, and stood apart from the common mass. Alas! for our sober-coloured times! All distinction of rank is levelled by the universal assumption of one common livery. You shall jostle a pickpocket in the streets, and beg his pardon, mistaking him for a gentleman, and tread on the heels of a peer without offering an apology. A friend of mine, who officiated as steward at the anniversary dinner of a charitable institution, observed among the guests a mean, dirty-looking man, with muddy boots and spurs. Conceiving he must have gained admission through some improper means, or, as the phrase is, that he had been smuggled in, he consulted a brother steward on the propriety of requesting him to withdraw. "Bless your soul!" exclaimed his colleague, "why that's the Duke of As Dick Cypher has it in his song,

"A peer and a 'prentice now dress so much the same,
You cannot tell the difference, excepting by the name;"

and were it not for the laudable attachment of the ladies for silks and satins; feathers, laces, and gay coloured ribbons; and the public spirit of a few of the males, who occasionally treat us with an exhibition of the grotesque in the eccentric cut of their garments, we might be set down for a nation of Quakers. Even his Majesty, I have been told, occasionally wears a plain blue coat, round hat, and Wellington trowsers! Dreadful degeneracy! . . . . I read an account in one of the Paris papers, the other day, that verily thrilled me with horror. A man in dishabille, attired in a loose coat, dirty boots, and black silk kerchief, presented himself at the Duke of Wellington's levee, and insisted on immediate admission. The attendant demurred (as well he might) at suffering him to enter his Grace's presence, and required his name. Credite ANTIQUI? . . . 'Twas the Emperor of all the Russias !!

Fair ladies! I have so selfishly spun out the detail of the grievances of my own sex, that I have little space left to expatiate on the glories

that once embellished yours. Yet think not I am insensible to your loss. No; I hear, I sympathize with the sighs of regret that escape from your lovely lips, when your grand-mammas are describing their grand-mammas' sacques, and josephs, and mantuas. I mark the inspiring recital stirring up all the energies of your bosoms, all the sensibilities of your nature, all that dear admiration of your sex for bewitching dress and enviable extravagance. Tell me, ye fair ones, have ye not listened with breathless interest to the delightful descant of some venerable dame on the hoops, flounces, and furbelows; the patches and paints; the stomachers, the caps, the storied head-dresses and high-heeled shoes of her youth? Has not a description of her bridal suit induced the mournful contrast of your own? And has not the

sensitive muslin that thinly envelopes your fair form, shrunk with instinctive consciousness into less than its own petty insignificance at the recital? To descend to lesser objects,-let me ask you, if, when a stray remnant of taffeta or brocade, wrought into a pincushion, or dovetailed into a piece of patchwork, by chance meets your eyes, have you not grieved to think that they weave no such silks now-a-days? And could you avoid forming invidious comparisons with the cobweb sarsnets and satins, and lustrings of modern millinery?

Woe to thee, Spitalfields! Diminished is thy splendour; silent are thy looms; spent are thy shuttles. No more thy gay artisans embellish the fair forms of beauty. No more the Park, the Mall, the Ring, glitter with thy glories. Your warpers, your windsters, your weavers, an impoverished race, no longer flourish and fatten in gay prosperity, but "peep about to find themselves dishonourable graves." The silkworm hath perished. Your streets are deserted: Alas! the Genius of Dress hath for ever fled our isle; and even the once propitious shores of France welcome her no more. Dissolved are all her spells; faded all her charms ! Her empire is lost; her throne subverted; her sceptre broken! Q. Q. Q.

ULLA, OR THE ADJURATION.

"THOU 'rt gone! thou 'rt slumbering low
With the sounding seas above thee,

It is but a restless woe,

But a haunting dream to love thee!
Thrice the glad swan has sung

To greet the sunny hours,
Since thine oar at parting flung

The white spray up in showers.

There's a shadow of the grave on thy hearth and round thy home,
Come to me from the ocean's dead!-thou 'rt surely of them-come!"

'Twas Ulla's voice!-alone she stood

In the Iceland summer night,

Far gazing o'er a glassy flood,

From a dark rock's beetling height.

"I know thou hast thy bed

Where the sea-weed's coil hath bound thee,

The storm sweeps o'er thy head,

But the depths are hush'd around thee!

What wind shall point the way

To the chambers where thou 'rt lying?
-Come to me thence, and say

If thou thought'st on me in dying?

I will not shrink to see thee with a bloodless lip and cheek-
Come to me from the ocean's dead!-thou 'rt surely of them-speak!"

She listen'd-'twas the wind's low moan,

'Twas the ripple of the wave;
'Twas the wakening osprey's cry alone,
As it started from its cave.

"I know each fearful spell
Of the ancient Runic lay,
Whose mutter'd words compel
The tempests to obey!
But I adjure not thee

By magic, sign, or song,

My voice shall stir the sea

By love-the deep, the strong!

By the might of woman's tears, by the passion of her sighs,
Come to me from the ocean's dead!-thou 'rt surely of them-rise !"

Again she gazed with an eager glance,
Wandering and wildly bright;

She saw but the sparkling water's dance
In the arrowy northern light.

"By the slow and struggling death
Of Hope that loath'd to part,
By the fierce and withering breath
Of Despair on Youth's high heart,
By the weight of gloom which clings
To the mantle of the night,
By the heavy dawn which brings
Nought lovely to the sight,

By all that from my weary soul, thou hast wrung of grief and fear,
Come to me from the ocean's dead!-awake, arise, appear!"

There dwells no fear with love,

Let me slumber on thy breast,
While the billow rolls above!

Where the long-lost things lie hid, where the bright ones bave their home, We will sleep among the ocean's dead '-stay for me-stay! I come!"

There was a sullen plunge below,

A flashing on the main,

And the wave shut o'er that wild heart's woe,

Shut-and grew still again!

VALLOMBROSA, CAMALDOLI, AND LA VERNA.

Florence, July, 1825. MY DEAR D. Do not upbraid me. My delay in sending you an account of our three famous Tuscan monasteries has been owing a little to idleness, and much to an ambitious wish to give you as perfect a one as I could. I would fain furnish you with a better guide to those places than you can purchase; and with this intention, and to make myself an authority, I have turned over several tedious books. I write to rivet your promise to come to our delightful city in the course, as you say, of a couple of years, and that I may be as useful to you as possible in your visit to the mountains. If I live in Florence at that time, I shall be sure to accompany you and your boy. And do I still write him down boy? How strangely we imagine that all our friends, young and old, remain the same as we left them in England! I really beg the gentleman's pardon, for I am told he is shaving for a beard; what a change from that little dimpled chin he used to shew!

My first jaunt was made in company with Mr. and Mrs. R. and your favourite Marian. It was August; and in order to avoid the heat of the sun on the road, we set off at two in the morning. A few stragglers, having, like ourselves, taken an extraordinary siesta on the preceding day, were yet loitering about the streets, enjoying the cool air; and the steps of the cathedral were crowded with workmen from the country, chiefly from Fiesole, who, during the sultry weather, frequently take their night's sleep there, and are thus ready to start up for their daily labour, without the toil of seeking for a lodging in their distant cottages. What think you of a bed of marble, under the clear blue vault of Heaven? Do you pity the poor fellows? Come here, and when the summer is at its height, perhaps you may envy so great a luxury, especially if you lie gasping on a feather-bed. As we passed the Porta alla Croce, the keeper opened the gates, counted heads, and received the toll, singing all the while Rossini's air of "Di piacer mi balza il core." After a few miles the dawn began to break, when from one carriage-window we looked on some pleasant views on the banks of the Arno, and from the other up the sloping hills of vineyards. We were then near the Villa di Loretino, where the Aleatico grape was first planted by Filippo Franceschi, on his return from his embassy to Spain, whence he had brought two or three cuttings of that vine, now so much cultivated throughout Tuscany. This happened in 1620; and as Redi has not mentioned the Aleatico in his "Bacco in Toscana,” written about sixty years afterwards, it seems strange that during that time its fame had not spread beyond the vineyard of Loretino. The little walled town of Ponte a Sieve, is ten miles from Florence. We found every one up and busy, decorating their Madonnas with fresh flowers, fixing stalls and booths, and preparing in every way for a fair that was to be held there that day. We crossed the Sieve by rather a handsome bridge for a country place, and still skirting the Arno, at the end of about four miles more, we arrived at the village of Pelago, where the proudest must condescend to leave their carriage, if they intend to see Vallombrosa, and go up the mountain on horseback, or on foot, or on a hurdle drawn by oxen ;-this last method was negatived by our ladies in a moment, partly owing to R.'s proposal that they should ride on it backwards, a very criminal insinuation. Horses

were therefore brought, but alas! with men's saddles, and of the clumsiest form. "How can we possibly sit on those saddles ?" demanded Mrs. R. with her serious countenance of expostulation. "Facilmente!" answered the man, surprised at her ignorance, " con una gamba di quà, ed una gamba di là." No, English ladies must ride sideways, though at the risk of their necks; so up they got, and contrived to sit in their own respectable fashion; while I, leaving Darby to take care of his own Joan, walked by the side of Marian, entreating her to have the kindness to fall into my arms. She somehow managed to keep her seat, though once or twice I thought I should have had her. Our up-hill work continued for five miles. At different turnings of the road, we had some fine views of hill and dale, all well and variously wooded; but as we approached the height, we were annoyed at the sight of so many stiff and formal firs, standing in squares, and surrounded by a barren waste. The morning sun had already begun to shine fiercely; and as we rose into the clear and rarified air, we felt a chill which several visitors, from want of caution, have suffered from severely. Without looking much about us, for hunger is a great tamer of curiosity, we made directly towards the convent; but as ladies are not permitted to advance their feminalities beyond so chaste a threshold, we were shewn into a house close at hand, erected for the purpose of receiving prohibited company. A monk presently waited on us, inquiring at what hour we should like to dine; and in our reply we took the liberty of hinting that breakfast was a matter of more immediate interest. This was understood; and while we were refreshing ourselves, the reverend gentleman satisfied his inquisitive appetite, as far as he could with any decency of forbearance, respecting our names and all that concerned us.

The convent is a large, irregular, and uncouth pile of building, with a square tower in the middle. There is nothing interesting within the walls; the French took away all their valuable books; and whatever paintings they possessed of merit, have been removed to the Florentine Gallery. They had two or three paintings by Andrea del Sarto, and one by Giotto, which the brethren attempted to preserve from their winter damps by rock-crystal, but it was thought they would be safer in the Gallery. The spacious refectory, and the little gilded chapel, are shewn as the most interesting objects.

At a short distance from the convent, on the other side of the mountain stream that divides the valley, just beyond the waterfall, is a steep and isolated rock, about a hundred feet high, on the top of which stands the Paradisino. This little Paradise contains cells for those who may be over-pious, and wish to play the hermit more effectually. It is now deserted, whether from a lack of piety, or an increase of humanity, I know not. There is certainly nothing attractive in the situation except the view, and that, for the most part, is too extensive to be agreeable. The Valdarno, Florence, the Lucchese hills, and the sea, are seen from the opening of the valley to the west. On every other side we have mountains, and not so well clothed with wood as I expected; and the valley itself is woefully stripped. It ought no longer to retain its beautiful name of Vallombrosa, the shady valley, but be satisfied with its ancient title of Acqua-pura. I willingly agreed with the monks that the French should be ashamed of themselves for having