sant volumes, we shall only premise that they take the form of a diary, and relate to the following places, which were not included in the two preceding volumes of her ladyship's work: namely, Rome, Ancona, Ravenna, Ferrara, Padua, Venice, Vicenza, Verona, Milan, Modena, Parma, and Genoa, at which place the travellers took a final leave of the Italian soil.

Italian Women.-" During our walk on the mole we encountered several pretty women, and were struck with a peculiarity generally observable in Italians, namely, the total absence of that coquetry, so visible in women with pretensions to beauty, in France, and even in England. Italian women look as if deep passions would find them ready to obey their dictates, but that to the minor ones, such as vanity and coquetry, they were not disposed to yield.

"This peculiarity equally pervades women of all classes in Italy; for I have observed it in those of the highest rank, as well as in the lowest. It is this concentration of passion which in the middle ages led the softer sex into the commission of crimes from which the heart of woman naturally recoils, originating incidents that fill the old chronicles with tales of horror. In our more civilized days, a similar disposition exhibits itself in attachments which, if not always blameless, are generally of long duration, and exclude the flirtations commenced through vanity, and continued through folly, so frequently witnessed in other countries. I have seen Italian women known to have attachments, the publicity of which in France or England would have called forth the severest censure, if not exclusion from society, absolutely shocked at beholding the flirtations of ladies of both these nations, though free from actual guilt, or even the thought of it. When the innocence of such flirtations has been explained to the Italians, they were not less shocked, and they have said "What, then, can be the motive that induces these ladies to permit such marked attentions in public, and to receive them with such complacency, if no real attachment exists? The motive assigned, namely, vanity, prompting the desire of exciting admiration, and the wish for its continuance leading to an apparent preference for the adulator, they could not understand, because vanity has so little influence over them."-Vol. iii., pp. 31, 32.

English Women in Italy.-"The English women, too, evince a no less warm attachment to the customs of their native land. Balls, soirées, and tableaux, à-la-mode de Londres, are continually given, where may be seen assembled many of the same faces to be met with at Almack's every spring; wearing the same smiles, and lisping about the fêtes of the previous and ensuing weeks, just as they are wont to do at home. In short, men and women endeavour as much as is in their power to forget, and make others do so too, that they are dwellers in the "Niobe of nations," and though they leave London, take with them all its luxurious habits and dissipations. It is a positive fact, that one English lady of fashion proposed to exclude from her circle any individual who should in conversation revert to the works of art or antiquities of Rome."-p. 67.

Anecdote of Jekyll." I remember my dear and witty friend Jekyll telling me that he never could read a romance in which the mention of corselets, shields, spears, or other warlike implements of the olden time occurred. I can take no interest in the scenes of such books,' said he, my attention droops, and I care not which of the knights is vanquished, or which of the dames is rendered wretched; nevertheless, I can feel a lively sympathy in a good novel, in which a story of my own time is related, and have experienced not a little inquietude about the fate of some hero, such as one might meet with in the world, or some heroine, between whom and some beauty of my own day I could institute a comparison.'"-p. 119.

Byron's Charity." The custode who showed us the apartments was loud in his praises of Lord Byron, and recounted various instances of his charity. "He could not see a person in distress without succouring him,' said he,

and the poor of Ravenna and its neighbourhood soon discovered this benevolent disposition, and beset him every day when he went to the Pigneta. But it was not money alone that he gave them, signora, kind words, and a patient hearing of their misfortunes accompanied his gifts; and, paupers as they were, they valued these scarcely less. I remember well his meeting a poor woman of extreme age, and his telling her to come here; when he not only heard her tale of distress, but gave her gold, and a weekly pension beside.'"-p. 47.

Byron at Ravenna." I questioned the man about the habits of Byron, and he answered me that they were molto bizzario, always reading or writing, taking little pleasure except in riding in the Pigneta, or playing with his favourite animals. Though profuse to the poor,' continued the custode, he indulged in no luxuries himself, signora; and there was not a servitor in this Palazzo, that would not have thought himself aggrieved, had his repasts been so scanty and of so ordinary a quality as those of Lord Byron. He was not, like the generality of travellers we hear of (for here we see but few), pampered, and never satisfied with the fare set before them. He was greatly beloved at Ravenna, and we all grieved when he left us."--pp. 47, 48.

The Guiccioli." On showing us the suite of apartments formerly occupied by the Contessa Guiccioli, he pointed to a very ill-executed portrait representing her playing on the pianoforte; and assured us that it by no means rendered her justice, she being fairer, he averred, than even the dames of northern lands, and with golden hair. "We were all proud and glad, signora, when the Count Guiccioli brought home his beautiful young bride. Oimé! we thought not that either would have cause to regret the nuptials. The Count belongs to one of the most ancient families in Italy, and the lady descends from a long line of illustrious ancestors. Her grandmother, a celebrated beauty in her time, was daughter to the Marquis di Bagno of Mantua; and her mother, who died in childbirth only a year or so after the young Countess' marriage, was a very handsome lady, and daughter of the Contessa Macherelli; one of whose sisters married the Count Cobentzel of Vienna, and by another sister the family became allied to the noble houses of Erdeddi, Nadasti, and Esterhazy."-pp. 48, 49.

Byron and Dante." There is a sort of similarity in the fate of Dante and Byron that must have more than once occurred to the latter while here. Both were unhappy in their domestic lives, however different might have been the causes, and the characters of the ladies whom they wedded. Both exiles from their countries, and writhing under a sense of the injustice with which they had been treated, both sought and found that peace at Ravenna denied them at home."―p. 45.

OLLA PODRIDA.*

AN Olla Podrida is, we have heard, a very good dish, when duly varied as to its ingredients, fresh made, and served up hot from the stove: but an Olla Podrida three parts potatoes, and the whole rechauffé, is a different affair. Captain Marryat's "Olla Podrida" is three-parts diary; and the diary is a good diary;-but it has all been served up to us before, -some of it, if we mistake not, to us in particular-i. e. in the pages of this Magazine. The "Diary on the Continent," published some years ago, under the ill name of the "Diary of a Blasé," in the Metropolitan Magazine, is sensible and amusing, but was scarcely worth reprinting: at all events, it would have been better as a separate publication, for the

* Olla Podrida. By the Author of "Peter Simple," &c. 3 vols.

use of continental travellers. The remainder of these volumes consists of a play, in five acts, called "The Monk of Seville,❞—of “a mingled yarn,"-serious and comic by turns, and not unsusceptible of being put upon the stage; and a few selections from the author's contributions to periodical works. Among these latter we find three papers entitled respectively-" How to Write a Fashionable Novel," How to Write a Book of Travels,"" How to Write a Romance." The object of these papers is to throw ridicule upon the tricks of book-making; but while the gallant writer was about it he should have completed the instructive joke, by making the trio into a quartette, and teaching us "How to Write Naval Novel." But somehow people like to tell the secrets of every body's prison-house but their own.

a

A SUMMER AMONG THE BOCAGES AND THE VINES.*

IT may be very true that a good book cannot have a bad name, but a good name is an additional virtue, even to good book. Witness the two agreeable volumes of Miss Costello, A Summer among the Bocages and the Vines!" The title is a book in itself—a book redolent of all that is agreeable in climate, sylvan in scenery, exciting in imagination :—“ Summer,"-" the Bocages"-" the Vines." How specific, yet how vague!-how laudably particular, yet how delightfully indistinct and indefinite! A summer, when? The Bocages-what? The Vines-where? If the book itself does not offer very distinct replies to these questions it is not the worse on that account; on the contrary, we have two good things instead of one-a good title first, and a good book afterwards. Of the latter it becomes us to say a few words in detail, because the former fails to do so. Miss Costello's book then describes in a very pleasant manner the very pleasant particulars of what, if we mistake not, will be found to be one of the very pleasantest of all continental summer tours-that which, commencing at Havre, proceeds through Upper and Lower Normandy to Brittany, thence to the Loire, through beautiful Nantes,-subsequently following the course of that charming river to Tours, and so on through Blois, Chambord, Orleans, &c., to Fontainebleau and Paris, returning by Rouen to the spot whence we started-Havre-and thence home. In fact these volumes, though rather too handsome and ambitious in their "complement extern" to claim the place of a "guide," have all the better and more available qualities of that character,—at least in its ideal sense; and they have, into the bargain, all the higher attributes of an intelligent and intellectual travelling-companion, and all the more endearing ones, which are only to be met with in cases where that companion is a female.

Much of these volumes--or rather of the first of them-goes over the same ground so ably and pleasantly described by Mr. Trollope in his recent work, on Brittany; and like his, they are not interspersed though more profusely with tales, legends, and verses, which give great variety to their character, nor are they without a due

A Summer among the Bocages and the Vines. By Louisa Stuart Costello. 2 vols.

proportion-a femine proportion-of that antiquarian spirit which lends so strong an interest to the examination and description of old historical localities like those of which Normandy and Brittany almost wholly consist.

We take leave of these pleasant volumes with a brief extract which will be as novel, even to our travelled and travelling readers, as it is interesting, few of whom, we suspect, when passing through the fine old town of Rennes, have been aware of their near neighbourhood to a living Benvenuto Cellini.

"There lives at Rennes, but little known beyond his own neighbourhood, a genius of a very high order, whose works require only to be seen by connois. seurs to be appreciated as they merit. He inhabits a little low house in one of the squares, and his modest window is filled with plates, locks, and barrels, indicating his occupation of gunsmith. You enter his small crowded shop, and behold a venerable old man, with an agreeable and very intelligent countenance, in an apron and cap, and busily engaged at his work. It is not difficult to get him upon his favourite topic, and he then enters with infinite spirit on the mysteries of his craft; a thousand little drawers are opened, and minute pieces of carved and graved metal are produced, destined to ornament pistols and guns of various kinds.

"M. Gourjon, for so the artist is called, had employed several years of his life in the perfection of a work on which he lavished the greatest pains and trouble, and which called forth all the resources of his genius. This piece of sculpture, unique in its kind, was sent to Paris to be exhibited, but in the confusion of the revolution of 1830, it was "spirited away," and all the fruit of years of anxiety was lost to the artist, who had placed all his hopes of fame on its success. He has since reason to think this precious fruit has been purchased by an English gentleman in the Mauritius, who, if he is really the possessor of so great a treasure, should be aware that a pendant to the great work is at this moment occupying the attention of the sculptor, whose enthusiasm for his art no disappointment has been able to damp. It is melancholy, and at the same time inspiring, to see the fervour with which he works, conscious that he is executing that which he can scarcely hope to live to finish, but which he feels confident will secure his after fame and do honour to his memory. Nothing can exceed the delicacy and beauty of both his carving and engraving on wood, and steel, and silver; the subtlety of the allegories he introduces bearing upon the subject he undertakes to illustrate, are curious, and breathe the spirit of a Cellini, as much as his work resembles those of the great master.

"Not a hidden opening, not a concealed spring in the mysterious gun, but is covered with work of the most elaborate kind, arabesqued and damas-cined as if by the finger of a gnome, and at the same time with a boldness that is truly admirable. He has a son, a rising artist, who is studying at Paris, and who has been employed on some pictures for the town-hall of Rennes, particularly a portrait of Louis Philip, which is remarkably good.

"As a mere maker of ordinary firearms Gourjon le Père is looked upon as an excellent workman, but his genius belongs to a much higher sphere of art, and no one can but regret that he has not a wider field for his powers, and that his advanced age should have left so few years before him. We were infinitely gratified at our visit to his little shop, and left it impressed with feelings of admiration for his surprising achievements, and pleasure at the evident gratification our praises gave to his kind patron who had taken us there.”—Vol. i.

p. 294.

LEGENDS OF THE HIGHLANDS.*

THERE is a strong and a sterling interest attaching to these legendary tales of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder-an interest stronger even than that which belongs to them as tales-in fact, a truly national interest, springing from the general design in virtue of which they have been collected and given to the world, as explained by the author in his able "Introduction" to the work. "These three volumes," he says, "of Highland Legends are published in continuation of those which appeared in 1837, in pursuance of a plan, long cherished by the author, of collecting and preserving in print all the most interesting of the traditional and local histories of the Highlanders that yet remain, but which, to the regret of all antiquarians, are fast melting away." The author adds with perfect truth-and in that truth consists the real and permanent value of this publication-" Such legends are not only curious and interesting in themselves, but they will often prove to be helps to history, from the little incidents which they furnish that they may throw light upon it. But, however they are to be estimated in this respect, they must always be considered as having some value, from the pictures which they afford of the manners of the times to which they belong." The value of legendary tales-especially when collected, as many of these have been, from the lips of those who have handed them down from generation to generation-is in fact any thing but overrated in the passage we have just quoted. They are of at least as much value-and in most cases for much the same reason-as the poetry that has come to us from what are called classical times, and by which we set such an unlimited, not to say exaggerated value.

Premising thus much as to the general character of these volumes, we may state, in regard to their plan, that it perfectly corresponds with that of the same author's "Highland Rambles," published with complete success in 1837, and to which the present work is expressly intended as a sequel." To those who have not made themselves acquainted with that pleasant work we may state that the machinery by which the legends are introduced is simple and natural, yet quite adequate to its purpose, "of attaching a thread of consecutive interest to the whole work." Α party of friends and fellow-travellers in the Highlands, including the author in propria personâ, visit together the notabilities, both animate and inanimate, of those celebrated strongholds of nature and of man, and lose no opportunity of relating, for the benefit of absent friends, whatever seems worthy of record in their "Rambles," but especially the legends which they gather in their way: thus giving a dramatic interest to the general narrative of their Highland tour, while the legendary lore which is the chief staple of the work is thus fixed beyond the reach of those casualties, of life or of memory, which have no doubt already swept from the face of the land innumerable stores of a similar kind and value that it would have been so desirable to preserve. Some of these legends occupy a considerable space, and include a variety of character and passion, and a strong continuous interest;-such as the "Legend of the Clan-Allan Stewarts" (which fills nearly two hundred pages), and

Legendary Tales of the Highlands. By Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Bart, 3 vols.