" 375

Baiae and Ischia, from Camaldoli " 382

Ruins of the Greek Theatre, Taormina, Sicily " 429

Ponte Vecchio, Florence " 434

Campo Santo, Genoa " 453

"_Rest we content if whispers from the stars
In wafting of the incalculable wind
Come blown at midnight through our prison-bars._"

THE MAGIC LAND

_By woodland belt, by ocean bar,
The full south breeze our forehead fanned;
And, under many a yellow star,
We dropped into the Magic Land._

* * * * *

_We heard, far-off, the siren's song;
We caught the gleam of sea-maids' hair;
The glimmering isles and rocks among
We moved through sparkling purple air._

_Then Morning rose, and smote from far
Her elfin harps o'er land and sea;
And woodland belt, and ocean bar
To one sweet note sighed--"Italy!"_

OWEN MEREDITH.

ITALY, THE MAGIC LAND

I

THE PERIOD OF MODERN ART IN ROME

But ah, that spring should vanish with the Rose!
That youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close?
The nightingale that in the branches sang,
Oh, where and whither flown again,--who knows?

OMAR KHAYYAM.

ROME, as the picturesque city of the Popes in the middle years of the
nineteenth century, was resplendent in local color. It was the Rome of
sunny winters; the Rome of gay excursions over that haunted sea of the
Campagna to pictorial points in the Alban and Sabine hills; the Rome of
young artist life, which organized impromptu festas with Arcadian
freedom, and utilized the shadow or the shelter of ruined temples or
tombs in which to spread its picnic lunches and bring the glow of
simple, friendly intercourse into the romantic lights of the poetic,
historic, or tragic past. There were splendid Catholic processions and
ceremonials that seemed organized as a part of the stage scenery that
ensconced itself, also, with the nonchalance of easy possession, in the
vast salons of historic palaces where tapestried walls and richly
painted ceilings, arched high overhead, with statues dimly seen in
niches here and there, and the bust of some crowned Antoninus, or
radiant Juno, gleaming from a shadowy corner, all made up the
_mise-en-scene_ of fam