uriant gardens, groves, and olive
grounds, all bathed in crimson light. A transparent vapor or exhalation,
which in its tint was almost as rich as the pomegranate flower, moving
with soft undulation, rolled through the valley, and the very earth
seemed to pant with warm life beneath its rosy veil. A dark purple
shade, the forerunner of night, was already stealing over the east; in
the western sky still lingered the blaze of the sunset, while the faint
perfume of trees, and flowers, and now and then a strain of music wafted
upwards, completed the intoxication of the senses. But I looked from the
earth to the sky, and immediately above this scene hung the soft
crescent moon--alone, with all the bright heaven to herself; and as that
sweet moon to the glowing landscape beneath it, such is the character of
Miranda compared to that of Juliet.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] Lord Byron remarked of the Italian women, (and he could speak _avec
connaissance de fait_,) that they are the only women in the world
capable of impressions, at once very sudden and very durable; which, he
adds, is to be found in no other nation. Mr. Moore observes afterwards,
how completely an Italian woman, either from nature or her social
position, is led to invert the usual course of frailty among ourselves,
and, weak in resisting the first impulses of passion, to reserve the
whole strength of her character for a display of constancy and
devotedness afterwards.--Both these traits of national character are
exemplified in Juliet--_Moore's Life of Byron_, vol. ii. pp. 303, 338.
4to edit.

[18] _La seve de la vie_, is an expression used somewhere by Madame de
Stael.

[19] Characters of Shakspeare's Plays.

[20] I must allude, but with reluctance, to another character, which I
have heard likened to Juliet, and often quoted as the heroine _par
excellence_ of amatory fiction--I mean the Julie of Rousseau's Nouvelle
Heloise; I protest against her altogether. As a creation of fancy the
portrait is a compound of the most gross and glaring inconsistencies; as
false and impossible to the reflecting and philosophical mind, as the
fabled Syrens, Hamatryads and Centaurs to the eye of the anatomist. As a
woman, Julie belongs neither to nature nor to artificial society; and if
the pages of melting and dazzling eloquence in which Rousseau has
garnished out his idol did not blind and intoxicate us, as the incense
and the garlands did the votaries of Isis, we should be disgusted.