fancy, was the
bridge which Ariosto's Rodomonte kept on horse against the Paladins of
Charlemagne, when angered by the loss of his love. Nor is it difficult
to imagine Bradamante spurring up the slope against him with her magic
lance in rest, and tilting him into the tawny waves beneath.

On a clear October morning, when the vineyards are taking their last
tints of gold and crimson, and the yellow foliage of the poplars by
the river mingles with the sober greys of olive-trees and willows,
every square inch of this landscape, glittering as it does with light
and with colour, the more beautiful for its subtlety and rarity, would
make a picture. Out of many such vignettes let us choose one. We are
on the shore close by the ruined bridge, the rolling muddy Rhone in
front; beyond it, by the towing-path, a tall strong cypress-tree rises
beside a little house, and next to it a crucifix twelve feet or more
in height, the Christ visible afar, stretched upon His red cross;
arundo donax is waving all around, and willows near; behind, far off,
soar the peaked hills, blue and pearled with clouds; past the cypress,
on the Rhone, comes floating a long raft, swift through the stream,
its rudder guided by a score of men: one standing erect upon the prow
bends forward to salute the cross; on flies the raft, the tall reeds
rustle, and the cypress sleeps.

For those who have time to spare in going to or from the south it
is worth while to spend a day or two in the most comfortable and
characteristic of old French inns, the Hotel de l'Europe, at Avignon.
Should it rain, the museum of the town is worth a visit. It contains
Horace Vernet's not uncelebrated picture of Mazeppa, and another, less
famous, but perhaps more interesting, by swollen-cheeked David, the
'genius in convulsion,' as Carlyle has christened him. His canvas
is unfinished. Who knows what cry of the Convention made the painter
fling his palette down and leave the masterpiece he might have
spoiled? For in its way the picture is a masterpiece. There lies Jean
Barrad, drummer, aged fourteen, slain in La Vendee, a true patriot,
who, while his life-blood flowed away, pressed the tricolor cockade
to his heart, and murmured 'Liberty!' David has treated his subject
classically. The little drummer-boy, though French enough in feature
and in feeling, lies, Greek-like, naked on the sand--a very Hyacinth
of the Republic, La Vendee's Ilioneus. The tricolor cockade and the
sentiment of up