ortifications were destroyed. Such episodes are common enough in the
history of that internecine struggle for existence between the Italian
municipalities, which preceded the more famous strife of Guelfs and
Ghibellines. Stretched upon the smooth turf of the Castello, we bade
adieu to the divine landscape bathed in light and mountain air--to
Thrasymene and Chiusi and Cetona; to Amiata, Pienza, and S. Quirico; to
Montalcino and the mountains of Volterra; to Siena and Cortona; and,
closer to Monte Fallonica, Madonna di Biagio, the house-roofs and the
Palazzo tower of Montepulciano.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] From Leigh Hunt's Translation.

SPRING WANDERINGS.

ANA-CAPRI.

The storm-clouds at this season, though it is the bloom of May, are
daily piled in sulky or menacing masses over Vesuvius and the Abruzzi,
frothing out their curls of moulded mist across the bay, and climbing
the heavens with toppling castle towers and domes of alabaster.

We made the most of a tranquil afternoon, where there was an armistice
of storm, to climb the bluff of Mount Solaro. A ruined fort caps that
limestone bulwark; and there we lay together, drinking the influences of
sea, sun, and wind. Immeasurably deep beneath us plunged the precipices,
deep, deep descending to a bay where fisher boats were rocking,
diminished to a scale that made the fishermen in them invisible. Low
down above the waters wheeled white gulls, and higher up the hawks and
ospreys of the cliff sailed out of sunlight into shadow. Immitigable
strength is in the moulding of this limestone, and sharp, clear
definiteness marks yon clothing of scant brushwood where the fearless
goats are browsing. The sublime of sculpturesque in crag structure is
here, refined and modulated by the sweetness of sea distances. For the
air came pure and yielding to us over the unfooted sea; and at the
basement of those fortress-cliffs the sea was dreaming in its caves;
and far away, to east and south and west, soft light was blent with mist
upon the surface of the shimmering waters.

The distinction between prospects viewed from a mountain overlooking a
great plain, or viewed from heights that, like this, dominate the sea,
principally lies in this: that while the former only offer cloud shadows
cast upon the fields below our feet, in the latter these shadows are
diversified with cloud reflections. This gives superiority in qualities
of colour, variety of tone, and luminous effect to the sea, c