HERE AND THERE IN ITALY,* AMONG idle occupations there are
few pleasanter than the planning of a next summer's tour with maps and guide-books ; and the charm is doubled if one can hit on some fresh place to visit, something out of the common track of tourists. It would be even nobler, no doubt, to leave the rare spots "tin- seen, unknown," or, once visited, to hold one's peace about them ; but this sort of self-denial becomes more and more difficult ; and the very travellers who rejoice in finding some- thing new and strange, hurriedly do their best to attract all the world there by their descriptions. Thus the bloom is rubbed off, and we need not describe the consequences. They are to be seen at places like Courmayeur, for instance, which Madame Villari, on the strength of its Italian characteristics, includes, with other frontier towns and villages, in her pretty new volume of sketches in Italy.
Courmayeur and the Val d'Aosta, though full of beauty and interest, make perhaps the least attractive pictures in this gallery. There are names less familiar and more enchanting, among which, though choice is difficult, we are inclined to single out the Val Bregaglia, the approach to the Engadine from Italy. The tract of country which Madame Villari describes here has the charm of being very little known. People drive straight up to the Maloja, but few, we imagine, bestow much careful study on the scenes they drive through. The road ascends from Ohiavenna into the moun- tains, through wild Southern scenery, passing the site of ruined Piuro, now "a chaos of wooded knolls and moss- grown rocks," once a rich city full of palaces, crushed with all its wealth and thousands of people by the fall of an over- hanging mountain no longer ago than 1618. Madame Villari expresses her surprise that in this energetic age no attempt should have been made to dig up the buried treasures of Piuro. Switzerland is entered at Castasegna, and in sight of distant glaciers and snow-peaks, through great woods of pine and chestnut, with cascades plunging through them, we travel on to Soglio, a village perched on a cliff and overhung by rocks and pine-woods, picturesque and dirty, but possessing as its hotel a most splendid old house of the De Salis with an enchanting garden laid out in the Italian style, a romantic history " depuis la nuit des temps," and ghosts to be heard, though not seen. Madame Villari tells a story of banging doors which is really remarkable; and we cannot help agreeing that it must have been her own fault that she did not see who banged them. The wind, by-the-bye, had nothing to do with it, for the doors were locked, and the story as it is told certainly sounds unaccountable. Soglio must be in many ways a charming retreat ; but its silence and loneliness, and the extreme steepness of its walks, drove these travellers to a much better known place, Promontogno, (dose to the Bonclasca glacier and the little old town of Bond% where another beautiful old house of the De Salle family stands deserted.
Another pretty mountain picture is that of San Martino di Castrozza among its wonderful Dolomite peaks ; but we must not forget to do justice to the purely Italian pictures, which appeal more strongly to Madame Villari's affections, and call out the best resources of her art. She has a touch which freshens even such a well-known theme as " Bordighera and its associations," though here we think she does less than justice to Dr. Antonio and its author, and more than justice to certain modern romancers to whom she takes this opportunity of paying compliments. She also makes an odd mistake, if the passage refers to the last earthquake on the Riviera, in saying that it took place at Easter. Nobody who was there is likely to forget that cloudless morning of Ash WA re familiar amiliar and very interesting chapter is that on " Asolo and its Neighbourhood," in which that medheval queen • Hero and There irt Italy, and Over tho Border. By Linda Mari, Author of " Tusonu 111114 Ivad Vourtinu Water.," br. Loudon H, Allen cud Co, 1893. Madame Villari's little book will reawaken the charm of Galloway for a time, and it was not till their long feuds Italy and her borders for those who know and love them with their Sovereigns ended in their overthrow, that already, and should certainly also attract many to whom they James the Second established the Sheriffship of Gallo- of romance, Caterina, Cornaro, has her full share of attention, as well as Canova and Robert Browning, and we are made to realise delightfully the poetic scenery and atmosphere of Asolo. There is also great interest in the study of• San Marino, the oldest Republic in the world, called by Napoleon " cet echantillon de rtipublique," the noble little city whose rock is "seldom scaled by ordinary tourists," and the wisdom and prudence of whose public men has brought her unaltered through so many stormy centuries. But perhaps the most com- plete and fascinating study of all those which Madame Villari has given us here—" Impressions of New Rome" being rather ugly and saddening, however she may deny it—is that of the Island of Capri. Everybody has heard so much of Capri, but everybody has by no means been there. To many people it would be a new excursion of the greatest interest and delight, for, in spite of the cheap steamers, we must deny that "the island and its sights are well-nigh as hackneyed as Chamounix and Mont Blanc." Of course, something of the old enchantment is gone—the crowded market-boat, the scrambling on shore through the surf, the picturesque fisher-people crowding down, the mule.ri,de up the cliffs, the rock-staircase up and down which the brightly dressed women used to climb with loads balanced on their graceful heads,—all that Madame Villari remembers on her first visit and describes so vividly—but there is enough left to more than satisfy modern eyes in search of beauty. Capri cannot be vulgarised, we are glad to believe. It must always have "the complex witchery of its scenery and people, its rich vegetation, semi-eastern buildings, dark, old-world associations, and sunny modern life." The colour of Capri must always be glorious, from its intense light and shadow, and its orange-groves, olives, and palms, and its "wonderful jewelled sea." No island has more varied interest, or a more mysterious history, or stranger superstitions ; of these, Madame Villari's list is recommended to all lovers of folk-lore. One may add that the climate is delightful at all seasons of the year, for even in July and August the heat is tempered by sea-breezes. The people, who are as friendly and hospitable as they are handsome, show their Greek origin in many ways. Probably they are not very much changed since the days when Augustus landed and built himself a villa there, thus first drawing to Capri the fatal fancy of Tiberius.
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