is a triumph—of illustration and typography, quite as much as
of literature. And yet the author is enthusiastic and reverent enough, and has an eye to the genuine glories of Florence. She is, however, a little too effusively feminine, especially when she writes of historical incidents ; a little too prone to burst out into exclamations like : "What memories the names of the ancient by-u aye awaken of rich pageants, the pomp of religious processions, fierce conflicts of opposing political factions, and high garden-walls, sheltering pomegranate- trees, parterres of roses and violets, with a pink cloud of blossoming shrubbery occasionally visible above the boundary of parapet." Miss Johnson has beyond all question, however, an eye to what is noblest and best in Florence. She tells the old stories of Lorenzo the Magnificent and Michelangelo and Galileo, and above all Savonarola, over again in a style which has at least freshness to recommend it. For she takes her stand in some belfry or bal- cony or square of the Florence of to-day, and thus gives a setting of modernity to the chapters of history that she recasts. The titles of some of her chapters, such as" The Street of the Water-Melon," "Church Towers," 'By the City Gate," and "Country Bells," may indicate to some extent Miss Johnson's s' andpoint. She seems to think that the modern or adopted Florentine citizen, "rosy and good-humoured, of a carefully preserved maturity, with the blue eyes and blonde beard of Northern Europe," may have a very happy time, and she shows, with an almost Oujda- esque wealth of phrases, how "in a small city, yet possessing the resources of a capital, he may mingle with a cosmopolitan winter society, become a dilettante in art or music, or a gourmet bestowing much care on the exercise of a recherché hospitality. In a day of perpetual motion, he may accept his time in Florence as a convenient pied-a-terre, and flit northward to Paris, Vienna, St. Petersburg, or Berlin, or take a yachting tour to Greece and Egypt." Altogether, this is a very pleasant as well as useful and eminently handsome book.
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