enterprise of Italy; and it is by this vast body, a body at once more picturesque and more real than the corresponding class in England, and not by the usual concomitants of revolution, the peasants and the nobles, that Italy has changed hands. Melloni's sentiments on the subject of taxation, the most difficult of all subjects to a people unaccustomed to personal sacrifices, were such as would have filled any Chancellor of the Exchequer with gratitude and admiration; whereas the poor Capriotes groan, not blaming "Vittorio"-rather, on the whole, feeling a kind of pride in him, as in some kind of unknown ogre, who has proved his right to the kingdom in the primitive way, by taking when he had the power-but quite unable to conceive why they should pay so much more for this new article, which, after all, at a level of life so primitive as theirs, is a question important enough to swallow up a good many more visionary considerations.

As we thread the village streets and stairs on our way home, passing various forlorn couples of old soldiers, invalids of the Italian army, who inhabit the lofty chambers of the old Certosa, or Carthusian convent, let us glance into the cathedral in passing, where at this moment, with voices that rend your ears, the village girls are singing the Ave Maria. This voluntary choir, which is huddled up on its knees in a corner of the church, and sings, or rather screams, the Virgin's litany in a voice something between that of a hoarse balladsinger and a peacock, carries on its devotion unnoticed by any one; but in the body of the church are seated a few old people, principally

old men, half at least old soldierspassive, patient figures, who are always to be found here, as indeed in most Italian churches. The women who come in make their way to pray at some special shrine, and when they have made their reverence to the high altar go away again,

having apparently relieved their minds and made their necessities known. But the old men sit still on chance benches, with their faces towards the altar, some glancing up with dim eyes as the strangers enter, but most keeping quite still. What can they be doing here day after day and hour after hour? Perhaps only taking shelter from the hot sun, and resting their weary old limbs on the convenient benches; but there are numberless seats outside, where there is something going on, and people to see and speak to. Here the dim old twilight souls say nothing to each other. They carry no rosaries or other implements of devotion, but sit in a kind of mild torpor, with their faces to the altar, perhaps going over and over the long lives which are now so near the ending, possibly making a feeble darkling attempt to trace God's guidance in them, and offering a mute thankfulness or a mute complaint to the sole eye which sees; but anyhow, there is something in the spectacle of this pale old age finding peaceful refuge unmolested in the open church, which is very touching to look at. In England, and above all in Scotland, the chances are that somebody would try to teach those torpid old souls, and disturb the unspeakable musings in which they spend their feeble remnants of life; but here they are left to themselves, and take what share they please, or, if they please, no share at all, in the services going on at the altar. And the Ave Maria shrills out from the corner chapel at the present moment, without eliciting the least response from these spectators. They are to be found throughout Italy, wherever one goes; and I cannot but think it a touching and tender office of the ever-open church to afford shelter and silence to these old worn-out souls.

The cathedral itself does not contain anything very remarkable, except a silver bust of St Costanzo, once bishop of Capri, which the

other day was carried in procession to his chapel, attended by all the priests and half the women of the village. That was the great festa of the island; for St Costanzo (though some people think St Antonio of Padua a patron more generally useful) is in right and justice the protector of Capri, having arrested the Saracen boats in the old, old times, which were coming to sack and slaughter, by lifting his episcopal arm, and holding out his hand to ward off the visitation. The Saracens could not, with all their strivings, get a boat's length nearer Capri in face of that gesture, more potent than the uplifted arms of Moses, and were dispersed and dashed to pieces and driven to sea, as happens habitually to the oppressors of the saints. As for St Costanzo himself, he looks bland but helpless in his silver image, which, being cut short by the breast, conveys naturally an imperfect impression of the beatified bishop; but all the same, the spectators strewed flowers in his path, and crowded his chapel, and lighted up the piazza at night with fireworks in his honour, as is the duty of the faithful. Except these fireworks and the service in the chapel, which was thronged to the very door with kneeling worshippers, and much private performance upon the penny whistle, that most cherished of Italian toys, I am not aware that there were any other means of excitement at the festa; but such as it was, it answered all the requirements of our Capriotes, who are a contented race.

After saying so much, however, of the beauties of Capri, it may be well to warn the unwary traveller of the perils attending the arrival. When the slow little steamer which comes twice a-week from Naples (the maladetto Vapore, at which Feliciello swears all manner of picturesque oaths) steams into sight, a world of excited people, chiefly women, rush with their donkeys to the Marina. Feliciello comes

but seldom, and by appointment, being a person of pretensions; but his wife, to whom we have already referred, is among the throng. When the little boat which lands the passengers approaches the beach, this crowd rushes upon it like a horde of furies. Nobody thinks twice in Capri of kilting such scanty trousers or petticoats as it may possess, and rushing with brown shapely limbs knee-deep into the water on any emergency; and it cannot be denied that it is a little alarming to be dragged headlong out of the boat and fought for by a crowd of nondescript creatures, naked and wet and shining to the knee, and with faces gleaming above these startling flesh-tints with eagerness that looks intent, not upon conveying you safely to the village, but upon tearing you piecemeal-you and your belongings. But there is not the least occasion for alarm. This contending mob has just been gathering, twenty strong, with glowing cheeks and crisp locks, and limbs veiled and decorous, round the two English ladies yonder in the corner of the rocks, who have been taking a lesson in spinning while they waited for the boat. Deft Rosina, who plucked you bodily out of Mrs Feliciello's hands, rushed with the same instinct of knowing how, like a capable soul as she is, to snatch out of the wondering owner's grasp the ready distaff and give the needful instruction; and the Furies closed around and applauded the learner's unsuccessful attempts to twirl the spindle, with shouts of good-humoured laughter. But I allow they are terrific when, twenty screaming like one, they catch at the prow of the boat and clutch at you before you have left that sanctuary. But all the same I think of thee with a certain regret, Rosina mia, swift and skilful and cheery -as of a lost opportunity; for in good hands what could not have been made of the bright capable creature who knew so well how to

handle her tools and it requires no such handy serviceable brains as those she carried under her auburn locks to convey blocks of stone up and down the Capri stairs - which was the last occupation we saw her in. It was she who called loudest out, of the benign crowd who watched our departing, the "Felice viaggio, presto ritorno!" of primitive kindness. Thus it is that in Capri the Furies, after the first assault, grow into the kindliest domestic sprites, genial and frolicsome, ready to enter into your humour, though not without a smile at the odd ideas of the Forestieri, who know no better. The day after your landing they will come round you with their little baskets of coral like old friends; and if you are worthy of visiting Capri, you will not be too particular about a franc or two, but keep the pink morsels of coral from the beach, and the round shells which they call the eyes of Santa Lucia, in memory of one of the loveliest little atoms of stone and space which God has planted in the sea.

Though, to be sure, you might find more substantial memorialslike that sturdy pilgrim-staff, for example, stout as an Irish bludgeon, though made of sentimental myrtle, which the stalwart Scottish Signor, whose length of limb and develop ment of muscle made Feliciello forget his manners in admiration, carries with him across the seas. But these are the private negozio of Santella, who is our waiting-maid at the Villa Quisisana-a mild and gentle hunchback, whose face has such a light of goodness in it that it does one more good to look at her than even at little Chiara in Ana

Gentle

capri, the little beauty. deformed creature! noiseless and serviceable, good for everything in the house, how comes it that the common beauty has flowed around her like a perverse stream, and left her such an exception? It is hard to be the exception-to stand whipping-boy for the world, and teach the fair and glad to be thankful for their advantages by the spectacle of one's own deformity or sorrow. But thou and I, good Santella, will shake hands on that; and I wish we all bore our burdens half as meekly and sweetly as does that handmaiden of the good God. It is pleasant at the Villa Qui-si-Sana,* lectore carissima, where our host speaks pure Italian with an Edinburgh accent, and knows everybody one knew in the early ages when one was young and lived among one's own people. Go there, and bring us word how the vines are growing, and be good to Santella; and look at the cottage on the hill under the sweetest shade of the olive-trees, from which you can see the sun set, as it were by stealth, in that unthought-of break round the lower shoulder of Monte Solaro. If I were ever rich and secure and happy, and had no longer any dread in my heart of this dearest, saddest, murderous Italy, it is there I would go and build my tower of vision: but that time can only be when Italy and Capri have celestial names, and the City of God has come down out of the skies, and that hard division is done away with which parts heaven and earth; for I cannot think the great Creator, even to outdo it, could destroy, clean out of knowledge, the loveliest labours of His almighty hands.