Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 2.djvu/279

 but that was in winter—and beautiful as I thought it, I did not then guess what this land is in all the glory of its summer dress.

Here is the house in which Tasso was born—what wonder that the gardens of Armida convey to the mind the feeling that the poet had been carried away by enchantment to an Elysium, whose balmy atmosphere hung about him, and he wrote under its influence.—So indeed was it—here is the radiance, here the delights which he describes—here he passed his childhood; the fragrance of these bowers, the glory of this sky, haunted him in the dark cell of the convent of St. Anna.

I know not whether I should prefer the view of the bay which his house (now occupied as an hotel) commands, to our own from the Cocumella—the scene from his windows is certainly completer; situated more in the bend of the bay, turned northwards towards Vesuvius, he looked upon a circle of mountain crags, embracing the sea; our view is more turned to the west—it is less picturesque—perhaps more sublime.

The portion of the bay that belongs to Sorrento is singularly formed. For the most part steep cliffs rise from the water, with here and there a break, where there intervenes a short space of sands, hedged round by cliffs. The cliffs are perforated