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Rh days, when, instead of a few still-standing ruins, a hundred lofty towers could be counted from the walls around the city ; where, instead of in some ten or twelve ' houses of God," prayers were daily chanted and high mass celebrated in more than a hundred churches and chapels ; and where, instead of the hotel omnibus and the railway train in the valley below, there were to be seen troops of armoured knights on gaily-caparisoned liorses, with over them the long banner of Perugia, or that of the Oddi or Raglioni, flaunting in the wind, with, borne upward to the eager citizens on the bastions, the clashing of swords and spears, the neighing of horses and laughter of men, and, shrilly above all, the wild fanfare of turbulent clarions, blast trumpeted forth upon blast, in mocking and challenge of war.

Surely no one who has spent any length of time in Umbria, or among the old Tuscan hill-towns, can fail to experience the subtle charm that seems to breathe in the very air, as well as to abide in the rich yet subdued colouring of the landscape — a charm that is not only of the eyes or any bodily sense, but is of the inner vision. But this Umbrian landscape is not joyous, as so often described by those whose description of it is purely conventional : indeed, there is a monotony in its beauty which is at variance with the prevalent conception of 'the sunny South.' It is as though the land were far more ancient than the remotest human traditions, as though it had seen too much of the change of ages — too much of the rise, the greatness, the oblivion of successively dominant races — ever again to be joyous with the joyousness of youth. Not only amid the solitudes of Volterra, the barrenness of Assisi, the desolation around Asciano ; not only in the ^laremma, nor on the sea-like Campagna, thickly peopled with innumerable dead, and mysterious as Ocean with its buried secrets; but in the brightness of spring among the green slopes, and hedges rich with hawthorn, honeysuckle, and wild quince, that environ the city of St. Catherine — even in this ' exceeding excellence of spring matured ' there is, if not a strongly-accentuated note of sadness, at least an absence of that exuberance, of that almost rapture, which further north, and perhaps in England pre-eminently, accompanies the regenerated youth of the year. Spring is not lovelier in the north, but it is more wonderful. There is the difference betwixt the twain that there is between the beauty of sunrise and that of sunset. What remote, what mysterious, what fascinating- perspectives reveal themselves to the student of earliest history, here, in this ancient land ! It is, indeed, this strange historic mystery, this monoton- ous sense of a barely recorded antiquity, shrouding an even more shadowy and ancient past, that under- lies the sometimes oppressive emotion which I have experienced when looking out upon those Umbrian hills and villages. Even when the mountains take on their ineffable blue — when the nearer and lower hills are green with oak and beech and ash and acacia — when the slopes and the valley-orchards are covered with olive and mulberry and trailed vine — and when in the meadows and by the water-courses the flowers are as innumerable as the stars in heaven — even with all this carnival of Spring the pathos of the past permeates the whole landscape, permeates and transforms it even as the shadow of twilight permeates and transforms the close of day.

This afternoon, to my great regret, I had to leave Orvieto, and now am waiting here, in the valley, to go hence — Romeward. But after having settled my score at the ' Albergo delle Belle Arti,' and arranged about the carriage of my few impcdimeiifa, I went to take one farewell look at the great Cathedral. Having traversed several narrow and deserted streets which became steeper and narrower till I entered one made dark by the sunless walls of uninhabited palaces, hopelessly decayed, I suddenly emerged into the sim-swept Piazza del Duomo, and was dazzled by the vision — for there, seemingly aglow with fire of jewels and flame of gold, gleamed against the west that marvellous facade. The sun was setting towards Monte Labro and the adjacent Apennines, and the whole sjjlendour of its farewell seemed concentrated on the cathedral-front, so that every space of golden mosaic shone with almost liquid translucency, and the carved pillars and bronze statues and reliefs took on an unwonted and ethereal beauty. Abruptly turning, I walked thence to the anti(jue walls that overlook the Chiana 'alley, so desolate, so lifeless ; and as I looked down upon the turbid Paglia, surging on its muddy way tin-ough the dreary volcanic region, I realised that here at least the labour of men's hands and the love in men's hearts excelled in beauty and mystery the pageant of nature, and that, while the landscape bore upon it the seal of death, yonder glory of human workmanship seemed the consecration, the embodiment of a divine hope.

It is now some hours since I left the School of San Rocco, and ever since I have been brooding over that