the deficiency is less to be regretted. We | be feared, some of the most interesting exhibit the figures in a table:

Year.

1832

1842

1852 1862 1872

1882

1832 1842 1852

1862 1872 1882

97,300

300

48,100

27,300

6,200

21,800 19,600

550

600

650
670

670

200

317

325

350

353 351

cities are reputed to be unhealthy, and the Alps are so near that it does not seem worth while to endure the heat that may be expected with certainty. Besides,

many private collections are inaccessible during the hottest months, and though the churches and the public galleries remain open, the effort to reach them exhausts all but the most youthful strength. The streets, too, are deserted and the windows shaded during the daytime, so that the towns are robbed of their gaiety, and wear an appearance of desolation till the sun down. goes Then, it is true, square and market seem to breathe anew; the shutters are pushed back and the lattices opened, and by-and-by the open spaces These figures may be thus exhibited begin to be filled by a crowd of men and in their diminishing order of number of women who have come forth to profit to leeches used per bed: the utmost by the coolness of the evening, St Bartholomew's 195, 187, 45, 9, 1*5, 2°5 to saunter languidly up and down, and to St. George's 109, 61, 10, 4, 15, 2'5 sip ice before the caffè doors. But the (nearly). more brilliant members of the community The older hospital seems to have been are absent in some seaside village or more conservative of the usage. It is a mountain retreat, and those who remain curious economical fact that the leeches no longer exhibit the vivacity that distinseem to have cost more in 1882 than in guishes them in spring and autumn, nay, 1832, though the consumption had been even in the bright days of winter; they reduced to about a fiftieth part. Leech. seem overcome by lassitude to a degree gathering must have been in times past a that might excite the admiration of some distinct occupation followed by an appre- them the true representatives of the ninespectators, and induce them to consider ciable part of the population. It must now have dwindled away, with the effect teenth century. The tourists are doubtof diminishing the supply even beyond less wise in their generation. the diminution of the demand. Or has fifty years of draining made the leeches actually fewer? The present writer must, however, own his ignorance as to the sources of the past and present supply.

And yet there is a charm in an Italian summer, at least for those who have cultivated a natural talent for indolence, for it certainly appeals to the contemplative

rather than the active order of minds.

There is positively nothing to be done. During the long noonday hours to take a walk on the beach is to run the risk of sunstroke, while riding would be an act of heartless cruelty not only to your horse but to yourself. Fortunately you have no desire to do anything. Bodily exercise is clearly a folly, and you soon perceive that intellectual exertion is also a vanity and a

snare.

You begin to sympathize with the Eastern sages who think it the height of wisdom to cross their legs and repeat a mystical monosyllable, though, for your own part, you prefer to stretch yourself at full length on your bed with the smallest amount of clothing your sense of decency will permit, and the least exciting novel you can manage to procure without trouble. This is the time to read Sterne with real pleasure, and to discover the wisdom concealed beneath his wit and humor, which only the indolent will ever

old poets and novelists worked. Chaucer and Shakespeare, like Michael Angelo, could draw without models, because they knew human nature so well that it was impossible for them to err in portraying it; and in their own lines Swift, Fielding, Sterne, and Thackeray, nay, even Smol. lett and Dickens, would have scorned such a hand-to-mouth trade. Out of the fulness of their knowledge and observation they spoke; they had not to look hungrily around them every morning for something to say. It must be acknowledged that this restless activity is the very quality that has secured for England her supremacy in manufacture, trade, and colonization; but the man who can never regard either nature or human life with a disinterested and purposeless love will never to return to our subject, he will never enjoy an Italian summer; it will be nothing but unalloyed misery to him.

have leisure enough to understand. As | ployed to-morrow. It was not thus our you ponder over the reflections suggested by some sentence the true meaning of which for the first time dawns upon you, the book slips from your hand, and you sink into a doze which is half a reverie and half a dream. So the hot hours pass slowly by, till the time has come to open your casement and to go forth in search of dinner. But to enjoy, or even to endure, such a condition it is not enough that you have no debts to pay and no work to do. You must also possess a contented mind. You must have forgotten all about the poor harmless sluggard you were taught to despise, and the busy bee you were told to emulate, in the days of your infancy. You must let each hour bear its own burden, and when you have endured its heat kindly and patiently, without increasing the difficulties of your neighbors by your ill-humor and irritability, which perhaps rarely happens, you may feel that if you have performed no heroic labor you have at least passed through a course of moral discipline which is not to be despised.

"An Englishman can never sit still except when he has a bottle of wine before him." Such is the southern verdict on our northern character, and it is hard to deny that it contains a certain truth. Most of our fellow-countrymen feel a strong call to be up and doing. On a fine day we know that every one who can afford it is expected to kill something, and in wet weather he has his accounts to add up, a machine to invent, or an article to write. If he has no such resource, he will ruin himself at the gaming-table or elsewhere. He has no patience to let the influences of nature work quietly upon him, no time to chew the cud of his reflections. Even on his travels the gallery is "done" and the landscape "bolted" as the clodhopper bolts his bacon. The busy bee is indeed his model, and what does she know of the lilies of the field? They may be arrayed in a splendor greater than that of Solomon; she does not perceive it, and if she did she would not care; her one question is, Where can I find a little honey to carry home to my hive? And so it is with the average Englishman of to-day. What he seeks in nature is something he can use. He observes acutely, but only to serve his own ends, practical, scientific, or artistic; so he perceives only half truths, but these he turns to the best advantage. Our very poets and artists seem to go into the open air only to find a suggestion for a line or a study for a picture. And what is noticed to-day must be em

For the contented and the quiet mind, we repeat, it has a charm. The heat serves as a welcome excuse for indulging in the dreamy indolence which nature has bestowed as a sweet opiate on those whom she has deprived of a capacity for pushing their way. To watch the sea for hours, wondering whither the white sails are tending, and what freight of human hope, sorrow, or passion they are bearing so quietly along, seems philosophical resig nation rather than self-indulgence. To leave the book unread and the task undone is not to be lazy, but prudent. Conscience and inclination are thus reconciled; and, when the born sluggard meets his fretful acquaintances, he for once in his life enjoys the sweet sense of superi ority. And what a world it is to lie and dream in! The olive gardens extend to the cliffs above the shore, and beyond the grey expanse, which here and there brightens to silver, stretches the deep sapphire of the sea. Further on, the coast is broken into innumerable inlets and tiny bays; and, as the sunshine touches the rocks, their tints vary from deep black to a golden brown. There is a glimmer as of haze in the air into which the distance softly fades; yet every outline is clear, every shadow sharply marked. The mountains and islands on the horizon are still distinct, though they seem withdrawn by some magic into the realm of dream. One can hardly believe that they belong to the workday world; and as the sun sinks the deep flushes of varying light seem rather to shine through than to be reflected from them. All the long noontide, too, it would

be so still, were it not for the chirp of the | is, more wholesome than the half-melted cicadas, which only seems to make the ices, flavored with unholy essences. heat audible. A single insect of the kind is a torment not to be endured; but when thousands take voice together from the olive groves, their humming seems to fall into a rhythm that harmonizes with the ripple of the sea. The village children say they are singing to bid the grapes grow ripe. The sluggard's vintage never ripens, so he is spared the trouble of gathering it, and can saunter forth as soon as the air grows cooler to view the pleasures, the labors, and the follies of his neighbors.

On such an evening excursion you may perhaps find a pleasant midday retreat, for the landlord of a country cantina is generally a small proprietor, whose gardens and vineyards adjoin the yard at the back of the house. The noon is always hotter there than indoors; but, at least in the early summer and late autumn, it seems more bearable to a northerner in the open air; and some of these little orchards are charming from the very fact that they are planted for use and not for ornament. In one of the least frequented The smallest Italian village has its of the southern seaside towns, for examcaffè, and the smallest caffè provides ice ple, there is a pomegranate garden of this at least once or twice in the week. Here, | kind. It stands on the summit of a little in the summer evenings, the whole air is cliff which rises precipitously above the in motion with the flutter of fans. The sea with its narrow fringe of sand. At husbands, brothers, and fathers read the one end some one with ampler means and single paper supplied turn by turn with a more cultivated taste than the present such a concentrated and protracted inter-occupant built a terrace in the early years est, that one might suppose they were going to pass an examination in its contents, if one did not know they were simply anxious to ignore the fervid glances which the ladies under their protection are exchanging with the youths who are playing dominoes at the opposite tables. The landlord shuffles backwards and for wards every now and then, and the waiter moves actively about, expectant of possible soldi. You feel at once that it is only a cheaper edition of the great world from which you have fled, printed on worse paper and in a coarser type. Down one of the streets that lead to the shore, however, there is sure to be a cantina. It offers nothing but the wine of the country, and none of the frequenters of the caffè ever think of passing its portals. In the daytime, it must be confessed, they are gloomy enough to frighten the passer-by; but of an evening the huge back doors are opened, and then the shop appears only a portico to the orange or olive grove behind. If you are content with the light of the moon, the stars, and the fireflies, you can take a chair and drink your wine there; but, if you are a lover of men, you will seat yourself at the rude table opposite the counter, and listen to the talk of the fishermen who come in to quench their thirst and fill their bottles before starting on their nightly expeditions. There is generally something to be learned from their conversation; and, even if this is not the case, the breeze that passes through the cantina is pleasanter than the heavy air of the caffè, and the wine, rough as it

of the last century. It is falling into ruin now, but the great view it commands still remains, and it is still shadowed over by the heavy foliage of ancient trees. A little brook runs through the grounds, and bounds or trickles down the face of the cliff, according to the season. It is forced at first to take its way through a huge square trough of roughly hewn stone, and here it must be confessed that early in the morning washing is sometimes done, after the primitive method of the place, by rubbing the linen with sand and beating it on the sides of the cistern, without the aid of soap or a fire; but at other times even the lower part of the brook is as bright and clear as crystal. In the early weeks of June, when the pomegranates are in full flower, and the sunshine flickers restlessly on the tender green below, you could hardly find a more delightful restingplace, and even later on in the season, if you bring a volume of the " Earthly Paradise," and sling your hammock by the brook, you will not feel that the midday heat lasts too long. A pigeon may flutter down and sip of the water, a child may come to paddle in it for a minute or two with her brown feet, and then coil herself up in the nearest patch of shade and fall asleep there. Nothing else will disturb your reverie, and as you glance away from the lovely story to the blue sea over which the distant sails are stealing so calmly and so slowly, you may well for a moment feel that human life is, indeed, what Novalis said it ought to become a dream.

From The Spectator.
CARLYLE ON RELIGIOUS CANT.

bly construct of our own — but as the pretence of bearing personal evidence to MR. FROUDE makes of his last two vol- truths which are not original in us at all, umes of Carlyle's life and letters one and which are borrowed by us from others, constantly recurring and perpetually reit on whose authority alone we accept them. erated vituperation of cant; but what cant Now, it is not every one who can bear is, except that it is either absolutely insin- personal testimony to the ultimate founcere, or a deeper stage still- sincere dations even of religious truth, though insincerity, neither Mr. Froude nor Car- every one with a religion at all can bear lyle ever plainly says. In one place Car- personal testimony to the spiritual strength lyle suggests that the mere echoing of it gives. No one knew this better than other persons' beliefs is pure cant, for he Carlyle, for he bore the most eloquent bewails himself much on the misery of testimony to the depth of his own father's living amidst echoes. "Ach Gott!' he and mother's faith; and yet, so far as we says, "it is frightful to live among echoes." can judge, his profound scorn for tradiWell, if the echoing of other persons' be- tional faiths struck in principle, — though, liefs that is, believing their belief on of course, he did not think so, at the their authority-be cant, we must all of sincerity of theirs. He wrote with his us cant on all subjects on which we have usual wrath to Mr. Erskine of those who not been able to satisfy ourselves. In looked at the universe through the "helps that case, it is cant to echo the astrono- and traditions of others." "Others," he mer's prediction of an eclipse, or the said, "are but offering him their miserable wine-merchant's opinion of a brand of spy-glasses, Puseyite, Presbyterian, Free wine, or the farmer's of the condition of Kirk, Old Greek, Middle Age Italian, imthe crops. It would be cant to accept perfect, not to say distorted; semi-opaque, Mr. Carlyle's assertion that Sterling's was wholly opaque, and altogether melancholy a "beautiful soul" which "pulsed auro- and rejectable spy-glasses, one and all if ras," indeed, as we suspect that to have one has eyes left. On me, too, the presbeen a bit of Carlylese cant, the echoing sure of these things falls very heavy; inof it might really be cant. Nay, it would deed, I often feel the loneliest of all the even be cant to take it on trust from him sons of Adam; and, in the jargon of poor that "sea-green incorruptible" is a trust grimacing men, it is as if one listened to worthy description of Robespierre, or the jabbering of spectres, not a cheerful "fiery-real from the great fire-bosom of situation at all while it lasts. . . . I con. nature herself" of Danton. We cannot fess, then, Exeter Hall, with its frothall of us follow the researches of the his- oceans, benevolence, etc., etc., seems to torians any more than those of the astron- me amongst the most degraded platitudes omers or the tradesmen. If we are to this world ever saw; a more brutal idolahave impressions at all on the subjects try, perhaps, for they are white men, on which Carlyle himself has given us and their century is the nineteenth, our impressions, we must "live among than that of Mumbo Jumbo itself. echoes." It cannot be cant simply to take It is every way very strange to consider on trust the work of others, or to echo on what Christianity' so-called has grown to reasonable evidence what we have not had within these two centuries, on the Howard time to investigate for ourselves. Nay, to and Fry side as on every other, a paltry, make original views for ourselves when mealy-mouthed 'religion of cowards,' who we have not in reality the means of mak- can have no religion but a sham one, ing them with anything like the justice which also, as I believe, awaits its aboli and truthfulness with which others, whom tion from the avenging power. If men we might follow and trust, can make them, will turn away their faces from God, and is itself a very serious sort of cant, of set up idols, temporary phantasms, instead which Carlyle was not unfrequently guilty. of the Eternal One, alas! the conseSome of his "Latter-Day Pamphlets" ap-quences are from of old well-known." pear to us to have been full of attempts to For him, at least, even the self-sacrificing be original on subjects which he did not labors of Howard and Elizabeth Fry in really understand, though he treated with trying to improve the diabolical treatment the most insulting contempt those who of criminals once common in English understood them far better than himself. prisons, were founded on pure cant, on a We should describe cant not as the echo- mealy-mouthed religion of cowards. Yet ing of others' views or faiths which we Carlyle's own religion was not, if he is to very often ought to echo, because they are be judged by his letters, free from cant. far better than any which we could possi- For it was, by his own admission in later