Genius. I think so. I have heard of one who, when the woman whom he loved appeared before him in a gentle dream, for all the following day avoided being with her or seeing her, knowing that she could not come up to the paragon of imagination which sleep had left engraven on his mind, and that the true would cancel the false, and deprive him of that extraordinary delight. Therefore the ancients are not to be condemned who were much more solicitous, anxious, and industrious than you in the search of every enjoyment possible to human nature, if they were in the habit of procuring by various modes the sweetness and the delight of dreams.

Thus, never finding happiness in their waking moments, they studied to be happy in their sleep; and I think that in some degree they obtained it, and that Mercury granted their prayers more than did the other gods.

Tasso.-From all this, since men are born and live for pleasure, either of body or soul, if pleasure exists solely or principally in dreams, we should determine to live in order to dream-which, to tell the truth, is a thing to which I cannot reduce myself.

Genius. - Thou art already reduced and fixed to it, since thou livest and consentest to live. What is pleasure? Tasso. I am not sufficiently experienced in it to know what it is.

Genius. No one knows it by practice, but only by speculation; because pleasure is a matter of speculation, and not of reality-a desire, not a fact-a sentiment which man conceives in his mind and never experiences; or, to speak more truly, a conceit, not a sentiment. Do you not perceive that, even in a time of delight, which you have infinitely desired and pursued with unspeakable fatigue and pain, not being able to content yourself with the enjoyment which you had in each moment, you were always expecting a greater and truer enjoyment, in which should consist the sum of pleasure? and thus postponed the delight always to the future, which had ended before the moment of full satisfaction came; leaving you nothing better than the blind hope of enjoy. ing better and more truly on another occasion, and the comfort of figuring and narrating to yourself what you have enjoyed; and of telling it also to others, not out of vanity, but as helping yourself to believe your own story. Therefore, whosoever consents to live, in substance and effect does nothing more than to dream; that is to say, he believes

Tasso. I do not see a perhaps here. But why then do we live? I would say, why do we consent to live?

Genius. How can I tell? You ought to know it best who are men.

Tasso. For me, I swear that I know nothing about it. But certainly this life which I lead is in every respect an unnatural state; for, leaving suffering apart, weariness alone kills me.

Genius.-What is weariness?

Tasso. I have no lack of experience in this case to answer your question. It appears to me that weariness is of the nature of air, which fills all the space intervening between material things, and all the voids contained in them, and when anything is taken away without being replaced by another, takes its place immediately. Thus all the intervals of human life, between the pleasures and the misfortunes, are filled up with weariness. And as, according to the Peripatetics, there is no void anywhere, thus in our life there is no void, except it be when the mind, from whatsoever cause, intermits the use of thought. For all the rest of time, the soul, considered in itself as separate from the body, is found to contain some passion; so that he who is empty of either pleasure or misfortune, is full of weariness; which also is a passion not different from sorrow or delight.

Genius.By weariness, it seems to me that nothing else can be understood than the pure desire of hap piness, not satisfied with pleasure, and not injured by misfortune; which desire, as I said before, is never satisfied, and true happiness is never found. So that human life, so to speak, is composed and woven, partly of sorrow, and partly of weariness; from the one of which passions it has deliverance only by falling into the other. And this is not any individual destiny, but common to all men.

Tasso. What remedy might one employ against weariness?

Genius.-Sleep, opium, and griefand the last the most powerful of all; for while a man suffers he does not weary himself (si annoia) in any way whatsoever.

Tasso. Instead of this medicine I should be content with tedium all my life. But surely the variety of action, of occupations, and sentiments, if it does not free us from weariness, because it never gives true delight, at least solaces and lightens it. In this prison, on the contrary, separated from human intercourse, without even the means of writing, reduced to note for pastime the tickings of a watch, to count the beams, the bricks, and the worm-holes of the floor, to consider the pattern of the pavement, to amuse myself with the butterflies and insects that flutter about the room-to pass almost all the hours in the same way; I have nothing of any kind to defend me from the weight of weariness.

Genius. Tell me how long have you been reduced to this form of life? Tasso.-Many weeks, as thou knowest. Genius.-Knowest thou not, from the first day to the present, any difference in the tedium of thy life?

Tasso. Certainly-I found it greater at the beginning; because the mind, having no other occupation or amusement, begins to accustom itself by degrees to converse with itself more, and with greater pleasure than at first; and acquires a habit, an inclination, for talking to itself-so much, that often I seem to myself to have a companion, who reasons with me; and every little subject that presents itself to my thoughts is

sufficient to make between me and me a great talking.

Genius.-This habit thou wilt find to increase, and be confirmed from day to day; so that when thou art restored to intercourse with men thou wilt appear to thyself less occupied in their society than in solitude. And I do not think that this companionship with self, when made necessary by life, is confined to men like thee, already used to meditation, but that it comes more or less to all. And more, to be separated from men, and, so to speak, from life itself, is useful; for man-even when wise, enlightened, and disenchanted by experience of all human things-accustoms himself over again to admire them from a distance, whence they appear much more beautiful and worthy than close at hand; forgets their vanity and misery; begins to form himself, and almost to recreate the world to his liking; to appreciate, love, and desire life; with which hopes, if he is not entirely deprived of the power or expectation of restoring himself to the society of men, he nourishes and delights himself, as he was wont to do, in his

early years. In this way solitude almost fulfils the office of youth; it makes the soul young again; it restores the power of imagination and sets it to work again, and renews in the man of experience the blessings of that first inexperience for which thou sighest. But I leave thee; for I see that sleep comes to thee, and I would not deprive thee of the beautiful dream I promised. Thus between dreaming and musing (fantasticare) life consumes away. But, on the

whole, thy time does not pass more slowly in this prison than that of him who oppresses thee, in his halls and gardens. Addio.

Tasso.-Addio; but listen. Thy conversation is consolatory-not that it breaks my sadness; but my life, for the most part, is like a dark night, without moon or stars; while with thee it is like the brown of the twilight, rather grateful than painful. In order that henceforward I may be able to call thee, or find thee, when I have need of thee, tell me where is thy usual abode?

Genius. Hast thou not yet found it out?-In some generous liquor.

This sudden jovial suggestion comes in strangely enough at the close of the quaint and pensive talk, reminding one, for the moment, of some of Heine's startling flights from a gay surface of verse into a sudden blackness and depth of despair. But with Leopardi it is all the other way. It is the laugh that is abrupt and momentary, breaking in like a discord. We have, however, already exceeded our space, and cannot venture further to extend our quotations. Enough has been given to convey an idea, though in a form which does poor justice to the noble and simple force of the original, of the mind of a very remarkable, very sad, and insufficiently appreciated man.

life was spent in that miserable purThe latter part of his suffering suit of health from one climate to another, with which so many of us are sadly familiar. From the unfriendly snows of his own Apennines he sought refuge in Florence, in Rome, and finally in Naples, where he established himself on the lovely heights at Capodimonte, having at the same time a "casinuccio" on the

skirts of Vesuvius; and between the two kept the enemies of his life for a little while at bay. There he died in his thirty-ninth year, and was buried in the little suburban church of San Vitale, on the Pozzuoli road; to which, perhaps, even this imperfect notice may lead some English pilgrim, who may have a heart touched by sorrow of his own, or who still may feel the unspeakable pity of the young and happy for all the infelicissimi. There he lies, after his great sufferings, little enough thought of even by his countrymen, but having found, let us hope, better things than he looked for behind the impenetrable veil. The incidents of his life were so few that there is scarcely a word to add to what has been already said, except the eulogium of his qualities,

modest and reticent to be made by an Italian, with which his biographer closes. One little intimation, conveyed with curious naïveté, which we do not venture to reproduce textually, gives a further touch of gloom to the already clouded picture. "He loved twice, although without hope, as never man loved upon earth,' says his regretful friend; and it needed only that last particular to fill up the measure of his griefs. "He was of middle stature, stooping, of a fairness which verged upon pallor, with a large head, a forehead square and broad, eyes languid, and with long lashes, delicate lineaments, a pronunciation modest and sometimes hoarse, and," adds the affectionate historian, an ineffable and almost celestial smile." *

THE most notable point in the Switzerland of to-day, as compared with that of ten years ago, is the accommodation afforded to travellers by numerous hotels erected on lofty positions, amid the finest mountain scenery, and rendering easily accessible some of the wildest portions of the high Alps. There are pedestrians to whom three or four additional hours of ascent, and two or three of descent, are but unconsidered trifles when added to a day's work; but even to most young men who affect the Alps it is no small gain to be able to ride comfortably out of the sweltering lower villages to a comfortable inn at the height of 6000 or 7000 feet, where they can take up quarters, and from whence they can commence their pedestrian ascents in a cool and invigorating atmosphere. It is not, however, mountaineers alone who are beginning to discover that these high hotels are pleasant places of abode for days, and even weeks. I have seen residing there numerous invalids, and even old ladies, who would as soon think of displaying themselves in the ballet as of crossing ten yards of glacier. In July and August, when all Europe is steeped in heat and moisture, the pure dry air of the high mountains is refreshing in the extreme; so also is the splendid scenery thus rendered accessible without fatigue; the company is often of a superior and genial kind, circumstances are favourable to familiar, easy intercourse; and the

-Le Malade Imagin aire.

luxuries of civilisation need not be left behind, though all Europe is lying at our feet.

Of course these high hotels afford great varieties of accommodation, from the splendid affairs at Chamouni to the solid hut on the glacier of the St Theodole pass, at the height of 10,900 feet, where simple food may be had, and where "it is possible to sleep ;" but at very great heights one can find tolerable rooms, and sit down, at a moderate price, to tables d'hôte that would certainly not disgrace any of the second-class hostelries below. The famous hotel on the Riffelberg, above Zermatt, is 8400 feet high, in very keen dry air; and it is possible to ride up from it nearly to the top of the Gorner Grat, 10,300 feet, round which there sweeps, with only a glacier intervening, the tremendous range of the Monte Rosa group, from the snowy Cima di Jazi to the brown awful peak of the Matterhorn; while, looking northward, the view is closed in the distance by mountains of the Bernese Oberland. The hotels on the Æggischhorn and the neighbouring Bel Alp lay themselves out for visitors who desire to stay some time, in order to make excursions from their convenient height of about 7000 feet. The former, especially, is justly celebrated for its cellar and its cuisine; but Herr Wellig has a peculiar fancy for always filling the rooms in his highest storey first, though the stairs to that storey might almost

justify a nervous person in being roped; and the latter has an advantage in its outlook, as also in the vicinity of pleasant short walks. The inns on the Wengern Alp and the Little Scheideck are glad to receive travellers en pension. On the Faulhorn there is a gasthof not lower than 8400 feet, commanding a close view of the southern side of the giants of the Oberland; and near by, at a somewhat lower elevation, the Schynige Platte presents nearly the same scene from a less inhospitable zone. On the neighbouring Niesen there are twenty-four beds at 7765 feet. At nearly 6000 feet, on the Engstlenalp, there is a well-known hostelry, with the Schreckhorn on one side and the Titlis on the other, to which even consumptive patients repair. In the Engadine, St Moritz, at 6000 feet, with its chalybeate waters, has recently been in great repute with English travellers; while in the Valteline, Le Prese presents a milder climate. Courmayeur is well known to travellers among the Alps; Zermatt itself is 5315 feet. -On the Col di Voza there is now an inn, from which the ascent of Mont Blanc can easily be made; for it is only about six hours' ascent from that inn to a cabane on the Aiguille de Gouté, and four hours from thence to the summit of the monarch of European mountains.

People

occasionally pay short visits to the monks of St Bernard and of the Simplon, while parties have been known to linger upon the Furca. Even the hospice at the Grimsel has announced itself as a hotel and pension, and has its share of men bent on high excursions, though it is difficult to see how any one else except a misanthrope could think of boarding himself in that God-forsaken region. I have counted about two hundred places in Switzerland recommended, for various reasons, as Kurorte or sanitariums, and of these at least thirty are about or above 5000 feet high.*

Of all those I visited, however, and they were not few, the one which delighted me most was Mürren, perched above the valley of Lauterbrunnen, at the height of 5350 feet, and, erroneously enough, called the highest hamlet in Europe. I went up there to stay a night, and remained for three weeks, enchanted with the scenery and walks, pleased with the company, and satisfied with the hotel Silber Horn." This place is accessible within a short distance by rail; Berne, the capital of the Swiss Federation, is not far off; the shops and society of Interlachen are within four hours of walking; the air is dry, though the position is not too high or cold for comfort, and the grandeur of the mountain