ITALIAN SCENERY.
Happy is the man, who, leaving the Alps behind him, has the plains of Lombardy on his right hand and on his left, the Apennines in view, and Florence as the city towards which he directs his steps. His way is through a country where corn grows under groves of fruit trees, whose tops are woven into green arcades by thickly-clustering garlands of vines; the dark masses of foliage and verdure which every where appear, melt insensibly, as he advances, into a succession of shady bowers that invite him to their depths; the scenery is monotonous, and yet ever various from the richness of its sylvan beauty, possessing all the softness of forest glades without their gloom. Towards Bologna, the landscape roughens into hills, which grow into Apennines, but Arcadia still breathes from slopes and lawns of tender green, which take their rise in the low stream-watered valleys, and extend up the steep ascent till met midway by the lofty chestnut groves which pale them in. To these gentler features succeeds the passage of the Apennines, which here, at least, are not as the author of "Italy as it Is," describes them, "the children of the Alps—smiling and gentle and happy as children should be," but, as we remember them, their summits form themselves into a wild, dreary region, sown with sterile mountain-tops, and torn to pieces by wind and storm; the only glimpse of peace is derived from the view on either side of the sea, which sometimes shows itself on the horizon, a misty line, half silver, half ether. This barren wilderness again softens into gracefully-swelling hills turned towards Florence. The fair olive tree and the dark cypress mingle their foliage with the luxuriant chestnut boughs, and the frequent marble villa flashes a white gleam from amid its surrounding laurel bowers. The sky is more beautiful than earth, and each symbolize peace and serene enjoyment.—Westminster Review.