little to the left; and farther to the left, among the blue
hills, was the white village, Settignano, where Michael Angelo
was born. The house is still in possession of the family. From
our windows on the other side we saw, close to us, the Fiesole
of antiquity and of Milton, the site of the Boccaccio-house
before mentioned; still closer, the _Decameron's_ Valley of
Ladies at our feet; and we looked over toward the quarter
of the Mignone and of a house of Dante, and in the distance
beheld the mountains of Pistria. Lastly, from the terrace in
front, Florence lay clear and cathedraled before us, with the
scene of Redi's _Bacchus_ rising on the other side of it, and
the villa of Arcetri, famous for Galileo. Hazlitt, who came to
see me there, beheld the scene around us with the admiration
natural to a lover of old folios and great names, and
confessed, in the language of Burns, that it was a sight to
enrich the eyes.

"My daily walk was to Fiesole, through a path skirted with
wild myrtle and cyclamen; and I stopped at the door of the
Doccia, and sate on the pretty melancholy platform behind it,
reading, or looking down to Florence."

This is all very charming, yet hear what the author says further:--

"Some people, when they return from Italy, say it has no wood,
and some a great deal. The fact is, that many parts of it,
Tuscany included, has no wood to _speak of_: it wants larger
trees interspersed with the small ones, in the manner of our
hedge-row elms. A tree of a reasonable height is a god-send.
The olives are low and hazy-looking, like dry sallows. You