These lines of Mrs. Hemans present a true summer picture of the Tuscan Maremma ; and such is the idea generally conceived of it at all seasons alike by most Englishmen, except as regards its beauty. For few have a notion that it is other than a desert seashore swamp, totally without interest, save as a preserve of wild boars and roe-bucks, without the picturesque, or antiquities, or good accommodation, or anything else to compensate for the dangers of its fever-fraught atmosphere—in short,

as desolate and perilous as the Pomptine. They know not that it is full of the picturesque and beautiful; a beauty peculiar and somewhat savage, it is true, like that of an Indian maiden, yet fascinating in its wild unschooled luxuriance, and offering abundant food for the pencil of the artist and the imagination of the poet.