n health or of that of a dear friend, or any other
cause, been desirous of a residence abroad, I should have let my
thoughts loose upon a scheme of turning some part of this building into
a habitation, provided as far as might be with English comforts. There
is close by it a row, or avenue (I forget which), of tall cypresses. I
could not forbear saying to myself, 'What a sweet family walk, or one
for lonely musings, would be found under the shade!' but there probably
the trees remain little noticed and seldom enjoyed.

301. /p '_This flowering Broom's dear Neighbourhood_' (l. 378). p/

The Broom is a great ornament through the months of March and April to
the vales and hills of the Apennines, in the wild part of which it blows
in the utmost profusion, and of course successively at different
elevations as the season advances. It surpasses ours in beauty and
fragrance; but, speaking from my own limited observation only, I cannot
affirm the same of several of their wild Spring flowers, the primroses
in particular, which I saw not unfrequently but thinly scattered and
languishing as compared with ours.

302. _The Religious Movement in the English Church_.

In the printed Notes there is the following on Aquapendente: 'It would
be ungenerous not to advert to the religious movement that, since the
composition of these verses in 1837, has made itself felt, more or less
strongly, throughout the English Church; a movement that takes for its
first principle a devout deference to the voice of Christian antiquity.
It is not my office to pass judgment on questions of theological detail;
but my own repugnance to the spirit and system of Romanism has been so
repeatedly, and I trust feelingly, expressed that I shall not be
suspected of a leaning that way, if I do not join in the grave charges,
thrown out, perhaps, in the heat of controversy, against the learned and
pious men to whose labours I allude. I speak apart from controversy, but
with a strong faith in the moral temper which would elevate the present
by doing reverence to the past. I would draw cheerful auguries for the
English Church from this movement as likely to restore among us a tone
of piety more earnest and real than that produced by the mere
formalities of the understanding, refusing, in a degree which I cannot
but lament, that its own temper and judgment shall be controlled by
those of antiquity.' From the I.F. MSS. we learn that the preceding note
was written by