n With
orange-woods and myrtles,--speaks, and lo! Rich from the
bordering lake a palace rises slow. Wiffin's "Translation.")

BOOK II. -- ART, LOVE, AND WONDER.

Diversi aspetti in un confusi e misti.
"Ger. Lib," cant. iv. 7.

Different appearances, confused and mixt in one.

CHAPTER 2.I.

Centauri, e Sfingi, e pallide Gorgoni.
"Ger. Lib.," c. iv. v.

(Centaurs and Sphinxes and pallid Gorgons.)

One moonlit night, in the Gardens at Naples, some four or five gentleman
were seated under a tree, drinking their sherbet, and listening, in the
intervals of conversation, to the music which enlivened that gay and
favourite resort of an indolent population. One of this little party was
a young Englishman, who had been the life of the whole group, but who,
for the last few moments, had sunk into a gloomy and abstracted reverie.
One of his countrymen observed this sudden gloom, and, tapping him on
the back, said, "What ails you, Glyndon? Are you ill? You have grown
quite pale,--you tremble. Is it a sudden chill? You had better go home:
these Italian nights are often dangerous to our English constitutions."

"No, I am well now; it was a passing shudder. I cannot account for it
myself."

A man, apparently of about thirty years of age, and of a mien and
countenance strikingly superior to those around him, turned abruptly,
and looked steadfastly at Glyndon.

"I think I understand what you mean," said he; "and perhaps," he added,
with a grave smile, "I could explain it better than yourself." Here,
turning to the others, he added, "You must often have felt, gentlemen,
each and all of you, especially when sitting alone at night, a strange
and unaccountable sensation of coldness and awe creep over you; your
blood curdles, and the heart stands still; the limbs shiver; the hair
bristles; you are afraid to look up, to turn your eyes to the darker
corners of the room; you have a horrible fancy that something unearthly
is at hand; presently the whole spell, if I may so call it, passes away,
and you are ready to laugh at your own weakness. Have you not often felt
what I have thus imperfectly described?--if so, you can understand what
our young friend has just experienced, even amidst the delights of this
magical scene, and amidst the balmy whispers of a July night."

"Sir," replied Glyndon, evidently much surprised, "you have defined
exactly the nature of that shudder which came