&c.

To unaccustomed eyes there is something forbidding and terrible
about the dark and cindery appearance of volcanic tufa. Where it is
broken, the hard and gritty edges leave little space for vegetation;
while at intervals the surface spreads so smooth and straight that
one might take it for solid masonry erected by the architect of
Pandemonium. Rubbish and shattered bits of earthenware and ashes,
thrown from the city walls, cling to every ledge and encumber the
broken pavement of the footway. Then as we rise, the castle
battlements above appear more menacing, toppling upon the rough edge
of the crag, and guarding each turn of the road with jealous
loopholes or beetle-browed machicolations, until at last the gateway
and portcullis are in view.

On first entering Orvieto, one's heart fails to find so terrible a
desolation, so squalid a solitude, and so vast a difference between
the present and the past, between the beauty of surrounding nature
and the misery of this home of men. A long space of unoccupied
ground intervenes between the walls and the hovels which skirt the
modern town. This, in the times of its splendour, may have served
for oliveyards, vineyards, and pasturage, in case of siege. There
are still some faint traces of dead gardens left upon its arid
wilderness, among the ruins of a castellated palace, decorated with
the cross-keys and tiara of an unremembered pope. But now it lies a
mere tract of scorched grass, insufferably hot and dry and sandy,
intersected by dirty paths, and covered with the loathliest offal of
a foul Italian town. Should you cross this ground at mid-day, under
the blinding sun, when no living thing, except perhaps some
poisonous reptile, is about, you would declare that Orvieto had been
stricken for its sins by Heaven. Your mind would dwell mechanically
on all that you have read of Papal crimes, of fratricidal wars, of
Pagan abominations in the high places of the Church, of tempestuous
passions and refined iniquity--of everything, in fact, which renders
Italy of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance dark and ominous amid
the splendours of her art and civilisation. This is the natural
result; this shrunken and squalid old age of poverty and
self-abandonment is the end of that strong, prodigal, and vicious
youth. Who shall restore vigour to these dead bones? we cry. If
Italy is to live again, she must quit her ruined palace towers to
build fresh dwellings elsewhere. Filth, lust, rapac