bold cliff, overlooking the
sea at Sorrento, is the Hotel Tasso, known to every traveller in that
region. Here, according to the voice of tradition, the immortal poet
was born on the 11th of March 1544, eleven years after the death of
Ariosto. It is said that the identical chamber in which the event took
place has since disappeared, owing to the portion of rock on which it
stood having been undermined by the sea; and, as if to give
countenance to this, some of the existing apartments are perilously
propped up on the very edge of the cliff by buttresses, which, giving
way, would hurl the superstructure into the abyss. The original
building stood on the site of an ancient temple; and it is probable
that, with the exception of one of the bedrooms, which is said to have
been Tasso's cabinet, the edifice retains none of the features which
it possessed in the days of the poet.

But whatever changes may have taken place in the human habitation, the
scenes of Nature around, from which he drew the inspirations of his
youthful genius, remain unchanged. Every feature of landscape
loveliness is focussed in that matchless panorama. Behind is a range
of wild mountains, whose many-shaped peaks and crags, clad with pine
and olive, assume, as the day wears on, the golden and purple hues of
the sky--sloping down into the midst of vineyards and groves of
orange, myrtle, and all the luxuriant verdure which the warm sun of
the South calls forth, out of which gleam at frequent intervals
picturesque villages and farms, which seem more the creation of Nature
than of Art. In front is a glorious view of the Bay of Naples, with
the enchanted isles of Capri and Ischia sleeping on its bosom, and the
reflected images of domes and palaces all along its curving shores
"charming its blue waters;" while dominating the whole horizon are
the snowy mountains of Campania, broken by the dark purple mass of
Vesuvius, rising up with gradual slope to its rounded cone, over which
rests continually a column of flame or smoke, "stimulating the
imagination by its mystery and terror." Apart from its associations,
that landscape would have been one to gaze on entranced, and to dream
of for years afterwards. But with its countless memories of all that
is greatest and saddest in human history clinging to almost every
object, it is indeed one of the most impressive in the world. The land
is the land of Magna Graecia. The sea is the sea of Homer and Pindar.
Near at hand