's bunk not more than six
rods distant.

The keeper entertained us handsomely in his solitary little ocean-house.
He was a man of singular patience and intelligence, who, when our
queries struck him, rang as clear as a bell in response. The light-house
lamps a few feet distant shone full into my chamber, and made it as
bright as day, so I knew exactly how the Highland Light bore all that
night, and I was in no danger of being wrecked. Unlike the last, this
was as still as a summer night. I thought, as I lay there, half awake
and half asleep, looking upward through the window at the lights
above my head, how many sleepless eyes from far out on the
ocean-stream--mariners of all nations spinning their yarns through the
various watches of the night--were directed toward my couch.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] The light-house has since been rebuilt, and shows a _Fresnel_ light.

ENGLISH AUTHORS IN FLORENCE.

Bella Firenze, "Flower of all Cities and City of all Flowers," is not
only the garden of Italy's intellect, but the hot-house to which many a
Northern genius has been transplanted. The house where Milton resided is
still pointed out and held sacred by his venerators; and Casa Guidi,
gloomier and grayer now that the grand light has gone out of it, is of
especial interest to every cultivated traveller. A gratified smile, born
of sorrow, passes over the stranger's face, as he reads the inscription
upon the tablet that makes Casa Guidi historical,--a tablet inserted by
the municipality of Florence as a grateful tribute to the memory of a
truly great woman, great enough to love Truth "more than Plato and
Plato's country, more than Dante and Dante's country, more even than
Shakspeare and Shakspeare's country."

Qui scrisse e mori
Elisabetta Barrett Browning
Che in cuore di donna conciliava
Scienza di dotto o spirito di poeta
E fece del suo verso aureo anello
Fra Italia e Inghilterra
Pone questa memoria
Firenze grata
1861

Here wrote and died Elizabeth Barrett Browning!

Tradition says that years ago Casa Guidi was the scene of several dark
deeds; and after having wandered through the great rooms, for the most
part perpetually in shadow, one's imagination puts full faith in a
time-worn story. Whatever may have been the stain left upon the old
palace by the Guidi, it has been removed by an alien woman,--by her who
sat "By the Fires