PLAIN AND BAY OF SORRENTO. Tall thriving trees confessed the fruitful mould; HOMER'S ODYSSEY. THE approach to Sorrento, the bold picturesque features of the scenery, with some of the poetical associations to which it gives birth, have been dwelt upon in the preceding pages. If thus celebrated on one side for its rich and variegated views of wood and water, its castellated and romantic town, seated on the steep acclivities, we are presented on another with landscapes of a wholly different character. The union here afforded, as seen in the adjoining plate, of the noblest and most characteristic traits of the Italian clime, the bright, extensive, views of plain, and vale, and mountain, rich in architectural and classic beauty-of beauty in decay amidst the still renewed and glowing aspect of external nature-might well call forth the enthusiastic genius of the Salvators, the Claudes, the Poussins, or the Wilsons, of every age. No place in the world can supply more absorbing subjects for the eye and the soul of the tourist, whether contemplating the clear expanse of sky, and earth, and waters spread around him, or wandering in spirit to those far-off ages which present us with other forms, and more gigantic shadows of human greatness and chivalrous exploit. It is round this classic region appear the ruined monuments of cities, like Amalfi, once queens of the sea, and which long lay slumbering undiscovered in the depths of silence and of time. Besides the famed Salvator, numbers of distinguished artists, before him and since, have offered up their genius and hearts' devotion to nature about the shores and the picturesque vicinity of Sorrento. It was equally the resort of those dark spirits-Caravaggio, Lanfranc, and Spagnoletto, as of the milder genius of Domenichino and Guido, who, with other painters, were frequently driven from their occupations at Naples by the terror of assassination from the hand of their fiercer rivals. On the same coasts, overpowered with fatigue and fever, and flying for his life, Michael Angelo da Caravaggio sank exhausted, and terminated his dark career; while, at the same time, by a singular coincidence, his countryman, Polidoro da Caravaggio, fell a victim to the knife of the assassin, in the person of his own servant, on the very night previous to his setting sail from Messina to Naples. Nor, in the sister art, have the enchanting environs of Sorrento been consecrated only by the poetic genius of the Tassos. From occasional allusions in their works, as well as from historic mention of their visits to the city of Naples, both Petrarch and Boccaccio appear to have been no less familiar with the natural beauties than with the classic recollections attached to these shores. The celebrated writer who, before the days of Sannazaro, renounced at the tomb of Virgil the sordid pursuits to which his father had destined him, would hardly be a stranger to the neighbouring scenery of Baiæ and Sorrento; and his parent could no where have chosen a more unfit residence for Boccaccio's study of the law than the gay and dissipated Naples. If before addicted to literature and the muses, he here breathed the very air of poetry and romance. As little was the temper or pursuits of its society, as is observed by an elegant writer, adapted to foster a taste for dry, legal, studies; at a court, too, whose monarch was himself a man of letters, and the friend of Petrarch. The favorite resort of scholars, poets, and artists, it was here he met some of his most distinguished fellow-countrymen; and love and fame, preferring their most seductive claims, soon confirmed him in his bias of becoming a man of letters. While engaged in opening for himself a new path to distinction, Petrarch, accepting the King's invitation, arrived in Naples; and the splendour with which he was received, the applauses which followed his public examination by King Robert, the noble oration he delivered in praise of poetry, and the glory of his subsequent coronation, had full force on Boccaccio's imagination, already fired with the desire of distinction. Petrarch, from this period, became the model of his admiring contemporary; but the same year was to behold Boccaccio occupied with a still more absorbing, but less reputable, pursuit. Happening, on the evening preceding Lent, to be at church, he was attracted by the extreme beauty of the young princess Maria, a natural daughter of King Robert. It was the first time he had seen her; but the exquisite perfection of her form and countenance made an indelible impression on his mind, and he willingly resigned himself to the fascination. Unfortunately, like the mistress of Petrarch, the object of Boccaccio's passion had been for some time married, and was the wife of a Neapolitan gentleman of rank. But neither this circumstance, nor her station, placed her at an insuperable distance from the vows of the poet; and few stronger proofs could be given of the almost total disorganization which had taken place in society, than our knowledge of the fact that the princess received and yielded to his addresses. Their interviews were celebrated by Boccaccio in various parts of his works; but, as it has been excellently observed by Ginguenêt, we read the accounts which the author has given of his passion with little interest. His connexion with the princess was prompted by vanity, and was not one of those passions which affects the whole course of life, and interests us in the recital of its effects in the same proportion as it influenced those whom it possessed. Dante and Petrarch loved not the daughters of kings; but the history of their lives, as well as their works, is full of Beatrice and Laura. These are the true queens; and Maria, disguised under the name of Fiametta, has the common look and air of a loose woman. It was in obedience to her wishes that Boccaccio composed the romance of "Fiametta," that of "Filocopo," and his celebrated poem the "Theseid." But he was suddenly interrupted in his pleasures by a letter from his father, then in the decline of life; and Gio vanni obeyed the summons, and returned to Florence, but with a mind wholly occupied with the object he had left behind. While all around him were struggling either for power or liberty, with energies only felt at such times, he was impatient at being interrupted in his compositions, or was languidly sighing after the princess. The passion with which he had inspired that lady was not inferior in warmth to his own. She is represented as suffering, during his absence, the most violent sorrow, and as having been narrowly saved from destroying herself by the caution of one of her attendants. Boccaccio was not ignorant of her attachment and ardent wishes for his return; and it was only by the composition of the romance of " Ameto" that he could console himself for the privations he suffered in the house of his father. At length, on his return to Naples, he found the princess as devotedly attached to him as formerly, and more supreme than ever in the courtly circles of the city. It will be right to add that in maturer years he deeply repented of this connection, and of the manner in which he passed much of his time at this period. "We need not wait," says the biographer already alluded to, "to point the moral of Boccaccio's life, so admirably adapted to illustrate the universal lessons of experience. There were few things wanting to his old age to make it happy; he was venerated by his countrymen, enjoyed the blessings of freedom and leisure, and was crowned with fame and literary honors; but he was a prey to regret; the fruits even of his wis |