LAGO MAGGIORE.

I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where cowslips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine,
With sweet musk roses, and with eglantine,
There sleeps Titania, some time of the night,
Lulled in these flowers, with dances and delight.

MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT DREAM.

Ecco non lungi un bel cespuglio vede
Di spin ficoriti e di vermiglie rose,
Che delle liquide onde al specchio siede,
Chiuso dal Sol fra l' alte quercie ombrose;

Cosi voto nel mezzo, che concede
Fresca stanza fra l' ombre piu nascose:

E la foglia coi rami in modo e mista,

Che l' sol non v' entra, non che minor vista.

ARIOST. OR. Fu. c. 1, 37.

THIS noble collection of waters rivals in beauty the loveliest of the world. Language might exhaust itself in searching for epithets to describe the exquisite clearness of its waves, the sylvan grandeur of its verdant scenes, or the varied aspect which its vast and lovely panorama presents of green solitudes and smiling villages of woods where silence and meditation love to dwell, and villas the resort of all that is bright and elegant in social life.

The ancient name of this magnificent piece of water was Lacus Verbanus, an appellation for which antiquaries are at a loss to account, some ascribing it

to the vernal sweetness of the air upon its shores, and others supposing it to have been derived from the name of some village in the neighbourhood. Its present title of Maggiore is also accounted for in different ways by various writers; some of them believing that it was originally so described from the great accommodation it affords the inhabitants of the country for carrying on their trade; and others, with a far better show of reason, asserting that it is so termed on account of its being the largest lake in Italy. According to the measurement adopted by Paolo Morigia, it is forty-five miles in length, and seven in width at its broadest part. The only lakes which come in competition with it are those of Como and Garda. But the former of hese is only thirty-seven miles and a half long, and between four and five broad. The latter is wider than the Lago Maggiore, being from fourteen to fifteen miles across, but considerably shorter, its length being about the same as that of Como.

The celebrity, however, of Lago Maggiore does not depend entirely either on the beauty of the scenery which adorns its shores, or on its superiority in extent to the other lakes of Italy. In the towns and religious houses which line its banks, men have lived and died whom their own church designates as saints, and whom both religion and humanity may well regard as an honor to their race. According to the calculation of writers who have described this lake, ten celebrated saints repose in its neighbourhood, which is also enriched with a more than usual proportion of venerable relics. Besides the saints

above mentioned, seven of a lower order, termed beati, six men and one woman, were natives of its shores. The number of bishops, archbishops, preachers, and doctors, who first saw the light in the same district, is incalculable; and, to complete the fame of the Lago, it has been scarcely inferior in the production of great captains and statesmen, so that Morigia perhaps speaks truth when he says that it has ever been celebrated as the birth-place of men signalized in every kind of virtue, and qualified for every species of high design, in letters, arms, and science.

If climate, indeed, or the general character of a country, may be supposed to exercise any influence on the dispositions of men, the moral and intellectual character of the inhabitants of these lovely shores ought to be of the highest kind. The air, which always breathes with a gentle warmth, seems tempered by nature expressly to keep the banks always covered with verdure, the waters always sparkling and pure, and the groves ever cool and fragrant. Nor is the land a churlish receiver of the fertilizing dews which the lake furnishes from her bosom. The vine and the olive flourish on its banks in almost unexampled luxuriousness; and groves of cedars and lemons, and all the delicious and odorous shrubs of more southern lands, give to the country, when seen from the lake, the appearance of a flowery wilderness, only here and there broken and diversified by some small and fairy temple. The fruits equal, in flavour, the sweetness of the flowers and shrubs in odour, and Morigia says that if the gods, whom Homer represents journeying to partake of the banquet of the

ocean, had known of the Lago Maggiore, they would have gladly remained on its shores.

Mention has been made in a former volume of the Landscape Annual of the Borromean family, of whom San Carlo Borromeo was the most distinguished member. His relatives, however, were not all of the same noble and benevolent character. One of them especially was as much celebrated for his gross and flagitious life as San Carlo for his wisdom and charity. As the good qualities of the other members of this noble family obtained little admiration, when compared with those of the excellent man just named, it has been said that one Borromeo belonged to heaven, another to hell, and the remainder to earth.'

The three islands in the lake which have received their appellation from the family of Borromeo are fit jewels for the bosom of such bright and placid waters. That known by the name of Isola Bella is usually considered as the most beautiful, and has been described as a pyramid of sweetmeats, ornamented with green festoons and flowers;' a simile which Mr. Hazlitt says he once conceived to be a heavy German conceit, but which he afterwards found to be a literal description. The character of this fertile little island may be hence easily imagined. It consists of eight terraces rising one above another, each of which is thickly covered with foliage of the richest hues and fragrance, while stout branching forest trees spread their arms over these exquisite and delicate gardens, and small silvery fountains stream continually down the slopes, and lose themselves in the lake. From the midst of this natural