I remember, when I was in Italy, standing "at evening on the top of Fiesole," and at my feet I beheld the city of Florence and the Val d'Arno, with its villas, its luxuriant gardens, groves, and olive grounds, all bathed in crimson light. A transparent vapor or exhalation, which in its tint was almost as rich as the pomegranate flower, moving with soft undulation, rolled through the valley, and the very earth seemed to pant with warm life beneath its rosy veil. A dark purple shade, the forerunner of night, was already stealing over the east; in the western sky still lingered the blaze of the sunset, while the faint perfume of trees, and flowers, and now and then a strain of music wafted upwards, completed the intoxication of the senses. But I looked from the earth to the sky, and immediately above this scene hung the soft crescent moon--alone, with all the bright heaven to herself; and as that sweet moon to the glowing landscape beneath it, such is the character of Miranda compared to that of Juliet. FOOTNOTES: [17] Lord Byron remarked of the Italian women, (and he could speak _avec connaissance de fait_,) that they are the only women in the world capable of impressions, at once very sudden and very durable; which, he adds, is to be found in no other nation. Mr. Moore observes afterwards, how completely an Italian woman, either from nature or her social position, is led to invert the usual course of frailty among ourselves, and, weak in resisting the first impulses of passion, to reserve the whole strength of her character for a display of constancy and devotedness afterwards.--Both these traits of national character are exemplified in Juliet--_Moore's Life of Byron_, vol. ii. pp. 303, 338. 4to edit. [18] _La seve de la vie_, is an expression used somewhere by Madame de Stael. [19] Characters of Shakspeare's Plays.