I HAVE already given you an account of the buildings of Florence, and shall not repeat my criticisms, but rather confine myself to such subjects as were not suited to the time of year when I was there before. The Boboli gardens are very beautiful, rather for their external views than for their interior distribution. They present, I think, the very finest views of the country about Florence. My visits there in July were, as you will suppose, much more pleasant than they could have been in December. The Cascine, the _dairy-farm_ of the grand duke, is also a very pleasant place; a mixture of grove, thicket, and meadow, extending along the banks of the Arno. Fiesole I had seen before, and I repeated my visit more leisurely on this occasion, but the scenery of Tuscany will bear no comparison with the finer parts of the Roman Apennines. The little hills, almost all of the same form, are everywhere covered with olive bushes rather than trees; and though perhaps the country about Florence is more productive, yet considered as scenery, it is inferior in richness, in magnificence, and in variety. With regard to Roman antiquities, the difference, or rather the contrast, is still greater. The remains of Tusculum are more considerable than all that is seen in the neighbourhood of Florence, and those form but a small portion of the objects of that nature about Frescati, which again is poor, compared with Tivoli, Palestrina, or Albano. Even their boasted Etruscan walls have by no means the singularity, or the character of antiquity, which we find in those of Latium. The appearance of the modern city, though certainly very fine, shrinks before the magnificence of Rome; and when you view the whitewash and macigno of the churches, you must not recall to mind the solidity of appearance, and the splendid display of marble, painting, and gilding, which adorns those of the ancient capital of Europe. Nothing holds its importance, except the collections of the Public Gallery, and of the Pitti palace. One of the charms of Rome seems to consist in its possessing a peculiar expression, from the greatest and most important particulars, even to the most trifling details. Everything there is striking and characteristic. The desolate Campagna; the large uninhabited tract within its walls; and even the large pale gray oxen, whose horns might almost match those of the Abyssinian cattle, all contribute to the general effect; and in spite of the surrounding desolation, there is probably no city in the world which presents so great a variety of picturesque scenery in its immediate neighbourhood as Rome; and then every spot belongs to history, and to a wonderful and interesting history with which we are all acquainted. We never feel the value of Rome so strongly as in returning to what we admired before.