hands together, and approaching nearer and nearer, till he is ready to give her a kiss, which she refuses: of course it is the old story of every national dance,--love and repulse, love and repulse, until the maiden yields. As one couple panting and rosy retires, another fresh one takes its place, while the bystanders play on the accordion the whirling, circling, never-ending tune of the Tarantella, which would "put a spirit of youth in everything." If you are tired of the festival, roam up a few paces out of the crowd, and you stand upon the brink of Lake Nemi. Over opposite, and crowning the height where the little town of Nemi perches, frowns the old feudal castle of the Colonna, with its tall, round tower, where many a princely family has dwelt and many an unprincely act has been done. There, in turn, have dwelt the Colonna, Borgia, Piccolomini, Cenci, Frangipani, and Braschi, and there the descendants of the last-named family still pass a few weeks in the summer.[1] Below you, silent and silvery, lies the lake itself,--and rising around it, like a green bowl, tower its richly wooded banks, covered with gigantic oaks, ilexes, and chestnuts. This was the ancient grove dedicated to Diana, which extended to L'Ariccia; and here are still to be seen the vestiges of an ancient villa built by Julius Caesar. Here, too, if you trust some of the antiquaries, once stood the temple of Diana Nemorensis,[2] where human sacrifices were offered, and whose chief-priest, called _Rex Nemorensis_, obtained his office by slaying his predecessor, and reigned over these groves by force of his personal arm. Times have, indeed, changed since the priesthood was thus won and baptized by blood; and as you stand there, and look, on the one side, at the site of this ancient temple, which some of the gigantic chestnut-trees may almost have seen in their youth, and, on the other side, at the campanile of the Catholic church at Genzano, with its flower-strewn pavements, you may have as sharp a contrast between the past and the present as can easily be found. [Footnote 1: On the Genzano side stands the castellated villa of the Cesarini Sforza, looking peacefully across the lake at the rival tower, which in the old baronial days it used to challenge,--and in its garden-pond you may see stately white swans oaring their way with rosy feet along.] [Footnote 2: The better opinion of late seems to be that it was on the slopes of the Val d'Ariccia. But "who shall decide, when doctors disagree?"] THRENODIA. ADDRESSED TO ALFRED TENNYSON, P.L., IN RESPONSE TO VERSES OF HIS "ON A LATE EVENT IN ENGLAND." I heard you In your English home,-- I read you by my little brook, Thousands of miles from British foam, Hid in my dear New England nook: But heard you with a sullen look; But read you with a gloomy brow; And thus unto my Muse I spoke:-- Who is there to write history now?