[103] Mrs Radcliffe, in her journey along the banks of the Rhine, thus describes the colours of granite rocks in the mountains of the Bergstrasse. “The nearer we approached these mountains, the more we had occasion to admire the various tints of their granites. Sometimes the precipices were of a faint pink, then of a deep red, a dull purple, or a blush approaching to lilac; and sometimes gleams of a pale yellow mingled with the low shrubs that grew upon their sides. The day was cloudless and bright, and we were too near these heights to be deceived by the illusions of aërial colouring; the real hues of their features were as beautiful as their magnitude was sublime.” THE WIDOW OF CRESCENTIUS. [“In the reign of Otho III. Emperor of Germany, the Romans, excited by their Consul, Crescentius, who ardently desired to restore the ancient glory of the Republic, made a bold attempt to shake off the Saxon yoke, and the authority of the popes, whose vices rendered them objects of universal contempt. The Consul was besieged by Otho in the Mole of Hadrian, which long afterwards continued to be called the Tower of Crescentius. Otho, after many unavailing attacks upon this fortress, at last entered into negotiations; and, pledging his imperial word to respect the life of Crescentius, and the rights of the Roman citizens, the unfortunate leader was betrayed into his power, and immediately beheaded, with many of his partisans. Stephania, his widow, concealing her affliction and her resentment for the insults to which she had been exposed, secretly resolved to revenge her husband and herself. On the return of Otho from a pilgrimage to Mount Gargano, which perhaps a feeling of remorse had induced him to undertake, she found means to be introduced to him, and to gain his confidence; and a poison administered by her was soon afterwards the cause of his painful death.”--Sismondi, _History of the Italian Republics_, vol. i.] “L’orage peut briser en un moment les fleurs qui tiennent encore la tête levée.”--Mad. de Stael. Midst Tivoli’s luxuriant glades, Bright-foaming falls, and olive shades, Where dwelt, in days departed long, The sons of battle and of song, No tree, no shrub its foliage rears But o’er the wrecks of other years, Temples and domes, which long have been The soil of that enchanted scene. There the wild fig-tree and the vine O’er Hadrian’s mouldering villa twine;[104] The cypress, in funereal grace, Usurps the vanish’d column’s place; O’er fallen shrine and ruin’d frieze The wall-flower rustles in the breeze; Acanthus-leaves the marble hide They once adorn’d in sculptured pride; And nature hath resumed her throne O’er the vast works of ages flown.