road to Ana Capri, and shortly after- to speak. Suffice it to say, that towards wards Mrs. Norton started for Italy the end of Lord Grantley's life, when to undertake the education of her he was in ill-health, they returned to daughter-in-law, which, to put it mildly, Capri, where he died in 1877. had been somewhat neglected. I remember, on arriving in England just before Mrs. Norton started, I showed her Mariuccia's portrait, and her remarking that she should never have thought her Brinsley would have married a girl with that mouth; thereby at once hitting off the least favorable feature of an otherwise beautiful and picturesque face. I had lost sight of them for many years; but a few years ago, finding myself at Naples, and hearing that Lady Grantley was at Capri, I went over to pay her a visit. There once more I found not quite the Mariuccia of my and her youth, but Mariuccia again, and not "my lady." She was living in the old paternal house, dressed in the old contadina dress. There were the I next met Mrs. Brinsley Norton whitewashed walls with their crude dans le monde; but where was Mariuccia? where was the wealth of dark tresses kissed by the grape bloom? where the graceful lines of figure and pose? where the firm, elastic walk? Alas! it was the most hideous period of feminine dress, and all were obliterated by a poke bonnet, a crinoline, and fashionable boots. About this time poor Fletcher Norton died at Vienna, and Brinsley became heir-presumptive to the barony. prints of saints hanging on them, and the little oil lamp in the corner burning under the images of the Virgin. and Child, and there she sat happy and contented with her childhood's surroundings. Spite of all non-evidences of luxurious living, the "contessa was, I found, a Capresi millionaire. We had but a quarter of an hour in which to recall old times, and at their reminiscence she rose and wept on my shoulder, and, still tear-bedewed, I saw Of their married life it is not for me Mariuccia for the last time. A NEW CHINESE MEDICAL SCHOOL.- country, and its accredited methods and It is a matter for sincere satisfaction within | implements partake, as is well known, of the ranks of the profession when, without the same unearthly and inefficient characprejudice to existing institutions, a new school of medicine arises in answer to the demand of a local need. We who are watching with some anxiety the slow and halting progress of a metropolitan teaching centre can well sympathize with this feeling. We can therefore cordially appreciate the genuine advance which is indicated by the establishment of such a centre, similar in aim if less ambitious, in Hong Kong. This institution has been founded by resident British practitioners and is intended for the instruction of native Chinamen in scientific medicine. Alike in its history as an independent creation and in its purpose, it therefore illustrates the developmental characters of several deservedly reputed European schools. As regards the necessity for its formation there can be no question. Chinese ideas of medicine, as of many other matters, are of the most quaint description. Astrology, demonology, and magic are among the classics of the art in that ter. Into this cavern of mystery science enters like a beam of pure sunlight, and with it health. The professoriate of the new school is to be congratulated on having successfully localized some of this vital force in the active personality of two intelligent native graduates who, after a course of five years' training, have been accounted worthy to discharge the responsible duties of duly instructed medical practitioners. After so careful an introduction to duty the professional development of these gentlemen will be noted with some interest. It is the ambition of the new college that its course of instruction should be recognized in this country. The object is no impossible one, and if we do not yet know of reasons sufficient to justify its present attainment, we can at all events recognize in the care bestowed upon these first alumni a prognostic indication of success in this particular at no very distant date.. Lancet. For EIGHT DOLLARS remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & CO. Single copies of the LIVING AGE, 18 cents. "GOING HOME." GOING home -the blithe birds singing In her heart Love's first delight; Good-night, pretty one, good-night! In the world of tears and sin; In her heart Care's hopeless blight; Going home to shade and sadness Good-night, weary one, good-night! Going home the stars awaking, Calm above the city's roar, Tidings unto worn hearts breaking, Of repose forevermore ; On her brow retreating sorrow, In her heart returning light; Only a sketch. To spoil were crime. Time, my dear, is a painter Dutch, With a deal of drawing about the eyes. Love belongs to a different school, Only, Dolly, when all is told, DOLLY. DEAR little Dolly, pink and white, Dear little Doll, you're a woman grown : Hair the color of blossomed lime These are appropriate, I'll allow ; FROM dewy pastures, uplands sweet with thyme, A virgin breeze freshened the jaded day. It wafted Collins' lonely vesper-chime, It breathed abroad the frugal note of Gray. It fluttered here and there, nor swept in vain The dusty haunts where futile echoes dwell, Then, in a cadence soft as summer rain, And sad from Auburn voiceless, drooped and fell. It drooped and fell, and one 'neath northern skies, With southern heart, who tilled his father's field, Then, why should you have that classic Found Poesy a-dying, bade her rise And touch quick nature's hem and go forth healed. On life's broad plain the ploughman's conquering share Upturned the fallow lands of truth anew, And o'er the formal garden's trim parterre The peasant's team a ruthless furrow drew. Spectator. む From Blackwood's Magazine. the Florence of Dante, whose figure is THE PRIVATE LIFE OF THE RENAISSANCE a conspicuous object in the very centre FLORENTINES. of the picture; but this also is a fancy It is not easy to form an idea of what Florence, imaginary like the "Purgatothe city of Florence was like in the rio" and "Inferno" which the artist fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. To has painted close beside it. A more those who look down on her from one recent view of the city can be seen in of those heights that form so beautiful a the "Assumption of the Virgin by crown around her ramparts, and which Botticelli, painted for Matteo Palmieri, to-day are covered with innumerable and now in the English National Galgardens gay with flowers, but which lery. The subject was taken from then were dark with densely foliaged Palmieri's poem "La città di Vita,” trees, bushes, and jungles, she would and the painting was at the time conhave appeared a gloomy mass of battle-sidered almost heretical, because the mented towers, encompassed by walls artist had depicted the Virgin as reand bulwarks. The public buildings ceived into the glory of heaven, surthat we admire to-day, the graceful cu-rounded by a sublime vision of female polas of the churches, the bell-towers angels. But the landscape that serves whose voices repeat the heart-beats of a as a background to this marvellous comnation, did not yet stand out against a position is so lost in the distance and in background of deep-blue sky like the the shadows of a golden twilight, that huge masts of a mighty vessel. The it does not help us much in our quest. third cincture of walls that enclosed the | It is only later on that our desire is city, whose demolition our own day has gratified, when we can see a plan of the witnessed, was not yet completed, and city as it appeared at the end of the Arno flowed where now stands the fifteenth century in the "Chronicles of Piazza di Santa Croce, issuing from the Nüremberg." Ponte a Rubaconte and the Castle of Altafronte. This was in the early times of the fourteenth century, when the little Church of Santa Reparata was still extant, and the very name of Santa Maria del Fiore was unknown. In the place where later stood the loggia of Or San Michele, the corn-market was held; the tower begun by Giotto, and called after his name, had not yet been carried up to the last tier of windows by Francesco Talenti; only on the tower of the Palazzo dei Priori the great bell of the people, known as the Vacca, already bellowed forth its deep, brazen tones, evoking the echoes of the sweet voice of liberty. The miniatures of Biadajolo, the frescoes of the Bigallo, barely give a notion of the Florence of those days. They are rather fanciful representations made at a period when perspective was still unknown; and the brilliant red roofs contrast too vividly in tone with the forest of towers that intertwine and seem to mount one on the top of the other. The painting by Domenico di Michelino that can still be seen in the Duomo, endeavors to show But in order faithfully to picture Florence from the thirteenth century to the glorious days of the Renaissance, when the treasures that her merchants had garnered from all parts of the world were poured forth for the creation of immortal monuments, following up the traditions of art inaugurated by Arnolfo, Giotto, and Orcagna, to picture these scenes, which should be peopled with figures of artisans, merchants, women, friars, monks, jugglers, hawkers, poets, story-tellers, men -at- arms, rustics, pages, knights, that crowd the canvas -to give an even incomplete idea of the history of the Florentine people, that from mediæval manners upraised themselves to the polish of the Renaissance, - to do this would be the work of an artist who was at the same time an archæologist and a poet. Nor would this suffice. But until this artist arise, if ever it be possible, who shall thus teach us by sight, we must content ourselves with tasting only such palatable bits as can be extracted from old books of reminiscences, domestic chronicles, and private correspondence, from story tellers, and poets, from dusty archives | grandfather of Messer Lapo da Castiand forgotten records. Here embedded glionchio, who lived on the threshold of are many interesting particulars, many Messer Riccardo da Quona, beyond the anecdotes, many items of news that Colonnine, which now stand in the Via help to give an insight into the life of dei Benci, and where at that time was that time, so remote even from our one of the city gates, used to have this imagination. gate closed for him every night by an In the narrow, crowded streets, be- old woman, a good faithful servant, side the massive stone palaces secure who afterwards deposited the key for as fortresses, with their embattled tow-him in his bedroom, so primitive were ers rising proudly above their heads, the manners. But Florence meanwhile was graducrouched little, low houses with thatched roofs and windows covered with oiled ally growing as the prosperity of her The old houses linen in lieu of glass. These houses citizens augmented. were always exposed to danger by fire, with thatched roofs were often burned When a fire broke out, the wherefore Paolo di Ser Pace da Cer- down. taldo, a writer of the fourteenth century, whole population was excited, and whose interesting record lies unpub- every one had to be under arms and on Even the Signoria, to destroy lished in the Riccardiana Library, coun- guard. selled that the people should always with the least expense the houses of keep ready twelve large sacks, "in their adversaries whom they had perwhich to put your things whenever chance banished from the city, used to there is a fire in your vicinity or any-set them aflame, and then pay the damwhere, even near to you or in your ages the fire might have caused to innohouse, and also thick cord to reach from cent neighbors. And passions burned The quarrels, riots, the roof to the ground, so as to enable as hotly as fire. you to from the window." The feuds, vendette, that were incessant, escape dusty streets were never swept, except dyed the streets red with blood, while by the water that ran like a rivulet in the triumphs in these frays were celeand out of the gutters, in which, as brated with feasts and banqueting. The Sacchetti tells us in his famous "nov- commune, a proud and haughty Signoels," those animals especially protected ria, quickly offended too, and ready to by Sant' Antonio used to grubble, strike, redoubled its forces in order to This achieved, the "after which they will pay visits in the subdue its foes. neighboring houses, bringing with them merchants of the conquering city celedirt, confusion, and disorder." Not brated a new species of triumph; they that these houses were patterns of led their mules, laden with the cloths cleanliness. They were swept once a of Calimara, the silks of Por Santa week, on Saturdays; on other days the Maria, across the plains and mountains refuse was tossed under the bed, where that a short time before had been could be found a little of everything, scoured by the horse and foot soldiers such as fruit-parings, cores, bones, of their army. The traders following plucked chickens, and live fowls, cack- hard upon the footsteps of their less ling geese, and an abundance of cob- peaceable neighbors, bore the gold of webs. These were just the modest Florence and its manufactures to the dwellings of a people satisfied with very city, under whose walls had but lately little, who thought more of gain than of waved the banner that bore the symthe comforts and luxuries of daily life, bolic ensign of this great free people. The Mercato Vecchio was then the -people pertaining to good families, nevertheless, but who passed their time heart of Florence, and seemed to the shooting and hunting in the country Florentines the most beautiful piazza Over their own lands. Sometimes, in the world... Whoever reads its praises however, they were also inhabited by in the pages of Antonio Pucci, upstarts,,who endeavored to enrich searches among the tales of Franco themselves by arts and trades. The Sacchetti for the chronicles of daily or |