ivy, or even to pronounce its name, during the quinquennial purification of Rome, called the Lustrum, lest the word should prove ominous, and cause anything of uncleanness to adhere to the city, or to its purifiers. For the same reason, the Flamen Dialis, or priest of Jupiter, was not allowed to touch or name ivy. Ptolemy IV., surnamed Philopater, King of Egypt, caused apostate Jews to be branded with the figure of an ivy leaf, as a reproach to them for not adhering to their religion with the tenacity of ivy.

A sprig of ivy is the badge of the clan Gordon in Scotland. There is an expressive old Irish proverb,*"a mouth of ivy and a heart of holly," signifying words smooth as the ivy leaf, concealing thoughts harsh and hostile as the prickly holly. When Llewellyn, last Prince of Wales, had been slain, after his unsuccessful contests to preserve the independence of his country, his head was cut off, and placed on the Tower of London, by order of Edward I., crowned with a chaplet of ivy, in ridicule of a prophecy of Merlin, then current in the principality, that when the coin in England was struck round, the Prince of Wales would be crowned in London. Edward was the first who caused the copper coins to be made round; they were previously square. A pleasing device was once invented in France for a friend who adhered to a dismissed minister-a tree overthrown, with ivy clinging round it; the motto, "Sa chute ne peut m'en detacher."+

The ivy is a plant that loves antiquity; it is not indigenous or common in North America, a new country where there are no venerable ruins of castle or priory to attract the romantic adherent. Kalm said that he never saw the common ivy (hedera helix) in North America save once, against a stone building, but it had been apparently brought from Europe and planted there. Ivy grows nowhere so luxuriantly as in Ireland, which is peculiarly the country of ruins. We have seen large towers completely veiled by it, and tottering walls kept up solely by the stems that had grown into thick timber. The Irish peasant has long been remarkable for his ivy-like clinging to the land of his birth, the graves of his forefathers, and the customs of the olden time; and even now, when compelled by circumstances to emigrate, his memory and his affections cling to the old country still. For this reason, we will associate with the ivy our translation of a lament for Ireland, by Denis M'Namara, written when he was in Hamburgh, seeking his fortune. Denis Ruad, or Foxy Denis, as he was called, was a native of Clare, but principally resided in the county of Waterford, where he was a schoolmaster, having received an education in a foreign college. He went abroad more than once to improve his circumstances, but was always seized with the "home sickness," and returned. He died in Ireland, in 1814, at an advanced age :

:

Here are the small white, waxenlooking bells of the ARBUTUS, whose strawberry-like fruit, harsh as it is, is eaten by the peasants in Spain and Italy. Pliny esteemed the berry so little, that he says the name of the tree, arbutus unedo, is properly derived from unus and edo, because one, and one only, can be eaten. Virgil commends the twigs for basket-workarbute crates (Geor. i.) and as winter food for goats-jubeo frondentia capris. Arbuta sufficere (Geor. iii.) The arbutus is a native of Greece and Palestine, but flourishes in exceeding beauty and luxuriance at Killarney, of whose scenery it is a peculiar orna

ment.

The blue labiate flowers of the ROSEMARY deck its narrow hoary leaves from this season until May. The etymology of the name is very pretty-Rosmarinus-the sea-dew; for the shrub thrives with peculiar vigour in the vicinity of the sea. Shakspeare mentions it (in Hamlet and in The Winter's Tale), as the emblem of remembrance.

Uilin, ah! Uilin, oh!

It was also considered a symbol of fidelity. Formerly it was reputed to strengthen the memory, and to stimulate the heart; for which reason it was used in garlands both in weddings and at funerals, those two extremes of hu man rites. It was usual to use sprigs of rosemary to stir the wine in the cups at nuptial feasts, when the guests were about to drink to the health of the bride and bridegroom. In the north of Europe rosemary was carried at the funerals of the unmarried only. The aromatic and stimulating qualities of rosemary were once so highly esteemed, that they were thought efficacious against the contagion of the plague, and that the smoke of the sprigs burned as incense had power to drive away evil spirits. In the Palilia, or festivals of Pales-the divinity of shepherds the flocks were purified with the smoke of the burned branches. The flowering sprays were dedicated to the domestic deities-the Penates. Bees delight in the azure blossoms; and the honey of Narbonne, celebrated for its peculiar excellence, owes its delicious flavour to the abundance of rosemary that grows in that country. The preference of bees for these flowers has suggested the refrain of the following playful little effusion, addressed to a young girl jealous of her lover, which we translate from a poet of Granada:

SONG.

FROM THE SPANISH OF GONGORA.*

"Los flores de Romero," &c.

Yon rosemary besprent with dew,
Is it not sweet and bonny?
To-day the flowers are azure blue,
To-morrow they'll be honey.

Thou'rt jealous, pretty Isabel;

Love's truant comes not nigh thee; He's blest, since thus thou seek'st him well; Blind, since he doth not spy thee;

And confident, since e'en to-day

He makes not frank confession; Nor doth thy gen'rous pardon pray For yesterday's transgression.

Ingrate he is, to give thee pain

But let hope cheer thy sorrow, And dry thy tears; for love again Will bring him back to-morrow.

These quarrels between lovers true,
Are like yon blossoms bonny;
To-day they are but flow'rets blue,
To-morrow they'll be honey.

We have now sought through garden, shrubbery, and field, and have not been able to find another flower for February's wreath..

But, ere we conclude our Februalia, we would fain say a few words of a festival anciently celebrated in this month by the Romans, which, though of pagan origin, is worthy of the approbation of Christians; the spirit in which it was conceived was so beautiful, we might say so holy, that it seems like a præ-Christian spirit, in advance of the advent of Christianity. We mean the feast of the Caristia, held on the 19th of February. After the

termination of the Feralia (commencing February 11), in honour of relatives deceased, each family held its Caristia, or feast of kindred, to which every kinsman, or connexion by marriage, was invited; but no person who had shown himself devoid of natural affection was admitted. The intention of the festival was to strengthen the good feelings existing between the parties, and to effect reconciliations between those who had quarrelled, or had been in any degree estranged. It was a feast of love, forgiveness, and peacea feast in which, says Ovid, Concord herself became more amiable :

"Concordia fertur,

Illo præcipuê mites adesse die."—(Fasti. ii.)

The united kinsmen shared together a cheerful banquet; and when night had advanced, they concluded it by quaffing a parting cup to the health of each other, to their country, and to its ruler :

"Bene nos, Patria, bene te Pater, optime Cæsar."

This charming festival was touchingly and appositely timed, just after the commemoration of the beloved -dead, when the remembrance of former affection and departed worth had softened the hearts of the survivors by tender regrets, and chastening reflections on the uncertainty of human life.

However pale and wintry were the February flowers brought to decorate the Caristia, to our fancy they would seem the brightest and the sweetest amid all the floral offspring of the earth.

M. E. M.

HOWEVER difficult to reconcile with the accepted theories of political economy, the fact cannot be controverted, that in the little Italian states of the middle ages, all the arts of life were carried to the greatest perfection of which mankind, under any social system, have shown themselves capable. The plain of Lombardy, at that period, or the territory at either side of the Apennines, extending to the Tuscan sea or Adriatic, could separately exhibit more varied developments of skill and genius in agriculture, engineering, architecture, the fine arts, and the art of war, than most of the great European states, governed by consolidated systems, can boast of, even at the present day. England has her great poets, architects, painters, and warriors; but in the middle-age Italian republics it was as if, not London alone, but Liverpool, and Manchester, and Sheffield, and Birmingham, had each its own Shakspeare, and Wren, and Reynolds, and Wellington.

We are all more or less familiar with the glories of Florentine art, and the renown of Tuscan letters. We know less of the Milanese, and are still very generally ignorant of the history of the states on the further or Adriatic side of the Apennines. Yet from this last quarter have proceeded men, worldfamous in art: Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, the "Beato Angelico," so styled from the purity and spiritual beauty of the creations of his pencil; his friend and pupil, Gentile da Fabriano; Pietro della Francesca; and "Il Divino" Raffaele Sanzio-par excellence, Raffaele d'Urbino.

Sismondi, the eloquent advocate of those republican forms of government established at so early a date in northern Italy, would fain persuade us that the cities of Lombardy and Tuscany owed their intellectual pre-eminence

*

to their free institutions. Doubtless, the mental habits induced by self-government, the stake which each citizen individually held in the common weal, called into exercise, trained, and cultivated qualities of mind which, when applied in a different direction, resulted in those varied artistic attainments, which have been the glory of Genoa, of Florence, and of Venice.

But we shall pass from these and other free cities of the plain, to conduct our courteous reader over more untrodden ground, and, in the first instance, direct his attention to the lessknown states of Urbino and Milan. The former, under the mild paternal sway of the ducal houses of Montefeltro and della Rovere, the latter under the tyranny of the Visconti and the Sforzas, developed, in no less large a proportion than their republican neighbours, that fine genius, the science of war, and those arts of peace, which made Italy, in the middle ages, so preeminently, so deservedly illustrious.

Let us turn for a moment to the map, and glance at the natural boundaries which interpose between, and separate the Ausonian peninsula from the adjacent states.

The great Alpine rampart extending from the Gulf of Genoa on the west, in a semicircular form, almost to the Gulf of Venice on the east, encloses the fertile plain of Lombardy, watered by innumerable rivers, falling, with scarcely an exception, from their source in the snow-capped mountains, into the basin of the Po. This noble river forms the southern boundary of a territory, fruitful in agricultural products as in mighty cities. Again, the mountain chain of the Apennines, extending lengthwise through the peninsula, divides it into two nearly equal portions the western, bounded by the Tuscan sea; the eastern, washed by

1851.

the blue and sparkling waters of the Adriatic.

In this latter region, in almost the same parallel of latitude with Florence, lies the picturesque town of Urbino, the chief city of the duchy to which we are about to transfer our readers.

"The territory of Urbino stretches along the Adriatic, and extends about forty miles in length, and as many in breadth. From the Apennine ridge to the coast, it includes modifications of surface, climate, and soil, suited to a variety of natural productions, and admirably calculated for the development of the human frame. On the summit grew those magnificent pines which gave to the district of Massa the epithet of Trabaria, from the beams which were carried thence for the palaces of Rome, and which are noticed by Dante as

"The living rafters on the back

Of Italy.'

Below these stretched forests of chesnut and oak, succeeded by hardy orange trees, and in the lower grounds by the olive and vine, to which its ever-broken and undulating surface is peculiarly favourable. Through numberless ravines are conveyed copious streams, supplying abundant water-power for grinding rich harvests, grown in the alluvial valleys and in the plains which open upon the sea. From its shores are drawn ample supplies of fish. Its mountains and manors abounded in game, so long as that was protected by resident princes."-Dukes of Urbino, vol. i. p. 4.

As the traveller journeying from Tuscany emerges from the defiles of the Apennines, and approaches the city of Urbino, he is struck by the picturesque beauty of its site, and the yet imposing ruins of its palace-fortress. The deserted capital of an extinct duchy can boast no longer its splendid court, its extensive library, its enlightened rulers, its heroic warriors, its authors, and its artists. Urbino is

a lapsed fief, merged by the failure of its heirs male, in the seventeenth century into the States of the Church, denationalised, and its capital degraded into an insignificant provincial town, the patrimony of St. Peter.

Those who, by an exercise of imaginative thought, would re-people the past, and contemplate the devolved duchy as in the days of her glory, owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Dennistoun for his minute, valuable, and most interesting researches into the history of Urbino. The very delightful work which embodies the result of his laVOL. XLI.-NO. CCXLII.

bours, during a lengthened sojourn among the Ausonian cities, is full of new and attractive information, most agreeably communicated. His "Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino" detail, in addition to the personal biography of the five princes who swayed the duchy from 1440 to 1630, much of the contemporary history of Italy, as well as profound and enlightened criticisms on the literature, arts, and arms of that once glorious land—

"Circled by sea and Alps, parted by Apennine."

We shall give a rapid sketch of the personal character of these princes of Urbino. The details will be new to most of our readers. Until the appearance of Mr. Dennistoun's work, information respecting them was to be met with only in unpublished and, for the most part, inaccessible manuscripts.

Their city and territory owed much of its marvellous prosperity during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to the dukes of Urbino individually. At this epoch, not only the Umbrian duchy, but the other states, and the free republics of Italy, attained their zenith of political greatness, commercial prosperity, and eminence in arts and letters.

When the Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, visited Italy in the twelfth century, he conferred on the then Lord of the mountain fief of Montefeltro, in the Apennines, the dignity of Count. In return for the honours and territories bestowed by imperial favour, the counts of Montefeltro were ever distinguished by their Ghibeline principles. This familiar party-word designated the adherents of the Emperors as opposed to those of the Popes, who were known by the appellation of Guelph; and to the latter faction the free cities of Italy generally inclined.

Of the counts of Montefeltro, we shall not pause to speak, though they numbered among them some illustrious names. The last who bore the title, Guidantonio, transmitted Urbino to two of his sons. On his successor, Oddantonio, Pope Eugene IV. conferred the dignity of Duke, but the young prince did not long enjoy it. In the unbridled licentiousness of early manhood, Oddantonio provoked an insurrection, to which he fell a victim. He was murdered in his own palace, 1444, and his illegitimate brother proclaimed in his stead.

P