they serve as supports for the peasants' terraced vineyards. Other and longer excursions can be made on these western declivities of the Volscians. By using the railway the visitor may follow the route of some older travellers, and visit the abbey of Fossa Nuova (near the station Sonnino), where Thomas Aquinas passed his last days. A longer railway journey and a climb will bring him to two other ancient Volscian towns, set high above the marshes, Norba (now Norma) and Cora (now Cori), both of which preserve considerable remains of ancient walls, while the latter is adorned with some fine fragments of Roman architecture. Another kind of charm belongs to the ruins of Ninfa, standing on the edge of the plain below Norma. It derives its name from the Roman days when it was a delightful resort, and possessed a temple dedicated to the nymphs. To-day it is just a battered shell of a place like Pompeii, monastery and church, palace and baronial castle, reduced to a picturesque ruin. Yet, pathetic as is its aspect, the deserted and crumbling town is not without its momentary revivals of glory when, in the evening, the low sun throws upon wall and tower a rich crimson glow.* Of all the excursions from Terracina the most delightful is the drive or sail to Monte Circeo, the islandlike promontory where, when it was an island, the early Greeks located the abode of the enchantress Circe. We preferred the road, facing the little discomforts of a rough cart and a small boy as driver. The road at first skirts the canal and its line of barges, passing through the low quarter of the town added by Pius VI. After crossing the canal it runs near the coast, past the sites of the gleaming villas of the Imperial patricians. To our right lies an ample stretch of field where vines and fruit-trees flourish. After crossing the mouth of another canal at Porto Badino, where a Saracen tower is picturesquely balanced by one or two stone-pines, we find ourselves in a sort of primitive forest, a long tract of low dark cork-trees lying within a belt of sandhills. The trees have a weird aspect, their stems gnarled and twisted, For an interesting account of Ninfa, see G. Tomassetti, La Cam pagna Romana,' vol. ii (1910). the bark, torn off in places, showing an inky tint. Dante must have had some such place in mind when ('Inferno,' cant. xiii) he described his infernal forest: 'un bosco, Che da nessun sentiero era segnato. Non rami schietti, ma nodosi e involti.' The forest has its little clearings, each with its group of huts and its donkeys and goats peacefully browsing. But the interesting inhabitants of this wooded region are the charcoal-burners, some of whom may be spied between the trees digging up roots and making big conical piles for their fires. As we pass out of the forest, the promontory of Circeo in front of us loses its soft blue indistinctness, disclosing its high limestone crags, its long jagged ridge, turreted with a signal-station, and nestling at its base its one surviving dwelling-place, the village of San Felice. As we approach the town the land about us grows again fruitful, and a garden of wild flowers creeps up to the edge of our road. San Felice is to-day a small and squalid-looking place. Yet it was once a city of prowess, and it has had a history far-reaching and chequered like that of Terracina, whose might it once defied, and which even to-day it boldly confronts as if hurling its old challenge across the slumbering bay. Fragments of the ancient city, coeval with Anxur, are still to be seen, consisting of cyclopean walls built of huge blocks like those of the terracewalls outside Terracina. These remains occur both in San Felice itself, in the citadel, or arx, on the ridge above the town, and in a wall connecting city and citadel, which is a conspicuous object from the path zigzagging up to the Semaforo. Towards the end of the Republic, after Rome had subdued the territory, a new town, Circeii, sprang up near the other or north-western extremity of the point, and seems to have thrown out buildings over the whole of the promontory. At this time Circeii was compared with Antium in respect of its country-houses. The pre-Roman town at the eastern end of the promontory continued to exist, and, long after the fashionable resort of the Romans had disappeared, survived as San Felice. In the Middle Ages it was a strongly fortified city, valiantly opposing not only Terracina, but Gaeta and Fondi, holding steadfastly to the papal sovereignty. In the fourteenth century it passed into the hands of the powerful family of the Gaetani, who held it for four hundred years. After an inspection of the old town, the visitor will do well, having ordered his lunch from a source discovered by his driver, to climb to the Semaforo. The ascent by the stony path may be unpleasantly hot in the late morning, but the effort will be generously rewarded. Cyclamens and other wild flowers, which find the warmest of nooks under the bluish limestone blocks, will smile up at you. As you near the signal-station, the surly bark of a watchdog may for a moment disconcert you, but you will presently find that the alarm has brought out a bevy of young Italian officials, who, if you permit them, will give you a warm welcome. From the terrace you catch a cooler draught of air, and your eyes are refreshed with a far-reaching view. In front is spread the ample sea, from Anzio on the right to Terracina on the left-one broad smile in the sunlight. The jagged promontory shows all its pinnacle-like eminences, while beyond it are seen gleaming, near the shore, the blue waters of Lago di Paola, close to which lies the traditional fishpond of Lucullus. Behind, inland, lie the Pontine Marshes, looking anything but alarming in their bright and variegated tints. Glancing back we see the noble sweep of the Volscian mountains, met by the curve of the shore at Terracina. The excursion to Monte Circeo gives one a peep into the life of the nomad population which gathers in the plain below Terracina in November, returning to its mountain-homes in 'June, when the lowlands grow unwholesome. They have their little clearings, to which they regularly return, labouring as swineherds, shepherds, woodmen, etc. Some of these nomad families come from the Neapolitan mountains and are employed by the municipality of Terracina, or by private owners of the land, in tilling the soil. They make a picturesque feature on the rude tracks, over which pass their carts drawn by mules, oxen, and buffaloes, as well as horses. Their boats (sandali), drawn along the canals by donkeys or by boatmen, bring from the lowlands corn, maize, straw, and forage. Their mode of life is poor enough, and they find their night's shelter in the straw huts, where, like the poorest of the Irish peasants, they make companions of their pigs. Of late years attempts have been made to meet cases of malarial sickness; and not far from San Felice one sees trim brightly-painted buildings which are said to be hospitals for the afflicted peasants. It is this inflow of the needy mountaineers which enables the Terracinese to don the air of indolent well-to-do folk. Not only does the alien peasant look after the lands of the citizens; his womankind does the menial work for their houses. The native men, it is said, do hardly any. thing, and the women even less. It is after seeing these nomad underlings at work that one understands the low price of the wine in Terracina, and the rosy and plump appearance of the Terracinese women. On Sunday this wandering population can be seen in Terracina itself, decked out in festal array. In the forenoon the pavement of the ancient Forum is packed with men clothed in dark fustian, their legs girt high up the calf with leather straps fastened to sandals. Some wear short trousers, others a sheepskin apron slit down in the middle. Inside the Cathedral is another crowd of women and girls, the aliens easily distinguished from the citizens by their costume. Its most prominent feature is the kerchief laid flat on the head, as with the women from the Campagna whom one sees in Rome. Slight differences of form occur in this kerchief, some having a curtain-like appendage. They vary still more in colour from black to white, and from blue to a cherry hue. The festal finery is completed by silky neckerchiefs, gaily-tinted bodices, big gold earrings and necklaces of gold and coral. A sober basis for this ornamental construction is supplied by a dark petticoat which, in walking, swings heavily like that of the Dutch peasant women. According to Blanchère there are fifty varieties of costume among these mountain women, which betray to the connoisseur the home-country of the wearer. They make a pretty spectacle as they kneel on the floor, beyond a plash of sunshine thrown in by the broad open doorway. JAMES SULLY. Art. 5.—THE MAKING OF SCOTLAND. 1. History of Scotland. Vol. 3. By Prof. Patrick Hume Brown. Cambridge: University Press, 1909. 2. A History of Scotland. Vol. 4. By Andrew Lang. Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1907. 3. Scotland and the Union, 1695-1747. The Awakening of Scotland, 1747-1797. By W. L. Mathieson. Glasgow: Maclehose, 1905, 1910. 4. The Social Life of Scotland in the Eighteenth Century. By H. G. Graham. London: Black, 1901. 5. Scottish Men of Letters in the Eighteenth Century. By H. G. Graham. London: Black, 1901. 6. A Century of Scottish History. By Sir Henry Craik. Two vols. Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1901. MODERN Scotland was made in the eighteenth century, especially in the second half. In that period we find the origin and the explanation of most of the characteristic elements of Scottish life to-day. Not until after the battle of Culloden did Scotland find the opportunity for which she had been waiting during nearly five centuries of exhausting strife. When the opportunity came she made haste to seize it; and the second half of the eighteenth century is one of the great epochs of Scottish history, worthy of being mentioned with the age of the Reformation, or the age of the War of Independence. The period is now sufficiently remote to be correctly estimated; and scientific historians have begun to turn their attention to it. From some points of view the separate history of Scotland ceases with the Union of the Parliaments. After 1707 she forms a small part of a parliamentary and fiscal system, in which she must of necessity be of less weight than her more populous and wealthy partner. Henceforth British policy will be decided in London by statesmen who may from time to time be men of Scottish blood, but must look for their instructions mainly to the English people. Except during the Jacobite movement, foreign rulers will no longer trouble themselves with what takes place in Edinburgh. It will no longer be possible for Scotland, as in the days of Queen Mary, to be the pivot of European diplomacy, |