But what is all this?  We are dreaming of Rome,—­and this is Cuba, where the spirit of Art has never been, and where it could not pass without sweeping out from houses, churches, gardens, and brains, such trash as has rarely been seen and endured elsewhere.  They show us, for example, some mutilated statues in the ruins of what is called the Bishop’s Garden.  Why, the elements did a righteous work, when they effaced the outlines of these coarse and trivial shapes, unworthy even the poor marble on which they were imposed.  Turning from these, however, we find lovely things enough to rebuke this savage mood of criticism.  The palm-trees are unapproachable in beauty,—­they stand in rows like Ionic columns, straight, strong, and regular, with their plumed capitals.  They talk solemnly of the Pyramids and the Desert, whose legends have been whispered to them by the winds that cross the ocean, freighted with the thoughts of God.  Then, these huge white lilies, deep as goblets, which one drinks fragrance from, and never exhausts,—­these thousand unknown jewels of the tropic.  Here is a large tank, whose waters are covered with the leaves and flowers of beautiful aquatic plants, whose Latin names are of no possible consequence to anybody.  Here, in the very heart of the garden, is a rustic lodge, curtained with trailing vines.  Birds in cages are hung about it, and a sweet voice, singing within, tells us that the lodge is the cage of a more costly bird.  We stop to listen, and the branches of the trees seem to droop more closely about us, the twilight lays its cool, soft touch upon our heated foreheads, and we whisper,—­“Peace to his soul!” as we leave the precincts of the Bishop’s Garden.

SOME INEDITED MEMORIALS OF SMOLLETT.

A hundred years and upwards have elapsed since Fielding and Smollett, the fathers and chiefs of the modern school of English novel-writing, fairly established their claims to the dignified eminence they have ever since continued to enjoy; and the passage of time serves but to confirm them in their merited honors.  Their pictures of life and manners are no longer, it is true, so familiar as in their own days to the great mass of readers; but this is an incident that scarce any author can hope to avert.  The changes of habits and customs, and the succession of writers who in their turn essay to hold the mirror up to Nature, must always produce such a result.  But while the mind of man is capable of enjoying the most fortunate combinations of genius and fancy, the most faithful expositions of the springs of action, the most ludicrous and the most pathetic representations of human conduct, the writings of Fielding and Smollett will be read and their memories kept green.  Undeterred by those coarsenesses of language and occasional grossnesses of detail (which were often less their own fault than that of the age) that frequently disfigure the pages of “Amelia” and “Roderick Random,” men will always be found to yield their whole attention to the story, and to recognize in every line the touches of the master’s hand.