of cupids.  Grave apostles stand erect beneath acanthus wreaths that ought to crisp the forehead of a laughing Faun or Bacchus.  And yet so full, exuberant, and deftly chosen are these various elements, that there remains no sense of incongruity or discord.  The mediaeval spirit had much trouble to disentangle itself from classic reminiscences; and fortunately for the picturesqueness of S. Gilles, it did not succeed.  How strangely different is the result of this transition in the south from those severe and rigid forms which we call Romanesque in Germany and Normandy and England!

* * * * *

THE CORNICE

It was a dull afternoon in February when we left Nice, and drove across the mountains to Mentone.  Over hill and sea hung a thick mist.  Turbia’s Roman tower stood up in cheerless solitude, wreathed round with driving vapour, and the rocky nest of Esa seemed suspended in a chaos between sea and sky.  Sometimes the fog broke and showed us Villafranca, lying green and flat in the deep blue below:  sometimes a distant view of higher peaks swam into sight from the shifting cloud.  But the whole scene was desolate.  Was it for this that we had left our English home, and travelled from London day and night?  At length we reached the edge of the cloud, and jingled down by Roccabruna and the olive-groves, till one by one Mentone’s villas came in sight, and at last we found ourselves at the inn door.  That night, and all next day and the next night, we heard the hoarse sea beat and thunder on the beach.  The rain and wind kept driving from the south, but we consoled ourselves with thinking that the orange-trees and every kind of flower were drinking in the moisture and waiting to rejoice in sunlight which would come.

It was a Sunday morning when we woke and found that the rain had gone, the sun was shining brightly on the sea, and a clear north wind was blowing cloud and mist away.  Out upon the hills we went, not caring much what path we took; for everything was beautiful, and hill and vale were full of garden walks.  Through lemon-groves,—­pale, golden-tender trees,—­and olives, stretching their grey boughs against the lonely cottage tiles, we climbed, until we reached the pines and heath above.  Then I knew the meaning of Theocritus for the first time.  We found a well, broad, deep, and clear, with green herbs growing at the bottom, a runlet flowing from it down the rocky steps, maidenhair, black adiantum, and blue violets, hanging from the brink and mirrored in the water.  This was just the well in Hylas.  Theocritus has been badly treated.  They call him a court poet, dead to Nature, artificial in his pictures.  Yet I recognised this fountain by his verse, just as if he had showed me the very spot.  Violets grow everywhere, of every shade, from black to lilac.  Their stalks are long, and the flowers ‘nod’ upon them, so that I see how the