1769. Yet in the midst of the great grief, that whole centuries of unexampled contests had after all not been able to save their beloved freedom, and amid the din of arms raised by the French occupying all the land on both sides of the mountains, the Corsican nation, with unexhausted heroic power, gave birth, on the 15th August, to Napoleon Bonaparte, the annihilator of Genoa, subjugator of France, and avenger of his nation. Such satisfaction did fate deign to give to the Corsicans in their fall, and so was the heroic tragedy of their history closed by a conciliation.

H

CORSICA.

FROM MY WANDERINGS IN THE SUMMER OF 1852.

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
Che la diritta via era smarrita.
Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura,
Questa selva selvaggia, aspra e forte-
Ma per trattar del ben ch' io vi trovai,
Dirò dell' altre cose, ch'io viho scorte.

DANTE, Inf. i. 1.

CORSICA.

TRAVELS. BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

LANDING IN CORSICA.

Lasciate ogni speranza voi che'ntrate.

DANTE, Inf. iii. 9.

You con

THE sea-passage from Leghorn to Corsica is beautiful, and more entertaining than that from Leghorn to Genoa. stantly enjoy the sight of the picturesque islands in the Tuscan channel. Behind us lay the terra firma, and Leghorn, with its wood of masts, at the foot of Monte Nero; before us the solitary shattered tower on Meloria, that little rock in the sea, beside which the Pisans under Ugolino were destroyed by the Genoese, so that their naval power sank, and Genoa from that day came into the possession of Corsica; further off the rocky island Gorgona, and near it in the west the island Capraja. In view of it one recalls Dante's verses in his canto about Ugolino, (Inferno, xxxiii. 89.)

Ahi Pisa, vituperio delle genti

Del bel paese là, dove il sì sona;
Poi che i vicini a te punir son lenti,
Movasi la Capraja e la Gorgona,

E faccian siepe ad Arno in su la foce,
Si ch' egli annieghi in te ogni persona.*

*Ah, Pisa! foul reproach of human kind

In that fair land where Si is heard to sound!
Since slow to punish thee thy neighbour's mind,
Burst be Capraja's and Gorgona's bound,

And let them pile 'gainst Arno's mouth a hedge
Till every child of thine by him be drown'd.

Dayman's Translation.