Prince George has undergone, as wellents contemplated that he would ultias by natural inclination and disposi-mately become heir to the crown. In tion, his powers of observation and of the majority of cases, when a man is memory are strong and well-disciplined. thirty years of age his character is He not only hears and listens, but also pretty well developed and is not likely reads and thinks for himself. Pos- to exhibit any startling aberrations from sessed naturally of business-like apti- what it has been up to then. In all tudes, he is stated to display in the things Prince George is thoroughly management of his affairs a steady con- English, in disposition, in temperacentration of effort and a quick appre- ment, and ways; an early riser and of ciation of the question submitted to active habits; punctual, methodical, him in all its several bearings. Simple rarely leaving a letter unanswered for a in his personal tastes, he has no ten-day, though naturally he has a very large dency or temptation to extravagance; correspondence; full of humane sensithough he has ever shown himself to be tiveness to the sufferings of others, and warm-hearted, open-handed, and generous to others when the case demands it. He never forgets a friend, or the face and name of one with whom he has been brought into contact. His memory, like that of most of his family, is singularly receptive and retentive. It is related of him and his late brother in their youth that they were both very fond of the study of English history, and that more especially the dramatic incidents of the period covered by the Wars of the Roses appealed to their boyish imaginations. As the elder might in due course expect as sovereign some day to become Duke of Lancaster, the younger determined that if ever he had to choose a dukedom it should be that of York. When the time came for the choice to be made last year, though many other titular generalization which sometimes tends combinatious were suggested and to exaggeration of statement; but both pressed upon him, yet he steadfastly are probably only temporary and will be adhered to this. His subsequent adoption of the White Rose of Edward IV., as one of his favorite badges, is also interesting, as being illustrative of this persistency of purpose.

Of course we should all like to be able to form some estimate of the part which the Duke of York is likely to play in the future. For that we have nothing to guide us beyond what his career has been in the past. The masculine upbringing which he has enjoyed is in some respects an ideal one for the post he will in all human probability some day fill; and the fact is all the more impressive inasmuch as when he entered upon it neither he nor his par

therefore likely ever to sympathize with, and respond to, the needs of the masses of his fellow-countrymen. If we may judge by the few speeches which he has yet made in public we may expect that as he gains self-confidence by opportunity and practice he will achieve no small success in that line. The direction in which his choice of causes that he will endeavor to advance will lie is pretty clearly shown by his selection of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children as the occasion for his first appearance as chairman. Endowed with qualities that will excite the enthusiasm of the bulk of his fellow subjects, his personal weakness at present would appear to be self-distrust and diffidence of his own powers at one moment, and at another a too rapid

outgrown as his judgment becomes better balanced and more equable. For he ever shows himself ready to learn and welcomes nothing more than perfect sincerity and the candid expression of opinion from others, though this may chance to be contrary to his own. The chief danger (incidental to all in a similar position) is that he may be exposed to the plausible arts of scheming mediocrities on whose interested opinions he may too readily rely. But knowledge comes with time; and he has those about him whose older and maturer judgment may safely be trusted.

Any officer in the navy on attaining

to post-captain's rank, as the Duke of her short fifteen years more than six York has now done, would in the ordi- hundred years ago, but who still prenary course of events expect to be left sides as the good genius of these on half-pay for the next two or three heights. Grim and forsaken look the years, and not be called upon to go to many towers rising round her shrine; sea or to commission a ship for that dead and forgotten are the ambitions, period of time. It would seem scarcely the pride, and the emulous passions of likely that the duke will be an excep- the great families who raised them, tion to this unwritten rule of the ser- when each noble family vied with the vice. But any command that the other, and tried by the greater height Admiralty may entrust him with during of its tower to assert and make visible the annual naval manœuvres will al- its supremacy over its neighbor, till at ways afford him from time to time an last a law had to be passed limiting the opportunity of keeping in touch with height to which any private individual the service, without interfering with might build a tower,—all this is dead the discharge of the other duties which and of the past. But in the Collegiate, have now fallen to his lot as his father's otherwise the Cathedral, still burns the heir; so that under any circumstances lamp upon the altar in Santa Fina's we may be well assured his name will chapel; and still on its walls, by the always remain on the active list. Dur- hand of the great Ghirlandaio, that ing the mean time probably his own sober, restrained, not to say matter-ofchoice would be to pass as large a por- fact, painter of spiritual matters, fresh tion of each year as possible with his and well-preserved as if painted but future wife in the bracing country air yesterday, are the records of the two of Norfolk, in his own house within the miracles which are said to have happark at Sandringham, which the Prince pened in connection with her death. of Wales has allowed him to plan and But her short life of fifteen years had furnish for himself. There, imbued as been lived, her virtues and her sufferhe is with an intense love of home and ings had been recognized, before any of domestic life, he will find plenty to miracle concerning her was recorded. occupy his spare moments and inter- The Church canonized her for her virests. One can never imagine him idle tues, and the miracles were added in mind or body, he will always be thereto in order to accentuate these employed about something or other. virtues to the popular mind. The mirThough he has no ambition of popular acles are the subjects of the frescoes, applause or pre-eminence, we may be the pictorial ornament of her short life's certain that he will never shirk his history; but little Santa Fina is still social duties, or those due to the com- alive among the ruined medieval formonwealth at large, but wait content tresses and towers by reason of what (as opportunity and means may offer) must ever live and be of value to the to serve to the best of his ability his world as long as there is suffering and day and generation. want, as long as we have all to realize that none of us can stand alone or be independent of our fellow-creatures when we are stricken with care, sorrow, or sickness. Santa Fina was of noble birth, though poor. She was afflicted with a disease of the spine, and was opposed by her mother in carrying out her good deeds One of the frescoes in a church in San Gimigniano represents this lady being tripped up by a rather grotesque, undignified-looking devil, and thrown down-stairs on account of this opposition. Santa Fina

From The Spectator. SANTA FINA OF SAN GIMIGNIANO DELLE

BELLE TORRI.

CRADLED among the stern towers and fortresses of San Gimigniano, the "San Gimigniano delle Belle Torri" of former days, in the heart of the solitary Tuscan mountain-ranges near Siena, is still to be found the shrine of the little damsel saint, Santa Fina, who lived

died at the age of fifteen; neverthe- | and golden, through the sunshine, her less, six hundred years after her death, bowers and her loggias in this springthe story is still told of her helpfulness time festooned with countless garlands and charity to the poor and needy, and of the maize-colored banksia rose, and of the beautiful example she gave of the pale amethyst clusters of drooping, resignation and courage. "Her chapel sweet-scented glycone; her happy exists," as Mrs. Jameson says, "as the slopes and busy plain enclosed high up glorification of feminine patience, forti- in the sky-distance by brilliant snow-lit tude, and charity ;" and a pilgrimage Apennines and shining Carrara peaks to it is, in every way, one of the most interesting that can be made, either from Florence or from Siena.

coming with all this fresh in the eye, the country you drive through between Siena and San Gimigniano is of strikingly grave and serious aspect, almost solemn in its sense of solitude, its depth of color, its grandeur of outline. All the most fiery siennas, all the full

What Rothenburg is in Bavaria, San Gimigniano is in Tuscany, both typical, unspoilt, mediæval, strongly fortressed towns, too much out of the line of the ordinary nineteenth-century-world est red and purple madders of the artraffic to have been yet converted by tist's color-box could not exaggerate modern civilization to its special wants; the fervent, warm tones of the soil both, however, containing treasures for blue-grey rocks peeping out here and the artist, and every year becoming bet- there, and clusters of the pale sadter known to those who deplore most green bells of the hellebore increasing the disfigurements which modern life by contrast the full richness of its color. entails on the beautiful work of the The country seems very scantily popupast. A railway now goes to Rothen-lated; you drive many miles and see burg, and the many thousand pilgrims but very few domiciles of any kind; who visit the "Bavarian Mecca," as and very few peasants are to be met Bayreuth has been called, find it little with on the road. Labor is cheap in out of their way to stop there. There Tuscany. One woman was to be seen is no railway to San Gimigniano; but whose work that day was apparently to the fact that, though it is far and rather take charge of three sheep; and further difficult of access for one day's excur- on, a man's sole duty seemed to be to sion, the Queen of England made an preside over the well-being of two pigs. expedition to it from Florence this Whether the pig was cold or the man year, will probably be a sufficient in- was hot was undetermined; but one of citement to lead many to make a simi- the pigs was carrying the man's coat lar effort. The queen went by special about the road like a saddle, the arms train from Florence to Poggi Bonsi, hanging down on each side as stirrups. the nearest station to San Gimigniano Now and then on the hillside is massed on the line to Siena, and drove the six a group of ilex-trees and stone pines, miles up to the town. But a more in- the white corner of a villa peeping out teresting way of reaching it, is to drive from among them, supported by a deepby road the whole way from Siena. shadowed archway below. Further on, This is a drive of twenty-three miles a solemn avenue of cypresses creeps up through a country which, though a con- the edge of a hill, each tree rising trast to the gay and sunny Italy the black, like a finger of death pointing traveller leaves as he diverges south- upwards, and leading to the wall of a wards from the junction at Empoli, is convent or monastery perched on the most impressive and interesting. It is summit of the hill. Pine-trees cover not exactly a sad-looking country, but it some of the higher ranges, and the road is for the most part grave and serious. at times passes through woods of decidComing straight from Florence- radi-uous trees. Strange to say, these are as ant, joyous Florence, lying like a beau- bare of leaf at the end of April as our tiful shell in the lap of her Val d'Arno, English trees would be in January, her marbles gleaming opal-like, pink though further on you come

upon

hedges fragrant with flowering honey- ture. There is much to be seen. The suckle and weighed down with white famous towers, now only thirteen in hawthorn blossom, and corn risen two number, seen as you stand close under feet from the ground, — contemporaries their squared walls, rise with impresin England of full foliage on our forest- sive strength up into the sky, the tallest trees. After eight or ten miles' jour- being the Torre del Commune, one neying, the foreground of the views hundred and seventy-five feet, and the you see as you drive along dons a gayer, most noticeable the twin towers, Torri more cultivated aspect. The rugged degli Ardinghelli, built in the thirteenth sternness of its wild ranges falls back century by the Ardinghelli family. The and retires into the middle distance, walls inside the churches are covered allowing a brighter, more prosperous- with frescoes of the fourteenth and fiflooking foreground to border the road. teenth centuries. In the Church of St. The nearer slopes become lightened by Augustin is a series covering the high the greeny-grey foliage of the olive- walls of the choir, by Benozzo Gozzoli, trees which drapes round their dark, a series only second in interest and twisted branches and stems like a sil- beauty to those of the Ricardi Palace in very gauze, hanging misty, like clouds, | Florence. They depict the life and above the verdant vividness of the doings of St. Augustin; and the combright young corn, splashed here and mission to paint them was given to there by the scarlet flame of a poppy. Benozzo Gozzoli by one Maestro PariA field of sainfoin, another of Russian gina Domenico Strambi, who had travclover, pink and carmine, and patches elled to Paris, and was incited by what of the bright-blue salvia, fill the road- he had seen to beautify his native town side with bright color. Further on, a by this art. In the same church is a light azure veil, lying in the fold of the most beautiful example of the work of hill, attracts our eye and puzzles us. It Benedetto da Majano in an altar and is bluer than any shadow, yet it is so tomb. He it was who also sculptured light, it seems to float on the earth like the shrine in which rest the bones of a bit of the bluest sky come down from Santa Fina and the beautiful altar in above to soften the strong, rough vigor her chapel. These face you as you of the earth. Presently it is explained enter it from the aisle of the Collegiate. by the appearance of a field of flax by It is needless to add that the work of the side of the road, - a sheet of fairy-this shrine and altar is lovely and relike little delicate blue blossoms, a fit- fined, showing the peculiar qualities of ting emblem of the sweet girl-saint | restrained beauty which belonged to whose spirit still reigns as the presiding angel among the rugged fortresses and mediæval towers of stern San Gimigniano. These said towers are to be seen long before they are reached, high up against the sky, looking mysterious and remote like a giant's dwelling in a fairytale. Then they are lost again, and you drive on and up round the hills, the ascent getting steeper and steeper till you find you are creeping up the side of the fortressed hill itself, under the walls and piles of high towers, till you mount to gates of the town, twelve hundred and sixty feet above the sea, and pass through a deep archway into the streets. These are narrow, and paved with large, flat stones, the houses on either side full of incidents of interesting architec

the best period of Italian sculpture, for when did the work by the hand of Majano show other than all this? The two walls at right angles to the altar are painted in fresco by the great Domenico Ghirlandaio, Michael Angelo's master, and are, if not quite the finest, certainly among the finest, of his works. Here, indeed, is realistic art of the right kind, - so like nature that even the miracles it depicts look quite natural; nevertheless pervaded by an atmosphere of beauty, of serenity, by a dignity, a distinction, which makes such art a truly fitting language in which to describe what happened to so rare a maiden. One of these designs represents Santa Fina lying on a low bed in her simple room, a nurse sitting on either side of

her pillow, her hands together as in Every touch seems to emanate from devotion, her eyes raised to the vision devotional feeling. Modern art prosof St. Gregory surrounded by winged trates itself before its own cleverness, cherub-heads, who is announcing to her and we have to relearn that intellect is her approaching death. This vision but a half-way house in the steep ascent has passed into the little chamber by an humanity has to make in order to reach open door, through which, and likewise the height its nature is capable of reachthrough the window near her head, ing. The genius of goodness is, after comes a breath of sweet country air and all, the force in human nature which landscape. In the lunette above this has had the greatest power in influencscene, two beautiful figures of flying ing humanity; that faithfulness to the angels hold up on clouds a half-length highest instincts given to poor mortals, profile portrait of Santa Fina released which, in the spirit of the most distinfrom her cross, standing upright with guished and the finest-grained human folded hands, as if in presence of her beings, ever growing, ever radiating, Lord. The design painted in fresco on becomes a passion of loving unselfishthe opposite wall is even more beauti- ness which blossoms out for the good ful. It represents the moment when of all the world; and this passion it Santa Fina, after death, is lying before was that inspired Ghirlandaio's genius, the altar, the bishop at her head read- when he painted so beautifully these ing the burial service, a young acolyte records of Santa Fina. at her feet holding up a crucifix, a crowd Turning out of the church enriched of men and acolytes surrounding them; by such treasures, and taking a pathand when, as the old nurse, who tended way behind it, a podere of olive-trees her through her sufferings, knelt down and corn is reached, whence you are beside her, she opened her eyes, raised led through a doorway into a garden. her head, and took one of her nurse's Your path is edged by a thick border of hands between her own. In Ghirlan-blade-like iris leaves and tall spikes of daio's picture, a sobbing child is press- their purple and lilac blossoms. You ing one of her little feet, stiff with pass a well, alarming-looking from its death, to his lips. Exquisitely beautiful depth and size, hung over by vines and and full of nature and expression are apple-blossom, and mount a narrow the faces and attitudes of the figures of staircase in the fortress wall which enthose around, the girl-saint herself por- closes the garden, to the top of a guardtrayed with pathetic simplicity and sense tower, whence you are shown the show of reality. No realistic painting of to- view of San Gimigniano. And wonderday ever looked more real, however ful it certainly is, mountain-ranges commonplace and flippant the subject. grand and grave encircle it in one vast And yet, what is it that divides such art | amphitheatre, gleams of sunshine flit in all that touches the highest sensibili- across the valleys between; but the ties, by an immeasurable distance from lines rising against the horizon are all the modern school of realism? Were shadowed in solemn russet and purple. people better in those days? Or are Even San Gimigniano, its fortressed we less able to explain in art our better walls and its massive towers, look small side? Why does goodness such as beside the great hills heaving around Santa Fina's no longer appeal to our them and stretching away to the skyartists as the highest beauty? Good-line. Still, as we look round usness there is in abundance, but where miles and miles into the distance - it is the art that interprets it? We turn is the little girl-saint who dominates from these great works of Ghirlandaio the scene in the imagination. Modern with the conviction that he succeeded scepticism may suggest that perhaps in creating a rare and holy impression she is altogether a myth, an invention, by his work, because he placed his and that, at all events, it is certain that genius in a devout spirit on the shrine, the scenes from her life and death of the saintly goodness of this child. painted by the great Ghirlandaio must,