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LE LUCCIOLE. 



A MIDSUMMER TALE. 



" Winged stars, pale in the moonshine ; 



But under the dark trees a little sun 

 A meteor tamed " 



ON Midsummer Eve, or the Eve of St. John (1679), the 

 palaces and hovels of Genoa la Superba were illuminated in 

 honour of the Baptist by an artificial blaze, contrasted with 

 which the lamps of nature looked cold and dim. Yet no- 

 where are summer evenings more brillantly lit up than on the 

 shores which bound the Gulf of Genoa; for, besides the 

 " rulers of the night," robed in the clearest of nocturnal 



