A PEESISTENT NATIONALITY. 



STANDING to-day before the dim outline of Orcagna's 

 " Hell " in the Church of Santa Maria Novella, at 

 Florence, and mentally comparing those mediaeval 

 demons and monsters and torturers on the frescoed wall 

 in front 'of me with the more antique Etruscan devils 

 and tormentors pictured centuries earlier on the ancient 

 tombs of Etrurian princes, the thought, which had often 

 occurred to me before, how essentially similar were the 

 Tuscan intellect and Tuscan art in all ages, forced itself 

 upon me once more at a flash with an irresistible burst 

 of internal conviction. The identity of old and new 

 seemed to stand confessed. Etruria throughout has been 

 one and the same ; and it is almost impossible for any 

 one to over-estimate the influence of, the powerful, but 

 gloomy, Etruscan character upon the whole tone, not 

 only of popular Christianity, but of that modern civilisa- 

 tion which is its offspring and outcome. 



I suppose it is hardly necessary, " in this age of 

 enlightenment " (as people used to say in the last 

 century), to insist any longer upon the obvious fact that 

 conquest and absorption do not in any way mean 



