ITALY, 
 
 A POEM. 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL ROGERS. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PllINTED FOB T. CADELL, STRAND ; JENNINGS AND CHAPLIN, 
 62, CHEAPSIDE ; AND E. MOXON^ 04, NEW BOND-STREET. 
 
 1830. 
 
LONDON: 
 
 PRINTEn BY THOMAS DAVISOX, WHITEFlirAIlS. 
 
 IriE GETTY RESEARCH 
 INSTITUTE LIP^'^'^Y 
 
THE PREFACE. 
 
 Whatever may be the fate of this Poem, it has led 
 the Author in many an after-dream through a beau- 
 tiful country ; and may not perhapfs be uninteresting 
 to those who have learnt to live in Past Times as 
 well as Present, and whose minds are familiar with 
 the Events and the People that have rendered Italy 
 so illustrious ; for, wherever he came, he could not 
 but remember ; nor is he conscious of having slept 
 over any ground that had been ' dignified by wis- 
 dom, bravery, or virtue.' 
 
 Much of it was originally published as it was 
 written on the spot. He has since revised it 
 throughout, and added many stories from the old 
 Chroniclers and many notes illustrative of the man- 
 ners, customs and superstitions. 
 
iv 
 
 With regard to the embellishments of this volume, 
 they require no praise of his. The two Artists, who 
 have contributed so much to give it a value, would 
 have done honour to any age or country. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Lake of Geneva 1 
 
 Meillerie 5 
 
 St. Maurice 9 
 
 The Great St. Bernard 11 
 
 The Descent 17 
 
 Jorasse 20 
 
 Marguerite de Tours 25 
 
 The Alps 29 
 
 Como 32 
 
 Bergamo - 37 
 
 Italy 41 
 
 CoU'alto 43 
 
 Venice 47 
 
 Luigi 54 
 
 St. Mark's Place 57 
 
 The Gondola 65 
 
vi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Brides of Venice 69 
 
 Foscari 75 
 
 Marcolini 85 
 
 Arqua 88 
 
 Ginevra 92 
 
 Bologna 97 
 
 Florence 102 
 
 DonGarzia 107 
 
 The Campagna of Florence Ill 
 
 The Pilgrim 127 
 
 An Interview 131 
 
 Rome , 137 
 
 A Funeral 144 
 
 National Prejudices 149 
 
 The Campagna of Rome 153 
 
 The Roman Pontiffs 158 
 
 Caius Cestius 160 
 
 The Nun 162 
 
 The Fire-Fly 166 
 
 Foreign Travel 169 
 
 The Fountain.. 175 
 
 Banditti 178 
 
 An Adventure 1 83 
 
Vll 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Naples 189 
 
 The Bag of Gold 197 
 
 A Character 205 
 
 Paestum 207 
 
 Amalfi 212 
 
 Monte Cassino 217 
 
 The Harper 220 
 
 The Feluca 223 
 
 Genoa 228 
 
 Marco Grilfoni 230 
 
 A Farewell 233 
 
 Notes 237 
 
THE LAKE OF GENEVA. 
 
 Day glimmered in the east, and the white Moon 
 Hung Hke a vapour in the cloudless sky, 
 Yet visible, when on my way I went. 
 Glad to be gone ; a pilgrim from the north, 
 Now more and more attracted as I drew 
 Nearer and nearer. Ere the artisan 
 Had from his window leant, drowsy, half-clad. 
 To snufFthe morn, or the caged lark poured forth, 
 
 B 
 
From his green sod upspringing as to heaven, 
 
 (His tuneful bill o'erflowing with a song 
 
 Old in the days of Homer, and his wings 
 
 With transport quivering) on my way I went. 
 
 Thy gates, Geneva, swinging heavily. 
 
 Thy gates so slow to open, swift to shut ; 
 
 As on that Sabbath-eve when He arrived,* 
 
 Whose name is now thy glory, now by thee. 
 
 Such virtue dwells in those small syllables, 
 
 Inscribed to consecrate the narrow street. 
 
 His birth-place — when, but one short step too late, 
 
 In his despair, as tho' the die were cast. 
 
 He sat him down to weep and wept till dawn ; 
 
 Then rose to go, a wanderer thro' the world. 
 
 'Tis not a tale that every hour brings with it. 
 Yet at a City-gate, from time to time, 
 Much may be seen, much learnt ; and most at thine, 
 London — thy hive the greatest of them all, 
 Gathering, enlarging still. Let us stand by. 
 And note who passes. Here comes one, a Youth, 
 Glowing with pride, the pride of conscious power, 
 A Chatterton — in thought admired, caressed, 
 And crowned like Petrarch in the Capitol ; 
 Ere long to die, to fall by his own hand, 
 And fester with the vilest. Here come two, 
 Less feverish, less exalted — soon to part, 
 A Garrick and a Johnson ; Wealth and Fame 
 * J. J. Rousseau. 
 
3 
 
 Awaiting one — even at the gate ; Neglect 
 And Want the other. But what multitudes, 
 Urged by the love of change, and, like myself, 
 Adventurous, careless of to-morrow's fare. 
 Press on — tho' but a rill entering the Sea, 
 Entering and lost ! Our task would never end. 
 
 Day glimmered and I went, a gentle breeze 
 Ruffling the Leman Lake. Wave after wave. 
 If such they might be called, dashed as in sport, 
 Not anger, with the pebbles on the beach 
 Making wild music, and far westward caught 
 The sun-beam — where, alone and as entranced, 
 Counting the hours, the fisher in his skiff 
 Lay with his circular and dotted line 
 On the bright waters. When the heart is light 
 With hope, all pleases, nothing comes amiss ; 
 And soon a passage-boat swept gaily by. 
 Laden with peasant-girls and fruits and flowers, 
 And many a chanticleer and partlet caged 
 For Vevay's market-place — a motley group 
 Seen thro' the silvery haze. But soon 'twas gone. 
 The shifting sail flapped idly to and fro. 
 Then bore them off'. I am not one of those 
 So dead to all things in this visible world. 
 So wondrous] y profound — as to move on 
 In the sweet light of heaven, like him of old * 
 (His name is justly in the Calendar) 
 
 * Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux. 
 
4 
 
 Who thro' the day pursued this pleasant path 
 That winds beside the mirror of all beauty, 
 And, when at eve his fellow-pilgrims sat, 
 Discoursing of the lake, asked where it was. 
 They marvelled, as they might ; and so must all, 
 Seeing what now I saw ; for now 'twas day, 
 And the bright Sun was in the firmament, 
 A thousand shadows of a thousand hues 
 Chequering the clear expanse. Awhile his Orb 
 Hung o'er thy trackless fields of snow, Mont Blanc, 
 Thy seas of ice and ice-built promontories. 
 That change their shapes for ever as in sport ; 
 Then travelled onward, and went down behind 
 The pine-clad heights of Jura, lighting up 
 The woodman's casement, and perchance his axe 
 Borne homeward thro' the forest in his hand; 
 And on the edge of some o'erhanging cliff, 
 That dungeon-fortress never to be named, 
 Where, like a lion taken in the toils, 
 Toussaint breathed out his brave and generous spirit. 
 Ah, little did He think, who sent him there. 
 That he himself, then greatest among men. 
 Should in like manner be so soon conveyed 
 Athwart the ocean — to a rock so small 
 Amid the countless multitude of waves. 
 That ships have gone and sought it, and returned, 
 Saying it was not ! 
 
MEILLERIE. 
 
 These grey majestic cliffs that tower to Heaven, 
 These ghmmering glades and open chesnut-groves, 
 That echo to the heifer's wandering bell. 
 Or woodman's axe, or steers-man's song beneath. 
 As on he urges his fir-laden bark. 
 Or shout of goatherd-boy above them all. 
 Who loves not ? And who blesses not the light. 
 When thro' some loop-hole he surveys the lake 
 Blue as a sapphire-stone, and richly set 
 With chateaux, villages, and village-spires, 
 Orchards and vineyards, alps and alpine snows ? 
 Here would I dwell ; nor visit but in thought 
 Ferney far south, silent and empty now 
 As now thy Chartreuse and thy bowers, Ripaille ; 
 Vevay, so long an exiled Patriot's * home ; 
 Or Chillon's dungeon-floors beneath the wave. 
 Channelled and worn by pacing to and fro ; 
 Lausanne, where Gibbon in his sheltered walk 
 Nightly called up the Shade of ancient Rome ; 
 * Ludlow. 
 
Or CoppET, and that dark untrodden grove * 
 Sacred to Virtue, and a daughter's tears ! 
 Here would I dwell, forgetting and forgot ; 
 And oft raethinks (of such strange potency 
 The spells that Genius scatters where he will) 
 Oft should I wander forth like one in search. 
 And say, half-dreaming, " Here St. Preux has stood 
 Then turn and gaze on Clarens. 
 
 Yet there is. 
 Within an eagle's flight and less, a Scene 
 Still nobler if not fairer (once again 
 Would I behold it ere these eyes are closed, 
 For I can say, ' 1 also have been there !') 
 That Sacred Lakef withdrawn among the hills, 
 Its depth of waters flanked as with a wall 
 Built by the Giant-race before the flood ; 
 Where not a cross or chapel but inspires 
 Holy delight, lifting our thoughts to God 
 From God-like men, men in a barbarous age 
 That dared assert their birth-right, and displayed 
 Deeds half-divine, returning Good for 111 ; 
 That in the desert sowed the seeds of life, 
 Framing a band of small Republics there. 
 Which still exist, the envy of the World ! 
 Who would not land in each, and tread the ground ; 
 
 * The residence and burial-place of Necker. 
 f The Lake of the Pour Cantons. 
 
7 
 
 Land where Tell leaped ashore ; and chmb to drink 
 
 Of the three hallowed fountains ? He, that does, 
 
 Comes back the better ; and relates at home 
 
 That he was met and greeted by a race 
 
 Such as he read of in his boyish days ; 
 
 Such as MiLTiADES at Marathon 
 
 Led, when he chased the Persians to their ships. 
 
 There, while the well-known boat is heaving in, 
 Piled with rude merchandise, or launching forth. 
 Thronged with wild cattle for Italian fairs. 
 There in the sun-shine, mid their native snows, 
 Children, let loose from school, contend to use 
 The cross-bow of their fathers ; and o'er-run 
 The rocky field where all, in every age, 
 Assembling sit, like one great family, 
 Forming alliances, enacting laws ; 
 Each cliff and head-land and green promontory 
 Graven to their eyes with records of the past 
 That prompt to hero-worship, and excite 
 Even in the least, the lowliest, as he toils, 
 A reverence no where else or felt or feigned ; 
 Their chronicler great Nature ; and the volume 
 Vast as her works — above, below, around ! 
 The fisher on thy beach, Thermopylae, 
 Asks of the lettered stranger why he came, 
 First from his lips to learn the glorious truth ! 
 And who that whets his scythe in Runnemede, 
 
8 
 
 Tho' but for them a slave, recalls to mind 
 
 The barons in array with their great charter ? 
 
 Among the everlasting Alps alone. 
 
 There to burn on as in a Sanctuary, 
 
 Bright and unsullied lives the' ethereal flame ; 
 
 And mid those scenes unchanged, unchangeable, 
 
 Why should it ever die 2 
 
ST. MAURICE. 
 
 Still by the Leman Lake, for many a mile, 
 
 Among those venerable trees I went, 
 
 Where damsels sit and weave their fishing-nets, 
 
 Singing some national song by the way-side. 
 
 But now the fly was gone, the gnat careering ; 
 
 Now ghmmering lights from cottage-windows broke. 
 
 'Twas dusk ; and, journeying upward by the Rhone, 
 
10 
 
 That there came down, a torrent from the Alps, 
 
 I entered where a key unlocks a kingdom ; 
 
 The mountains closing, and the road, the river 
 
 Filling the narrow pass. There, till a ray 
 
 Glanced thro' my lattice, and the household-stir 
 
 Warned me to rise, to rise and to depart, 
 
 A stir unusual and accompanied 
 
 With many a tuning of rude instruments, 
 
 And many a laugh that argued coming pleasure, 
 
 Mine host's fair daughter for the nuptial rite. 
 
 And nuptial feast attiring — there I slept. 
 
 And in my dreams wandered once more, well-pleased. 
 
 But now a charm was on the rocks, and woods, 
 
 And waters ; for, methought, I was with those 
 
 I had at morn and even wished for there. 
 
THE GREAT ST. BERNARD. 
 
 Night was again descending, when my mule, 
 That all day long had climbed among the clouds, 
 Higher and higher still, as by a stair 
 Let down from Heaven itself, transporting me, 
 Stopped, to the joy of both, at that low door. 
 That door, which ever, as self-opened, moves 
 To them that knock, and nightly sends abroad 
 Ministering Spirits. Lying on the watch, 
 
12 
 
 Two dogs of grave demeanour welcomed me, 
 
 All meekness, gentleness, tho' large of limb ; 
 
 And a lay-brother of the Hospital, 
 
 Who, as we toiled below, had heard by fits 
 
 The distant echoes gaining on his ear, 
 
 Came and held fast my stirrup in his hand. 
 
 While I alighted. Long could I have stood. 
 
 With a religious awe contemplating 
 
 That House, the highest in the Ancient World, 
 
 And destined to perform from age to age 
 
 The noblest service, welcoming as guests 
 
 All of all nations and of every faith ; 
 
 A Temple, sacred to Humanity ! 
 
 It was a pile of simplest masonry, 
 
 With narrow windows and vast buttresses. 
 
 Built to endure the shocks of Time and Chance ; 
 
 Yet shewing many a rent, as well it might. 
 
 Warred on for ever by the elements. 
 
 And in an evil day, nor long ago. 
 
 By violent men — when on the mountain-top 
 
 The French and Austrian banners met in conflict. 
 
 On the same rock beside it stood the church, 
 Reft of its cross, not of its sanctity; 
 The vesper-fcell, for 'twas the vesper-hour. 
 Duly proclaiming thro' the wilderness, 
 *' All ye who hear, whatever be your work, 
 Stop for an instant — move your lips in prayer !" 
 
13 
 
 And, just beneath it, in that dreary dale, 
 
 If dale it might be called, so near to Heaven, 
 
 A little lake, where never fish leaped up, 
 
 Lay like a spot of ink amid the snow ; 
 
 A star, the only one in that small sky, 
 
 On its dead surface glimmering. 'Twas a place 
 
 Resembling nothing I had left behind. 
 
 As if all worldly ties were now dissolved ; — 
 
 And, to incline the mind still more to thought, 
 
 To thought and sadness, on the eastern shore 
 
 Under a beetling cliff stood half in gloom 
 
 A lonely chapel destined for the dead, 
 
 For such as, having wandered from their way, 
 
 Had perished miserably. Side by side, 
 
 Within they lie, a mournful company, 
 
 All in their shrouds, no earth to cover them ; 
 
 Their features full of life yet motionless 
 
 In the broad day, nor soon to suffer change, 
 
 Tho' the barred windows, barred against the wolf, 
 
 Are always open ! But the North blew cold ; 
 
 And, bidden to a spare but cheerful meal, 
 
 I sat among the holy brother-hood 
 
 At their long board. The fare indeed was such 
 
 As is prescribed on days of abstinence, 
 
 But might have pleased a nicer taste than mine ; 
 
 And thro' the floor came up, an ancient crone 
 
 Serving unseen below ; while from the roof 
 
14 
 
 (The roof, the floor, the walls of native fir,) 
 
 A lamp hung flickering, such as loves to fling 
 
 Its partial light on Apostolic heads. 
 
 And sheds a grace on all. Theirs Time as yet 
 
 Had changed not. Some were almost in the prime ; 
 
 Nor was a brow o'ercast. Seen as they sat, 
 
 Ranged round their ample hearth-stone in an hour 
 
 Of rest, they were as gay, as free from guile, 
 
 As children ; answering, and at once, to all 
 
 The gentler impulses, to pleasure, mirth ; 
 
 Mingling, at intervals, with rational talk 
 
 Music ; and gathering news from them that came, 
 
 As of some other world. But when the storm 
 
 Rose, and the snow rolled on in ocean-waves, 
 
 When on his face the experienced traveller fell. 
 
 Sheltering his lips and nostrils with his hands. 
 
 Then all was changed ; and, sallying with their pack 
 
 Into that blank of nature, they became 
 
 Unearthly beings. " Anselm, higher up, 
 
 Just where it drifts, a dog howls loud and long. 
 
 And now, as guided by a voice from heaven, 
 
 Digs with his feet. That noble vehemence 
 
 Whose can it be, but his who never erred ? 
 
 A man lies underneath ! Let us to work ! — 
 
 But who descends Mont Velan ? 'Tis La Croix. 
 
 Away, away ! if not, alas, too late. 
 
 Homeward he drags an old man and a boy, 
 
15 
 
 Faltering and falling, and but half awaked, 
 Asking to sleep again." Such theiv discourse. 
 
 Oft has a venerable roof received me ; 
 S T. Bruno's once* — where, when the winds were hushed, 
 Nor from the cataract the voice came up, . 
 You might have heard the mole work underground, 
 So great the stillness of that place ; none seen, 
 Save when from rock to rock a hermit crossed 
 By some rude bridge — or one at midnight tolled 
 To matins, and white habits, issuing forth, 
 Ghded along those aisles interminable, 
 All, all observant of the sacred law 
 Of Silence. Nor is that sequestered spot, 
 Once called * Sweet Waters,' now ' The Shady Vale,'t 
 To me unknown ; that house so rich of old. 
 So courteous, and by two, that passed that way. 
 Amply requited with immortal verse. 
 The Poet's payment. But, among them all, 
 None can with this compare, the dangerous seat 
 Of generous, active Virtue. What tho' Frost 
 Reign everlastingly, and ice and snow 
 Thaw not, but gather — there is that within, 
 Which, where it comes, makes Summer ; and, in thought, 
 Oft am I sitting on the bench beneath 
 Their garden-plot, where all that vegetates 
 Is but some scanty lettuce, to observe 
 
 * The Grande Chartreuse. f Vallombrosa. 
 
16 
 
 Th ose from the South ascending, every step 
 As tho' it were their last — and instantly 
 Restored, renewed, advancing as with songs. 
 Soon as they see, turning a lofty crag, 
 That plain, that modest structure, promising 
 Bread to the hungry, to the weary rest. 
 
THE DESCENT. 
 
 My mule refreshed — and, let the truth be told, 
 He was nor dull nor contradictory, 
 But patient, diligent, and sure of foot. 
 Shunning the loose stone on the precipice. 
 Snorting suspicion while with sight, smell, touch, 
 Trying, detecting, where the surface smiled ; 
 And with deliberate courage sliding down, 
 Where in his sledge the Laplander had turned 
 
18 
 
 With looks aghast — my mule refreshed, his bells 
 Gingled once more, the signal to depart. 
 And we set out in the grey light of dawn. 
 Descending rapidly — by waterfalls 
 Fast-frozen, and among huge blocks of ice 
 That in their long career had stopt mid-way. 
 At length, unchecked, unbidden, he stood still ; 
 And all his bells were muffled. Then my Guide, 
 Lowering his voice, addressed me : " Thro' this Gap 
 On and say nothing — lest a word, a breath 
 Bring down a winter's snow — enough to whelm 
 The armed files that, night and day, were seen 
 Winding from clifF to clifF in loose array 
 To conquer at Marengo. Tho' long since. 
 Well I remember how I met them here. 
 As the sun set far down, purpling the west ; 
 And how Napoleon, he himself, no less. 
 Wrapt in his cloak — I could not be deceived — 
 Reined in his horse, and asked me, as I passed, 
 How far 'twas to St. Remi. Where the rock 
 J uts forward, and the road, crumbling away. 
 Narrows almost to nothing at its base, 
 'Twas there ; and down along the brink he led 
 To Victory! — Desaix,* who turned the scale, 
 
 * " Of all the generals I ever had under me, Desaix possessed the 
 greatest talents. He loved glory for itself." 
 
19 
 
 Leaving his life-blood in that famous field, 
 (When the clouds break, we may discern the spot 
 In the blue haze,) sleeps, as thou saw'st at dawn, 
 Just where we entered, in the Hospital-church." 
 So saying, for awhile he held his peace, 
 Awe-struck beneath that dreadful Canopy ; 
 But soon, the danger passed, launched forth again. 
 
JORASSE. 
 
 J ORASSE was in his three-and-twentieth year ; 
 Graceful and active as a stag just roused ; 
 Gentle withal, and pleasant in his speech, 
 Yet seldom seen to smile. He had grown up 
 Among the Hunters of the Higher Alps ; 
 Had caught their starts and fits of thoughtfulness, 
 Their haggard looks, and strange soliloquies, 
 Arising (so say they that dwell below) 
 
21 
 
 From frequent dealings with the Mountain-Spirits. 
 But other ways had taught him better things ; 
 And now he numbered, marching by my side, 
 The great, the learned, that with him had crossed 
 The frozen tract, with him familiarly 
 Thro' the rough day and rougher night conversed 
 In many a chalet round the Peak of Terror, * 
 Round Tacul, Tour, Well-horn and Rosenlau, 
 And Her, whose throne is inaccessible,! 
 Who sits, withdrawn in virgin-majesty, 
 Nor oft unveils. Anon an Avalanche 
 Rolled its long thunder ; and a sudden crash. 
 Sharp and metallick, to the startled ear 
 Told that far-down a continent of Ice 
 Had burst in twain. But he had now begun ; 
 And with what transport he recalled the hour 
 When to deserve, to win his blooming bride, 
 Madelaine of Annecy, to his feet he bound 
 The iron crampons, and, ascending, trod 
 The Upper Realms of Frost ; then, by a cord 
 Let half-way down, entered a Grot star-bright, 
 And gathered from above, below, around. 
 The pointed crystals! — Once, nor long before, 
 (Thus did his tongue run on, fast as his feet. 
 And with an eloquence that Nature gives 
 To all her children — ^breaking off by starts 
 
 * The Schrekhorn. f The Jung-frau. 
 
22 
 
 Into the harsh and rude, oft as the Mule 
 Drew his displeasure,) once, nor long before, 
 Alone at day-break on the Mettenberg, 
 He slipped, he fell ; and, thro' a fearful cleft 
 Gliding from ledge to ledge, from deep to deeper. 
 Went to the Under-world ! Long-while he lay 
 Upon his rugged bed— then waked like one 
 Wishing to sleep again and sleep for ever! 
 F or, looking round, he saw or thought he saw 
 Innumerable branches of a Cave, 
 Winding beneath that solid Crust of Ice ; 
 With here and there a rent that shewed the stars ! 
 What then, alas, was left him but to die ? 
 What else in those immeasurable chambers, 
 Strewn with the bones of miserable men. 
 Lost like himself? Yet must he wander on. 
 Till cold and hunger set his spirit free ! 
 And, rising, he began his dreary round; 
 When hark, the noise as of some mighty Flood 
 Working its way to light ! Back he withdrew, 
 But soon returned, and fearless from despair. 
 Dashed down the dismal Channel ; and all day. 
 If day could be where utter darkness was, 
 Travelled incessantly, the craggy roof 
 Just over-head, and the impetuous waves, 
 Nor broad nor deep, yet with a giant's strength 
 Lashing him on. At last as in a pool 
 
23 
 
 The water slept ; a pool sullen, profound, 
 
 Where, if a billow chanced to heave and swell. 
 
 It broke not ; and the roof, descending, lay 
 
 Flat on the surface. Statue-like he stood. 
 
 His journey ended; when a ray divine 
 
 Shot thro' his soul. Breathing a prayer to Her 
 
 Whose ears are never shut, the Blessed Virgin, 
 
 He plunged, he swam — and in an instant rose, 
 
 The barrier passed, in sunshine ! Thro' a vale. 
 
 Such as in Arc ad y, where many a thatch 
 
 Gleamed thro' the trees, half-seen and half-embowered, 
 
 Glittering the river ran ; and on the bank 
 
 The Young were dancing ('twas a festival-day) 
 
 All in their best attire. There first he saw 
 
 His Madelaine. In the crowd she stood to hear. 
 
 When all drew round, inquiring ; and her face. 
 
 Seen behind all, and, varying, as he spoke. 
 
 With hope, and fear, and generous sympathy. 
 
 Subdued him. From that very hour he loved. 
 
 The tale was long, but coming to a close. 
 When his wild eyes flashed fire ; and, all forgot. 
 He listened and looked up. I looked up too ; 
 And twice there came a hiss that thro' me thrilled ! 
 'Twas heard no more. A Chamois on the cliff 
 Had roused his fellows with that cry of fear. 
 And all were gone. But now the theme was changed; 
 And he recounted his hair-breadth escapes. 
 
24 
 
 When with his friend, Hubert of Bionnay, 
 
 (His ancient carbine from his shoulder slunff. 
 
 His axe to hew a stair-way in the ice) 
 
 He tracked their wanderings. By a cloud surprised, 
 
 Where the next step had plunged them into air. 
 
 Long had they stood, locked in each other's arms. 
 
 Amid the gulfs that yawned to swallow them ; 
 
 Each guarding each thro' many a freezing hour. 
 
 As on some temple's highest pinnacle. 
 
 From treacherous slumber. Oh, it was a sport 
 
 Dearer than life, and but with life relinquished ! 
 
 " My sire, my grandsire died among these wilds. 
 
 As for myself," he cried, and he held forth 
 
 His wallet in his hand, " this do I call 
 
 My winding-sheet — ^for I shall have none else !" 
 
 And he spoke truth. Within a little month 
 He lay among these awful solitudes, 
 ('Twas on a Glacier — half-way up to Heaven) 
 Taking his final rest. Long did his wife, 
 Suckling her babe, her only one, look out 
 The way he went at parting, but he came not ; 
 Long fear to close her eyes, from dusk till dawn 
 Plying her distaff thro' the silent hours. 
 Lest he appear before her, lest in sleep, 
 If sleep steal on, he come as all are wont. 
 Frozen and ghastly blue or black with gore, 
 To plead for the last rite. 
 
MARGUERITE DE TOURS. 
 
 Now the grey granite, starting thro' the snow, 
 Discovered many a variegated moss * 
 That to the pilgrim resting on his staff 
 Shadows out capes and islands ; and ere long 
 
 * Lichen Geographicus. 
 
26 
 
 Numberless flowers, such as disdain to live 
 
 In lower regions, and delighted drink 
 
 The clouds before they fall, flowers of all hues, 
 
 With their diminutive leaves covered the ground. 
 
 There, turning by a venerable larch, 
 
 Shivered in two yet most majestical 
 
 With his long level branches, we observed 
 
 A human figure sitting on a stone 
 
 Far down by the way-side— just where the rock 
 
 Is riven asunder, and the Evil One 
 
 Has bridged the gulf, a wondrous monument 
 
 Built in one night, from which the flood beneath, 
 
 Raging along, all foam, is seen not heard, 
 
 And seen as motionless ! 
 
 Nearer we drew ; 
 And lo, a woman young and delicate. 
 Wrapt in a russet cloak from head to foot. 
 Her eyes cast down, her cheek upon her hand, 
 In deepest thought. Over her tresses fair, 
 Voung as she was, she wore the matron-cap ; 
 And, as we judged, not many moons would change 
 Ere she became a mother. Pale she looked. 
 Yet cheerful ; tho', methought, once, if not twice, 
 She wiped away a tear that would be coming ; 
 And in those moments her small hat of straw, 
 Worn on one side, and glittering with a band 
 Of silk and gold, but ill concealed a face 
 
27 
 
 Not soon to be forgotten. Rising up 
 On our approach, she travelled slowly on ; 
 And my companion, long before we met, 
 Knew, and ran down to greet her. 
 
 She was born 
 (Such was her artless tale, told with fresh tears) 
 In Val d'Aosta ; and an Alpine stream, 
 Leaping from crag to crag in its short course 
 To join the Dora, turned her father's mill. 
 There did she blossom till a Valaisan, 
 A townsman of Martigny, won her heart, 
 Much to the old man's grief. Long he refused, 
 Loth to be left ; disconsolate at the thought. 
 She was his only one, his link to life ; 
 And in despair— year after year gone by — 
 One summer-morn, they stole a match and fled. 
 The act was sudden ; and, when far away, 
 Her spirit had misgivings. Then, full oft, 
 She pictured to herself that aged face ■ 
 Sickly and wan, in sorrow, not in wrath ; 
 And, when at last she heard his hour was near. 
 Went forth unseen, and, burdened as she was. 
 Crossed the high Alps on foot to ask forgiveness, 
 And hold him to her heart before he died. 
 Her task was done. She had fulfilled her wish, 
 And now was on her way, rejoicing, weeping. 
 A frame like hers had suffered; but her love 
 
Was strong within her ; and right on she went, 
 Fearing no ill. May all good Angels guard her ! 
 And should T once again, as once I may, 
 Visit Martigny, I will not forget 
 Thy hospitable roof, Marguerite De Tours ; 
 Thy sign the silver swan. Heaven prosper Thee 
 
THE ALPS. 
 
 Who first beholds those everlasting clouds, 
 Seed-time and harvest, morning noon and night, 
 Still where they were, steadfast, immovable ; 
 Those mighty hills, so shadowy, so sublime, 
 As rather to belong to Heaven than Earth — 
 But instantly receives into his soul 
 A sense, a feeling that he loses not. 
 
80 
 
 A something that informs him 'tis an hour, 
 Whence he may date henceforward and for ever 
 
 To me they seemed the barriers of a World, 
 Saying, Thus far, no farther ! and as o'er 
 The level plain I travelled silently, 
 Nearing them more and more, day after day. 
 My wandering thoughts my only company. 
 And they before me still, oft as I looked, 
 A strange delight w^as mine, mingled with fear, 
 A wonder as at things I had not heard of! 
 And still and still I felt as tho' I gazed 
 For the first time !— Great was the tumult there, 
 Deafening the din, when in barbaric pomp 
 The Carthaginian on his march to Rome 
 Entered their fastnesses. Trampling the snows. 
 The war-horse reared ; and the towered elephant 
 Upturned his trunk into the murky sky, 
 Then tumbled headlong, swallowed up and lost. 
 He and his rider. — Now the scene is changed ; 
 And o'er the Simplon, o'er the Splugen winds 
 A path of pleasure. Like a silver zone 
 Flung about carelessly, it shines afar. 
 Catching the eye in many a broken link. 
 In many a turn and traverse as it glides ; 
 And oft above and oft below appears. 
 Seen o'er the wall by him who journies up, 
 As tho' it were another, thro' the wild 
 
31 
 
 Leading along he knows not whence or whither. 
 
 Yet thro' its fairy-course, go where it will, 
 
 The torrent stops it not, the rugged rock 
 
 Opens and lets it in ; and on it runs, 
 
 Winning its easy way from clime to clime 
 
 Thro' glens locked up before. — Not such my path 
 
 The very path for them that dare defy 
 
 Danger, nor shrink, wear he what shape he will ; 
 
 That o'er the caldron, when the flood boils up, 
 
 Hang as in air, gazing and shuddering on 
 
 Till fascination comes and the brain turns ! 
 
 The very path for them, that list, to choose 
 
 Where best to plant a monumental cross. 
 
 And live in story like Empedocles ; 
 
 A track for Heroes, such as He who came, 
 
 Ere long, to win, to wear the Iron Crown ; 
 
 And (if aright I judge from what I felt 
 
 Over the Drance, just where the Abbot fell, 
 
 Rolled downward in an after-dinner's sleep) 
 
 The same as Hannibal's. But now 'tis passed. 
 
 That turbulent Chaos ; and the promised land 
 
 Lies at my feet in all its loveliness ! 
 
 To him who starts up from a terrible dream, 
 
 And lo, the sun is shining, and the lark 
 
 Singing aloud for joy, to him is not 
 
 Such sudden ravishment as now I feel 
 
 At the first glimpses of fair Italy. 
 
COMO. 
 
 I LOVE to sail along the Larian Lake 
 Under the shore — though not to visit Pliny, 
 To catch him musing in his plane-tree walk, 
 Or angling from his window : * and, in truth. 
 Could I recall the ages past, and play 
 The fool with Time, I should perhaps reserve 
 My leisure for Catullus on his Lake, 
 * Epist. I. 3. ix. 7. 
 
S3 
 
 Though to fare worse, or Virgil at his farm 
 A httle further on the way to Mantua. 
 But such things cannot he. So I sit still, 
 And let the boatman shift his little sail, 
 His sail so forked and so swallow-like, 
 Well-pleased with all that comes. The morning-air 
 Plays on my cheek how gently, flinging round 
 A silvery gleam : and now the purple mists 
 Rise like a curtain ; now the sun looks out. 
 Filling, o'erflowing with his glorious light 
 This noble amphitheatre of hills ; 
 And now appear as on a phosphor-sea 
 Numberless barks, from Milan, from PavIa ; 
 Some sailing up, some down, and some at rest. 
 Lading, unlading at that small port-town 
 Under the promontory — its tall tower 
 And long flat roofs, just such as Gaspar drew. 
 Caught by a sun-beam slanting through a cloud ; 
 A quay-like scene, glittering and full of life. 
 And doubled by reflection. 
 
 What delight. 
 After so long a sojourn in the wild. 
 To hear once more the peasant at his work ! 
 — But in a clime like this where is he not ? 
 Along the shores, among the hills 'tis now 
 The hey-day of the Vintage ; all abroad, 
 But most the young and of the gentler sex, 
 
 F 
 
34 
 
 Busy in gathering ; all among the vines, 
 
 Some on the ladder, and some underneath, 
 
 Filling their baskets of green wicker-work, 
 
 While many a canzonet and frolic laugh 
 
 Come thro' the leaves ; the vines in light festoons 
 
 From tree to tree, the trees in avenues, 
 
 And every avenue a covered walk 
 
 Hung with black clusters. 'Tis enough to make 
 
 The sad man merry, the benevolent one 
 
 Melt into tears — so general is the joy ! 
 
 While up and down the cliffs, over the lake. 
 
 Wains oxen-drawn, and panniered mules are seen, 
 
 Laden with grapes and dropping rosy wine. 
 
 Here I received from thee, Basilico, 
 One of those courtesies so sweet, so rare ! 
 When, as I rambled thro' thy vineyard-ground 
 On the hill-side, thou sent'st thy little son. 
 Charged with a bunch almost as big as he. 
 To press it on the stranger. May thy vats 
 O'erflow, and he, thy willing gift-bearer. 
 Live to become a giver ; and, at length, 
 When thou art full of honour and wouldst rest. 
 The staff of thine old age ! 
 
 In a strange land 
 Such things, however trivial, reach the heart. 
 And thro' the heart the head, clearing away 
 The narrow notions that grow up at home, 
 
35 
 
 And in their place grafting Good-Will to All. 
 At least I found it so, nor less at eve, 
 When, bidden as a lonely traveller, 
 ('Twas by a little boat that gave me chase 
 With oar and sail, as homevs^ard-bound 1 crossed 
 The bay of Tramezzine,) right readily 
 I turned my prow and followed, landing soon 
 Where steps of purest marble met the wave ; 
 Where, thro' the trellises and corridors, 
 Soft music came as from Armida's palace. 
 Breathing enchantment o'er the woods and waters ; 
 And thro' a bright pavilion, bright as day, 
 Forms such as hers were flitting, lost among 
 Such as of old in sober pomp swept by, 
 Such as adorn the triumphs and the feasts 
 By Paolo painted ; where a Fairy-Queen, 
 That night her birth-night, from her throne received 
 (Young as she was, no floweret in her crown, 
 Hyacinth or rose, so fair and fresh as she) 
 Our willing vows, and by the fountain-side 
 Led in the dance, disporting as she pleased, 
 Under a starry sky — while I looked on, 
 As in a glade of Cashmere or Siiiraz, 
 Reclining, quenching my sherbet in snow, 
 And reading in the eyes that sparkled round, 
 The thousand love-adventures written there. 
 Can I forget — no never, such a scene 
 
36 
 
 So full of witchery. Night lingered still, 
 When, with a dying breeze, I left Bellaggio 
 But the strain followed me ; and still I saw 
 Thy smile, Angelica ; and still I heard 
 Thy voice— once and again bidding adieu. 
 
BERGAMO. 
 
 The song was one that I had heard before, 
 
 But where I knew not. It inchned to sadness ; 
 
 And, turning round from the dehcious fare 
 
 My landlord's little daughter Barbara 
 
 Had from her apron just rolled out before me, 
 
 Figs and rock-melons— at the door I saw 
 
 Two boys of lively aspect. Peasant-like 
 
 They were, and poorly clad, but not unskilled ; 
 
 With their small voices and an old guitar 
 
 Winning their way to my unguarded heart 
 
 In that, the only universal tongue. 
 
 But soon they changed the measure, entering on 
 
 A pleasant dialogue of sweet and sour, 
 
 A war of words, with looks and gestures waged 
 
 Between Trappanti and his ancient dame, 
 
 MoNA LuciLiA. To and fro it went ; 
 
 While many a titter on the stairs was heard. 
 
 And Barbara's among them. When it ceased. 
 
 Their dark eyes flashed no longer, yet, methought, 
 
 In many a glance as from the soul, disclosed 
 
38 
 
 More than enough to serve them. Far or near, 
 
 Few looked not for their coming ere they came, 
 
 Few, when they went, but looked till they were gone 
 
 And not a matron, sitting at her wheel, 
 
 But could repeat their story. Twins they were, 
 
 And orphans, as I learnt, cast on the world ; 
 
 Their parents lost in an old ferry-boat 
 
 That, three years since, last Martinmas, went down. 
 
 Crossing the rough Benacus. * 
 
 May they live 
 Blameless and happy — rich they cannot be. 
 Like him who, in the days of Minstrelsy, f 
 Came in a beggar's weeds to Petrarch's door, 
 Asking, beseeching for a lay to sing, 
 And soon in silk (such then the power of song) 
 Returned to thank him ; or like that old man. 
 Old, not in heart, who by the torrent-side 
 Descending from the Tyrol, as Night fell, 
 Knocked at a City-gate near the hill-foot. 
 The gate that bore so long, sculptured in stone. 
 An eagle on a ladder, and at once 
 Found welcome — nightly in the bannered hall 
 Tuning his harp to tales of Chivalry 
 Before the great Masting, and his guests, 
 
 * Lago di Garda. 
 
 f Petrarch, Epist. Rer. Sen, 1. v. ep. 3. 
 f See Note. 
 
39 
 
 The three-and-twenty kings, by adverse tlite, 
 By war or treason or domestic strife, 
 Reft of their kingdoms, friendless, sheUerless, 
 And hving on his bounty. 
 
 But who comes. 
 Brushing the floor with what was once, methinks, 
 A hat of ceremony. On he ghdes, 
 Shp-shod, ungartered ; his long suit of black 
 Dingy, thread-bare, tho', patch by patch, renewed 
 Till it has almost ceased to be the same. 
 At length arrived, and with a shrug that pleads 
 ' 'Tis my necessity !' he stops and speaks, 
 Screwing a smile into his dinnerless face. 
 ' Blame not a Poet, Signor, for his zeal — 
 When all are on the wing, who would be last ? 
 The splendour of thy name has gone before thee ; 
 And Italy from sea to sea exults, 
 As well indeed she may ! But I transgress. 
 He, who has known the weight of Praise himself, 
 Should spare another.' Saying so, he laid 
 His sonnet, an impromptu, at my feet, 
 (If his, then Petrarch must have stolen it from him) 
 And bowed and left me ; in his hollow hand 
 Receiving my small tribute, a zecchine, 
 Unconsciously, as doctors do their fees. 
 
 My omelet, and a flagon of hill-wine, 
 Pure as the virgin-spring, had happily 
 
40 
 
 Fled from all eyes ; or, in a waking dream, 
 I might have sat as many a great man has, 
 And many a small, like him of Santillane, 
 Bartering my bread and salt for empty praise. 
 
ITALY. 
 
 Am I in Italy? Is this the Mincius? 
 Are those the distant turrets of Verona? 
 And shall I sup where Juliet at the Masque 
 First saw and loved, and now by him who came 
 That night a stranger, sleeps from age to age ? 
 Such questions hourly do I ask myself; 
 And not a stone, in a cross-way, inscribed 
 ' To Mantua'—' To Ferrara — but excites 
 Surprise, and doubt, and self-congratulation. 
 
 O Italy, how beautiful thou art ! 
 Yet I could weep — for thou art lying, alas, 
 
 Low in the dust; and we admire thee now 
 
 As we admire the beautiful in death. 
 
 Thine was a dangerous gift, when thou wast born. 
 
 The gift of Beauty. Would thou hadst it not ; 
 
 Or wert as once, awing the caitiffs vile 
 
 That now beset thee, making thee their slave ! 
 
 Would they had loved thee less, or feared thee more ! 
 
 . But why despair ? Twice hast thou lived already ; 
 
 Twice shone among the nations of the world, 
 
 G 
 
42 
 
 As the sun shines among the lesser ho-hts 
 Of heaven ; and shalt again. The hour shall come, 
 When they who think to bind the ethereal spirit, 
 Who, like the eagle cowering o'er his prey. 
 Watch with quick eye, and strike and strike again 
 If but a sinew vibrate, shall confess 
 Their wisdom folly. Even now the flame 
 Bursts forth where once it burnt so gloriously, 
 And, dying, left a splendour like the day, 
 That like the day diffiised itself, and still 
 Blesses the earth — the light of genius, virtue. 
 Greatness in thought and act, contempt of death, 
 God-like example. Echoes that have slept 
 Since Athens, Laced^mon, were Themselves, 
 Since men invoked ' By Those in Marathon !' 
 Awake along the ^Egean ; and the dead. 
 They of that sacred shore, have heard the call. 
 And thro' the ranks, from wing to wing, are seen 
 Moving as once they were— instead of rage 
 Breathing deliberate valour. 
 
COLL'ALTO. 
 
 ' In this neglected mirror (the broad fi-arae 
 Of massy silver serves to testify 
 That many a noble matron of the house 
 Has sat before it) once, alas, was seen 
 What led to many sorrovs^s. From that time 
 
44 
 
 The bat came hither for a sleeping place ; 
 And he, that cursed another in his heart, 
 Said, ' Be thy dwelling, thro' the day and night. 
 
 Shunned like Coll'altc' 'Twas in that old Pile, 
 
 Which flanks the clilFwith its grey battlements 
 
 Flung here and there, and, like an eagle's nest. 
 
 Hangs in the Trevisan, that thus the Steward, 
 
 Shaking his locks, the few that Time had left. 
 
 Addressed me, as we entered what was called 
 
 ' My Lady's Chamber.' On the walls, the chairs, 
 
 Much yet remained of the rich tapestry ; 
 
 Much of the adventures of Sir Lancelot 
 
 In the green glades of some enchanted wood. 
 
 The toilet-table was of silver wrought, 
 
 Florentine Art, when Florence was renowned ; 
 
 A gay confusion of the elements. 
 
 Dolphins and boys, and shells and fruits and flowers : 
 
 And from the ceiling, in his gilded cage. 
 
 Hung a small bird of curious workmanship. 
 
 That, when his Mistress bade him, would unfold 
 
 (So says the babbling Dame, Tradition, there) 
 
 His emerald-wings, and sing and sing again 
 
 The song that pleased her. While 1 stood and looked, 
 
 A gleam of day yet lingering in the West, 
 
 The Steward went on. ' She had ('tis now long since) 
 
 A gentle serving-maid, the fair Cristine, 
 
 Fair as a lily, and as spotless too ; 
 
45 
 
 None so admired, beloved. They had grown up 
 As play-fellows ; and some there were, that said. 
 Some that knew much, discoursing of Cristine, 
 * She is not what she seems.' When unrequired, 
 She would steal forth ; her custom, her dehght, 
 To wander thro' and thro' an ancient grove 
 Self-planted half-way down, losing herself 
 Like one in love with sadness ; and her veil 
 And vesture white, seen ever in that place. 
 Ever as surely as the hours came round, 
 Among those reverend trees, gave her below 
 The name of The White Lady. But the day 
 Is gone, and I delay thee. 
 
 In that chair 
 The Countess, as it might be now, was sitting. 
 Her gentle serving-maid, the fair Cristine, 
 Combing her golden hair ; and, thro' this door 
 The Count, her lord, was hastening, called away 
 By letters of great urgency to Venice ; 
 When in the glass she saw, as she beheved, 
 ('Twas an illusion of the Evil Spirit- 
 Some say he came and crossed it at the time) 
 A smile, a glance at parting, given and answered, 
 That turned her blood to gall. That very night 
 The deed was done. That night, ere yet the Moon 
 Was up on Monte Calvo, and the wolf 
 Baying as still he does (oft is he heard, 
 
46 
 
 An hour and more, by the old turret-clock) 
 They led her forth, the unhappy lost Cristine, 
 Helping her down in her distress— to die. 
 
 No blood was spilt ; no instrument of death 
 Lurked— or stood forth, declaring its bad purpose ; 
 Nor was a hair of her unblemished head 
 Hurt in that hour. Fresh as a flower just blown. 
 And warm with life, her youthful pulses playing, 
 She was walled up within the Castle- wall. 
 The wall itself was hollowed secretly ; 
 Then closed again, and done to Hne and rule. 
 
 Would'st thou descend? 'Tis in a darksome vault 
 
 Under the Chapel : and there nightly now. 
 As in the narrow niche, when smooth and fair. 
 And as tho' nothing had been done or thought. 
 The stone-work rose before her, till the liffht 
 Glimmered and went— there, nightly, at that hour 
 (Thou smil'st, and would it were an idle tale !) 
 In her white veil and vesture white she stands 
 Shuddering— her eyes uplifted, and her hands 
 Joined as in prayer ; then, like a Blessed Soul 
 Bursting the tomb, springs forward, and away 
 Flies o'er the woods and mountains. Issuing forth, 
 The hunter meets her in his hunting-track ; 
 The shepherd on the heath, starting, exclaims 
 (For still she bears the name she bore of old) 
 ' 'Tis the White Lady !' 
 
VENICE. 
 
 There is a glorious City in the Sea. 
 
 The Sea is in the broad, the narrow streets, 
 
 Ebbing and flowing ; and the salt sea- weed 
 
 Clings to the marble of her palaces. 
 
 No track of men, no footsteps to and fro, 
 
 Lead to her gates. The path lies o'er the Sea, 
 
 Invisible ; and from the land we went. 
 
 As to a floating City — steering in, 
 
48 
 
 And gliding up her streets as in a dream, 
 
 So smoothly, silently — by many a dome 
 
 Mosque-like, and many a stately portico. 
 
 The statues ranged along an azure sky ; 
 
 By many a pile in more than Eastern pride, 
 
 Of old the residence of merchant-kings ; 
 
 The fronts of some, tho' Time had shattered them. 
 
 Still glowing with the richest hues of art. 
 
 As tho' the wealth within them had run o'er. 
 
 Thither I came, and in a wondrous Ark, 
 (That, long before we slipt our cable, rang 
 As with the voices of all living things) 
 From Padua, where the stars are, night by night. 
 Watched from the top of an old dungeon-tower, 
 Whence blood ran once, the tower of Ezzelin — 
 Not as he watched them, when he read his fate 
 And shuddered. But of him I thought not then, 
 Him or his horoscope ; far, far from me 
 The forms of Guilt and Fear ; though some were there, 
 Sitting among us round the cabin-board, 
 Some who, like him, had cried, ' Spill blood enough !' 
 And could shake long at shadows. They had played 
 Their parts at Padua, and were floating home, 
 Careless and full of mirth ; to-morrow a day 
 Not in their Calendar. Who in a strain 
 To make the hearer fold his arms and sigh. 
 Sings ' Caro, Caro !' — 'Tis the Prima Donna, 
 
49 
 
 And to her monkey, smiling in his face. 
 
 Who, as transported, cries, ' Brava ! Ancora !' 
 
 'Tis a grave personage, an old macaw, 
 
 Perched on her shoulder. — But who leaps ashore, 
 
 And with a shout urges the lagging mules ; 
 
 Then climbs a tree that overhangs the stream. 
 
 And, hke an acorn, drops on deck again ? 
 
 'Tis he who speaks not, stirs not, but we laugh ; 
 
 That child of fun and frolic, Arlecchino. 
 
 And mark their Poet — with what emphasis 
 
 He prompts the young Soubrette, conning her part 
 
 Her tongue plays truant, and he raps his box, 
 
 And prompts again ; for ever looking round 
 
 As if in search of subjects for his wit. 
 
 His satire ; and as often whispering 
 
 Things, tho' unheard, not unimaginable. 
 
 Had I thy pencil, Cr-bbe (when thou hast done, 
 Late may it be . . it will, like Prospero's staff, 
 Be buried fifty fathoms in the earth) 
 I would portray the Itahan— Now I cannot. 
 Subtle, discerning, eloquent, the slave 
 Of Love, of Hate, for ever in extremes ; 
 Gentle when unprovoked, easily won. 
 But quick in quarrel — thro' a thousand shades 
 His spirit flits, cameleon-like ; and mocks * 
 The eye of the observer. 
 
 Gliding on, 
 
 n 
 
50 
 
 At length we leave the river for the sea. 
 
 At length a voice aloft proclaims " Venezia !" 
 
 And, as called forth, she comes. — A few in fear, 
 
 Flying away from him whose boast it was, * 
 
 That the grass grew not where his horse had ti*od, 
 
 Gave birth to Venice. Like the water-fowl. 
 
 They built their nests among the ocean-waves ; 
 
 And where the sands were shifting, as the wind 
 
 Blew from the north or south — where they that came, 
 
 Had to make sure the ground they stood upon, 
 
 Rose, like an exhalation from the deep, 
 
 A vast Metropohs, with glistering spires, 
 
 With theatres, basilicas adorned ; 
 
 A scene of hght and glory, a dominion. 
 
 That has endured the longest among men. 
 
 And whence the talisman, whereby she rose, 
 Towering ? 'Twas found there in the barren sea. 
 Want led to Enterprise ; and, far or near, 
 Who met not the Venetian ? — now among 
 The vEgean Isles, steering from port to port. 
 Landing and bartering ; now, no stranger there. 
 In Cairo, or without the eastern gate, 
 Ere yet the Cafilaf came, listening to hear 
 Its bells approaching from the Red-Sea coast; 
 Then on the Euxine, and that smaller Sea 
 Of Azoph, in close converse with the Russ, 
 
 * Attii.a. f A Caravan. 
 
51 
 
 And Tartar ; on his lowly deck receiving 
 Pearls from the Persian gulph, gems from Golcond ; 
 Eyes brighter yet, that shed the light of love, 
 From Georgia, from Circassia. Wandering round, 
 "When in the rich bazaar he saw, displayed. 
 Treasures from climes unknown, he asked and learnt, 
 And, travelling slowly upward, drew ere long 
 From the well-head, supplying all below ; 
 Making the Imperial City of the East, 
 Herself, his tributary. 
 
 If we turn 
 
 To those black forests, where, thro' many an age, 
 Night without day, no axe the silence broke, 
 Or seldom, save where Rhine or Danube rolled ; 
 Where o'er the narrow glen a castle hangs. 
 And, like the wolf that hungered at his door. 
 The baron lived by rapine — there we meet. 
 In warlike guise, the Caravan from Venice ; 
 When on its march, now lost and now beheld, 
 A glittering file (the trumpet heard, the scout 
 Sent and recalled) but at a city-gate 
 All gaiety, and looked for ere it comes ; 
 Winning regard with all that can attract. 
 Cages, whence every wild cry of the desert, 
 Jugglers, stage-dancers. Well might Charlemain, 
 And his brave peers, each with his visor up, 
 On their long lances lean and gaze awhile. 
 
52 
 
 When the Venetian to their eyes disclosed 
 
 The Wonders of the East! Well might they then 
 
 Sigh for new Conquests ! 
 
 Thus did Venice rise, 
 Thus flourish, till the unwelcome tidings came, 
 That in the Tagus had arrived a fleet 
 From India, from the region of the Sun, 
 Fragrant with spices— that a way was found, 
 A channel opened, and the golden stream 
 Turned to enrich another. Then she felt 
 Her strength departing, yet awhile maintained 
 Her state, her splendour ; till a tempest shook 
 All things most held in honour among men, 
 All things the giant with the scythe had spared. 
 To their foundations, and at once she fell ; 
 She who had stood yet longer than the last 
 Of the Four Kingdoms— who, as in an Ark, 
 Had floated down, amid a thousand wrecks. 
 Uninjured, from the Old World to the New, 
 From the last glimpse of civilized life— to where 
 Light shone again, and with the blaze of noon. 
 
 Thro' many an age in the mid-sea she dwelt. 
 From her retreat calmly contemplating 
 The changes of the Earth, herself unchanged. 
 Before her passed, as in an awful dream. 
 The mightiest of the mighty. What are these. 
 Clothed in their purple ? O'er the globe they fling 
 
53 
 
 Their monstrous shadows ; and, while yet we speak, 
 
 Phantom-Hke, vanish with a dreadful scream ! 
 
 What— but the last that styled themselves the Caesars? 
 
 And who in long array (look where they come ; 
 
 Their gestures menacing so far and wide) 
 
 Wear the green turban and the heron's plume ? 
 
 Who — but the Caliphs ? followed fast by shapes 
 
 As new and strange— Emperor, and King, and Czar, 
 
 And Soldan, each, with a gigantic stride. 
 
 Trampling on all the flourishing works of peace 
 
 To make his greatness greater, and inscribe 
 
 His name in blood — some, men of steel, steel-clad ; 
 
 Others, nor long, alas, the interval, 
 
 In light and gay attire, with brow serene 
 
 Wielding Jove's thunder, scattering sulphurous fire 
 
 Mingled with darkness ; and, among the rest, 
 
 Lo, one by one, passing continually. 
 
 Those who assume a sway beyond them all ; 
 
 Men grey with age, each in a triple crown, 
 
 And in his tremulous hands grasping the keys • 
 
 That can alone, as he would signify, 
 
 Unlock Heaven's gate. 
 
LUIGI. 
 
 Happy is he who loves companionship, 
 
 And Hghts on thee, Luigi. Thee I found. 
 
 Playing at Mora on the cabin-roof 
 
 With Punchinello. — 'Tis a game to strike 
 
 Fire from the coldest heart. What then from thine 
 
 And, ere the twentieth throw, I had resolved. 
 
 Won by thy looks. Thou wert an honest lad ; 
 
 Wert generous, grateful, not without ambition. 
 
 Had it depended on thy will alone. 
 
 Thou wouldst have numbered in thy family 
 
 At least six Doges and the first in fame. 
 
 But that was not to be. In thee I saw 
 
 The last, if not the least, of a long line. 
 
 Who in their forest, for three hundred years. 
 
 Had lived and laboured, cutting, charring wood ; 
 
 Discovering where they were, to those astray. 
 
 By the re-echoing stroke, the crash, the fall, 
 
 Or the blue wreath that travelled slowly up 
 
 Into the sky. Thy nobler destinies 
 
 Led thee away to justle in the crowd ; 
 
And there I found thee — by thine own Advice 
 Trying once more a change of air and diet^ 
 Crossing the sea, and springing to the shore 
 As tho' thou knewest where to dine and sleep. 
 
 First in Bologna didst thou plant thyself, 
 Serving behind a Cardinal's gouty chair. 
 Listening and oft replying, jest for jest ; 
 Then in Ferrara, every thing by turns, 
 So great thy genius and so Proteus-like ! 
 Now serenading in a lover's train, 
 And measuring swords with his antagonist ; 
 Now carving, cup-bearing in halls of state ; 
 And now a guide to the lorn traveller, 
 A very Cicerone — yet, alas. 
 How unlike him who fulmined in old Rome ! 
 Deahng out largely in exchange for pence 
 Thy scraps of Knowledge— thro' the grassy street 
 I;eading, explaining — pointing to the bars 
 Of Tasso's dungeon, and the latin verse, 
 Graven in the stone, that yet denotes the door 
 Of Ariosto. 
 
 Many a year is gone 
 Since on the Rhine we parted; yet, methinks, 
 I can recall thee to the life, Luigi, 
 In our long journey ever by my side ; 
 Thy locks jet-black, and clustering round a face 
 Open as day and full of manly daring. 
 
56 
 
 Thou hadst a hand, a heart for all that came, 
 
 Herdsman or pedler, monk or muleteer ; 
 
 And few there were, that met thee not with smiles. 
 
 Mishap passed o'er thee like a summer-cloud. 
 
 Cares thou hadst none ; and they, that stood to hear thee, 
 
 Caught the infection and forgot their own. 
 
 Nature conceived thee in her merriest mood. 
 
 Her happiest— not a speck was in the sky ; 
 
 And at thy birth the cricket chirped, Luigi, 
 
 Thine a perpetual voice — at every turn 
 
 A larum to the echo. In a clime. 
 
 Where all were gay, none were so gay as thou ; 
 
 Thou, like a babe, hushed only by thy slumbers ; 
 
 Up hill and down, morning and noon and night. 
 
 Singing or talking ; singing to thyself 
 
 When none gave ear, but to the listener talking. 
 
ST. MARKS PLACE. 
 
 Over how many tracts, vast, measureless, 
 Ages on ages roll, and none appear 
 Save the wild hunter ranging for his prey ; 
 While on this spot of earth, the work of man, 
 How much has been transacted ! Emperors, Pop( 
 Warriors, from far and wide, laden with spoil. 
 Landing, have here performed their several parts, 
 Then left the stage to others. Not a stone 
 In the broad pavement, but to him who has 
 
58 
 
 An eye, an ear for the Inanimate World, 
 Tells of Past Ages. 
 
 In that temple-porch, 
 (The brass is gone, the porphyry remains,) 
 Did Barbarossa fling his mantle off". 
 And, kneeling, on his neck receive the foot 
 Of the proud Pontiff— thus at last consoled 
 For flight, disguise, and many an aguish shake 
 On his stone-pillow. In that temple-porch, 
 Old as he was, so near his hundredth year, 
 And blind — his eyes put out — did Dandolo 
 Stand forth, displaying on his crown the cross. 
 There did he stand, erect, invincible, 
 Tho' wan his cheeks, and wet with many tears, 
 For in his prayers he had been weeping much ; 
 And now the pilgrims and the people wept 
 With admiration, saying in their hearts, 
 " Surely those aged limbs have need of rest !" 
 — There did he stand, with his old armour on, 
 Ere, gonfalon in hand, that streamed aloft. 
 As conscious of its glorious destiny. 
 So soon to float o'er mosque and minaret, 
 He sailed away, five hundred gallant ships. 
 Their lofty sides hung with emblazoned shields, 
 Following his track to fame. He went to die ; 
 But of his trophies four arrived ere long, 
 Snatched from destruction — the four steeds divine, 
 
59 
 
 That strike the ground, resounding with their feet, 
 And from their nostrils snort ethereal flame 
 Over that very portal — in the place 
 Where in an after-time, beside the Doge, 
 Sat one yet greater,* one whose verse shall live 
 When the. wave rolls o'er Venice. High he sat. 
 High over all, close by the ducal chair, 
 At the right hand of his illustrious Host, 
 Amid the noblest daughters of the realm, 
 Their beauty shaded from the western ray 
 By many-coloured hangings ; while, beneath. 
 Knights of all nations, some of fair renown 
 From England, from victorious Edward's court, 
 Their lances in the rest, charged for the prize. 
 Here, among other pageants, and how oft 
 
 It met the eye, borne thro' the gazing crowd, 
 As if returning to console the least. 
 
 Instruct the greatest, did the Doge go round; 
 
 Now in a chair of state, now on his bier. 
 
 They were his first appearance, and his last. 
 The sea, that emblem of uncertainty. 
 
 Changed not so fast for many and many an age. 
 
 As this small spot. To-day 'twas full of masks ; 
 
 And lo, the madness of the Carnival, 
 
 The monk, the nun, the holy legate masked ! 
 
 To-morrow came the scaffold and the wheel ; 
 
 * Petrarch. 
 
60 
 
 And he died there by torch-hght, bound and gagged, 
 
 Whose name and crime they knew not. Underneath 
 
 Where the Archangel, as aHghted there. 
 
 Blesses the City from the topmost-tower. 
 
 His arms extended— there, in monstrous league, 
 
 Two phantom-shapes were sitting, side by side. 
 
 Or up, and, as in sport, chasing each other ; 
 
 Horror and Mirth. Both vanished in one hour ! 
 
 But Ocean only, when again he claims 
 
 His ancient rule, shall wash away their footsteps. 
 
 Enter the Palace by the marble stairs 
 Down which the grizzly head of old Falier 
 Rolled from the block. Pass onward thro' the hall. 
 Where, among those drawn in their ducal robes, 
 But one is wanting— where, thrown off in heat, 
 A brief inscription on the Doge's chair 
 Led to another on the wall as brief; 
 And thou wilt track them — wilt from rooms of state. 
 Where kings have feasted, and the festal song 
 Rung through the fretted roof, cedar and gold. 
 Step into darkness ; and be told, " 'Twas here. 
 Trusting, deceived, assembled but to die. 
 To take a long embrace and part again, 
 Carrara and his valiant sons were slain ; 
 He first — then they, whose only crime had been 
 
 Struggling to save their Father." Thro' that door, 
 
 So soon to cry, smiting his brow, " I 'm lost!" 
 
61 
 
 Was with all courtesy, all honour, shewn 
 
 The great and noble captain, Carmagnola. 
 
 That deep descent (thou canst not yet discern 
 
 Aught as it is) leads to the dripping vaults 
 
 Under the flood, where light and warmth were never ! 
 
 Leads to a covered Bridge, the Bridge of Sighs ; 
 
 And to that fatal closet at the foot. 
 
 Lurking for prey, which, when a victim came. 
 
 Grew less and less, contracting to a span ; 
 
 An iron-door, urged onward by a screw, 
 
 Forcing out life. But let us to the roof. 
 
 And, when thou hast surveyed the sea, the land, 
 Visit the narrow cells that cluster there, 
 As in a place of tombs. There burning suns, 
 Day after day, beat unrelentingly ; 
 Turning all things to dust, and scorching up 
 The brain, till Reason fled, and the wild yell 
 And wilder laugh burst out on every side, 
 Answering each other as in mockery ! 
 
 Few Houses of the size were better filled ; 
 
 Though many came and left it in an hour. 
 
 " Most nights," so said the good old Nicolo, 
 
 (For three-and-thirty years his uncle kept 
 
 The water-gate below, but seldom spoke, 
 
 Though much was on his mind,) " most nights arrived 
 
 The prison-boat, that boat with many oars. 
 
 And bore away as to the Lower World, 
 
62 
 
 Disburdening in the Canal Orfano, 
 
 That drowning-place, where never net was thrown, 
 
 Summer or Winter, death the penalty; 
 
 And where a secret, once deposited, 
 
 Lay till the waters should give up their dead." 
 
 Yet what so gay as Venice ? Every gale 
 Breathed music! and who flocked not, while she reigned, 
 To celebrate her Nuptials with the Sea ; 
 To wear the mask, and mingle in the crowd 
 With Greek, Armenian, Persian — night and day 
 (There, and there only, did the hour stand still,) 
 Pursuing through her thousand labyrinths 
 The Enchantress Pleasure ; realizing dreams 
 The earliest, happiest — for a tale to catch 
 Credulous ears, and hold young hearts in chains. 
 Had only to begin, ' There lived in Venice' 
 
 ' Who were the Six we supped with Yesternight?'* 
 
 * Kings, one and all ! Thou couldst not but remark 
 The style and manner of the Six that served them.' 
 
 ' Who answered me just now ? Who, when I said, 
 « 'Tis nine," turned round and said so solemnly, 
 
 " Signor, he died at nine !" ' 'Twas the Armenian ; 
 
 The mask that follows thee, go where thou wilt.' 
 
 * But who moves there, alone among them all ?' 
 
 * The Cypriot. Ministers from distant Courts 
 Beset his doors, long ere his rising-hour ; 
 
 * See Note. 
 
63 
 
 His the Great Secret ! Not the golden house 
 Of Nero, nor those fabled in the East, 
 Rich tho' they were, so wondrous rich as his ! 
 Two dogs, coal-black, in collars of pure gold. 
 Walk in his footsteps— Who but his familiars ? 
 He casts no shadow, nor is seen to smile ! 
 
 And mark Him speaking. They, that hsten, stand 
 As if his tongue dropped honey; yet his glance 
 None can endure ! He looks nor young nor old ; 
 And at a tourney where I sat and saw, 
 A very child (full threescore years are gone) 
 Borne on my father's shoulder thro' the crowd, 
 He looked not otherwise. Where'er he stops, 
 Tho' short the sojourn, on his chamber-wall. 
 Mid many a treasure gleaned from many a clime, 
 
 His portrait hangs— but none must notice it ; 
 
 For Titian glows in every lineament, 
 
 (Where is it not inscribed, The work is his !) 
 
 And Titian died two hundred years ago.' 
 
 Such their discourse. Assembling in St. Mark's, 
 
 All nations met as on enchanted ground! 
 
 What tho' a strange mysterious Power was there, 
 
 Moving throughout, subtle, invisible, 
 
 And universal as the air they breathed ; 
 
 A Power that never slumbered, nor forgave, 
 
 All eye, all ear, no where and every where, 
 
 Entering the closet and the sanctuary, 
 
64 
 
 No place of refuge for the Doge himself; 
 
 Most present when least thought of— nothing dropt 
 
 In secret^ when the heart was on the lips, 
 
 Nothing in feverish sleep, but instantly 
 
 Observed and judged — a Power, that if but named 
 
 In casual converse, be it where it might. 
 
 The speaker lowered at once his eyes, his voice. 
 
 And pointed upward as to God in Heaven 
 
 What tho' that Power was there, he who lived thus, 
 
 Pursuing Pleasure, lived as if it were not. 
 
 But let him in the midnight-air indulge 
 
 A word, a thought against the laws of Venice, 
 
 And in that hour he vanished from the earth ! 
 
THE GONDOLA. 
 
 Boy, call the Gondola ; the sun is set. 
 
 It came, and we embarked ; but instantly, 
 
 As at the waving of a magic wand, 
 
 Tho' she had stept on board so light of foot. 
 
 So light of heart, laughing she knew not why, 
 
 Sleep overcame her ; on my arm she slept. 
 
 From time to time I waked her ; but the boat 
 
 Rocked her to sleep again. The moon was now 
 
 Rising full-orbed, but broken by a cloud. 
 
 The wind was hushed, and the sea mirror-like. 
 
 A single zephyr, as enamoured, played 
 
 With her loose tresses, and drew more and more 
 
 Her veil across her bosom. Long I lay 
 
 Contemplating that face so beautiful, 
 
 That rosy mouth, that cheek dimpled with smiles. 
 
 That neck but half-concealed, whiter than snow. 
 
 'Twas the sweet slumber of her early age. 
 
 I looked and looked, and felt a flush of joy 
 
 I would express but cannot. Oft 1 wished 
 
 Gently - - by stealth - - to drop asleep myself, 
 
 K 
 
66 
 
 And to incline yet lower that sleep might come ; 
 
 Oft closed my eyes as in forgetfulness. 
 
 'Twas all in vain. Love would not let me rest. 
 
 But how delightful when at length she waked ! 
 When, her light hair adjusting, and her veil 
 So rudely scattered, she resumed her place 
 Beside me ; and, as gaily as before, 
 Sitting unconsciously nearer and nearer, 
 Poured out her innocent mind ! 
 
 So, nor long since, 
 Sung a Venetian: and his lay of love,* 
 Dangerous and sweet, charmed Venice. For myself, 
 (Less fortunate, if Love be Happiness) 
 No curtain drawn, no pulse beating alarm, 
 I went alone beneath the silent moon ; 
 Thy square, St. Mark, thy churches, palaces. 
 Glittering and frost-like, and, as day di'ew on. 
 Melting away, an emblem of themselves. 
 
 Those Porches passed, thro' which the water-breeze 
 Plays, tho' no longer on the noble forms 
 That moved there, sable-vested — and the Quay, 
 Silent, grass-grown — adventurer-like I launched 
 Into the deep, ere long discovering 
 Isles such as cluster in the Southern seas, 
 All verdure. Every where, from bush and brake, 
 The musky odour of the serpents came ; 
 
 * La Biondiiia in Gondoletta. 
 
67 
 
 Their slimy track across the woodman's path 
 
 Bright in the moonshine : and, as round I went, 
 
 Dreaming of Greece, whither the waves were ghdin 
 
 I hstened to the venerable pines 
 
 Then in close converse, and, if right I guessed. 
 
 Delivering many a message to the Winds 
 
 In secret, for their kindred on Mount Ida. 
 
 Nor when again in Venice, when again 
 In that strange place, so stirring and so still. 
 Where nothing comes to drown the human voice 
 But music, or the dashing of the tide, 
 Ceased I to wander. Now a J essica 
 Sung to her lute, her signal as she sat 
 At her half-open window. Then, methought, 
 A serenade broke silence, breathing hope 
 Thro' walls of stone, and torturing the proud heart 
 Of some Priuli. Once, we could not err, 
 (It was before an old Palladian house, 
 As between night and day we floated by) 
 A Gondolier lay singing ; and he sung. 
 As in the time when Venice was herself, 
 Of Tancred and Erminia. On our oars 
 We rested ; and the verse was verse divine ! 
 We could not err — Perhaps he was the last — 
 For none took up the strain, none answered him ; 
 And when he ceased, he left upon my ear 
 A something like the dying voice of Venice ! 
 
68 
 
 The moon went down ; and nothing now was seen 
 Save where the lamp of a Madonna shone 
 Faintly — or heard, but when he spoke, who stood 
 Over the lantern at the prow and cried, 
 Turning the corner of some reverend pile. 
 Some school or hospital of old renown, 
 Tho' haply none were coming, none were near, 
 * Hasten or slacken.' * But at length Night fled ; 
 And with her fled, scattering, the sons of Pleasure. 
 Star after star shot by, or, meteor-like. 
 Crossed me and vanished — lost at once among 
 Those hundred Isles that tower majestically, 
 That rise abruptly from the water-mark, 
 Not with rough crag, but marble, and the work 
 Of noblest architects. I lingered still ; 
 Nor sought my threshold, till the hour was come 
 And past, when, flitting home in the grey light. 
 The young Bianca found her father's door. 
 That door so often with a trembling hand. 
 So often — then so lately left ajar. 
 Shut ; and, all terror, all perplexity. 
 Now by her lover urged, now by her love, 
 Fled o'er the waters to return no more. 
 
 * Premi o stali. 
 
THE BRIDES OF VENICE. 
 
 It was St. Mary's Eve, and all poured forth 
 For some great festival. The fisher came 
 From his green islet, bringing o'er the waves 
 His wife and little one ; the husbandman 
 
70 
 
 From the Firm Land, with many a friar and nun, 
 And village-maiden, her first flight from home, 
 Crowding the common ferry. All arrived ; 
 And in his straw the prisoner turned and listened. 
 So great the stir in Venice. Old and young 
 Thronged her three hundred bridges ; the grave 'I'l 
 Turbaned, long-vested, and the cozening Jew, 
 In yellow hat and thread-bare gaberdine. 
 Hurrying along. For, as the custom was. 
 The noblest sons and daughters of the State, 
 Whose names are written in the Book of Gold, 
 Were on that day to solemnize their nuptials. 
 
 At noon a distant murmur thro' the crowd, 
 Rising and rolling on, proclaimed them near ; 
 And never from their earliest hour was seen 
 Such splendour or such beauty. Two and two, 
 (The richest tapestry unrolled before them) 
 First came the Brides ; each in her virgin-veil. 
 Nor unattended by her bridal maids. 
 The two that, step by step, behind her bore 
 The small but precious caskets that contained 
 The dowry and the presents. On she moved. 
 Her eyes cast down, and holding in her hand 
 A fan, that gently waved, of ostrich-plumes. 
 Her veil, transparent as the gossamer. 
 Fell from beneath a starry diadem ; 
 And on her dazzhng neck a jewel shone, 
 
71 
 
 Ruby or diamond or dark amethyst ; 
 
 A jewelled chain, in many a winding wreath, 
 
 Wreathing her gold brocade. 
 
 Before the Church, 
 That venerable structure now no more 
 On the sea-brink, another train they met. 
 No strangers, nor unlooked for ere they came, 
 Brothers to some, still dearer to the rest ; 
 Each in his hand bearing his cap and plume, 
 And, as he walked, with modest dignity 
 Folding his scarlet mantle. At the gate 
 They join ; and slowly up the bannered aisle 
 Led by the choir, with due solemnity 
 Range round the altar. In his vestments there 
 The Patriarch stands ; and, while the anthem flows. 
 Who can look on unmoved — the dream of years 
 Just now fulfilling ! Here a mother weeps. 
 Rejoicing in her daughter. There a son 
 Blesses the day that is to make her his ; 
 While she shines forth thro' all her ornament. 
 Her beauty heightened by her hopes and fears. 
 
 At length the rite is ending. All fall down. 
 All of all ranks ; and, stretching out his hands. 
 Apostle-like, the holy man proceeds 
 To give the blessing — not a stir, a breath ; 
 When hark, a din of voices from without, 
 And shrieks and groans and outcries as in battle ! 
 
72 
 
 And lo, the door is burst, the curtain rent, 
 And armed ruffians, robbers from the deep, 
 Savage, uncouth, led on by Barbaro, 
 And his six brothers in their coats of steel, 
 Are standing on the threshold ! Statue-like, 
 Awhile they gaze on the fallen multitude. 
 Each with his sabre up, in act to strike ; 
 Then, as at once recovering from the spell. 
 Rush forward to the altar, and. as soon 
 Are gone again — amid no clash of arms 
 Bearing away the maidens and the treasures. 
 
 Where are they now ? — ploughing the distant waves 
 Their sails out-spread and given to the wind. 
 They on their decks triumphant. On they speed, 
 Steering for I stria ; their accursed barks 
 (Well are they known, the galliot and the galley,) 
 Freighted, alas, with all that life endears ! 
 The richest argosies were poor to them ! 
 
 Now hadst thou seen along that crowded shore 
 The matrons running wild, their festal dress 
 A strange and moving contrast to their grief; 
 And thro' the city, wander where thou wouldst. 
 The men half armed and arming — every where 
 As roused from slumber by the stirring trump ; 
 One with a shield, one with a casque and spear ; 
 One with an axe severing in two the chain 
 Of some old pinnace. Not a raft, a plank. 
 But on that day was drifting. In an hour 
 
73 
 
 Half Venice was afloat. But long before, 
 Frantic with grief and scorning all controul, 
 The Youths were gone in a light brigantine, 
 Lying at anchor near the Arsenal ; 
 Each having sworn, and by the holy rood, 
 To slay or to be slain. 
 
 And from the tower 
 The watchman gives the signal. In the East 
 A ship is seen, and making for the Port ; 
 Her flag St. Mark's. And now she turns the point. 
 Over the waters like a sea-bird flying ! 
 Ha, 'tis the same, 'tis theirs ! from stern to prow 
 Green with victorious wreaths, she comes to bring 
 
 All that was lost. Coasting, with narrow search, 
 
 Friuli — like a tiger in his spring, 
 
 They had surprised the Corsairs where they lay 
 
 Sharing the spoil in blind security 
 
 And casting lots — had slain them, one and all. 
 
 All to the last, and flung them far and wide 
 
 Into the sea, their proper element ; 
 
 Him first, as first in rank, whose name so long 
 
 Had hushed the babes of Venice, and who yet, 
 
 Breathing a httle, in his look retained 
 
 The fierceness of his soul. 
 
 Thus were the Brides 
 Lost and recovered ; and what now remained 
 But to give Thanks ? Twelve breast-plates and twelve 
 crowns, 
 
74 
 
 By the young Victors to their Patron-Saint 
 Vowed in the field, inestimable gifts 
 Flaming with gems and gold, were in due time 
 Laid at his feet ; and ever to preserve 
 The memory of a day so full of change. 
 From joy to grief, from grief to joy again, 
 Thro' many an age, as oft as it came round, 
 'Twas held religiously. The Doge resigned 
 His crimson for pure ermine, visiting 
 At earliest dawn St. Mary's silver shrine ; 
 And thro' the city, in a stately barge 
 Of gold, were borne with songs and symphonies 
 Twelve ladies young and noble. Clad they were 
 In bridal white with bridal ornaments. 
 Each in her glittering veil ; and on the deck. 
 As on a burnished throne, they glided by ; 
 No window or balcony but adorned 
 With hangings of rich texture, not a roof 
 But covered with beholders, and the air 
 Vocal with joy. Onward they went, their oars 
 Moving in concert with the harmony, 
 Thro' the Rialto to the Ducal Palace, 
 And at a banquet, served with honour there. 
 Sat representing, in the eyes of all. 
 Eyes not unwet, I ween, with grateful tears. 
 Their lovely ancestors, the Brides of Venice. 
 
FOSCARI. 
 
 Let us lift up the curtain, and observe 
 
 What passes in that chamber. Now a sigh, 
 
 And now a groan is heard. Then all is still. 
 
 Twenty are sitting as in judgment there ; 
 
 Men who have served their country, and grown grey 
 
76 
 
 In governments and distant embassies, 
 Men eminent alike in war and peace ; 
 Such as in effigy shall long adorn 
 The walls of Venice — to shew what she was ! 
 Their garb is black, and black the arras is, 
 And sad the general aspect. Yet their looks 
 Are calm, are cheerful ; nothing there like grief. 
 Nothing or harsh or cruel. Still that noise. 
 That low and dismal moaning. 
 
 Half withdrawn, 
 A little to the left, sits one in crimson, 
 A venerable man, fourscore and five. 
 Cold drops of sweat stand on his furrowed brow. 
 His hands are clenched; his eyes half-shut and glazed; 
 His shrunk and withered limbs rigid as marble. 
 'Tis FoscARi, the Doge. And there is one, 
 A young man, lying at his feet, stretched out 
 In torture. 'Tis his son. 'Tis Giacomo, 
 His only joy (and has he lived for this ?) 
 Accused of murder. Yesternight the proofs. 
 If proofs they be, were in the lion's mouth 
 Dropt by some hand unseen ; and he, himself. 
 Must sit and look on a beloved son 
 
 Suflfering the Question. Twice to. die in peace, 
 
 To save, while yet he could, a falhng house, 
 And turn the hearts of his fell Adversaries, 
 Those who had now, like hell-hounds in full cry, 
 
77 
 
 Chased down his last of four, twice did he ask 
 To lay aside the Crown, and they refused, 
 An oath exacting, never more to ask ; 
 And there he sits, a spectacle of woe, 
 Condemned in bitter mockery to wear 
 
 The bauble he had sighed for. Once again 
 
 The screw is turned; and, as it turns, the Son 
 
 Looks up, and, in a faint and broken tone. 
 
 Murmurs ' My Father !' The old man shrinks back, 
 
 And in his mantle muffles up his face. 
 
 ' Art thou not guilty ?' says a voice, that once 
 
 Would greet the Sufferer long before they met, 
 
 ' Art thou not guilty ?'— ' No ! Indeed I am not 1' 
 
 But all is unavaihng. In that Court 
 
 Groans are confessions ; Patience, Fortitude, 
 
 The work of Magic ; and, released, revived. 
 
 For Condemnation, from his Father's lips 
 
 He hears the sentence, ' Banishment to Candia. 
 
 Death, if he leaves it.' And the bark sets sail ; 
 
 And he is gone from all he loves in hfe ! 
 
 Gone in the dead of night— unseen of any— 
 
 Without a word, a look of tenderness, 
 
 To be called up, when, in his lonely hours 
 
 He would indulge in weeping. Like a ghost. 
 
 Day after day, year after year, he haunts 
 
 An ancient rampart, that o'erhangs the sea; 
 
 Gazing on vacancy, and hourly there 
 
78 
 
 Starting as from some wild and uncouth dream. 
 
 To answer to the watch. Alas, how changed 
 
 From him the mirror of the Youth of Venice ; 
 Whom in the slightest thing, or whim or chance, 
 Did he but wear his doublet so and so. 
 All followed; at whose nuptials, when he won 
 That maid at once the noblest, fairest, best, 
 A daughter of the House that now among 
 Its ancestors in monumental brass 
 Numbers eight Doges— to convey her home. 
 The Bucentaur went forth; and thrice the Sun 
 Shone on the Chivalry, that, front to front. 
 And blaze on blaze reflecting, met and ranged 
 
 To tourney in St. Mark's But lo, at last. 
 
 Messengers come. He is recalled : his heart 
 Leaps at the tidings. He embarks : the boat 
 Springs to the oar, and back again he goes— 
 Into that very Chamber ! there to lie 
 In his old resting-place, the bed of steel; 
 And thence look up (Five long, long ye Jrs of Grief 
 Have not killed either) on his wretched Sire, 
 Still in that seat— as though he had not stirred; 
 Immovable, and muffled in his cloak. 
 
 But now he comes, convicted of a crime 
 Great by the laws of Venice. Night and day, 
 Brooding on what he had been, what he was, ' 
 'Twas more than he could bear. His longing-fits 
 
79 
 
 Thickened upon him. His desire for home 
 Became a madness ; and, resolved to go, 
 If but to die, in his despair he writes 
 A letter to the sovereign-prince of Milan, 
 (To him whose name, among the greatest now, 
 Had perished, blotted out at once and rased, 
 But for the rugged limb of an old oak) 
 Soliciting his influence with the State, 
 
 And drops it to be found. ' Would ye know all 
 
 I have transgressed, olfended wilfully ; 
 
 And am prepared to suffer as I ought. 
 
 But let me, let me, if but for an hour, 
 
 (Ye must consent — ^for all of you are sons, 
 
 Most of you husbands, fathers) let me first 
 
 Indulge the natural feelings of a man, 
 
 And, ere I die, if such my sentence be. 
 
 Press to my heart ('tis all I ask of you) 
 
 My wife, my children — and my aged mother — 
 
 Say, is she yet alive?' He is condemned 
 
 To go ere set of sun, go whence he came, 
 
 A banished man ; and for a year to breathe 
 
 The vapour of a dungeon. But his prayer 
 
 (What could they less ?) is granted. In a hall 
 
 Open and crowded by the common herd, 
 
 'Twas there a Wife and her four sons yet young, 
 
 A Mother borne along, life ebbing fast, 
 
 And an old Doge, mustering his strength in vain, 
 
80 
 
 Assembled now, sad privilege, to meet 
 
 One so long lost, one who for them had braved. 
 
 For them had sought— death and yet worse than death; 
 
 To meet him, and to part with him for ever ! — 
 
 Time and their wrongs had changed them all, him most! 
 
 Yet when the Wife, the Mother looked again, 
 
 'Twas he — 'twas he himself — 'twas Giacomo ! 
 
 And all clung round him, weeping bitterly ; 
 
 ' Weeping the more, because they wept in vain.' 
 
 Unnerved, and now unsettled in his mind 
 From long and exquisite pain, he sobs and cries. 
 Kissing the old Man's cheek, ' Help me, my Father ! 
 Let me, I pray thee, live once more among ye : 
 
 Let me go home.' ' My Son,' returns the Doge, 
 
 Mastering his grief, ' if thou art indeed my Son, 
 Obey. Thy Country wills it.' 
 
 Giacomo 
 
 That night embarked ; sent to an early grave 
 
 For one whose dying words, ' The deed was mine ! 
 
 He is most innocent! 'Twas I who did it!' 
 
 Came when he slept in peace. The ship, that sailed 
 
 Swift as the winds with his deliverance. 
 
 Bore back a lifeless corse. Generous as brave. 
 
 Affection, kindness, the sweet offices 
 
 Of duty and love were from his tenderest years 
 
 To him as needful as his daily bread ; 
 
 And to become a by-word in the streets. 
 
81 
 
 Bringing a stain on those who gave him Ufe, 
 And those, alas, now worse than fatherless — 
 To be proclaimed a ruffian, a night-stabber, 
 He on whom none before had breathed reproach — 
 He lived but to disprove it. That hope lost, 
 Death followed. Oh, if Justice be in Heaven, 
 A day must come of ample Retribution ! 
 
 Then was thy cup, old Man, full to the brim. 
 But thou wert yet alive ; and there was one. 
 The soul and spring of all that Enmity, 
 Who would not leave thee ; fastening on thy flank, 
 Hungering and thirsting, still unsatisfied; 
 One of a name illustrious as thine own ! 
 One of the Ten! one of the Invisible Three! 
 'Twas LoREDANO. When the whelps were gone. 
 He would dislodge the Lion from his den ; 
 And, leading on the pack he long had led. 
 The miserable pack that ever howled 
 Against fallen Greatness, moved that Foscari 
 Be Doge no longer; urging his great age; 
 Calling the loneHness of grief neglect 
 Of duty, sullenness against the laws. 
 
 ' I am most willing to retire,' said he : 
 
 ' But I have sworn, and cannot of myself. 
 
 Do with me as ye please.' He was deposed. 
 
 He, who had reigned so long and gloriously ; 
 His ducal bonnet taken from his brow, 
 
 M 
 
82 
 
 His robes stript off, his seal and signet-ring 
 Broken before him. But now nothing moved 
 The meekness of his soul. All things alike ! 
 Among the six that came with the decree, 
 FoscARi saw one he knew not, and inquired 
 His name. ' I am the son of Marco Memmo.' 
 ' Ah,' he replied, ' thy father was my friend.' 
 And now he goes. ' It is the hour and past. 
 
 I have no business here.' ' But wilt thou not 
 
 Avoid the gazing crowd ? That way is private.' 
 
 ' No ! as I entered, so will I retire.' 
 
 And, leaning on his staff, he left the House, 
 
 His residence for five-and-thirty years. 
 
 By the same stairs up which he came in state ; 
 
 Those where the giants stand, guarding the ascent. 
 
 Monstrous, terrific. At the foot he stopt. 
 
 And, on his staff still leaning, turned and said, 
 
 * By mine own merits did I come. I go. 
 
 Driven by the malice of mine Enemies.' 
 
 Then to his boat withdrew, poor as he came. 
 
 Amid the sighs of them that dared not speak. 
 
 This journey was his last. When the bell rang 
 At dawn, announcing a new Doge to Venice, 
 It found him on his knees before the Cross, 
 Clasping his aged hands in earnest prayer ; 
 And there he died. Ere half its task was done. 
 It rang his knell. 
 
83 
 
 But whence the deadly hate 
 That caused all this — the hate of Loredano ? 
 It was a legacy his Father left, 
 Who, but for Foscari, had reigned in Venice, 
 And, like the venom in the serpent's bag. 
 Gathered and grew ! Nothing but turned to hate ! 
 In vain did Foscari supplicate for peace. 
 Offering in marriage his fair Isabel. 
 He changed not, with a dreadful piety 
 Studying revenge; hstening to those alone 
 Who talked of vengeance ; grasping by the hand 
 Those in their zeal (and none were wanting there) 
 Who came to tell him of another Wrong, 
 Done or imagined. When his father died, 
 They whispered, ' 'Twas by poison !' and the words 
 Struck him as uttered from his father's grave. 
 He wrote it on the tomb ('tis there in marble) 
 And with a brow of care, most merchant-like, 
 Among the debtors in his leger-book 
 Entered at full (nor month, nor day forgot) 
 ' Francesco Foscari — for my Father's death.' 
 Leaving a blank — to be filled up hereafter. 
 When FoscARi's noble heart at length gave way. 
 He took the volume from the shelf again 
 Calmly, and with his pen filled up the blank, 
 Inscribing, ' He has paid me.' 
 
 Ve who sit 
 
84 
 
 Brooding from day to day, from day to day 
 Chewing the bitter cud, and starting up 
 As tho' the hour was come to whet your fangs, 
 And, hke the Pisan, gnaw the hairy scalp 
 Of him who had offended — if ye must. 
 Sit and brood on ; but oh forbear to teach 
 The lesson to your children. 
 
 4 
 
MARCOLINI. 
 
 It was midnight ; the great clock had struck, and 
 was still echoing through every porch and gallery in 
 the quarter of St. Mark, when a young Citizen, 
 wrapt in his cloak, was hastening home under it 
 from an interview with his Mistress. His step was 
 light, for his heart was so. Her parents had just 
 consented to their marriage ; and the very day was 
 named. " Lovely Giulietta !" he cried, " And 
 shall I then call thee mine at last? Who was ever 
 so blest as thy Marcolini?" But as he spoke, he 
 stopped; for something glittered on the pavement 
 before him. It was a scabbard of rich workmanship; 
 and the discovery, what was it but an earnest of 
 good fortune ? *' Rest thou there !" he cried, thrust- 
 ing it gaily into his belt. " If another claims thee 
 not, thou hast changed masters !" and on he went as 
 before, humming the burden of a song which he and 
 his Giulietta had been singing together. But 
 
86 
 
 how little we know what the next minute will bring 
 forth ! He turned by the Church of St. Geminiano, 
 and in three steps met the Watch. A murder had 
 just been committed. The Senator Renaldi had 
 been found dead at his door, the dagger left in his 
 heart; and the unfortunate Marcolini was dragged 
 away for examination. The place, the time, every 
 thing served to excite, to justify suspicion ; and no 
 sooner had he entered the guardhouse than a damn- 
 ing witness appeared against him. The Bravo in 
 his flight had thrown away his scabbard; and, 
 smeared with blood, with blood not yet dry, it was 
 now in the belt of Marcolini. Its Patrician orna- 
 ments struck every eye ; and when the fatal dagger 
 was produced and compared with it, not a doubt of 
 his guilt remained. Still there is in the innocent an 
 energy, a composure, an energy when they speak, a 
 composure when they are silent, to which none can 
 be altogether insensible ; and the Judge delayed for 
 some time to pronounce the sentence, though he was 
 a near relation of the dead. At length however it 
 came ; and Marcolini lost his life, Giulietta her 
 reason. 
 
 Not many years afterwards the truth revealed 
 itself, the real criminal in his last moments con- 
 fessing the crime : and hence the custom in Venice, 
 a custom that long prevailed, for a cryer to cry out 
 
87 
 
 in the Court before a sentence was passed, " Ricor- 
 datevi del povero Marcolini !" * 
 
 Great indeed was the lamentation throughout the 
 City; and the Judge, dying, directed that thence- 
 forth and for ever a Mass should be sung every night 
 in a chapel of the Ducal Church for his own soul 
 and the soul of Marcolini and the souls of all who 
 had suffered by an unjust judgment. Some land 
 on the Brenta was left by him for the purpose: 
 and still is the Mass sung in the chapel ; still every 
 night, when the great square is illuminating and the 
 casinos are filling fast with the gay and the dissipated, 
 a bell is rung as for a service, and a ray of light 
 seen to issue from a small gothic window that looks 
 towards the place of execution, the place where on a 
 scaffold Marcolini breathed his last. 
 
 * Remember the poor Marcolini ! 
 
ARQUA. 
 
 Three leagues from Padua stands, and long has stood 
 (The Paduan student knows it, honours it) 
 A lonely tomb beside a mountain-church ; 
 And I arrived there as the sun declined 
 
89 
 
 Low in the west. The gentle airs, that breathe 
 Fragrance at eve, were rising, and the birds 
 Singing their farewell-song— the very song 
 They sung the night that tomb received a tenant ; 
 When, as alive, clothed in his Canon's stole, 
 And slowly winding down the narrow path, 
 He came to rest there. Nobles of the land, 
 Princes and prelates mingled in his train. 
 Anxious by any act, while yet they could. 
 To catch a ray of glory by reflection ; 
 And from that hour have kindred spirits flocked 
 From distant countries, from the north, the south, 
 To see where he is laid. 
 
 Twelve years ago, 
 When I descended the impetuous Rhone, 
 Its vineyards of such great and old renown,* 
 Its castles, each with some romantic tale. 
 Vanishing fast— the pilot at the stern. 
 He who had steered so long, standing aloft. 
 His eyes on the white breakers, and his hands 
 On what was now his rudder, now his oar, 
 A huge misshapen plank— the bark itself 
 Frail and uncouth, launched to return no more, 
 Such as a shipwrecked man might hope to build, 
 Urged by the love of home— Twelve years ago. 
 When like an arrow from the cord we flew, 
 * The Cote Rotie, the Hermitage, &c. 
 . . . N 
 
90 
 
 Two long, long days, silence, suspense on board, 
 It was to offer at thy fount, Vaucluse, 
 Entering the arched Cave, to wander where 
 Petrarch had wandered, to explore and sit 
 Where in his peasant-dress he loved to sit. 
 Musing, reciting — on some rock moss-grown. 
 Or the fantastic root of some old beech. 
 That drinks the living waters as they stream 
 Over their emerald-bed; and could I now 
 Neglect the place where, in a graver mood, 
 When he had done and settled with the world. 
 When all the illusions of his Youth were fled, 
 Indulged perhaps too much, cherished too lonff. 
 He came for the conclusion ? Half-way up 
 He built his house, whence as by stealth he caught, 
 Among the hills, a glimpse of busy life 
 
 That soothed, not stirred. But knock, and enter in 
 
 This was his chamber. 'Tis as when he went ; 
 As if he now were in his orchard-grove. 
 And this his closet. Here he sat and read. 
 This was his chair; and in it, unobserved, 
 Reading, or thinking of his absent friends. 
 He passed away as in a quiet slumber. 
 
 Peace to this region ! Peace to each, to all ! 
 They know his value — every coming step, 
 That draws the gazing children from their play. 
 Would tell them if they knew not. But could aught 
 
91 
 
 Ungentle or ungenerous, spring up 
 Where he is sleeping ; where, and in an ag 
 Of savage warfare and blind bigotry, 
 He cultured all that could refine, exalt ; 
 Leading to better things ? 
 
GINEVRA. 
 
 If thou shouldst ever come by choice or chance 
 To MoDENA, where still religiously 
 Among her ancient trophies is preserved 
 Bologna's bucket (in its chain it hangs 
 Within that reverend tower, the Guirlandine) 
 Stop at a Palace near the Reggio-gate, 
 Dwelt in of old by one of the Orsini. 
 Its noble gardens, terrace above terrace, 
 And rich in fountains, statues, cypresses, 
 Will long detain thee ; thro' their arched walks, 
 Dim at noon-day, discovering many a glimpse 
 Of knights and dames, such as in old romance, 
 And lovers, such as in heroic song. 
 Perhaps the two, for groves were their delight. 
 That in the spring-time, as alone they sat, 
 Venturing together on a tale of love, 
 
 Read only part that day.* A summer-sun 
 
 Sets ere one half is seen ; but, ere thou go, 
 
 * Inferno. V. 
 
93 
 
 Enter the house — prythee, forget it not — 
 And look awhile upon a picture there. 
 
 'Tis of a Lady in her earliest youth, 
 The very last of that illustrious race, 
 Done by Zampieri* — but I care not whom. 
 He, who observes it — ere he passes on, 
 Gazes his fill, and comes and comes again. 
 That he may call it up, when far away. 
 
 She sits, inclining forward as to speak, 
 Her hps half-open, and her finger up, 
 As tho' she said ' Beware !' her vest of gold 
 Broidered with flowers, and clasped from head to 
 An emerald-stone in every golden clasp ; 
 And on her brow, fairer than alabaster, 
 A coronet of pearls. But then her face, 
 So lovely, yet so arch, so full of mirth, 
 The overflowings of an innocent heart — 
 It haunts me still, tho' many a year has fled, 
 Like some wild melody ! 
 
 Alone it hangs 
 Over a mouldering heir-loom, its companion. 
 An oaken-chest, half-eaten by the worm, 
 But richly carved by Antony of Trent 
 With scripture-stories from the Life of Christ ; 
 A chest that came from Venice, and had held 
 The ducal robes of some old Ancestor. 
 
 * Commonly called Domenichino. 
 
94 
 
 That by the way — it may be true or false — 
 But don't forget the picture ; and thou wilt not. 
 When thou hast heard the tale they told me there. 
 
 She was an only child ; from infancy 
 The joy, the pride of an indulgent Sire. 
 Her Mother dying of the gift she gave. 
 That precious gift, what else remained to him ? 
 The young Ginevra was his all in life. 
 Still as she grew, for ever in his sight ; 
 And in her fifteenth year became a bride, 
 Marrying an only son, Francesco Doria, 
 Her playmate from her birth, and her first love. 
 
 Just as she looks there in her bridal dress, 
 She was all gentleness, all gaiety. 
 
 Her pranks the favourite theme of every tongue. 
 
 But now the day was come, the day, the hour ; 
 
 Now, frowning, smiling, for the hundredth time. 
 
 The nurse, that ancient lady, preached decorum ; 
 
 And, in the lustre of her youth, she gave 
 
 Her hand, with her heart in it, to Francesco. 
 Great was the joy ; but at the Bridal feast. 
 
 When all sat down, the Bride was wanting there. 
 
 Nor was she to be found ! Her Father cried, 
 
 ' 'Tis but to make a trial of our love !' 
 
 And filled his glass to all ; but his hand shook. 
 
 And soon from guest to guest the panic spread. 
 
 'Twas but that instant she had left Francesco, 
 
95 
 
 liaughing and looking back and flying still, 
 Her ivory-tooth imprinted on his finger. 
 But now, alas, she was not to be found; 
 Nor from that hour could any thing be guessed, 
 But that she was not ! 
 
 Weary of his life, 
 Francesco flew to Venice, and forthwith 
 Flung it away in battle with the Turk. 
 Orsini lived ; and long might'st thou have seen 
 An old man wandering as in quest of something, 
 Something he could not find — he knew not what. 
 When he was gone, the house remained awhile 
 Silent and tenantless — then went to strangers. 
 
 Full fifty years were past, and all forgot, 
 When on an idle day, a day of search 
 Mid the old lumber in the Gallery, 
 That mouldering chest was noticed ; and 'twas said 
 By one as young, as thoughtless as Ginevra, 
 ' Why not remove it from its lurking-place V 
 'Twas done as soon as said ; but on the way 
 It burst, it fell ; and lo, a skeleton, 
 With here and there a pearl, an emerald-stone, 
 A golden clasp, clasping a shred of gold. 
 All else had perished — save a nuptial ring. 
 And a small seal, her mother's legacy, 
 Engraven with a name, the name of both, 
 ' Ginevra.' 
 
96 
 
 There then had she found a grave 
 Within that chest had she concealed herself, 
 Fluttering with joy, the happiest of the happy ; 
 When a spring-lock, that lay in ambush there, 
 Fastened her down for ever ! 
 
BOLOGNA. 
 
 'TwAs night ; the noise and bustle of the day 
 Were o'er. The mountebank no longer wrought 
 Miraculous cures— he and his stage were gone ; 
 And he who, when the crisis of his tale 
 Came, and all stood breathless with hope and fear. 
 Sent round his cap ; and he who thrummed his wire 
 And sang, with pleading look and plaintive strain 
 Melting the passenger. Thy thousand cries, * 
 So well pourtrayed and by a son of thine. 
 Whose voice had swelled the hubbub in his youth, 
 Were hushed, Bologna, silence in the streets, 
 The squares, when hark, the clattering of fleet hoofs ; 
 And soon a courier, posting as from far, 
 Housing and holster, boot and belted coat 
 And doublet, stained with many a various soil, 
 Stopt and ahghted. 'Twas where hangs aloft 
 That ancient sign, the pilgrim, welcoming 
 
 * See the Cries of Bologna, as drawn by Annibal Carracci. Hi 
 was of very humble origin; and, to correct his brother's vanity, onc( 
 sent him a portrait of their father, the tailor, threading his needle. 
 
 O 
 
98 
 
 All who arrive there, all perhaps save those 
 Clad like himself, with staff and scallop-shell, 
 Those on a pilgrimage. And now approached 
 Wheels, thro' the lofty porticoes resounding. 
 Arch beyond arch, a shelter or a shade 
 As the sky changes. To the gate they came. 
 And, ere the man had half his story done. 
 Mine host received the Master — one long used 
 To sojourn among strangers, every where 
 (Go where he would, along the wildest track) 
 Flinging a charm that shall not soon be lost. 
 And leaving footsteps to be traced by those 
 Who love the haunts of Genius ; one who saw. 
 Observed, nor shunned the busy scenes of life, 
 But mingled not, and mid the din, the stir. 
 Lived as a separate Spirit. 
 
 Much had passed 
 
 Since last we parted ; and those five short years 
 
 Much had they told ! His clustering locks were turn'd 
 Grey ; nor did aught recall the Youth that swam 
 From Sestos to Abydos. Yet his voice. 
 Still it was sweet ; still from his eye the thought 
 Flashed lightning-like, nor lingered on the way. 
 Waiting for words. Far, far into the night 
 We sat, conversing — no unwelcome hour. 
 The hour we met ; and, when Aurora rose. 
 Rising, we climbed the rugged Apennine. 
 
99 
 
 Well I remember how the golden sun 
 Filled with its beams the unfathomable gulphs, 
 As on we travelled, and along the ridge, 
 Mid groves of cork and cistus and wild-fig, 
 His motley household came — Not last nor least, 
 Battista, who upon the moonlight-sea 
 Of Venice, had so ably, zealously, 
 Served, and, at parting, thrown his oar away 
 To follow thro' the world ; who without stain 
 Had worn so long that honourable badge, * 
 ' The gondolier's, in a Patrician House 
 Arguing unlimited trust. — Not last nor least. 
 Thou, tho' declining in thy beauty and strength, 
 Faithful MoRETTO, to the latest horn- 
 Guarding his chamber-door, and now along 
 The silent, sullen strand of Missolonghi 
 Howling in grief. 
 
 He had just left that Place 
 Of old renown, once in the Adrian sea,f 
 Ravenna ! where, from Dante's sacred tomb 
 He had so oft, as many a verse declares, 
 Drawn inspiration ; where, at twilight-time, 
 Thro' the pine-forest wandering with loose rein, 
 
 * The principal gondolier, il faiite di poppa, was almost always 
 in the confidence of his master, and employed on occasions that 
 required judgment and address. 
 
 f Adrianum mare Cic. \ See the Prophecy of Dante. 
 
100 
 
 Wandering and lost, he had so oft beheld* 
 (What is not visible to a Poet's eye ?) 
 The spectre-knight, the hell-hounds and their prey, 
 The chase, the slaughter, and the festal mirth 
 Suddenly blasted. 'Twas a theme he loved, 
 But others claimed their turn ; and many a tower. 
 Shattered, uprooted fi-om its native rock, 
 Its strength the pride of some heroic age, 
 Appeared and vanished (many a sturdy steer f 
 Yoked and unyoked) while as in happier days 
 He poured his spirit forth. The past forgot. 
 All was enjoyment. Not a cloud obscured 
 Present or future. 
 
 He is now at rest ; 
 And praise and blame fall on his ear ahke, 
 Now dull in death. Yes, Byron, thou art gone. 
 Gone like a star that thro' the firmament 
 Shot and was lost, in its eccentric course 
 Dazzling, perplexing. Yet thy heart, methinks. 
 Was generous, noble — noble in its scorn 
 Of all things low or little ; nothing there 
 Sordid or servile. If imagined wrongs 
 Pursued thee, urging thee sometimes to do 
 Things long regretted, oft, as many know. 
 None more than I, thy gratitude would build 
 
 * See the tale as told by Boccaccio and Dryden. 
 
 f They wait for the traveller's carriage at the foot of every hill. 
 
101 
 
 On slight foundations : and, if in thy hfe 
 Not happy, in thy death thou surely wert, 
 Thy wish accomphshed ; dying in the land 
 Where thy young mind had caught ethereal fire, 
 Dying in Greece, and in a cause so glorious ! 
 
 They in thy train — ah, little did they think. 
 As round we went, that they so soon should sit 
 Mourning beside thee, while a Nation mourned, 
 Changing her festal for her funeral song ; 
 That they so soon should hear the minute-gun'. 
 As morning gleamed on what remained of thee, 
 Roll o'er the sea, the mountains, numbering 
 Thy years of joy and- sorrow. 
 
 Thou art gone ; 
 And he who would assail thee in thy grave. 
 Oh, let him pause ! For who among us all. 
 Tried as thou wert— even from thine earliest years. 
 When wandering, yet unspoilt, a highland-boy — 
 Tried as thou wert, and with thy soul of flame ; 
 Pleasure, while yet the down was on thy cheek. 
 Uplifting, pressing, and to lips like thine, 
 Her charmed cup — ah, who among us all 
 Could say he had not erred as much, and more ? 
 
FLORENCE. 
 
 Of all the fairest Cities of the Earth 
 None is so fair as Florence. 'Tis a gem 
 Of purest ray ; and what a light broke forth, 
 When it emerged from darkness ! Search within, 
 Without ; all is enchantment ! 'Tis the Past 
 Contending with the Present ; and in turn 
 Each has the mastery. 
 
 In this chapel wrought 
 One of the Few, Nature's Interpreters, 
 
103 
 
 The Few, whom Genius gives as Lights to shine, 
 Massaccio ; and he slumbers underneath. 
 Wouldst thou behold his monument? Look round 
 And know that where we stand, stood oft and long, 
 Oft till the day was gone, Raphael himself, 
 He and his haughty Rival* — patiently, 
 Humbly, to learn of those who came before, 
 To steal a spark from their authentic fire. 
 Theirs who first broke the universal gloom, 
 
 Sons of the Morning. On that ancient seat,f 
 
 The seat of stone that runs along the wall, 
 South of the Church, east of the belfry-tower, 
 (Thou canst not miss it) in the sultry time 
 Would Dante sit conversing, and with those 
 Who little thought that in his hand he held 
 The balance, and assigned at his good pleasure 
 To each his place in the invisible world. 
 To some an upper region, some a lower ; 
 Many a transgressor sent to his account. 
 Long ere in Florence numbered with the dead ; 
 The body still as full of life and stir 
 At home, abroad ; still and as oft inchned 
 To eat, drink, sleep; still clad as others were. 
 And at noon-day, where men were wont to meet, 
 Met as continually ; when the soul went, 
 Rehnquished to a demon, and by him 
 (So says the Bard, and who can read and doubt?) 
 • Michael Angelo. f A tradition. 
 
104 
 
 Dwelt in and governed. Sit thee down awhile ; 
 
 Then, by the gates so marvellously wrought, 
 That they might serve to be the gates of Heaven, 
 Enter the Baptistery. That place he loved. 
 Loved as his own ; * and in his visits there 
 Well might he take delight ! For when a child. 
 Playing, as many are wont, with venturous feet 
 Near and yet nearer to the sacred font, 
 Slipped and fell in, he flew and rescued him. 
 Flew with an energy, a violence. 
 That broke the marble — a mishap ascribed 
 To evil motives ; his, alas, to lead 
 
 A life of trouble, and ere long to leave 
 
 All things most dear to him, ere long to know 
 How salt another's bread is, and the toil 
 
 Of going up and down another's stairs, f 
 Nor then forget that Chamber of the Dead, 
 
 Where the gigantic shapes of Night and Day, 
 
 Turned into stone, rest everlastingly; 
 
 Yet still are breathing, and shed round at noon 
 
 A two-fold influence — only to be felt — 
 
 A light, a darkness, mingling each with each ; 
 
 Both and yet neither. There, from age to age. 
 
 Two Ghosts are sitting on their sepulchres. 
 
 That is the Duke Lorenzo. Mark him well. 
 
 He meditates, his head upon his hand. 
 
 What from beneath his helm-like bonnet scowls ? 
 
 * Mia bel Giovanni. Inferno. 19, f Paradiso. 17. 
 
105 
 
 Is it a face, or but an eyeless scull ? 
 
 'Tis lost in shade ; yet, like the basilisk, 
 
 It fascinates, and is intolerable. 
 
 His mien is noble, most majestical ! 
 
 Then most so, when the distant choir is heard 
 
 At morn or eve— nor fail thou to attend 
 
 On that thrice-hallowed day, when all are there ; 
 
 When all, propitiating with solemn songs, 
 
 Visit the Dead. Then wilt thou feel his Power ! 
 
 But let not Sculpture, Painting, Poesy, 
 Or They, the Masters of these mighty Spells, 
 Detain us. Our first homage is to Virtue. 
 Where, in what dungeon of the Citadel, 
 (It must be known — the writing on the wall 
 Cannot be gone — 'twas with the blade cut in. 
 Ere, on his knees to God, he slew himself,) 
 Did he, the last, the noblest Citizen, * 
 Breathe out his soul, lest in the torturing hour 
 
 He might accuse the Guiltless ? That debt paid. 
 
 But with a sigh, a tear for human frailty. 
 We may return, and once more give a loose 
 To the delighted spirit — worshipping, 
 In her small temple of rich workmanship, f 
 Venus herself, who, when she left the skies. 
 Came hither. 
 
 * Filippo Strozzi. t The Tribune. 
 
 P 
 
'-/, 
 
DON GARZIA. 
 
 Among those awful forms, in elder time 
 
 Assembled, and thro' many an after-age 
 
 Destined to stand as Genii of the Place 
 
 Where men most meet in Florence, may be seen 
 
 His who first played the Tyrant. Clad in mail, 
 
 But with his helmet off— in kingly state. 
 
 Aloft he sits upon his horse of brass ; 
 
 And they, that read the legend underneath, 
 
 Go and pronounce him happy. * Yet, methinks. 
 
 There is a chamber that, if walls could speak, 
 
 Would turn their admiration into pity. 
 
 Half of what passed, died with him ; but the rest, 
 
 All he discovered when the fit was on. 
 
 All that, by those who hstened, could be gleaned 
 
 From broken sentences and starts in sleep. 
 
 Is told, and by an honest Chronicler, f 
 
 Two of his sons, Giovanni and GarzIa, 
 (The eldest had not seen his nineteenth summer) 
 Went to the chase ; but only one returned. 
 
 the first Grand Duke. f Dk Thou. 
 
108 
 
 Giovanni, when the huntsman blew his horn 
 
 O'er the last stag that started from the brake, 
 
 And in the heather turned to stand at bay, 
 
 Appeared not ; and at close of day was found 
 
 Bathed in his innocent blood. Too well, alas. 
 
 The trembling Cosmo guessed the deed, the doer ; 
 
 And, having caused the body to be borne 
 
 In secret to that Chamber — at an hour 
 
 When all slept sound, save she who bore them both, * 
 
 Who little thought of what was yet to come, 
 
 And lived but to be told— he bade GarzIa 
 
 Arise and follow him. Holding in one hand 
 
 A winking lamp, and in the other a key 
 
 Massive and dungeon-like, thither he led ; 
 
 And, having entered in and locked the door, 
 
 The father fixed his eyes upon the son, 
 
 And closely questioned him. No change betrayed 
 
 Or guilt or fear. Then Cosmo lifted up 
 
 The bloody sheet. ' Look there ! Look there !' he cried. 
 
 ' Blood calls for blood— and from a father's hand ! 
 
 —Unless thyself wilt save him that sad oflice. 
 
 What !' he exclaimed, when, shuddering at the sight, 
 
 The boy breathed out, ' I stood but on my guard.' 
 
 ' Dar'st thou then blacken one who never wronged thee, 
 
 Who would not set his foot upon a worm ? 
 
 Yes, thou must die, lest others fall by thee, 
 * ELiiONoiiA Di Toledo. 
 
109 
 
 And thou shouldst be the slayer of us all.' 
 
 Then from GarzIa's belt he drew the blade, 
 
 That fatal one which spilt his brother's blood ; 
 
 And, kneeling on the ground, ' Great God !' he cried, 
 
 ' Grant me the strength to do an act of Justice. 
 
 Thou knowest what it costs me ; but, alas. 
 
 How can I spare myself, sparing none else ? 
 
 Grant me the strength, the will — and oh forgive 
 
 The sinful soul of a most wretched son. 
 
 'Tis a most wretched father that implores it.' 
 
 Long on GarzIa's neck he hung and wept. 
 
 Long pressed him to his bosom tenderly ; 
 
 And then, but while he held him by the arm. 
 
 Thrusting him backward, turned away his face. 
 
 And stabbed him to the heart. 
 
 Well might a Youth, 
 Studious of men, anxious to learn and know. 
 When in the train of some great embassy 
 He came, a visitant, to Cosmo's court. 
 Think on the past ; and, as he wandered thro' 
 The ample spaces of an ancient house, f 
 Silent, deserted — stop awhile to dwell 
 Upon two portraits there, drawn on the wall 
 Together, as of Two in bonds of love. 
 Those of the unhappy brothers, and conclude 
 
 * De Thou. 
 
 f The Palazzo Vecchio. Cosmo had left it several years befor 
 
no 
 
 From the sad looks of him who could have told, 
 
 The terrible truth. Well might he heave a sigh 
 
 For poor humanity, when he beheld 
 
 That very Cosmo shaking o'er his fire. 
 
 Drowsy and deaf and inarticulate. 
 
 Wrapt in his night-gown, o'er a sick man's mess, 
 
 In the last stage — death-struck and deadly pale ; 
 
 His wife, another, not his Eleanor, 
 
 At once his nurse and his interpreter. 
 
THE CAMPAGNA OF FLORENCE. 
 
 'Tis morning. Let us wander thro' the fields, 
 Where Cimabue found a shepherd-boy* 
 Tracing his idle fancies on the ground ; 
 And let us from the top of Fiesole, 
 Whence Galileo's glass by night observed 
 The phases of the moon, look round below 
 On Arno's vale, where the dove-coloured steer 
 Is ploughing up and down among the vines, 
 While many a careless note is sung aloud. 
 Filling the air with sweetness — and on thee, 
 Beautiful Florence, all within thy walls, 
 Thy groves and gardens, pinnacles and towers, 
 Drawn to our feet. 
 
 From that small spire, just caught 
 By the bright ray, that church among the rest 
 By One of Old distinguished as The Bride, j- 
 Let us in thought pursue (what can we better ?) 
 Those who assembled there at matin-time ; ^ 
 
 * Giotto. 
 
 f Santa Maria Novella. For its grace and beauty it was called 
 by Michael Angelo ' La Sposa.' 
 
 I In the year of the Great Plague. See the Decameron. 
 
Who, when Vice revelled and along the street 
 
 Tables were set, what time the bearer's bell 
 
 Rang to demand the dead at every door, 
 
 Came out into the meadows ; and, awhile 
 
 Wandering in idleness, but not in folly. 
 
 Sat down in the high grass and in the shade 
 
 Of many a tree sun-proof— day after day, 
 
 When all was still and nothing to be heard 
 
 But the cicala's voice among the olives. 
 
 Relating in a ring, to banish care, 
 
 Their hundred tales. Round the green hill they went, 
 
 Round underneath — first to a splendid house, 
 
 Gherardi, as an old tradition runs. 
 
 That on the left, just rising from the vale ; 
 
 A place for Luxury — the painted rooms. 
 
 The open galleries and middle court 
 
 Not unprepared, fragrant and gay with flowers. 
 
 Then westward to another, nobler yet ; 
 
 That on the right, now known as the. Palmieri, 
 
 Where Art with Nature vied — a Paradise, 
 
 With verdurous walls, and many a trellissed walk 
 
 All rose and jasmine, many a twilight-glade 
 
 Crossed by the deer. Then to the Ladies' Vale ; 
 
 And the clear lake, that as by magic seemed 
 
 To lift up to the surface every stone 
 
 Of lustre there, and the diminutive fish 
 
 Innumerable, dropt with crimson and gold. 
 
 Now motionless, now glancing to the sun. 
 
113 
 
 Who has not dwelt on their voluptuous day ? 
 The morning-banquet by the fountain-side, 
 While the small birds rejoiced on every bough ; 
 The dance that followed, and the noon-tide slumber 
 Then the tales told in turn, as round they lay 
 On carpets, the fresh waters murmuring ; 
 And the short interval of pleasant talk 
 Till supper-time, when many a syren-voice 
 Sung down the stars ; and, as they left the sky, 
 The torches, planted in the sparkling grass. 
 And every where among the glowing flowers. 
 Burnt bright and brighter. 
 
114 
 
 He, * whose dream it was, 
 (It was no more) sleeps in a neighbouring vale ; 
 Sleeps in the church, where, in his ear I ween. 
 The Friar poured out his wondrous catalogue ; j- 
 A ray, imprimis, of the star that shone 
 To the Wise Men ; a phial-ful of sounds, 
 The musical chimes of the great bells that hung 
 In Solomon's Temple ; and, tho' last not least, 
 A feather from the Angel Gabriel's wing, 
 Dropt in the Virgin's chamber. That dark ridge, 
 Stretching south-east, conceals it from my sight ; 
 Not so his lowly roof and scanty farm. 
 His copse and rill, if yet a trace be left. 
 Who lived in Val di Pesa, suffering long 
 Want and neglect and (far, far worse) reproach, 
 With calm, unclouded mind, j: The glimmering tower 
 On the grey rock beneath, his land-mark once, 
 Now serves for ours, and points out where he ate 
 His bread with cheerfulness. Who sees him not 
 ('Tis his own sketch — he drew it from himself) 
 Laden with cages from his shoulder slung. 
 And sallying forth, while yet the morn is grey. 
 To catch a thrush on every lime-twig there ; 
 Or in the wood among his wood-cutters ; 
 Or in the tavern by the highway-side 
 At tric-trac with the miller ; or at night, 
 Doffing his rustic suit, and, duly clad. 
 Entering his closet, and, among his books, 
 * Boccaccio. f Decameron, vi. 10. ^ Macchiavel. 
 
115 
 
 Among the Great of every age and clime, 
 A numerous court, turning to whom he pleased, 
 Questioning each why he did this or that. 
 And learning how to overcome the fear 
 
 Of poverty and death ? Nearer we hail 
 
 Thy sunny slope, Arcetri, sung of Old 
 For its green wine ; dearer to me, to most, 
 As dwelt on by that great Astronomer, 
 Seven years a prisoner at the city-gate. 
 Let in but in his grave-clothes. Sacred be 
 His villa (justly was it called The Gem !) 
 Sacred the lawn, where many a cypress threw 
 Its length of shadow, while he watched the stars 
 
116 
 
 Sacred the vineyard, where, while yet his sight 
 
 Glimmered, at blush of morn he dressed his vines, 
 
 Chanting aloud in gaiety of heart 
 
 Some verse of Ariosto. There, unseen. 
 
 In manly beauty Milton stood before him. 
 
 Gazing with reverent awe — Milton, his guest, 
 
 J ust then come forth, all life and enterprize ; 
 
 He in his old age and extremity. 
 
 Blind, at noon-day exploring with his staff; 
 
 His eyes upturned as to the golden sun, 
 
 His eye-balls idly rolling. Little then 
 
 Did Galileo think whom he received ; 
 
 That in his hand he held the hand of one 
 
 Who could requite him — who would spread his name 
 
 O'er lands and seas — great as himself, nay greater ; 
 
 Milton as little that in him he saw. 
 
 As in a glass, what he himself should be. 
 
 Destined so soon to fall on evil days 
 
 And evil tongues — so soon, alas, to live 
 
 In darkness, and with dangers compassed round. 
 
 And solitude. 
 
 Well-pleased, could we pursue 
 The Arno, from his birth-place in the clouds, 
 So near the yellow Tiber's — springing up 
 From his four fountains on the Apennine, 
 That mountain-ridge a sea-mark to the ships 
 Sailing on either sea. Downward he runs. 
 
117 
 
 Scattering fresh verdure thro' the desolate wild, 
 Down by the City of Hermits,* and the woods 
 That only echo to the choral hymn ; 
 Then thro' these gardens to the Tuscan sea. 
 Reflecting castles, convents, villages, 
 And those great Rivals in an elder day, 
 Florence and Pisa — who have given him fame. 
 Fame everlasting, but who stained so oft 
 His troubled waters. Oft, alas, were seen, 
 When flight, pursuit, and hideous rout were there, 
 Hands, clad in gloves of steel, held up imploring ; 
 The man, the hero, on his foaming steed 
 Borne underneath, already in the realms 
 
 Of Darkness. Nor did night or burning noon 
 
 Bring respite. Oft, as that great Artist saw,f 
 Whose pencil had a voice, the cry ' To arms !' 
 And the shrill trumpet, hurried up the bank 
 Those who had stolen an hour to breast the tide. 
 And wash from their unharnessed limbs the blood 
 And sweat of battle. Sudden was the rush, J 
 Violent the tumult ; for, already in sight. 
 Nearer and nearer yet the danger drew ; 
 Each every sinew straining, every nerve. 
 Each snatching up, and girding, buckling on 
 Morion and greave and shirt of twisted mail, 
 
 * II Sagro Eremo. f Michael Angelo. 
 
 I A description of the Cartoon of Pisa, 
 
118 
 
 As for his life — no more perchance to taste, 
 Arno, the grateful freshness of thy glades, 
 Thy waters — where, exulting, he had felt 
 A swimmer's transport, there, alas, to float 
 And welter. 
 
 Nor between the gusts of War, 
 When flocks were feeding, and the shepherd's pipe 
 Gladdened the valley, when, but not unarmed. 
 The sower came forth, and following him that ploughed. 
 Threw in the seed — did thy indignant waves 
 Escape pollution. Sullen was the splash. 
 Heavy and swift the plunge, when they received 
 The key that just had grated on the ear 
 Of Ugolino, ever-closing up 
 That dismal dungeon henceforth to be named 
 
 The Tower of Famine. Once indeed 'twas thine. 
 
 When many a winter-flood, thy tributary. 
 Was thro' its rocky glen rushing, resounding. 
 And thou wert in thy might, to save, restore 
 A charge most precious. To the nearest ford. 
 Hastening, a horseman from Arezzo came. 
 Careless, impatient of delay, a babe 
 Slung in a basket to the knotty staff 
 That lay athwart his saddle-bow. He spurs. 
 He enters ; and his horse, alarmed, perplexed. 
 Halts in the midst. Great is the stir, the strife ; 
 And lo, an atom on that dangerous sea, 
 
119 
 
 The babe is floating ! Fast and far he flies ; 
 
 Now tempest-rocked, now whirling round and round, 
 
 But not to perish. By thy wilhng waves 
 
 Borne to the shore, among the bulrushes 
 
 The ark has rested ; and unhurt, secure, 
 
 As on his mother's breast he sleeps within, 
 
 All peace ! or never had the nations heard 
 
 That voice so sweet, which still enchants, inspires ; 
 
 That voice, which sung of love, of liberty. 
 
 Petrarch lay there ! And such the images 
 
 That here spring up for ever, in the Young 
 Kindling poetic fire ! Such they that came 
 And clustered round our Milton, when at eve 
 Reclined beside thee, Arno ; when at eve, 
 Led on by thee, he wandered with delight. 
 Framing Ovidian verse, and thro' thy groves 
 Gathering wild myrtle. Such the Poet's dreams ; 
 Yet not such only. For look round and say, 
 Where is the ground that did not drink warm blood. 
 The echo that had learnt not to articulate 
 
 The cry of murder ? Fatal was the day * 
 
 To Florence, when ('twas in a narrow street 
 North of that temple, where the truly great 
 Sleep, not unhonoured, not unvisited ; 
 That temple sacred to the Holy Cross — 
 There is the house — that house of the Donati, 
 Towerless, and left long since, but to the last 
 * See Note. 
 
120 
 
 Braving assault — all rugged, all embossed 
 Below, and still distinguished by the rings 
 Of brass, that held in war and festival-time 
 Their family-standards) fatal was the day 
 To Florence, when, at morn, at the ninth hour, 
 A noble Dame in weeds of widowhood, 
 Weeds by so many to be worn so soon, 
 Stood at her door ; and, hke a sorceress, flung 
 Her dazzling spell. 
 
121 
 
 Subtle she was, and rich, 
 Rich in a hidden pearl of heavenly light, 
 Her daughter's beauty ; and too well she knew 
 Its virtue ! Patiently she stood and watched ; 
 Nor stood alone — ^but spoke not — In her breast 
 Her purpose lay ; and, as a Youth passed by. 
 Clad for the nuptial rite, she smiled and said. 
 Lifting a corner of the maiden's veil, 
 * This had I treasured up in secret for thee. 
 This hast thou lost !' He gazed and was undone ! 
 Forgetting — not forgot — he broke the bond. 
 And paid the penalty, losing his life 
 At the bridge-foot ; and hence a world of woe ! 
 Vengeance for vengeance crying, blood for blood ; 
 No intermission ! Law, that slumbers not, 
 And, like the Angel with the flaming sword. 
 Sits over all, at once chastising, healing. 
 Himself the Avenger, went ; and every street 
 Ran red with mutual slaughter — tho' sometimes 
 The young forgot the lesson they had learnt. 
 And loved when they should hate — like thee, I meld a 
 Thee and thy Paolo. When last ye met 
 In that still hour (the heat, the glare was gone. 
 Not so the splendour— thro' the cedar-grove 
 A radiance streamed like a consuming fire, 
 As tho' the glorious orb, in its descent, 
 Had come and rested there) when last ye met, 
 
 R 
 
122 
 
 And those relentless brothers dragged him forth, 
 It had been well, hadst thou slept on, Imelda, 
 Nor from thy trance of fear awaked, as night 
 Fell on that fatal spot, to wish thee dead, 
 To track him by his blood, to search, to find. 
 Then fling thee down to catch a word, a look, 
 A sigh, if yet thou couldst (alas, thou couldst not) 
 And die, unseen, unthought of — from the wound 
 Sucking the poison. * 
 
 Yet, when Slavery came, 
 Worse followed. Genius, Valour left the land. 
 Indignant — all that had from age to age 
 Adorned, ennobled ; and head-long they fell. 
 Tyrant and slave. For deeds of violence. 
 Done in broad day and more than half redeemed 
 By many a great and generous sacrifice 
 Of self to others, came the unpledged bowl. 
 The stab of the stiletto. Gliding by 
 Unnoticed, in slouched hat and muffling cloak, 
 That just discovered, Caravaggio-like, 
 A swarthy cheek, black brow, and eye of flame. 
 The Bravo stole, and o'er the shoulder plunged 
 To the heart's core, or from beneath the ribs 
 Slanting (a surer path, as some averred) 
 Struck upward — then slunk off", or, if pursued, 
 Made for the Sanctuary, and there along 
 * See Note. 
 
The glimmering aisle among the worshippers 
 
 Wandered with restless step and jealous look, 
 
 Dropping thick blood. Misnamed to lull alarm, 
 
 In every Palace was The Laboratory, 
 
 Where he within brewed poisons swift and slow, 
 
 That scattered terror 'till all things seemed poisonous. 
 
 And brave men trembled if a hand held out 
 
 A nosegay or a letter ; while the Great 
 
 Drank only from the Venice-glass, that broke. 
 
 That shivered, scattering round it as in scorn. 
 
 If aught malignant, aught of thine was there. 
 
 Cruel ToPHANA ; and pawned provinces 
 
 For that miraculous gem, the gem that gave 
 
 A sign infallible of coming ill, 
 
 That clouded tho' the vehicle of death 
 
 Were an invisible perfume. Happy then 
 
 The guest to whom at sleeping-time 'twas said, 
 
 But in an under-voice (a lady's page 
 
 Speaks in no louder) * Pass not on. That door 
 
 Leads to another which awaits thy coming. 
 
 One in the floor — now left, alas, unlocked. 
 
 No eye detects it — lying under-foot, 
 
 Just as thou enterest, at the threshold-stone ; 
 
 Ready to fall and plunge thee into night 
 
 And long oblivion !' 
 
 In that Evil Hour 
 Where lurked not danger ? Thro' the fairy-land 
 
No seat of pleasure glittering half-way down, 
 No hunting-place — but with some damning spot 
 That will not be washed out ! There, at Caiano, 
 Where, when the hawks were mewed and Evening came 
 PuLci would set the table in a roar 
 With his wild lay — there, where the Sun descends, 
 And hill and dale are lost, veiled with his beams. 
 The fair Venetian* died, she and her lord — 
 Died of a posset drugged by him who sat 
 And saw them suffer, flinging back the charge ; 
 The murderer on the murdered. Sobs of Grief, f 
 Sounds inarticulate - - suddenly stopt, 
 And followed by a struggle and a gasp, 
 A gasp in death, are heard yet in Cerreto, 
 Along the marble halls and staircases. 
 Nightly at twelve ; and, at the self-same hour, 
 Shrieks, such as penetrate the inmost soul, 
 Such as awake the innocent babe to long, 
 Long wailing, echo thro' the emptiness 
 Of that old den far up among the hills, 
 Frowning on him who comes from Pietra-Mala : 
 In them, alas, within five days and less. 
 Two unsuspecting victims, passing fair, 
 Welcomed with kisses, and slain cruelly. 
 One with the knife, one with the fatal noose. 
 But lo, the Sun is setting ; earth and sky 
 
 * BiANCA Cai'ello. I See Note. 
 
125 
 
 One blaze of glory — What we saw but now, 
 As tho' it were not, tho' it had not been ! 
 He lingers yet ; and, lessening to a point. 
 Shines like the eye of Heaven — then withdraws ; 
 And from the zenith to the utmost skirts 
 All is celestial red ! The hour is come. 
 When they that sail along the distant seas, 
 Languish for home ; and they that in the morn 
 Said to sweet friends ' farewell,' melt as at parting 
 When, just gone forth, the pilgrim, if he hears, 
 As now we hear it — echoing round the hill. 
 The bell that seems to mourn the dying day, 
 Slackens his pace and sighs, and those he loved 
 Loves more than ever. But who feels it not ? 
 And well may we, for we are far away. 
 
THE PILGRIM. 
 
 It was an hour of universal joy. 
 The lark was up and at the gate of heaven, 
 Singing, as sure to enter when he came ; 
 The butterfly was basking in my path. 
 His radiant wings unfolded. From below 
 The bell of prayer rose slowly, plaintively; 
 And odours, such as welcome in the day, 
 Such as salute the early traveller, 
 And come and go, each sweeter than the last. 
 Were rising. Hill and valley breathed delight ; 
 And not a living thing but blessed the hour ! 
 In every bush and brake there was a voice 
 
 Responsive ! From the Thrasymene, that now 
 
 Slept in the sun, a lake of molten gold. 
 
 And from the shore that once, when armies met. 
 
 Rocked to and fro unfelt, so terrible 
 
 The rage, the slaughter, I had turned away; 
 
 The path, that led me, leading thro' a wood, 
 
 A fairy-wilderness of fruits and flowers. 
 
 And by a brook that, in the day of strife. 
 
 Ran blood, but now runs amber — when a glade, 
 
128 
 
 Far, far within, sunned only at noon-day. 
 
 Suddenly opened. Many a bench was there, 
 
 Each round its ancient elm ; and many a track. 
 
 Well-known to them that from the high-way loved 
 
 Awhile to deviate. In the midst a cross 
 
 Of mouldering stone as in a temple stood, 
 
 Solemn, severe ; coeval with the trees 
 
 That round it in majestic order rose ; 
 
 And on the lowest step a Pilgrim knelt, 
 
 In fervent prayer. He was the first I saw, 
 
 (Save in the tumult of a midnight-masque, 
 
 A revel, where none cares to play his part. 
 
 And they, that speak, at once dissolve the charm) 
 
 The first in sober truth, no counterfeit ; 
 
 And, when his orisons were duly paid, 
 
 He rose, and we exchanged, as all are wont, 
 
 A traveller's greeting. Young, and of an age 
 
 When Youth is most attractive, when a light 
 Plays round and round, reflected, while it lasts. 
 From some attendant Spirit, that ere long 
 (His charge relinquished with a sigh, a tear) 
 Wings his flight upward — with a look he won 
 My favour ; and, the spell of silence broke, 
 I could not but continue. ' Whence,' I asked, 
 
 * Whence art thou ?'— ' From Mont'alto,' he replied, 
 
 * My native village in the Apennines.' — 
 
 ' And whither journeying?'— ' To the holy shrine 
 Of Saint Antonio in the City of Padua. 
 
129 
 
 Perhaps, if thou hast ever gone so far, 
 
 Thou wilt direct my course.' — ' Most wilhngly; 
 
 But thou hast much to do, much to endure, 
 
 Ere thou hast entered where the silver lamps 
 
 Burn ever. Tell me ... I would not transgress. 
 
 Yet ask T must . . . what could have brought thee forth, 
 
 Nothing in act or thought to be atoned for V — 
 
 ' It was a vow I made in my distress. 
 
 We were so blest, none were so blest as we. 
 
 Till Sickness came. First, as death-struck, I fell ; 
 
 Then my beloved sister ; and ere long, 
 
 Worn with continual watchings, night and day. 
 
 Our saint-like mother. Worse and worse she grew ; 
 
 And in my anguish, my despair, I vowed. 
 
 That if she lived, if Heaven restored her to us, 
 
 I would forthwith, and in a Pilgrim's weeds. 
 
 Visit that holy shrine. My vow was heard ; 
 
 And therefore am I come.' — ' Thou hast done right ; 
 
 And may those weeds, so reverenced of old, 
 
 Guard thee in danger !' * They are nothing worth. 
 
 But they are worn in humble confidence ; 
 
 Nor would I for the richest robe resign them, 
 
 Wrought, as they w^ere, by those I love so well, 
 
 Lauretta and my sister ; theirs the task. 
 
 But none to them, a pleasure, a delight. 
 
 To ply their utmost skill, and send me forth 
 
 As best became this service. Their last words, 
 
 " Fare thee well, Carlo. We shall count the hours!" 
 
ISO 
 
 Will not go from me.' ' Health and strength be thine 
 
 In thy long travel ! May no sun-beam strike ; 
 
 No vapour cling and wither ! May'st thou be, 
 
 Sleeping or waking, sacred and secure ! 
 
 And, when again thou com'st, thy labour done, 
 
 J oy be among ye ! In that happy hour 
 
 All will pour forth to bid thee welcome. Carlo ; 
 
 And there is one, or I am much deceived. 
 
 One thou hast named, who will not be the last.' — 
 
 * Oh, she is true as Truth itself can be ! 
 
 But ah, thou know'st her not. Would that thou couldst ! 
 
 My steps I quicken when I think of her ; 
 
 For, tho' they take me further from her door, 
 
 I shall return the sooner.' 
 
AN INTERVIEW. 
 
 Pleasure, that comes unlooked-for, is thrice- welcome ; 
 
 And, if it stir the heart, if aught be there, 
 
 That may hereafter in a thoughtful hour 
 
 Wake but a sigh, 'tis treasured up among 
 
 The things most precious ; and the day it came, 
 
 Is noted as a white day in our lives. 
 
 The sun was wheeling westward, and the cliffs 
 And nodding woods, that everlastingly 
 (Such the dominion of thy mighty voice, 
 
IS2 
 
 Thy voice, Velino, uttered in the mist) 
 Hear thee and answer thee, were left at length 
 For others still as noon ; and on we strayed 
 From wild to wilder, nothing hospitable 
 Seen up or down, no bush or green or dry, 
 That ancient symbol at the cottage-door, 
 O fleering refreshment — when Luigi cried, 
 ' Well, of a thousand tracks we chose the best !' 
 And, turning round an oak, oracular once, 
 Now lightning-struck, a cave, a thorough-fare 
 For all that came, each entrance a broad arch, 
 Whence many a deer, rustling his velvet coat, 
 Had issued, many a gipsy and her brood 
 Peered forth, then housed again — the floor yet grey 
 With ashes, and the sides, where roughest, hung 
 Loosely with locks of hair — I looked and saw 
 What, seen in such an hour by Sancho Panza, 
 Had given his honest countenance a breadth, 
 His cheeks a flush of pleasure and surprize. 
 Unknown before, had chained him to the spot. 
 And thou, Sir Knight, hadst traversed hill and dale, 
 Squire-less. Below and winding far away, 
 A narrow glade unfolded, such as Spring 
 Broiders with flowers, and, when the moon is high, 
 The hare delights to race in, scattering round 
 The silvery dews. Cedar and cypress threw 
 Singly their depth of shadow, chequering 
 The greensward, and, what grew in frequent tufts, 
 
133 
 
 An underwood of myrtle, that by fits 
 Sent up a gale of fragrance. Thro' the midst, 
 Reflecting, as it ran, purple and gold, 
 A rain-bow's splendour (somewhere in the east 
 Rain-drops were falling fast) a rivulet 
 Sported as loth to go ; and on the bank 
 Stood (in the eyes of one, if not of both, 
 Worth all the rest and more) a sumpter-mule 
 Well-laden, while two menials as in haste 
 Drew from his ample panniers, ranging round 
 Viands and fruits on many a shining salver. 
 And plunging in the cool translucent wave 
 
 Flasks of dehcious wine. Anon a horn 
 
 Blew, thro' the champain bidding to the feast, 
 Its jocund note to other ears addressed, 
 Not ours ; and, slowly coming by a path, 
 That, ere it issued from an ilex-grove. 
 Was seen far inward, tho' along the glade 
 Distinguished only by a fresher verdure. 
 Peasants approached, one leading in a leash 
 Beagles yet panting, one with various game. 
 In rich confusion slung, before, behind. 
 Leveret and quail and pheasant. All announced 
 The chase as over ; and ere long appeared, 
 Their horses full of fire, champing the curb, 
 For the white foam was dry upon the flank. 
 Two in close converse, each in each delighting. 
 Their plumage waving as instinct with life ; 
 
134 
 
 A Lady young and graceful, and a Youth, 
 
 Yet younger, bearing on a falconer's glove, 
 
 As in the golden, the romantic time. 
 
 His falcon hooded. Like some spirit of air. 
 
 Or fairy-vision, such as feigned of old. 
 
 The Lady, while her courser pawed the ground. 
 
 Alighted ; and her beauty, as she trod 
 
 The enamelled bank, bruising nor herb nor flower. 
 
 That place illumined. Ah, who should she be. 
 
 And with her brother, as when last we met, 
 
 (When the first lark had sung ere half was said, 
 
 And as she stood, bidding adieu, her voice. 
 
 So sweet it was, recalled me like a spell) 
 
 Who but AngeHca ? That day we gave 
 
 To Pleasure, and, unconscious of their flight, 
 
 Another and another ; hers a home 
 
 Dropt from the sky amid the wild and rude, 
 
 Loretto-like ; where all was as a dream, 
 
 A dream spun out of some Arabian tale 
 
 Read or related in a roseate bower. 
 
 Some balmy eve. The rising moon we hailed. 
 
 Duly, devoutly, from a vestibule 
 
 Of many an arch, o'er-wrought and lavishly 
 
 With many a labyrinth of sylphs and flowers, 
 
 When Raphael and his school from Florence came 
 
 Filling the land with splendour — nor less oft 
 
 Watched her, declining, from a silent dell. 
 
 Not silent once, what time in rivalry 
 
185 
 
 Tasso, Guarini, waved their wizard-wands, 
 Peopling the groves from Arcady, and lo, 
 Fair forms appeared, mm-muring melodious verse 
 — Then, in their day, a sylvan theatre. 
 Mossy the seats, the stage a verdm'ous floor, 
 The scenery rock and shrub-wood, Nature's own 
 Nature the Architect. 
 
ROME. 
 
 I AM in Rome ! Oft as the morning-ray 
 
 Visits these eyes, waking at once I cry, 
 
 Whence this excess of joy ? What has befallen me ? 
 
 And from within a thrilling voice replies, 
 
 Thou art in Rome ! A thousand busy thoughts 
 
138 
 
 Rush on my mind, a thousand images ; 
 And I spring up as girt to run a race ! 
 
 Thou art in Rome ! the City that so long 
 Reigned absolute, the mistress of the world ; 
 The mighty vision that the prophets saw. 
 And trembled ; that from nothing, from the least, 
 The lowliest village (What but here and there 
 A reed-roofed cabin by a river-side ?) 
 Grew into every thing ; and, year by year. 
 Patiently, fearlessly, working her way 
 O'er brook and field, o'er continent and sea, 
 Not like the merchant with his merchandize, 
 Or traveller with staff and scrip exploring. 
 But hand to hand and foot to foot, thro' hosts. 
 Thro' nations numberless in battle-array, 
 Each behind each, each, when the other fell. 
 Up and in arms, at length subdued them all. 
 
 Thou art in Rome ! the City, where the Gauls, 
 Entering at sun-rise thro' her open gates. 
 And, thro' her streets silent and desolate. 
 Marching to slay, thought they saw Gods, not men ; 
 The City, that, by temperance, fortitude, 
 And love of glory, towered above the clouds, 
 Then fell — but, falling, kept the highest seat. 
 And in her loneliness, her pomp of woe. 
 Where now she dwells, withdrawn into the wild, 
 Still o'er the mind maintains, from age to age. 
 
139 
 
 Her empire undiminished. There, as though 
 
 Grandeur attracted Grandeur, are beheld 
 
 All things that strike, ennoble — from the depths 
 
 Of Egypt, from the classic fields of Greece, 
 
 Her groves, her temples — all things that inspire 
 
 Wonder, delight ! Who would not say the Forms 
 
 Most perfect, most divine, had by consent 
 
 Flocked thither to abide eternally, 
 
 Within those silent chambers where they dwell, 
 
 In happy intercourse ? 
 
 And I am there ! 
 Ah, little thought I, when in school I sate, 
 A school-boy on his bench, at early dawn 
 Glowing with Roman story, T should live 
 To tread the Appian, once an avenue 
 Of monuments most glorious, palaces. 
 Their doors sealed up and silent as the night, 
 The dwellings of the illustrious dead — to turn 
 Toward Tibur, and, beyond the City-gate, 
 Four out my unpremeditated verse. 
 Where on his mule I might have met so oft 
 Horace himself — or climb the Palatine, 
 Dreaming of old Evander and his guest, 
 Dreaming and lost on that proud eminence, 
 Long while the seat of Rome, hereafter found 
 Less than enough (so monstrous was the brood 
 Engendered there, so Titan-like) to lodge 
 
140 
 
 One in his madness ; * and inscribe my name, 
 My name and date, on some broad aloe-leaf, 
 That shoots and spreads within those very walls 
 Where Virgil read aloud his tale divine. 
 Where his voice faltered and a mother wept 
 Tears of delight! 
 
 But what the narrow space 
 Just underneath ? In many a heap the ground 
 Heaves, as tho' Ruin in a frantic mood 
 Had done his utmost. Here and there appears, 
 As left to shew his handy-work not ours. 
 An idle column, a half-buried arch, 
 
 A wall of some great temple. It was once, 
 
 And long, the centre of their Universe, 
 The Forum — whence a mandate, eagle-winged. 
 Went to the ends of the earth. I^et us descend 
 Slowly. At every step much may be lost. 
 The very dust we tread, stirs as with life ; 
 And not a breath but from the ground sends up 
 Something of human grandeur. 
 
 We are come, 
 Are now where once the mightiest spirits met 
 In terrible conflict ; this, while Rome was free. 
 The noblest theatre on this side Heaven ! 
 
 Here the first Brutus stood, when o'er the corse 
 
 Of her so chaste all mourned, and from his cloud 
 
 * Nero. 
 
141 
 
 Burst like a God. Here, holding up the knife 
 
 That ran with blood, the blood of his own child, 
 
 ViRGiNius called down vengeance. — But whence spoke 
 
 They who harangued the people ; turning now 
 
 To the twelve tables, now with lifted hands 
 
 To the Capitohne Jove, whose fulgent shape 
 
 In the unclouded azure shone far olF, 
 
 And to the shepherd on the Alban mount 
 
 Seemed like a star new-risen ? Where were ranged 
 
 In rough array as on their element, 
 
 The beaks of those old gallies, destined still* 
 
 To brave the brunt of war — at last to know 
 
 A calm far worse, a silence as in death ? 
 
 All spiritless ; from that disastrous hour 
 
 When he, the bravest, gentlest of them all, f 
 
 Scorning the chains he could not hope to break, 
 
 Fell on his sword ! 
 
 Along the Sacred Way 
 Hither the Triumph came, and, winding round 
 With acclamation, and the martial clang 
 Of instruments, and cars laden with spoil, 
 Stopt at the sacred stair that then appeared, 
 Then thro' the darkness broke, ample, star-bright. 
 As tho' it led to heaven. 'Twas night ; but now 
 A thousand torches, turning night to day. 
 Blazed, and the victor, springing from his seat, 
 
 * The Rostra. f Marcus Junius Brutus. 
 
U2 
 
 Went up, and, kneeling as in fervent prayer. 
 
 Entered the Capitol. But what are they 
 
 Who at the foot withdraw, a mournful train 
 
 In fetters ? And who, yet incredulous, 
 
 Now gazing wildly round, now on his sons. 
 
 On those so young, well-pleased with all they see. 
 
 Staggers along, the last ? — They are the fallen, 
 
 Those who were spared to grace the chariot-wheels ; 
 
 And there they parted, where the road divides. 
 
 The victor and the vanquished — there withdrew ; 
 
 He to the festal board, and they to die. 
 
 Well might the great, the mighty of the world, 
 They who were wont to fare deliciously, 
 And war but for a kingdom more or less, 
 Shrink back, nor from their thrones endure to look, 
 To think that way ! Well might they in their state 
 Humble themselves, and kneel and supplicate 
 To be delivered from a dream like this ! 
 
 Here Cincinnatus passed, his plough the while 
 Left in the furrow ; and how many more. 
 Whose laurels fade not, who still walk the earth. 
 Consuls, Dictators, still in Curule pomp 
 Sit and decide ; and, as of old in Rome, 
 Name but their names, set every heart on fire ! 
 
 Here, in his bonds, he whom the phalanx saved not,* 
 The last on Philip's throne; and the Numidian,f 
 * Perseus, f Jugurtha. 
 
143 
 
 So soon to say, stript of his cumbrous robe, 
 
 Stript to the skin, and in his nakedness 
 
 Thrust under-ground, ' How cold this bath of yours 
 
 And thy proud queen, Palmyra, thro' the sands * 
 
 Pursued, o'ertaken on her dromedary ; 
 
 Whose temples, palaces, a wondrous dream 
 
 That passes not away, for many a league 
 
 Illumine yet the desert. Some invoked 
 
 Death, and escaped ; the Egyptian, when her asp 
 
 Came from his covert under the green leaf; j- 
 
 And Hannibal himself; and she who said. 
 
 Taking the fatal cup between her hands, % 
 
 ' Tell him I would it had come yesterday ; 
 
 For then it had not been his nuptial gift.' 
 
 Now all is changed ; and here, as in the wild, 
 The day is silent, dreary as the night ; 
 None stirring, save the herdsman and his herd, 
 Savage alike ; or they that would explore, 
 Discuss and learnedly ; or they that come, 
 (And there are many who have crossed the earth) 
 That they may give the hours to meditation, 
 And wander, often saying to themselves, 
 * This was the Roman Forum !' 
 
 * Zenobia. f Cleopatra, | Sophonisba. 
 
A FUNERAL. 
 
 ' Whence this delay V — ' Along the crouded street 
 
 A Funeral comes, and with unusual pomp.' 
 
 So I withdrew a little and stood still. 
 
 While it went by. ' She died as she deserved,' 
 
 Said an Abate, gathering up his cloak, 
 
 And with a shrug retreating as the tide 
 
 Flowed more and more. — ' But she was beautiful !' 
 
145 
 
 Replied a Soldier of the Pontiff's guard. 
 * And innocent as beautiful !' exclaimed 
 A Matron sitting in her stall, hung round 
 With garlands, holy pictures, and what not ? 
 Her Alban grapes and Tusculan figs displayed 
 In rich profusion. From her heart she spoke ; 
 And I accosted her to hear her story. 
 ' The stab,' she cried, ' was given in jealousy ; 
 But never fled a purer spirit to heaven, 
 > As thou wilt say, or much my mind misleads. 
 
 When thou hast seen her face. Last night at dusk, 
 When on her way from vespers — None were near. 
 None save her serving-boy, who knelt and wept. 
 But what could tears avail him, when she fell — 
 Last night at dusk, the clock then striking nine, 
 J ust by the fountain— that before the church. 
 The church she always used, St. Isidore's — 
 Alas, I knew her from her earliest youth. 
 That excellent lady. Ever would she say. 
 Good even, as she passed, and with a voice 
 Gentle as theirs in heaven !' — But now by fits 
 A dull and dismal noise assailed the ear, 
 A wail, a chant, louder and louder yet ; 
 And now a strange fantastic troop appeared ! 
 Thronging, they came — as from the shades below ; 
 All of a ghostly white ! ' Oh say,' I cried, 
 * Do not the living here bury the dead ? 
 
 u 
 
146 
 
 Do Spirits come and fetch them ? What are these 
 That seem not of this World, and mock the Day ; 
 Each with a burning taper in his hand V — 
 ' It is an ancient Brotherhood thou seest. 
 Such their apparel. Thro' the long, long line. 
 Look where thou wilt, no likeness of a man ; 
 The living masked, the dead alone uncovered. 
 But mark' — And, lying on her funeral-couch, 
 Like one asleep, her eyelids closed, her hands 
 Folded together on her modest breast. 
 As 'twere her nightly posture, thro' the croud 
 She came at last — and richly, gaily clad. 
 As for a birth-day feast ! But breathes she not ? 
 A glow is on her cheek — and her lips move ! 
 And now a smile is there — how heavenly sweet ! 
 ' Oh no !' repHed the Dame, wiping her tears, 
 But with an accent less of grief than anger, 
 ' No, she will never, never wake again !' 
 
 Death, when we meet the Spectre in our walks. 
 As we did yesterday and shall to-morrow, 
 Soon grows familiar — like most other things. 
 Seen, not observed ; but in a foreign clime, 
 Changing his shape to something new and strange 
 (And thro' the world he changes as in sport. 
 Affect he greatness or humility) 
 Knocks at the heart. His form and fashion here 
 To me, I do confess, reflect a gloom, 
 
147 
 
 A sadness round ; yet one I would not lose ; 
 Being in unison with all things else 
 In this, this land of shadows, where we live 
 More in past time than present, where the ground, 
 League beyond league, like one great cemetery. 
 Is covered o'er with mouldering monuments ; 
 And, let the living wander where they will. 
 They cannot leave the footsteps of the dead. 
 
 Oft, where the burial-rite follows so fast 
 The agony, oft coming, nor from far. 
 Must a fond father meet his darling child, 
 (Him who at parting climbed his knees and clung) 
 Clay -cold and wan, and to the bearers cry, 
 ' Stand, I conjure ye !' 
 
 Seen thus destitute. 
 What are the greatest ? They must speak beyond 
 A thousand homilies. When Raphael went. 
 His heavenly face the mirror of his mind, 
 His mind a temple for all lovely things 
 To flock to and inhabit — when He went, 
 Wrapt in his sable cloak, the cloak he wore. 
 To sleep beneath the venerable Dome, * 
 By those attended, who in life had loved. 
 Had worshipped, following in his steps to Fame, 
 ('Twas on an April-day, when Nature smiles) 
 All Rome was there. But, ere the march began, 
 
 * flie Pantheon. 
 
148 
 
 Ere to receive their charge the bearers came, 
 
 Who had not sought him ? And when all beheld 
 
 Him, where he lay, how changed from yesterday, 
 
 Him in that hour cut off, and at his head 
 
 His last great work ; when, entering in, they looked 
 
 Now on the dead, then on that master-piece, 
 
 Now on his face, lifeless and colourless, 
 
 Then on those forms divine that lived and breathed, 
 
 And would live on for ages — all were moved ; 
 
 And sighs burst forth, and loudest lamentations. 
 
NATIONAL PREJUDICES. 
 
 ' Another Assassination ! This venerable City,' I 
 exclaimed, ' what is it, but as it began, a nest of 
 robbers and murderers? We must away at sun- 
 rise, Luigi.' — But before sun-rise I had reflected a 
 little, and in the soberest prose. My indignation 
 was gone; and, when Luigi undi-ew my curtain, 
 crying, ' Up, Signor, up ! The horses are at the 
 door.' ' Luigi,' I replied, * if thou lovest me, draw 
 the curtain.'* 
 
 It would lessen very much the severity with which 
 men judge of each other, if they would but trace 
 effects to their causes, and observe the progress of 
 things in the moral as accurately as in the physical 
 world. When we condemn millions in the mass as 
 vindictive and sanguinary, we should remember that, 
 wherever J ustice is ill-administered, the injured will 
 
 * A dialogue, which is said to have passed many years ago at 
 Lyons (Mem. de Grammont, I. 3.) and which may still be heard 
 in almost every hotellerie at day-break. 
 
150 
 
 redress themselves. Robbery provokes to robbery ; 
 murder to assassination. Resentments become here- 
 ditary ; and what began in disorder, ends as if all Hell 
 had broke loose. 
 
 Laws create a habit of self-restraint, not only by 
 the influence of fear, but by regulating in its exer- 
 cise the passion of revenge. If they overawe the 
 bad by the prospect of a punishment certain and 
 well-defined, they console the injured by the infliction 
 of that punishment ; and, as the infliction is a public 
 act, it excites and entails no enmity. The laws are 
 offended ; and the community for its own sake pur- 
 sues and overtakes the offender ; often without the 
 concurrence of the sufferer, sometimes against his 
 wishes. 
 
 Now those who were not born, like ourselves, to 
 such advantages, we should surely rather pity than 
 hate; and, when at length they venture to turn 
 against their rulers, * we should lament, not wonder 
 at their excesses ; remembering that nations are na- 
 
 * As the descendants of an illustrious peoiile liave lately done. 
 Can it be believed that there are many among us, who, from a 
 desire to be thought superior to common-place sentiments and 
 vulgar feelings, affect an indifierence to their cause ? ' If the 
 Greeks,' they say, ' had the probity of other nations — but they are 
 false to a proverb !' And is not falsehood the characteristic of 
 slaves ? Man is the creature of circumstances. Free, he has the 
 qualities of a freeman ; enslaved, those of a slave. 
 
151 
 
 turally patient and long-suffering, and seldom rise in 
 rebellion till they are so degraded by a bad govern- 
 ment as to be almost incapable of a good one. 
 
 ' Hate them, perhaps,' you may say, ' we should 
 not ; but despise them we must, if enslaved, like the 
 people of Rome, in mind as well as body ; if their 
 religion be a gross and barbarous superstition.' — I 
 respect knowledge ; but I do not despise ignorance. 
 They think only as their fathers thought, worship as 
 they worshipped. They do no more ; and, if ours 
 had not burst their bondage, braving imprisonment 
 and death, might not we at this very moment have 
 been exhibiting, in our streets and our churches, the 
 same processions, ceremonials, and mortifications ? 
 
 Nor should we require from those who are in an 
 earlier stage of society, what belongs to a later. 
 They are only where we once were ; and why hold 
 them in derision ? It is their business to cultivate 
 the inferior arts before they think of the more refined; 
 and in many of the last what are we as a nation, when 
 compared to others that have passed away ? Unfor- 
 tunately it is too much the practice of governments 
 to nurse and keep alive in the governed their national 
 prejudices. It withdraws their attention from what 
 is passing at home, and makes them better tools in 
 the hands of Ambition. Hence next-door neighbours 
 are held up to us from our childhood as natural 
 
152 
 
 enemies; and we are urged on like curs to worry 
 each other. * 
 
 In like manner we should learn to be just to indi- 
 viduals. Who can say, ' In such circumstances I 
 should have done otherwise?' Who, did he but 
 reflect by what slow gradations, often by how many 
 strange concurrences, we are led astray ; with how 
 much reluctance, how much agony, how many efforts 
 to escape, how many self-accusations, how many 
 sighs, how many tears — Who, did he but reflect for 
 a moment, would have the heart to cast a stone? 
 Fortunately these things are known to Him, from 
 whom no secrets are hidden ; and let us rest in the 
 assurance that His judgments are not as ours are. 
 
 * Candour, generosity, how rare are they in the world ; and 
 how much is to be deplored the want of them ! When a minister 
 in our parliament consents at last to a measure, which, for many 
 reasons perhaps existing no longer, he had before refused to adopt, 
 there should be no exultation as over the fallen, no taunt, no jeer. 
 How often may the resistance be continued lest an enemy should 
 triumph, and the result of conviction be received as a symptom of 
 fear! 
 
THE CAMPAGNA OF ROME. 
 
 Have none appeared as tillers of the ground, 
 None since They went — as tho' it still were theirs, 
 And they might come and claim their own again ? 
 Was the last plough a Roman's ? From this Seat, 
 Sacred for ages, whence, as Virgil sings. 
 The Queen of Heaven, alighting from the sky, 
 Looked down and saw the armies in array, f 
 Let us contemplate ; and, where dreams from Jove 
 * See Note. f iEneid, xii. 134.. 
 
 X 
 
154 
 
 Descended on the sleeper, where perhaps 
 
 Some insph-ations may be lingering still, 
 
 Some glimmerings of the future or the past, 
 
 Let us await their influence ; silently 
 
 Revolving, as we rest on the green turf, 
 
 The changes from that hour, when He from Troy 
 
 Went up the Tiber ; when refulgent shields, 
 
 No strangers to the iron-hail of war, 
 
 Streamed far and wide, and dashing oars were heard 
 
 Among those woods where Silvia's stag was lying. 
 
 His antlers gay with flowers ; among those woods 
 
 Where, by the Moon, that saw and yet withdrew not, 
 
 Two were so soon to wander and be slain. 
 
 Two lovely in their lives, nor in their death 
 
 Divided. 
 
 Then, and hence to be discerned. 
 How many realms, pastoral and warlike, lay 
 Along this plain, each with its schemes of power, 
 Its little rivalships ! What various turns 
 Of fortune there ; what moving accidents 
 From ambuscade and open violence ! 
 Mingling, the sounds came up ; and hence how oft 
 We might have caught among the trees below. 
 Glittering with helm and shield, the men of Tibur ; * 
 Or in Greek vesture, Greek their origin, 
 Some embassy, ascending to PRii:NESTE;f 
 
 * Tivoli. f Palestriiia. 
 
155 
 
 How oft descried, without thy gates, Aricia,* 
 Entering the solemn grove for sacrifice. 
 Senate and People ! — Each a busy hive, 
 Glowing vdth life ! 
 
 But all ere long are lost 
 In one. We look, and where the river rolls 
 Southward its shining labyrinth, in her strength 
 A City, girt with battlements and towers. 
 On seven small hills is rising. Round about. 
 At rural work, the Citizens are seen, 
 None unemployed; the noblest of them all 
 Binding their sheaves or on their threshing-floors. 
 As tho' they had not conquered. Every where 
 Some trace of valour or heroic toil ! 
 Here is the sacred field of the Horatii. 
 There are the Quintian meadows. Here the hillf 
 H ow holy, where a generous people, twice. 
 Twice going forth, in terrible anger sate 
 Armed ; and, their wrongs redressed, at once gave way. 
 Helmet and shield, and sword and spear thrown down. 
 And every hand uplifted, every heart 
 Poured out in thanks to heaven. 
 
 Once again 
 We look ; and lo, the sea is white with sails 
 Innumerable, wafting to the shore 
 Treasures untold ; the vale, the promontories, 
 * La Riccia. -f Mons Sacer. 
 
156 
 
 A dream of glory ; temples, palaces, 
 Called up as by enchantment ; aqueducts 
 Among the groves and glades rolling along 
 Rivers, on many an arch high over-head ; 
 And in the centre, like a burning sun. 
 The Imperial City ! They have now subdued 
 All nations. But where they who led them forth ; 
 Who, when at length released by victory, 
 (Buckler and spear hung up— but not to rust) 
 Held poverty no evil, no reproach, 
 Living on little with a cheerful mind, 
 The Decii, the Fabricii ? Where the spade, 
 And reaping-hook, among their household-things 
 Duly transmitted? In the hands of men 
 Made captive ; while the master and his guests, 
 Rechning, quaff in gold, and roses swim. 
 Summer and winter, thro' the circling year, 
 On their Falernian — in the hands of men 
 Dragged into slavery, with how many more 
 Spared but to die, a public spectacle, 
 In combat with each other, and required 
 To fall with grace, with dignity — to sink, 
 While life is gushing, and the plaudits ring 
 Faint and yet fainter on their failing ear, 
 As models for the sculptor. 
 
 But their days. 
 Their hours are numbered. Hark, a yell, a shriek, 
 
157 
 
 A barbarous out-cry, loud and louder yet, 
 
 That echoes from the mountains to the sea ! 
 
 And mark, beneath us, like a bursting cloud, 
 
 The battle moving onward ! Had they slain 
 
 All, that the Earth should from her womb bring forth 
 
 New nations to destroy them ? From the depth 
 
 Of forests, from what none had dared explore. 
 
 Regions of thrilling ice, as tho' in ice 
 
 Engendered, multiplied, they pour along. 
 
 Shaggy and huge ! Host after host, they come ; 
 
 The Goth, the Vandal ; and again the Goth ! 
 
 Once more we look, and all is still as night. 
 All desolate ! Groves, temples, palaces. 
 Swept from the sight ; and nothing visible. 
 Amid the sulphurous vapours that exhale 
 As from a land accurst, save here and there 
 An empty tomb, a fragment like the limb 
 Of some dismembered giant. In the midst 
 A City stands, her domes and turrets crowned 
 With many a cross ; but they, that issue forth, 
 Wander like strangers who had built among 
 The mighty ruins, silent, spiritless ; 
 And on the road, where once we might have met 
 C^SAR and Cato, and men more than kings. 
 We meet, none else, the pilgrim and the beggar. 
 
THE ROMAN PONTIFFS. 
 
 Those ancient men, what were they, who achieved 
 A sway beyond the greatest conquerors ; 
 Setting their feet upon the necks of kings, 
 And, thro' the world, subduing, chaining down 
 The free, immortal spirit ? Were they not 
 Mighty magicians ? Theirs a wondrous spell. 
 
159 
 
 Where true and false were with infernal art 
 
 Close-interwoven; where together met 
 
 Blessings and curses, threats and promises ; 
 
 And with the terrors of Futurity 
 
 Mingled whate'er enchants and fascinates, 
 
 Music and painting, sculpture, rhetoric. 
 
 And dazzling light and darkness visible. 
 
 And architectural pomp, such as none else ! 
 
 What in his day the Syracusan sought, 
 
 Another world to plant his engines on. 
 
 They had ; and, having it, like gods not men 
 
 Moved this world at their pleasure. Ere they came, 
 
 Their shadows, stretching far and wide, were known ; 
 
 And Two, that looked beyond the visible sphere, 
 
 Gave notice of their coming — he who saw 
 
 The Apocalypse ; and he of elder time, 
 
 Who in an awful vision of the night 
 
 Saw the Four Kingdoms. Distant as they were. 
 
 Those holy men, well might they faint with fear ! 
 
CAIUS CESTIUS. 
 
 When I am inclined to be serious, I love to wander 
 up and down before the tomb of Caius Cestius. 
 The Protestant burial-ground is there ; and most of 
 the httle monuments are erected to the young; young 
 men of promise, cut off when on their travels, full of 
 enthusiasm, full of enjoyment; brides, in the bloom 
 of their beauty, on their first journey ; or children 
 borne from home in search of health. This stone 
 was placed by his fellow-travellers, young as himself, 
 who will return to the house of his parents without 
 him; that, by a husband or a father, now in his native 
 country. His heart is buried in that grave. 
 
 It is a quiet and sheltered nook, covered in the 
 winter with violets; and the Pyramid, that over- 
 shadows it, gives it a classical and singularly solemn 
 air. You feel an interest there, a sympathy you were 
 not prepared for. You are yourself in a foreign land ; 
 and they are for the most part your countrymen. 
 They call upon you in your mother-tongue — in En- 
 glish — in words unknown to a native, known only to 
 
 ■1 
 
IGl 
 
 yourselves : and the tomb of Cestius, that old ma- 
 jestic pile, has this also in common with them. It is 
 itself a stranger, among strangers. It has stood there 
 till the language spoken round about it has changed; 
 and the shepherd, born at the foot, can read its in- 
 scription no longer. 
 
 V 
 
THE NUN. 
 
 'Tis over ; and her lovely cheek is now 
 On her hard pillow — there, alas, to be 
 Nightly, thro' many and many a dreary hour. 
 Wan, often wet with tears, and (ere at length 
 Her place is empty, and another comes) 
 
163 
 
 In anguish, in the ghastliness of death ; 
 
 Hers never more to leave those mournful walls, 
 
 Even on her bier. 
 
 'Tis over ; and the rite, 
 With all its pomp and harmony, is now 
 Floating before her. She arose at home. 
 To be the show, the idol of the day ; 
 Her vesture gorgeous, and her starry head — 
 No rocket, bursting in the midnight-sky. 
 So dazzling. When to-morrow she awakes. 
 She will awake as tho' she still was there. 
 Still in her father's house ; and lo, a cell 
 Narrow and dark, nought thro' the gloom discerned. 
 Nought save the crucifix, the rosary. 
 And the grey habit lying by to shroud 
 Her beauty and grace. 
 
 When on her knees she fell, 
 Entering the solemn place of consecration, 
 And from the latticed gallery came a chant 
 Of psalms, most saint-like, most angelical. 
 Verse after verse sung out how holily, . 
 The strain returning, and still, still returning, 
 Methought it acted like a spell upon her, 
 And she was casting off her earthly dross; 
 Yet was it sad as sweet, and, ere it closed. 
 Came like a dirge. When her fair head was shorn. 
 And the long tresses in her hands were laid, 
 
164 
 
 That she might fling them from her, saying, ' Thus, 
 Thus I renounce the world and worldly things !' 
 When, as she stood, her bridal ornaments 
 Were, one by one, removed, even to the last, 
 That she might say, flinging them from her, ' Thus, 
 Thus I renounce the world !' when all was changed, 
 And, as a nun, in homeliest guise she knelt. 
 Veiled in her veil, crowned with her silver crown. 
 Her crown of lilies as the spouse of Christ, 
 Well might her strength forsake her, and her knees 
 Fail in that hour ! Well might the holy man. 
 He, at whose feet she knelt, give as by stealth 
 ('Twas in her utmost need ; nor, while she lives. 
 Will it go from her, fleeting as it was) 
 That faint but fatherly smile, that smile of love 
 And pity ! 
 
 Like a dream the whole is fled; 
 And they, that came in idleness to gaze 
 Upon the victim dressed for sacrifice. 
 Are mingling in the world ; thou in thy cell 
 Forgot, Teresa. Yet, among them all, 
 None were so formed to love and to be loved. 
 None to delight, adorn ; and on thee now 
 A curtain, blacker than the night, is dropped 
 For ever ! In thy gentle bosom sleep 
 Feelings, affections, destined now to die, 
 To wither like the blossom in the bud. 
 
165 
 
 Those of a wife, a mother ; leaving there 
 
 A cheerless void, a chill as of the grave, 
 
 A languor and a lethargy of soul, 
 
 Death-like, and gathering more and more, till Death 
 
 Comes to release thee. Ah, what now to thee. 
 
 What now to thee the treasure of thy Youth ? 
 
 As nothing! 
 
 But thou canst not yet reflect 
 Calmly ; so many things, strange and perverse, 
 That meet, recoil, and go but to return, 
 The monstrous birth of one eventful day, 
 Troubling thy spirit — from the first, at dawn. 
 The rich arraying for the nuptial feast. 
 To the black pall, the requiem. All in turn 
 Revisit thee, and round thy lowly bed 
 Hover, uncalled. Thy young and innocent heart, 
 How is it beating ? Has it no regrets ? 
 Discoverest thou no weakness lurking there ? 
 But thine exhausted frame has sunk to rest. 
 Peace to thy slumbers ! 
 
THE FIRE-FLY. 
 
 There is an Insect, that, when Evening comes. 
 Small tho' he be and scarce distinguishable. 
 Like Evening clad in soberest livery, 
 Unsheaths his wings and thro' the woods and glades 
 Scatters a marvellous splendour. On he wheels. 
 
167 
 
 Blazing by fits as from excess of joy, 
 Each gush of light a gush of ecstacy ; 
 Nor unaccompanied ; thousands that fling 
 A radiance all their own, not of the day. 
 Thousands as bright as he, from dusk till dawn, 
 Soaring, descending. 
 
 In the mother's lap 
 Well may the child put forth his little hands. 
 Singing the nursery-song he learnt so soon ; 
 And the young nymph, preparing for the dance 
 By brook or fountain-side, in many a braid 
 Wreathing her golden hair, well may she cry, 
 ' Come hither ; and the shepherds, gathering round, 
 Shall say, Floretta emulates the Night, 
 Spangling her head with stars.' 
 
 Oft have I met 
 
 This shining race, when in the Tusculan groves 
 My path no longer glimmered ; oft among 
 Those trees, religious once and always green. 
 That yet dream out their stories of old Rome 
 Over the Alb an lake ; oft met and hailed. 
 Where the precipitate Anio thunders down. 
 And thro' the surging mist a Poet's house 
 (So some aver, and who would not believe ?) 
 
 Reveals itself. Yet cannot I forget 
 
 Him, who rejoiced me in those walks at eve,* 
 My earliest, pleasantest ; who dwells unseen, 
 * The glow-worm. 
 
168 
 
 And in our northern clime, when all is still, 
 Nightly keeps watch, nightly in bush or brake 
 His lonely lamp rekindling. Unlike theirs, 
 His, if less dazzling, thro' the darkness knows 
 No intermission ; sending forth its ray 
 Thro' the green leaves, a ray serene and clear 
 As Virtue's own. 
 
FOREIGN TRAVEL. 
 
 It was in a splenetic humour that I sate me down 
 to ray scanty fare at Terracina ; and how long I 
 should have contemplated the lean thrushes in array 
 before me, I cannot say, if a cloud of smoke, that 
 drew the tears into my eyes, had not burst from the 
 green and leafy boughs on the hearth-stone. * Why,' 
 I exclaimed, starting up from the table, ' why did I 
 leave my own chimney-corner? — But am I not on 
 the road to Brundusium ? And are not these the 
 very calamities that befel Horace and Virgil, and 
 M^cENAS, and Plotius, and Varius? Horace 
 laughed at them — Then why should not I ? Horace 
 resolved to turn them to account; and Virgil — 
 cannot we hear him observing, that to remember 
 them will, by and by, be a pleasure ?' My soliloquy 
 reconciled me at once to my fate ; and when, for the 
 twentieth time, I had looked through the window on 
 a sea sparkling with innumerable brilliants, a sea on 
 which the heroes of the Odyssey and the Eneid had 
 sailed, I sat down as to a splendid banquet. My 
 
 z 
 
170 
 
 thrushes had the flavour of ortolans ; and I ate with 
 an appetite I had not known before. * Who,' I 
 cried, as I poured out my last glass of Falernian, * 
 (for Falernian it was said to be, and in my eyes it 
 ran bright and clear as a topaz-stone) ' Who would 
 remain at home, could he do otherwise? Who would 
 submit to tread that dull, but daily round ; his hours 
 forgotten as soon as spent?' and, opening my journal- 
 book and dipping my pen in my ink-horn, I deter- 
 mined, as far as I could, to justify myself and my coun- 
 trymen in wandering over the face of the earth. ' It 
 may serve me,' said I, ' as a remedy in some future 
 fit of the spleen.' 
 
 Ours is a nation of travellers ; f and no wonder, 
 when the elements, • air, water, fire, attend at our 
 bidding, to transport us from shore to shore ; when 
 the ship rushes into the deep, her track the foam as 
 of some mighty torrent ; and, in three hours or less, 
 
 * We were now within a few hours of the Campania Fehx. 
 On the colour and flavour of Falernian consult Galen and 
 Dioscorides. 
 
 f As indeed it always was, contributing those of every degree, 
 from a milord with his suite to him whose only attendant is his 
 shadow. Coryate in 1608 performed his journey on foot; and, 
 returning, hung up his shoes in his village-church as an ex-voto. 
 Goldsmith, a century and a half afterwards, followed in nearly the 
 same path; playing a tune on his flute to procure admittance, 
 whenever he approached a cottage at night-fall. 
 
171 
 
 we stand gazing and gazed at among a foreign people. 
 None want an excuse. If rich, they go to enjoy; if 
 poor, to retrench ; if sick, to recover ; if studious, to 
 learn ; if learned, to relax from their studies. But 
 whatever they may say, whatever they may believe, 
 they go for the most part on the same errand ; nor 
 will those who reflect, think that errand an idle one. 
 
 Almost all men are over-anxious. No sooner do 
 they enter the world, than they lose that taste for 
 natural and simple pleasures, so remarkable in early 
 life. Every hour do they ask themselves what pro- 
 gress they have made in the pursuit of wealth or 
 honour ; and on they go as their fathers went before 
 them, till, weary and sick at heart, they look back 
 with a sigh of regret to the golden time of their 
 childhood. 
 
 Now travel, and foreign travel more particularly, 
 restores to us in a great degree what we have lost. 
 When the anchor is heaved, we double down the 
 leaf ; and for a while at least all effort is over. The 
 old cares are left clustering round the old objects ; 
 and at every step, as we proceed, the slightest cir- 
 cumstance amuses and interests. All is new and 
 strange. We surrender ourselves, and feel once again 
 as children. Like them, we enjoy eagerly; like them, 
 when we fret, we fret only for the moment ; and here 
 indeed the resemblance is very remarkable, for, if a 
 journey has its pains as well as its pleasures (and 
 
m 
 
 there is nothing unmixed in this world) the pains are 
 no sooner over than they are forgotten, while the 
 pleasures live long in the memory. 
 
 Nor is it surely without another advantage. If 
 life be short, not so to many of us are its days and its 
 hours. When the blood slumbers in the veins, how 
 often do we wish that the earth would turn faster on 
 its axis, that the sun would rise and set before it does ; 
 and, to escape from the weight of time, how many 
 folhes, how many crimes are committed ! Men rush 
 on danger, and even on death. Intrigue, play, foreign 
 and domestic broil, such are their resources; and, 
 when these things fail, they destroy themselves. 
 
 Now in travelling we multiply events,- and inno- 
 cently. We set out, as it were, on our adventures ; 
 and many are those that occur to us, morning, noon, 
 and night. The day we come to a place which we 
 have long heard and read of, and in Italy we do so 
 continually, it is an era in our lives ; and from that 
 moment the very name calls up a picture. How 
 delightfully too does the knowledge flow in upon us, 
 and how fast ! * Would he who sat in a corner of 
 his library, poring over books and maps, learn more 
 or so much in the time, as he who, with his eyes and 
 his heart open, is receiving impressions all day long 
 
 * To judge at once of a nation, we have only to throw our eyes 
 on the markets and the fields. If the markets are well-supplied, 
 the fields well-cultivated, all is right. If otherwise, we may say, 
 and say truly, these people are barbarous or oppressed. 
 
173 
 
 from the things themselves ? * How accurately do 
 they arrange themselves in our memory, towns, rivers, 
 mountains ; and in what living colours do we recall 
 the dresses, manners, and customs of the people ! 
 Our sight is the noblest of all our senses. ' It fills 
 the mind with most ideas, converses with its objects 
 at the greatest distance, and continues longest in 
 action without being tired.' Our sight is on the 
 alert when we travel ; and its exercise is then so de- 
 lightful, that we forget the profit in the pleasure. 
 
 Like a river, that gathers, that refines as it runs, 
 like a spring that takes its course through some rich 
 vein of mineral, we improve and imperceptibly— nor 
 in the head only, but in the heart. Our prejudices 
 leave us, one by one. Seas and mountains are no 
 longer our boundaries. We learn to love,, and esteem, 
 and admire beyond them. Our benevolence extends 
 itself with our knowledge. And must we not return 
 better citizens than we went? For the more we 
 become acquainted with the institutions of other 
 countries, the more highly must we value our own. 
 
 I threw down my pen in triumph. * The question,' 
 said I, ' is set to rest for ever. And yet — ' 
 
 * And yet — ' I must still say. The Wisest of 
 
 * Assuredly not, if the last has laid a proper foundation. Know- 
 ledge makes knowledge as money makes money, nor ever perhaps 
 so fast as on a journey. 
 
174 
 
 MEN seldom went out of the walls of Athens ; and 
 for that worst of evils, that sickness of the soul, to 
 which we are most hable when most at our ease, is 
 there not after all a surer and yet pleasanter remedy, 
 a remedy for which we have only to cross the thresh- 
 old ? A PiEDMONTESE nobleman, into whose com- 
 pany I fell at Turin, had not long before experienced 
 its eihcacy ; and his story, which he told me without 
 reserve, was as follows. 
 
 ' I was weary of life, and, after a day, such as few 
 have known and none would wish to remember, was 
 hurrying along the street to the river, when I felt a 
 sudden check. I turned and beheld a httle boy, who 
 had caught the skirt of my cloak in his anxiety to 
 solicit my notice. His look and manner were irre- 
 sistible. Not less so was the lesson he had learnt. 
 " There are six of us ; and we are dying for want of 
 food." — * Why should I not,' said I to myself, ' re- 
 lieve this wretched family ? I have the means ; and 
 it will not delay me many minutes. But what, if it 
 does V The scene of misery he conducted me to, I 
 cannot describe. I threw them my purse ; and their 
 burst of gratitude overcame me. It filled my eyes . . 
 it went as a cordial to my heart. ' I will call again 
 to-morrow,' I cried. ' Fool that I was, to think of 
 leaving a world, where such pleasure was to be had, 
 and so cheaply !' 
 
THE FOUNTAIN. 
 
 It was a well 
 
 Of whitest marble, white as from the quarry ; 
 And richly wrought with many a high relief, 
 Greek sculpture — in some earlier day perhaps 
 A tomb, and honoured with a hero's ashes. 
 
176 
 
 The water from the rock filled, overflowed it ; 
 Then dashed away, playing the prodigal. 
 And soon was lost — stealing unseen, unheard. 
 Thro' the long grass, and round the twisted roots 
 Of aged trees ; discovering where it ran 
 By the fresh verdure. Overcome with heat, 
 I threw me down ; admiring, as I lay. 
 That shady nook, a singing-place for birds, 
 That grove so intricate, so full of flowers. 
 More than enough to please a child a-Maying. 
 
 The sun had set, a distant convent-bell 
 Ringing the Angelus; and now approached 
 The hour for stir and village-gossip there. 
 The hour Rebekah came, when from the well 
 She drew with such alacrity to serve 
 The stranger and his camels. Soon I heard 
 Footsteps ; and lo, descending by a path 
 Trodden for ages, many a nymph appeared, 
 Appeared and vanished, bearing on her head 
 Her earthen pitcher. It called up the day 
 Ulysses landed there ; and long I gazed. 
 Like one awaking in a distant time. * 
 
 At length there came the loveliest of them all. 
 Her little brother dancing down before her ; 
 And ever as he spoke, which he did ever, 
 
 * The place here described is near Mola di Gaeta in the kingdom 
 of Naples. 
 
177 
 
 Turning and looking up in warmth of heart 
 
 And brotherly affection. Stopping there, 
 
 She joined her rosy hands, and, filling them 
 
 With the pure element, gave him to drink ; 
 
 And, while he quenched his thirst, standing on tiptoe. 
 
 Looked down upon him with a sister's smile, 
 
 Nor stirred till he had done, fixed as a statue. 
 
 Then hadst thou seen them as they stood, Canova, 
 Thou hadst endowed them with immortal youth ; 
 And they had evermore lived undivided. 
 Winning all hearts — of all thy works the fairest. 
 
BANDITTI. 
 
 'Tis a wild life, fearful and full of change, 
 The mountain-robber's. On the watch he lies, 
 Levelling his carbine at the passenger ; 
 And, when his work is done, he dares not sleep. 
 
 Time was, the trade was nobler, if not honest ; 
 When they that robbed, were men of better faith 
 .Than kings or pontiffs ; when, such reverence 
 The Poet drew among the woods and wilds, 
 A voice was heard, that never bade to spare, 
 Crying aloud, " Hence to the distant hills ! 
 Tasso approaches ; he, whose song beguiles 
 The day of half its hours ; whose sorcery 
 Dazzles the sense, turning our forest-glades 
 To lists that blaze with gorgeous armoury, 
 Our mountain-caves to regal palaces. 
 Hence, nor descend till he and his are gone. 
 Let him fear nothing." 
 
 When along the shore, 
 And by the path that, wandering on its way, 
 Leads thro' the fatal grove where Tully fell, 
 (Grey and o'ergrown, an ancient tomb is there) 
 
179 
 
 He came and they withdrew, they were a race 
 
 Careless of hfe in others and themselves, 
 
 For they had learnt their lesson in a camp ; 
 
 But not ungenerous. 'Tis no longer so. 
 
 Now crafty, cruel, torturing ere they slay 
 
 The unhappy captive, and with bitter jests 
 
 Mocking Misfortune ; vain, fantastical, 
 
 Wearing whatever glitters in the spoil ; 
 
 And most devout, tho', when they kneel and pray, 
 
 With every bead they could recount a murder, 
 
 As by a spell they start up in array. 
 
 As by a spell they vanish — theirs a band, 
 
 Not as elsewhere of outlaws, but of such 
 
 As sow and reap, and at the cottage-door 
 
 Sit to receive, return the traveller's greeting ; 
 
 Now in the garb of peace, now silently 
 
 Arming and issuing forth, led on by men 
 
 Whose names on innocent lips are words of fear. 
 
 Whose hves have long been forfeit. Some there are 
 
 That, ere they rise to this bad eminence. 
 Lurk, night and day, the plague-spot visible. 
 The guilt that says, Beware ; and mark we now 
 Him, where he lies, who couches for his prey 
 At the bridge-foot in some dark cavity 
 Scooped by the waters, or some gaping tomb. 
 Nameless and tenantless, whence the red fox 
 Slunk as he entered. There he broods, in spleen 
 Gnawing his beard ; his rough and sinewy frame 
 
180 
 
 O'erwritten with the story of his hfe : 
 
 On his wan cheek a sabre-cut, well-earned 
 
 In foreign warfare ; on his breast the brand 
 
 Indelible, burnt in when to the port 
 
 He clanked his chain, among a hundred more 
 
 Dragged ignominiously ; on every limb 
 
 Memorials of his glory and his shame, 
 
 Stripes of the lash and honourable scars. 
 
 And channels here and there worn to the bone 
 
 By galling fetters. He comes slowly forth, 
 
 Unkennelling, and up that savage dell 
 
 Anxiously looks ; his cruise, an ample gourd, 
 
 (Duly replenished from the vintner's cask) 
 
 Slung from his shoulder ; in his breadth of belt 
 
 Two pistols and a dagger yet uncleansed, 
 
 A parchment scrawled with uncouth characters, 
 
 And a small vial, his last remedy, 
 
 His cure, when all things fail. No noise is heard. 
 
 Save when the rugged bear and the gaunt wolf 
 
 Howl in the upper region, or a fish 
 
 Leaps in the gulf beneath — But now he kneels 
 
 And (like a scout, when listening to the tramp 
 
 Of horse or foot) lays his experienced ear 
 
 Close to the ground, then rises and explores. 
 
 Then kneels again, and, his short rifle-gun 
 
 Against his cheek, waits patiently. Two Monks, 
 
 Portly, grey-headed, on their gallant steeds. 
 Descend where yet a mouldering cross o'erhangs 
 
181 
 
 The grave of one that from the precipice 
 
 Fell in an evil hour. Their bridle-bells 
 
 Ring merrily ; and many a loud, long laugh 
 
 Re-echoes ; but at once the sounds are lost. 
 
 Unconscious of the good in store below, 
 
 The holy fathers have turned off, and now 
 
 Cross the brown heath, ere long to wag their beards 
 
 Before my lady-abbess^i and discuss 
 
 Things only known to the devout and pure 
 
 O'er her spiced bowl — then shrive the sister-hood, 
 
 Sitting by turns with an inclining ear 
 
 In the confessional. He moves his lips 
 
 As with a curse — then paces up and down. 
 Now fast, now slow, brooding and muttering on ; 
 Gloomy alike to him the past, the future. 
 
 But hark, the nimble tread of numerous feet ! 
 — 'Tis but a dappled herd, come down to slake 
 Their thirst in the cool wave. He turns and aims ; 
 Then checks himself, unwilling to disturb 
 
 The sleeping echoes. Once again he earths ; 
 
 Slipping away to house with them beneath. 
 
 His old companions in that hiding-place. 
 
 The bat, the toad, the blind-worm, and the newt ; 
 
 And hark, a footstep, firm and confident, 
 
 As of a man in haste. Nearer it draws ; 
 
 And now is at the entrance of the den. 
 
 Ha ! 'tis a comrade, sent to gather in 
 
 The band for some great enterprize. Who wants 
 
182 
 
 A sequel, may read on. The unvarnished tale, 
 That follows, will supply the place of one. 
 'Twas told me by the Count St. Angelo, 
 When in a blustering night he sheltered me 
 In that brave castle of his ancestors 
 O'er Garigliano, and is such indeed 
 As every day brings with it — in a land 
 Where laws are trampled on, and lawless men 
 Walk in the sun ; but it should not be lost. 
 For it may serve to bind us to our Country. 
 
AN ADVENTURE. 
 
 Three days they lay in ambush at my gate. 
 Then sprung and led me captive. Many a wild 
 We traversed ; but Rusconi, 'twas no less, 
 Marched by my side, and, when I thirsted, climbed 
 The cliffs for water ; though, whene'er he spoke, 
 
184 
 
 'Twas briefly, sullenly ; and on he led, 
 
 Distinguished only by an amulet, 
 
 That in a golden chain hung from his neck, 
 
 A crystal of rare virtue. Night fell fast. 
 
 When on a heath, black and immeasurable. 
 
 He turned and bade them halt. 'Twas where the earth 
 
 Heaves o'er the dead — where erst some Alaric 
 
 Fought his last fight, and every warrior threw 
 
 A stone to tell for ages where he lay. 
 
 Then all advanced, and, ranging in a square. 
 Stretched forth their arms as on the holy cross. 
 From each to each their sable cloaks extending, 
 That, like the solemn hangings of a tent. 
 Covered us round ; and in the midst I stood. 
 Weary and faint, and face to face with one. 
 Whose voice, whose look dispenses life and death. 
 Whose heart knows no relentings. Instantly 
 A light was kindled, and the Bandit spoke. 
 * I know thee. Thou hast sought us, for the sport 
 Slipping thy blood-hounds with a hunter's cry; 
 And thou hast found at last. Were I as thou, 
 I in thy grasp as thou art now in ours. 
 Soon should I make a midnight-spectacle. 
 Soon, limb by limb, be mangled on a wheel. 
 Then gibbetted to blacken for the vultures. 
 But I would teach thee better — how to spare. 
 Write as I dictate. If thy ransom comes. 
 
185 
 
 Thou liv'st. If not — but answer not, I pray, 
 Lest thou provoke me. I may strike thee dead ; 
 And know, young man, it is an easier thing 
 To do it than to say it. Write, and thus.' — 
 
 I wrote. ' 'Tis well,' he cried. ' A peasant-boy, 
 Trusty and swift of foot, shall bear it hence. 
 Meanwhile lie down and rest. This cloak of mine 
 Will serve thee ; it has weathered many a storm.' 
 The watch was set ; and twice it had been changed. 
 When morning broke, and a wild bird, a hawk, 
 Flew in a circle, screaming. I looked up. 
 And all were gone, save him who now kept guard, 
 And on his arms lay musing. Young he seemed, 
 And sad, as tho' he could indulge at will 
 Some secret sorrow. ' Thou shrink'st back,' he said. 
 * Well may'st thou, lying, as thou dost, so near 
 A Ruffian — one for ever linked and bound 
 To guilt and infamy. There was a time 
 When he had not perhaps been deemed unworthy, 
 When he had watched that planet to its setting, 
 And dwelt with pleasure on the meanest thing 
 That Nature has given birth to. Now 'tis past. 
 
 Wouldst thou know more ? My story is an old one. 
 I loved, was scorned ; I trusted, was betrayed ; 
 And in my anguish, my necessity, 
 Met with the fiend, the tempter — in Rusconi. 
 ' Why thus?' he cried. 'Thou wouldst be free and dar'st not. 
 
 B B 
 
186 
 
 Come and assert thy birth-right while thou canst. 
 
 A robber's cave is better than a dungeon ; 
 
 And death itself, what is it at the worst. 
 
 What, but a harlequin's leap ?' Him I had known, 
 
 Had served with, suffered with ; and on the walls 
 
 Of Capua, while the moon went down, I swore 
 
 Allegiance on his dagger. Dost thou ask 
 
 How I have kept my oath ? Thou shalt be told. 
 Cost what it may. — But grant me, I implore. 
 Grant me a passport to some distant land, 
 That I may never, never more be named. 
 Thou wilt, I know thou wilt. 
 
 Two months ago. 
 When on a vineyard-hill we lay concealed 
 And scattered up and down as we were wont, 
 I heard a damsel singing to herself. 
 And soon espied her, coming all alone. 
 In her first beauty. Up a path she came. 
 Leafy and intricate, singing her song, 
 A song of love, by snatches ; breaking off 
 If but a flower, an insect- in the sun 
 Pleased for an instant ; then as carelessly 
 The strain resuming, and, where'er she stopt. 
 Rising on tiptoe underneath the boughs 
 To pluck a grape in very wantonness. 
 Her look, her mien and maiden-ornaments 
 Shewed gentle birth ; and, step by step, she came. 
 
187 
 
 Nearer and nearer, to the dreadful snare. 
 None else were by ; and, as I gazed unseen, 
 Her youth, her innocence and gaiety 
 Went to my heart ; and, starting up, I breathed, 
 
 * Fly — for your life !' Alas, she shrieked, she fell ; 
 And, as I caught her falling, all rushed forth. 
 
 * A Wood-nymph !' cried Rusconi. * By the light. 
 Lovely as Hebe ! Lay her in the shade.' 
 
 I heard him not. I stood as in a trance. 
 
 * What,' he exclaimed with a malicious smile, 
 
 * Wouldst thou rebel ?' I did as he required. 
 
 * Now bear her hence to the well-head below ; 
 A few cold drops will animate this marble. 
 Go ! 'Tis an office all will envy thee ; 
 
 But thouTiast earned it.' As I staggered down, 
 Unwilling to surrender her sweet body ; 
 Her golden hair dishevelled on a neck 
 Of snow, and her fair eyes closed as in sleep. 
 Frantic with love, with hate, ' Great God !' I cried, 
 (I had almost forgotten how to pray ; 
 But there are moments when the courage comes) 
 < Why may I not, whik yet — while yet I can. 
 Release her from a thraldom worse than death V 
 'Twas done as soon as said. I kissed her brow. 
 And smote her with my dagger. A short cry 
 She uttered, but she stirred not ; and to heaven 
 Her gentle spirit fled. 'Twas where the path 
 
188 
 
 In its descent turned suddenly. No eye 
 
 Observed me, tho' their steps were following fast. 
 
 But soon a yell broke forth, and all at once 
 
 Levelled their deadly aim. Then I had ceased 
 
 To trouble or be troubled, and had now 
 
 (Would I were there !) been slumbering in my grave. 
 
 Had not Rusconi with a terrible shout 
 
 Thrown himself in between us, and exclaimed, 
 
 Grasping my arm, * 'Tis bravely, nobly done ! 
 
 Is it for deeds like these thou wear'st a sword? 
 
 Was this the business that thou cam'st upon ? 
 
 — But 'tis his first offence, and let it pass. 
 
 Like the young tiger he has tasted blood, 
 
 And may do much hereafter. He can strike 
 
 Home to the hilt.' Then in an under-tone, 
 
 * Thus would'st thou justify the pledge I gave. 
 
 When in the eyes of all I read distrust ? 
 
 For once,' and on his cheek, methought, I saw 
 
 The blush of virtue, ' I will save thee, Albert ; 
 
 Again I cannot.' 
 
 Ere his tale was told, 
 As on the heath we lay, my ransom came ; 
 And in six days, with no ungrateful mind, 
 Albert was sailing on a quiet sea. 
 — But the night wears, and thou art much in need 
 Of rest. The young Antonio, with his torch, 
 Is waiting to conduct thee to thy chamber. 
 
NAPLES. 
 
 This region, surely, is not of the earth. * 
 Was it not dropt from heaven ? Not a grove. 
 Citron or pine or cedar, not a grot 
 Sea-worn and mantled with the gadding vine. 
 But breathes enchantment. Not a cliff but flings 
 On the clear wave some image of delight, 
 
 * Un pezzo di cielo caduto in terra. Sannazaro. 
 
190 
 
 Some cabin-roof glowing with crimson flowers, 
 Some ruined temple or fallen monument. 
 To muse on as the bark is gliding by. 
 And be it mine to muse there, mine to glide. 
 From day-break, when the mountain pales his fire 
 Yet more and more, and from the mountain-top. 
 Till then invisible, a smoke ascends. 
 Solemn and slow, as erst from Ararat, 
 When he, the Patriarch, who escaped the Flood, 
 Was with his house-hold sacrificing there — 
 From day-break to that hour, the last and best. 
 When, one by one, the fishing-boats come forth, 
 Each with its glimmering lantern at the prow, 
 And, when the nets are thrown, the evening-hymn 
 Steals o'er the trembling waters. 
 
 Every where 
 Fable and Truth have shed, in rivalry. 
 Each her peculiar influence. Fable came. 
 And laughed and sung, arraying Truth in flowers, 
 Like a young child her grandam. Fable came ; 
 Earth, sea and sky reflecting, as she flew, 
 A thousand, thousand colours not their own : 
 And at her bidding, lo ! a dark descent 
 To Tartarus, and those thrice happy fields, 
 Those fields with ether pure and purple light 
 Ever invested, scenes by Him pourtrayed,* 
 
 * Virgil. 
 
191 
 
 Who here was wont to wander, here invoke 
 The sacred Muses,* here receive, record 
 What they revealed, and on the western shore 
 Sleeps in a silent grove, o'erlooking thee, 
 Beloved Parthenope. 
 
 Yet here, methinks, 
 Truth wants no ornament, in her own shape 
 Filling the mind by turns with awe and love, 
 By turns inclining to wild ecstacy, 
 And soberest meditation. Here the vines 
 Wed, each her elm, and o'er the golden grain 
 Hang their luxuriant clusters, chequering 
 The sunshine ; where, when cooler shadows fall, 
 And the mild moon her fairy net-work weaves. 
 The lute, or mandoline, accompanied 
 By many a voice yet sweeter than their own. 
 Kindles, nor slowly ; and the dance -f- displays 
 The gentle arts and witcheries of love. 
 Its hopes and fears and feignings, till the youth 
 Drops on his knee as vanquished, and the maid. 
 Her tambourine uplifting with a grace. 
 Nature's and Nature's only, bids him rise. 
 
 But here the mighty Monarch underneath. 
 He in his palace of fire, diffuses round 
 
 * Quarum sacra fero, ingenti percussus amore. 
 f The Tarantella. 
 
192 
 
 A dazzling splendour. Here, unseen, unheard. 
 Opening another Eden in the wild. 
 He works his wonders ; save, when issuing forth 
 In thunder, he blots out the sun, the sky. 
 And, mingling all things earthly as in scorn. 
 Exalts the valley, lays the mountain low. 
 Pours many a torrent from his burning lake. 
 And in an hour of universal mirth. 
 What time the trump proclaims the festival. 
 Buries some capital city, there to sleep 
 The sleep of ages — till a plough, a spade 
 Disclose the secret, and the eye of day 
 Glares coldly on the streets, the skeletons, 
 Each in his place, each in his gay attire. 
 And eager to enjoy. 
 
 Let us go round. 
 And let the sail be slack, the course be slow, 
 That at our leisure, as we coast along, 
 We may contemplate, and from every scene 
 Receive its influence. The Cum^ean towers. 
 There did they rise, sun-gilt ; and here thy groves, 
 Delicious Bai^. Here (what would they not ?) 
 The masters of the earth, unsatisfied. 
 Built in the sea ; and now the boatman steers 
 O'er many a crypt and vault yet glimmering. 
 O'er many a broad and indestructible arch. 
 The deep foundations of their palaces ; 
 
193 
 
 Nothing now heard ashore, so great the change, 
 Save when the sea-mew clamours, or the owl 
 Hoots in the temple. 
 
 What the mountainous Isle,* 
 Seen in the South? 'Tis where a Monster dwelt, f 
 Hurling his victims from the topmost cliff ; 
 Then and then only merciful, so slow. 
 So subtle were the tortures they endured. 
 Fearing and feared he lived, cursing and cursed ; 
 And still the dungeons in the rock breathe out 
 Darkness, distemper. Strange, that one so vile 
 Should from his den strike terror thro' the world ; 
 Should, where withdrawn in his decrepitude, 
 Say to the noblest, be they where they might, 
 * Go from the earth !' and from the earth they went. 
 Yet such things were — and will be, when mankind. 
 Losing all virtue, lose all energy ; 
 And for the loss incur the penalty, 
 Trodden down and trampled. 
 
 Let us turn the prow. 
 And in the track of him who went to die, X 
 Traverse this valley of waters, landing where 
 A waking dream awaits us. At a step 
 Two thousand years roll backward, and we stand, 
 
 * Capreae. f Tiberius. 
 
 \ The Elder Pliny, See the letter in which his Nephew relates 
 to Tacitus the circumstances of his death. 
 
194 
 
 Like those so long within that awful Place, * 
 Immovable, nor asking, Can it be ? 
 
 Once did I linger there alone, till day 
 Closed, and at length the calm of twilight came, 
 So grateful, yet so solemn ! At the fount. 
 Just where the three ways meet, I stood and looked, 
 ('Twas near a noble house, the house of Pansa) 
 And all was still as in the long, long night 
 That followed, when the shower of ashes fell. 
 When they that sought Pompeii, sought in vain ; 
 It was not to be found. But now a ray. 
 Bright and yet brighter, on the pavement glanced, 
 And on the wheel-track worn for centuries, 
 And on the stepping-stones from side to side, 
 O'er which the maidens, with their water-urns. 
 Were wont to trip so lightly. Full and clear. 
 The moon was rising, and at once revealed 
 The name of every dweller, and his craft ; 
 Shining throughout with an unusual lustre. 
 And lighting up this City of the Dead. 
 
 Mark, where within, as tho' the embers lived, 
 The ample chimney-vault is dun with smoke. 
 There dwelt a miller ; silent and at rest 
 His mill-stones now. In old companionship 
 * Pompeii. 
 
195 
 
 Still do they stand as on the day he went, 
 
 Each ready for its office — but he comes not. 
 
 And there, hard by (where one in idleness 
 
 Has stopt to scrawl a ship, an armed man ; 
 
 And in a tablet on the wall we read 
 
 Of shews ere long to be) a sculptor wrought, 
 
 Nor meanly ; blocks, half-chiselled into life. 
 
 Waiting his call. Here long, as yet attests 
 
 The trodden floor, an olive-merchant drew 
 
 From many an earthen jar, no more supplied; 
 
 And here from his a vintner served his guests 
 
 Largely, the stain of his o'erflowing cups 
 
 Fresh on the marble. On the bench, beneath, 
 
 They sate and quaffed and looked on them that passed, 
 
 Gravely discussing the last news from Rome. 
 
 But lo, engraven on *a threshold-stone. 
 That word of courtesy, so sacred once. 
 Hail ! At a master's greeting we may enter. 
 And lo, a fairy-palace ! every where, 
 As thro' the courts and chambers we advance. 
 Floors of mosaic, walls of arabesque. 
 And columns clustering in Patrician splendour. 
 But hark, a footstep ! May we not intrude ? 
 And now, methinks, I hear a gentle laugh. 
 And gentle voices mingling as in converse ! 
 — And now a harp-string as struck carelessly, 
 And now — along the corridor it comes — 
 
196 
 
 I cannot err, a filling as of baths ! 
 — ^Ah, no, 'tis but a mockery of the sense. 
 Idle and vain ! We are but where we were ; 
 Still wandering in a City of the Dead! 
 
THE BAG OF GOLD. 
 
 I DINE very often with the good old Cardinal * * 
 and, I should add, with his cats ; for they always sit 
 at his table, and are much the gravest of the com- 
 pany. His beaming countenance makes us forget 
 his age ; nor did I ever see it clouded till yesterday, 
 when, as we were contemplating the sun-set from his 
 terrace, he happened, in the course of our conversa- 
 tion, to allude to an affecting circumstance in his 
 early life. 
 
 He had just left the University of Palermo and 
 was entering the army, when he became acquainted 
 with a young lady of great beauty and merit, a Sici- 
 lian of a family as illustrious as his own. Living 
 near each other, they were often together; and, at an 
 age like theirs, friendship soon turns to love. But 
 his father, for what reason I forget, refused his con- 
 sent to their union; till, alarmed at the declining 
 health of his son, he promised to oppose it no longer, 
 if, after a separation of three years, they continued as 
 much in love as ever. 
 
198 
 
 Relying on that promise, he said, I set out on a 
 long journey ; but in my absence the usual arts were 
 resorted to. Our letters were intercepted ; and false 
 rumours were spread — first of my indifference, then 
 of my inconstancy, then of my marriage with a rich 
 heiress of Sienna ; and, when at length I returned 
 to make her my own, I found her in a convent of 
 Ursuline Nuns. She had taken the veil ; and I, said 
 he with a sigh — what else remained for me? — I went 
 into the church. 
 
 Yet many, he continued, as if to turn the con- 
 versation, very many have been happy though we 
 were not ; and, if I am not abusing an old man's pri- 
 vilege, let me tell you a story with a better catastrophe. 
 It was told to me when a boy ; and you may not be 
 unwilling to hear it, for it bears some resemblance to 
 that of the Merchant of Venice. 
 
 We were now arrived at a pavilion that commanded 
 one of the noblest prospects imaginable ; the moun- 
 tains, the sea, and the islands illuminated by the last 
 beams of day ; and, sitting down there, he proceeded 
 with his usual vivacity; for the sadness, that had come 
 across him, was gone. 
 
 There lived in the fourteenth century, near Bo- 
 logna, a Widow-lady of the Lambertini Family, 
 called Madonna Lucrezia, who in a revolution of 
 the State had known the bitterness of poverty, and 
 
199 
 
 had even begged her bread ; kneeUng day after day 
 like a statue at the gate of the Cathedral ; her rosary 
 in her left hand and her right held out for charity ; 
 her long black veil concealing a face that had once 
 adorned a Court, and had received the homage of as 
 many sonnets as Petrarch has written on Laura. 
 
 But Fortune had at last relented ; a legacy from a 
 distant relation had come to her relief; and she was 
 now the mistress of a small inn at the foot of the 
 Apennines ; where she entertained as well as she 
 could, and where those only stopped who were con- 
 tented with a little. The house was still standing, 
 when in my youth I passed that way; though the 
 sign of the White Cross,* the Cross of the Hospital- 
 lers, was no longer to be seen over the door ; a sign 
 which she had taken, if we may believe the tradition 
 there, in honour of a maternal uncle, a grand-master 
 of that Order, whose achievements in Palestine she 
 would sometimes relate. A mountain-stream ran 
 through the garden ; and at no great distance, where 
 the road turned on its way to Bologna, stood a little 
 chapel, in which a lamp was always burning before a 
 picture of the Virgin, a picture of great antiquity, the 
 work of some Greek artist. 
 
 Here she was dwelling, respected by all who knew 
 her ; when an event took place, which threw her into 
 * La Croce Bianca. 
 
^00 
 
 the deepest affliction. It was at noon-day in Sep- 
 tember that three foot-travellers arrived, and, seating 
 themselves on a bench under her vine-trellis, were 
 supplied with a flagon of Aleatico by a lovely girl, her 
 only child, the image of her former self. The eldest 
 spoke like a Venetian, and his beard was short and 
 pointed after the fashion of Venice. In his de- 
 meanour he affected great courtesy, but his look in- 
 spired little confidence ; for when he smiled, which 
 he did continually, it was with his lips only, not with 
 his eyes ; and they were always turned from yours. 
 His companions were bluff* and frank in their manner, 
 and on their tongues had many a soldier's oath. In 
 their hats they wore a medal, such as in that age was 
 often distributed in war; and they were evidently 
 subalterns in one of those Free Bands which were 
 always ready to serve in any quarrel, if a service it 
 could be called, where a battle was little more than 
 a mockery ; and the slain, as on an opera-stage, were 
 up and fighting to-morrow. Overcome with the heat, 
 they threw aside their cloaks ; and, with their gloves 
 tucked under their belts, continued for some time in 
 earnest conversation. 
 
 At length they rose to go ; and the Venetian thus 
 addressed their Hostess. * Excellent Lady, may we 
 leave under your roof, for a day or two, this bag of 
 gold V ' You may,' she replied gaily. ' But remem- 
 
ber, we fasten only with a latch. Bars and bolts, 
 we have none in our village ; and, if we had, where 
 would be your security?' ' In your word, Lady.' 
 
 ' But what if I died to-night ? Where would it 
 be then ?' said she, laughing. ' The money would 
 go to the Church ; for none could claim it.' 
 
 ' Perhaps you will favour us with an acknow- 
 ledgment.' 
 
 ' If you will write it.' 
 
 An acknowledgment was written accordingly, and 
 she signed it before Master Bartolo, the Village- 
 physician, who had just called by chance to learn the 
 news of the day ; the gold to be delivered when ap- 
 plied for, but to be delivered (these were the words) 
 not to one — nor to two — but to the three; words 
 wisely introduced by those to whom it belonged, 
 knowing what they knew of each other. The gold 
 they had just released from a miser's chest in Peru- 
 gia; and they were now on a scent that promised 
 more. 
 
 They and their shadows were no sooner departed, 
 than the Venetian returned, saying, ' Give me leave 
 to set my seal on the bag, as the others have done ;' 
 and she placed it on a table before him. But in that 
 moment she was called away to receive a Cavalier, 
 who had just dismounted from his horse ; and, when 
 she came back, it was gone. The temptation had 
 
 D D 
 
202 
 
 proved irresistible ; and the man and the money had 
 vanished together. 
 
 'Wretched v^^oman that I am!' she cried, as in an 
 agony of grief she fell on her daughter's neck, ' What 
 will become of us ? Are we again to be cast out into 
 the wide world ? . •. Unhappy child, would that thou 
 hadst never been born !' and all day long she lamented; 
 but her tears availed her little. The others were not 
 slow in returning to claim their due ; and there were 
 no tidings of the thief ; he had fled far away with his 
 plunder. A Process against her was instantly begun 
 in Bologna; and what defence could she make; 
 how release herself from the obligation of the bond ? 
 Wilfully or in negligence she had parted with the 
 gold ; she had parted with it to one, when she should 
 have kept it for all ; and inevitable ruin awaited her ! 
 ' Go, GiANETTA,' said she to her daughter, ' take this 
 veil which your mother has worn and wept under so 
 often, and implore the Counsellor Calderino to plead 
 for us on the day of trial. He is generous, and will 
 listen to the Unfortunate. But, if he will not, go from 
 door to door; Monaldi cannot refuse us. Make 
 haste, my child; but remember the chapel as you 
 pass by it. Nothing prospers without a prayer.' 
 
 Alas, she went, but in vain. These were retained 
 against them ; those demanded more than they had 
 to give ; and all bad them despair. What was to be 
 
203 
 
 done ? No advocate ; and the Cause to come on to- 
 morrow ! 
 
 Now GiANETTA had a lover ; and he was a student 
 of the law, a young man of great promise, Lorenzo 
 Martelli. He had studied long and diligently 
 under that learned lawyer, Giovanni Andreas, 
 who, though little of stature, was great in renown, 
 and by his contemporaries was called the Arch- 
 doctor, the Rabbi of Doctors, the Light of the World. 
 Under him he had studied, sitting on the same bench 
 with Petrarch ; and also under his daughter Novella, 
 who would often lecture to the scholars, when her 
 father was otherwise engaged, placing herself behind 
 a small curtain, lest her beauty should divert their 
 thoughts ; a precaution in this instance at least unne- 
 cessary, Lorenzo having lost his heart to another. * 
 
 To him she flies in her necessity; but of what 
 assistance can he be ? He has just taken his place 
 at the bar, but he has never spoken ; and how stand 
 up alone, unpractised and unprepared as he is, against 
 an array that would alarm the most experienced ? — 
 * Were I as mighty as I am weak,' said he, ' my 
 fears for you would make me as nothing. But I will 
 
 • Ce pourroit etre, says Bayle, la matiei'e dun joli probleme : 
 on pourroit examiner si cette fille avan9oit, ou si elle retardoit le 
 profit de ses auditeurs, en leur cachant son beau visage. II y 
 auroit cent choses a dire pour et contre la-dessus. 
 
204 
 
 be there, Gianetta ; and may the Friend of the 
 Friendless give me strength in that hour! Even 
 now my heart fails me ; but, come v^^hat will, while I 
 have a loaf to share, you and your Mother shall never 
 want. I will beg through the world for you.' 
 
 The day arrives, and the court assembles. The 
 claim is stated, and the evidence given. And now 
 the defence is called for — but none is made ; not a 
 syllable is uttered; and, after a pause and a consulta- 
 tion of some minutes, the Judges are proceeding to 
 give judgment, silence having been proclaimed in 
 the court, when Lorenzo rises and thus addresses 
 them. ' Reverend Signors. Young as I am, may I 
 venture to speak before you ? I would speak in be- 
 half of one who has none else to help her; and I will 
 not keep you long. Much has been said ; much on 
 the sacred nature of the obligation — and we acknow- 
 ledge it in its full force. Let it be fulfilled, and to the 
 last letter. It is what we solicit, what we require. 
 But to whom is the bag of gold to be delivered? 
 What says the bond ? Not to one — not to two — but 
 to the three. Let the three stand forth and claim it.' 
 
 From that day, (for who can doubt the issue?) 
 none were sought, none employed, but the subtle, 
 the eloquent Lorenzo. Wealth followed Fame; 
 nor need I say how soon he sat at his marriage- 
 feast, or who sat beside him. 
 
A CHARACTER. 
 
 One of two things Montrioli may have, 
 
 My envy or compassion. Both he cannot. 
 
 Yet on he goes, numbering as miseries, 
 
 What least of all he would consent to lose. 
 
 What most indeed he prides himself upon. 
 
 And, for not having, most despises me. 
 
 ' At morn the minister exacts an hour ; 
 
 At noon the king. Then comes the council-board ; 
 
 And then the chasse, the supper. When, ah when, 
 
 The leisure and the liberty I sigh for ? 
 
 Not when at home ; at home a miscreant-crew. 
 
 That now no longer serve me, mine the service. 
 
 And then that old hereditary bore. 
 
 The steward, his stories longer than his rent-roll, 
 
 Who enters, quill in ear, and, one by one. 
 
 As tho' I lived to write, and wrote to live. 
 
 Unrolls his leases for my signature.' 
 
 He clanks his fetters to disturb my peace. 
 Yet who would wear them, and become the slave 
 Of wealth and power, renouncing willingly 
 His freedom, and the hours that fly so fast, 
 
206 
 
 A burden or a curse when misemployed, 
 
 But to the wise how precious — every day 
 
 A little life, a blank to be inscribed 
 
 With gentle deeds, such as in after-time 
 
 Console, rejoice, whene'er we turn the leaf 
 
 To read them ? All, wherever in the scale, 
 
 Have, be they high or low, or rich or poor. 
 
 Inherit they a sheep-hook or a sceptre, 
 
 Much to be grateful for ; but most has he. 
 
 Born in that middle sphere, that temperate zone. 
 
 Where Knowledge hghts his lamp, there most secure, 
 
 And Wisdom comes, if ever, she who dwells 
 
 Above the clouds, above the firmament, 
 
 That Seraph sitting in the heaven of heavens. 
 
 What men most covet, wealth, distinction, power. 
 Are baubles nothing worth, that only serve 
 To rouse us up, as children in the schools 
 Are roused up to exertion. The reward 
 Is in the race we run, not in the prize ; 
 And they, the few, that have it ere they earn it, 
 Having, by favour or inheritance. 
 These dangerous gifts placed in their idle hands, 
 And all that should await on worth well-tried, 
 All in the glorious days of old reserved 
 For manhood most mature or reverend age, 
 Know not, nor ever can, the generous pride 
 That glows in him who on himself relies. 
 Entering the lists of life. 
 
P^STUM. 
 
 They stand between the mountains and the sea 
 Awful memorials, but of whom we know not ! 
 The seaman, passing, gazes from the deck. 
 The buffalo-driver, in his shaggy cloak, 
 Points to the work of magic and moves on. 
 Time was they stood along the crowded street, 
 
208 
 
 Temples of Gods ! and on their ample steps 
 
 What various habits, various tongues beset 
 
 The brazen gates for prayer and sacrifice ! 
 
 Time was perhaps the third v^^as sought for J ustice ; 
 
 And here the accuser stood, and there the accused; 
 
 And here the judges sate, and heard, and judged. 
 
 All silent now ! — as in the ages past. 
 
 Trodden under foot and mingled, dust with dust. 
 
 How many centuries did the sun go round 
 From Mount Alburnus to the Tyrrhene sea, 
 While, by some spell rendered invisible. 
 Or, if approached, approached by him alone 
 Who saw as though he saw not, they remained 
 As in the darkness of a sepulchre. 
 Waiting the appointed time ! All, all within 
 Proclaims that Nature had resumed her right, 
 And taken to herself what man renounced ; 
 No cornice, triglyph, or worn abacus, 
 But with thick ivy hung or branching fern ; 
 Their iron-brown o'erspread with brightest verdure ! 
 
 From my youth upward have I longed to tread 
 This classic ground — And am I here at last? 
 Wandering at will through the long porticoes. 
 And catching, as through some majestic grove. 
 Now the blue ocean, and now, chaos-like. 
 Mountains and mountain-gulfs, and, half-way up. 
 Towns like the living rock from which they grew ? 
 
209 
 
 A cloudy region, black and desolate, 
 Where once a slave withstood a world in arms. * 
 - The air is sweet with violets, running wild 
 Mid broken friezes and fallen capitals ; 
 Sweet as when Tully, writing down his thoughts. 
 Those thoughts so precious and so lately lost, 
 (Turning to thee, divine Philosophy, 
 Ever at hand to calm his troubled soul) 
 Sailed slowly by, two thousand years ago, 
 For Athens ; when a ship, if north-east winds 
 Blew from the P^.stan gardens, slacked her course. 
 
 On as he moved along the level shore. 
 These temples, in their splendour eminent 
 Mid arcs and obelisks, and domes and towers, 
 Reflecting back the radiance of the west. 
 Well might he dream of Glory ! — Now, coiled up, 
 The serpent sleeps within them ; the she-wolf 
 Suckles her young : and, as alone I stand 
 In this, the nobler pile, the elements 
 Of earth and air its only floor and covering. 
 How solemn is the stillness! Nothing stirs 
 Save the shrill-voiced cicala flitting round 
 On the rough pediment to sit and sing ; 
 Or the green lizard rustling through the grass. 
 And up the fluted shaft with short quick spring. 
 To vanish in the chinks that Time has made. 
 
 * Spartaciis. See Plutarch in the Life of Crassus. 
 
 E E 
 
210 
 
 In such an hour as this, the sun's broad disk 
 Seen at his setting, and a flood of hght 
 Fining the courts of these old sanctuaries, 
 (Gigantic shadows, broken and confused. 
 Athwart the innumerable columns flung) 
 In such an hour he came, who saw and told, 
 licd by the mighty Genius of the Place. 
 
 Walls of some capital city first appeared. 
 Half razed, half sunk, or scattered as in scorn; 
 — And what within them ? what but in the midst 
 These Three in more than their original grandeur, 
 And, round about, no stone upon another ? 
 As if the spoiler had fallen back in fear. 
 And, turning, left them to the elements. 
 
 'Tis said a stranger in the days of old 
 (Some say a Dorian, some a Sybarite ; 
 But distant things are ever lost in clouds) 
 'Tis said a stranger came, and, with his plough, 
 Traced out the site ; and Posidonia rose. 
 Severely great, Neptune the tutelar God ; 
 A Homer's language murmuring in her streets. 
 And in her haven many a mast from Tyre. 
 Then came another, an unbidden guest. . 
 He knocked and entered with a train in arms ; 
 And all was changed, her very name and language 
 The Tyrian merchant, shipping at his door 
 Ivory and gold, and silk, and frankincense, 
 
2U 
 
 Sailed as before, but, sailing, cried " For P^estum !" 
 And now a Virgil, now an Ovid sung 
 PiESTUM's twice-blowing roses ; while, within. 
 Parents and children mourned — and, every year, 
 ('Twas on the day of some old festival) 
 Met to give way to tears, and once again. 
 Talk in the ancient tongue of things gone by. * 
 At length an Arab climbed the battlements. 
 Slaying the sleepers in the dead of night ; 
 And from all eyes the glorious vision fled ! 
 Leaving a place lonely and dangerous. 
 Where whom the robber spares, a deadlier foe f 
 Strikes at unseen — and at a time when joy 
 Opens the heart, when summer-skies are blue, 
 And the clear air is soft and delicate ; 
 For then the demon works — then with that air 
 The thoughtless wretch drinks in a subtle poison 
 Lulling to sleep ; and, when he sleeps, he dies. 
 
 But what are These still standing in the midst? 
 The Earth has rocked beneath ; the Thunder-stone 
 Passed thro' and thro', and left its traces there ; 
 Yet still they stand as by some Unknown Charter ! 
 Oh, they are Nature's own ! and, as allied 
 To the vast Mountains and the eternal Sea, 
 They want no written history ; theirs a voice 
 For ever speaking to the heart of Man ! 
 
 * Atheiiseus, xiv. f The Mal'aiia. 
 
AMALFI. 
 
 He who sets sail from Naples, when the wind 
 Blows fragrance from Posilipo, may soon, 
 Crossing from side to side that beautiful lake. 
 Land underneath the cliff, where once among 
 The children gathering shells along the shore, 
 One laughed and played, unconscious of his fate ; * 
 
 * Tasso. Sorrento, his birth-place, is on the south-side of the 
 gulf of Naples. 
 
21S 
 
 His to drink deep of sorrow, and, thro' life. 
 To be the scorn of them that knew him not, 
 Trampling alike the giver and his gift, 
 The gift a pearl precious, inestimable, 
 A lay divine, a lay of love and war, 
 To charm, ennoble, and, from age to age. 
 Sweeten the labour, when the oar was plied 
 Or on the Adrian or the Tuscan sea. 
 
 There would I linger — then go forth again, 
 And hover round that region unexplored, 
 Where to Salvator (when, as some relate. 
 By chance or choice he led a bandit's hfe, 
 Yet oft withdrew, alone and unobserved, 
 To wander thro' those awful solitudes) 
 Nature revealed herself. Unveiled she stood. 
 In all her wildness, all her majesty, 
 As in that elder time, ere Man was made. 
 
 There would I linger — then go forth again ; 
 And he who steers due east, doubling the cape, 
 Discovers, in a crevice of the rock. 
 The fishing-town, Amalfi. Haply there 
 A heaving bark, an anchor on the strand. 
 May tell him what it is ; but what it was. 
 Cannot be told so soon. 
 
 The time has been. 
 When on the quays along the Syrian coast, 
 'Twas asked and eagerly, at break of dawn. 
 
2U 
 
 What ships are from Amalfi V when her coins, 
 Silver and gold, circled from clime to clime ; 
 From Alexandria southward to Sennaar, 
 And eastward, thro' Damascus and Cabul 
 And Sam ARC AND, to thy great wall, Cathay. 
 
 Then were the nations by her wisdom swayed ; 
 And every crime on every sea was judged 
 According to her judgments. In her port 
 Prows, strange, uncouth, from Nile and Niger met. 
 People of various feature, various speech ; 
 And in their countries many a house of prayer, 
 And many a shelter, where no shelter was. 
 And many a well, like Jacob's in the wild. 
 Rose at her bidding. Then in Palestine, 
 By the way-side, in sober grandeur stood 
 A Hospital, that, night and day, received 
 The pilgrims of the west ; and, when 'twas asked, 
 * Who are the noble founders V every tongue 
 At once replied, ' The merchants of Amalfi.' 
 That Hospital, when Godfrey scaled the walls, 
 Sent forth its holy men in complete steel ; 
 And hence, the cowl relinquished for the helm. 
 That chosen band, valiant, invincible, 
 So long renowned as champions of the Cross, 
 In Rhodes, in Malta. 
 
 For three hundred years 
 There, unapproached but from the deep, they dwelt ; 
 
215 
 
 Assailed for ever, yet from age to age 
 Acknowledging no master. From the deep 
 They gathered in their harvests ; bringing home 
 In the same ship, relics of ancient Greece, 
 That land of glory where their fathers lay, 
 Grain from the golden vales of Sicily, 
 And Indian spices. When at length they fell. 
 Losing their liberty, they left mankind 
 A legacy, compared with which the wealth 
 Of Eastern kings — what is it in the scale ? 
 The mariner's compass. 
 
 They are now forgot, 
 And with them all they did, all they endured. 
 Struggling with fortune. When Sicardi stood 
 On his high deck, his falchion in his hand. 
 And, with a shout like thunder, cried, * Come forth, 
 And serve me in Salerno !' forth they came. 
 Covering the mournful spectacle ; 
 
 The women wailing, and the heavy oar 
 Falling unheard. Not thus did they return. 
 The tyrant slain ; tho' then the grass of years 
 Grew in their streets. 
 
 There now to him who sails 
 Under the shore, a few white villages. 
 Scattered above, below, some in the clouds. 
 Some on the margin of the dark blue sea. 
 And glittering thro' their lemon-groves, announce 
 
216 
 
 The region of Amalfi. Then, half-fallen, 
 
 A lonely watch-tower on the precipice. 
 
 Their ancient land-mai'k, comes. Long may it 
 
 And to the seaman in a distant age, 
 
 Tho' now he little thinks how large his debt, 
 
 Serve for their monument ! 
 
MONTE CASSINO. 
 
 * What hangs behind that curtain V — ' Wouldst thou 
 learn ? 
 
 If thou art wise, thou wouldst not. 'Tis by some 
 
 Believed to be His master-work, who looked 
 
 Beyond the grave, and on the chapel-wall, 
 
 As tho' the day were come, were come and past. 
 
 Drew the Last Judgment. * But the Wisest err. 
 
 He who in secret vn'ought, and gave it life. 
 
 For life is surely there and visible change, 
 
 Life, such as none could of himself impart, 
 
 (They who behold it, go not as they came. 
 
 But meditate for many and many a day) 
 
 Sleeps in the vault beneath. We know not much ; 
 
 But what we know, we will communicate. 
 
 'Tis in an ancient record of the House ; 
 
 And may it make thee tremble, lest thou fall ! 
 
 Once — on a Christmas-eve — ere yet the roof 
 Rung with the hymn of the Nativity, 
 There came a stranger to the convent-gate, 
 • Michael Angelo. 
 
218 
 
 And asked admittance ; ever and anon, 
 
 As if he sought what most he feared to find, 
 
 Looking behind him. When within the walls. 
 
 These walls so sacred and inviolate. 
 
 Still did he look behind him ; oft and long. 
 
 With curling, quivering lip and haggard eye, 
 
 Catching at vacancy. Between the fits, 
 
 For here, 'tis said, he lingered while he lived, 
 
 He would discourse and with a mastery, 
 
 A charm by none resisted, none explained, 
 
 Unfelt before ; but when his cheek grew pale. 
 
 All was forgotten. Then, howe'er employed. 
 
 He would break off, and start as if he caught 
 
 A glimpse of something that would not be gone ; 
 
 And turn and gaze, and shrink into himself. 
 
 As tho' the Fiend was there, and, face to face, 
 
 Scowled o'er his shoulder. 
 
 Most devout he was 
 Most unremitting in the Services ; 
 Then, only then, untroubled, unassailed ; 
 And, to beguile a melancholy hour. 
 Would sometimes exercise that noble art 
 He learnt in Florence ; with a master's hand. 
 As to this day the Sacristy attests. 
 Painting the wonders of the Apocalypse. 
 
 At length he sunk to rest, and in his cell 
 Left, when he went, a work in secret done, 
 
219 
 
 The portrait, for a portrait it must be, 
 
 That hangs behind the curtain. Whence he drew, 
 
 None here can doubt ; for they that come to catch 
 
 The faintest ghmpse— to catch it and be gone. 
 
 Gaze as he gazed, then shrink into themselves, 
 
 Acting the self-same part. But why 'twas drawn. 
 
 Whether, in penance, to atone for Guilt, 
 
 Or to record the anguish Guilt inflicts. 
 
 Or haply to familiarize his mind 
 
 With what he could not fly from, none can say, 
 
 For none could learn the burden of his soul.' 
 
THE HARPER. 
 
 It was a Harper, wandering with his harp, 
 His only treasure ; a majestic man, 
 By time and grief ennobled, not subdued ; 
 The' from his height descending, day by day, 
 
221 
 
 And, as his upward look at once betrayed, 
 Blind as old Homer. At a fount he sate, 
 Well-known to many a weary traveller ; 
 His little guide, a boy not seven years old, 
 But grave, considerate beyond his years, 
 Sitting beside him. Each had ate his crust 
 In silence, drinking of the virgin-spring ; 
 And now in silence, as their custom was, 
 The sun's decline awaited. 
 
 But the child 
 Was worn with travel. Heavy sleep weighed down 
 His eye-lids ; and the grandsire, when we came, 
 Emboldened by his love and by his fear. 
 His feaf lest night o'ertake them on the road, 
 Humbly besought me to convey them both 
 A little onward. Such small services 
 Who can refuse — Not I ; and him who can, 
 Blest tho' he be with every earthly gift, 
 I cannot envy. He, if wealth be his, 
 Knows not its uses. So from noon till night. 
 Within a crazed and tattered vehicle. 
 That yet displayed, in old emblazonry, 
 A shield as splendid as the Bardi wear,* 
 We lumbered on together ; the old man 
 Beguiling many a league of half its length, 
 When questioned the adventures of his life, 
 * See Note. 
 
222 
 
 And all the dangers he had undergone ; 
 His ship-wrecks on inhospitable coasts, 
 And his long warfare. 
 
 They were hound, he said, 
 To a great fair at Reggio ; and the boy, 
 Believing all the world were to be there. 
 And I among the rest, let loose his tongue, 
 And promised me much pleasure. His short trance, 
 Short as it was, had, like a charmed cup, 
 Restored his spirit, and, as on we crawled. 
 Slow as the snail (my muleteer dismounting, 
 And now his mules addressing, now his pipe. 
 And now Luigi) he poured out his heart. 
 Largely repaying me. At length the sun 
 Departed, setting in a sea of gold ; 
 And, as we gazed, he bade me rest assured 
 That like the setting would the rising be. 
 
 Their harp — it had a voice oracular. 
 And in the desert, in the crowded street. 
 Spoke when consulted. If the treble chord 
 Twanged shrill and clear, o'er hill and dale they went, 
 The grandsire, step by step, led by the child ; 
 And not a rain-drop from a passing cloud 
 Fell on their garments. Thus it spoke to-day ; 
 Inspiring joy, and, in the young one's mind. 
 Brightening a path already full of sunshine. 
 
THE FELUCA. 
 
 Day glimmered ; and beyond the precipice, 
 (Which my mule followed as in love with fear, 
 Or as in scorn, yet more and more inclining 
 To tempt the danger where it menaced most) 
 A sea of vapour rolled. Methought we went 
 Along the utmost edge of this, our world ; 
 But soon the surges fled, and we descried 
 
Nor dimly, tho' the lark was silent yet, 
 Thy gulf, La Spezzia. Ere the morning-gun, 
 Ere the first day-streak, we alighted there ; 
 And not a breath, a murmur ! Every sail 
 Slept in the offing. Yet along the shore 
 Great was the stir ; as at the noontide hour. 
 None unemployed. Where from its native rock 
 A streamlet, clear and full, ran to the sea. 
 The maidens knelt and sung as they were wont, 
 Washing their garments. Where it met the tide, 
 Sparkling and lost, an ancient pinnace lay 
 Keel upward, and the faggot blazed, the tar 
 Fumed from the cauldron ; while, beyond the fort, 
 Whither I wandered, step by step led on. 
 The fishers dragged their net, the fish within 
 At every heave fluttering and full of life, 
 At every heave striking their silver fins 
 
 'Gainst the dark meshes. Soon a boatman's shout 
 
 Re-echoed ; and red bonnets on the beach, 
 Waving, recalled me. We embarked and left 
 That noble haven, where, when Genoa reigned, 
 A hundred gallies sheltered — in the day. 
 When lofty spirits met, and, deck to deck, 
 DoRiA, PisANi fought ; that narrow field 
 Ample enough for glory. On we went. 
 Ruffling with many an oar the crystalline sea, 
 On from the rising to the setting sun. 
 
225 
 
 In silence — underneath a mountain-ridge, 
 Untamed, untameable, reflecting round 
 The saddest purple ; nothing to be seen 
 Of life or culture, save where, at the foot. 
 Some village and its church, a scanty line. 
 Athwart the wave gleamed faintly. Fear of 111 
 Narrowed our course, fear of the hurricane, 
 And that yet greater scourge, the crafty Moor, 
 Who, like a tiger prowling for his prey, 
 Springs and is gone, and on the adverse coast, 
 (Where Tripoli and Tunis and Algiers 
 Forge fetters, and white turbans on the mole 
 Gather, whene'er the Crescent comes displayed 
 Over the Cross) his human merchandize 
 To many a curious, many a cruel eye 
 Exposes. Ah, how oft where now the sun 
 Slept on the shore, have ruthless scimitars 
 Flashed thro' the lattice, and a swarthy crew 
 Dragged forth, ere long to number them for sale. 
 Ere long to part them in their agony. 
 Parent and child! How oft where now we rode 
 Over the billow, has a wretched son. 
 Or yet more wretched sire, grown grey in chains. 
 Laboured, his hands upon the oar, his eyes 
 Upon the land — the land, that gave him birth ; 
 And, as he gazed, his homestall thro' his tears 
 Fondly imagined ; when a Christian ship 
 
 G G 
 
226 
 
 Of war appearing in her bravery, 
 
 A voice in anger cried, ' Use all your strength !' 
 
 But when, ah when, do they that can, forbear 
 To crush the unresisting ? Strange, that men, 
 Creatures so frail, so soon, alas, to die. 
 Should have the power, the will to make this world 
 A dismal prison-house, and life itself, 
 Life in its prime, a burden and a curse 
 To him who never wronged them ? Who that breathes 
 Would not, when first he heard it, turn away 
 As from a tale monstrous, incredible ? 
 Surely a sense of our mortality, 
 A consciousness how soon we shall be gone, 
 Or, if we linger — but a few short years — 
 How sure to look upon our brother's grave. 
 Should of itself incline to pity and love. 
 And prompt us rather to assist, relieve. 
 Than aggravate the evils each is heir to. 
 
 At length the day departed, and the moon 
 Rose like another sun, illumining 
 Waters and woods and cloud-capt promontories, 
 Glades for a hermit's cell, a lady's bower, 
 Scenes of Elysium, such as Night alone 
 Reveals below, nor often — scenes that fled 
 As at the waving of a wizard's wand. 
 And left behind them, as their parting gift, 
 A thousand nameless odours. All was still ; 
 
227 
 
 And now the nightingale her song poured forth 
 
 In such a torrent of heart-felt delight, 
 
 So fast it flowed, her tongue so voluble, 
 
 As if she thought her hearers would be gone 
 
 Ere half was told. 'Twas where in the north-west, 
 
 Still unassailed and unassailable. 
 
 Thy pharos, Genoa, first displayed itself, 
 
 Burning in stillness on its craggy seat ; 
 
 That guiding star so oft the only one. 
 
 When those now glowing in the azure vault. 
 
 Are dark and silent. 'Twas where o'er the sea. 
 
 For we were now within a cable's length, 
 
 Delicious gardens hung ; green galleries, 
 
 And marble terraces in many a flight. 
 
 And fairy-arches flung from cliff" to cliff, 
 
 Wildering, enchanting ; and, above them all, 
 
 A Palace, such as somewhere in the East, 
 
 In Zenastan or Araby the blest. 
 
 Among its golden groves and fruits of gold. 
 
 And fountains scattering rainbows in the sky, 
 
 Rose, when Aladdin rubbed the wondrous lamp ; 
 
 Such, if not fairer ; and, when we shot by, 
 
 A scene of revelry, in long array 
 
 As with the radiance of a setting sun. 
 
 The windows blazing. But we now approached 
 
 A City far-renowned ; * and wonder 'ceased. 
 
 * Genoa. 
 
GENOA. 
 
 This house was Andrea Doria's. Here he hved; 
 And here at eve relaxing, when ashore. 
 Held many a pleasant, many a grave discourse 
 With them that sought him, walking to and fro 
 As on his deck. 'Tis less in length and breadth 
 Than many a cabin in a ship of war ; 
 But 'tis of marble, and at once inspires 
 The reverence due to ancient dignity. 
 
 He left it for a better ; and 'tis now 
 A house of trade, the meanest merchandise 
 Cumbering its floors. Yet, fallen as it is, 
 'Tis still the noblest dwelling — even in Genoa ! 
 And hadst thou, Andrea, lived there to the last, 
 Thou hadst done well ; for there is that without. 
 That in the wall, which monarchs could not give, 
 Nor thou take with thee, that which says aloud, 
 It was thy Country's gift to her Deliverer. 
 
 'Tis in the heart of Genoa (he who comes, 
 Must come on foot) and in a place of stir ; 
 Men on their daily business, early and late, 
 
229 
 
 Thronging thy very threshold. But when there, 
 Thou wert among thy fellow-citizens, 
 Thy children, for they hailed thee as their sire ; 
 And on a spot thou must have loved, for there. 
 Calling them round, thou gav'st them more than life, 
 Giving what, lost, makes life not worth the keeping. 
 There thou didst do indeed an act divine ; 
 Nor couldst thou leave thy door or enter in. 
 Without a blessing on thee. 
 
 Thou art now 
 Again among them. Thy brave mariners, 
 They who had fought so often by thy side. 
 Staining the mountain-billows, bore thee back ; 
 And thou art sleeping in thy funeral-chamber. 
 
 Thine was a glorious course ; but couldst thou there, 
 Clad in thy cere-cloth — in that silent vault, 
 Where thou art gathered to thy ancestors — 
 Open thy secret heart and tell us all. 
 Then should we hear thee with a sigh confess, 
 A sigh how heavy, that thy happiest hours 
 Were passed before these sacred walls were left. 
 Before the ocean-wave thy wealth reflected. 
 And pomp and power drew envy, stirring up 
 The ambitious man, * that in a perilous hour 
 Fell from the plank. 
 
 * Fiesco. 
 
MARCO GRIFFONI. 
 
 War is a game at which all are sure to lose, sooner 
 or later, play they how they will ; yet every nation 
 has delighted in war, and none more in their day than 
 the little republic of Genoa, whose gallies, while 
 she had any, were always burning and sinking those 
 of the Pisans, the Venetians, the Greeks or the 
 Turks ; Christian and Infidel alike to her. 
 
 But experience, when dearly bought, is seldom 
 thrown away altogether. A moment of sober reflec- 
 tion came at last; and after a victory the most splendid 
 and ruinous of any in her annals, she resolved from 
 that day and for ever to live at peace with all man- 
 kind; having in her long career acquired nothing but 
 glory, and a tax on every article of life. 
 
 Peace came, but with none of its blessings. No 
 stir in the harbour, no merchandise in the mart or 
 on the quay ; no song as the shuttle was thrown or 
 the plough-share broke the furrow. The frenzy had 
 left a languor more alarming than itself. Yet the 
 burden must be borne, the taxes be gathered ; and, 
 year after year, they lay like a curse on the land, the 
 prospect on every side growing darker and darker, 
 
231 
 
 till an old man entered the senate-house on his 
 crutches and all was changed. 
 
 Marco Griffoni was the last of an ancient family, 
 a family of royal merchants; and the richest citizen in 
 Genoa, perhaps in Europe. His parents dying while 
 yet he lay in the cradle, his wealth had accumulated 
 from the year of his birth ; and so noble a use did 
 he make of it when he arrived at manhood, that 
 wherever he went, he was followed by the blessings 
 of the people. He would often say, ' I hold it only 
 in trust for others ;' but Genoa was then at her old 
 amusement, and the work grew on his hands. Strong 
 as he was, the evil he had to struggle with, was 
 stronger than he. His cheerfulness, his alacrity left 
 him ; and, having lifted up his voice for Peace, he 
 withdrew at once from the sphere of life he had moved 
 in — to become, as it were, another man. 
 
 From that time and for full fifty years he was seen 
 sitting, like one of the founders of his House, at his 
 desk among his money-bags, in a narrow street near 
 the Porto Franco ; and he, who in a famine had filled 
 the granaries of the State, sending to Sicily and even 
 to Egypt, now lived only as for his heirs, though 
 there were none to inherit ; giving no longer to any, 
 but lending to all — to the rich on their bonds and 
 the poor on their pledges; lending at the highest 
 rate and exacting with the utmost rigour. No longer 
 
232 
 
 relieving the miserable, he sought only to enrich him- 
 self by their misery; and there he sat in his gown of 
 frieze, till every finger was pointed at him in passing 
 and every tongue exclaimed, " There sits the Miser!" 
 
 But in that character and amidst all that obloquy 
 he was still the same as ever, still acting to the best 
 of his judgement for the good of his fellow-citizens; 
 and when the measure of their calamities was full, 
 when Peace had come, but had come to no purpose, 
 and the lesson, as he flattered himself, was graven 
 deep in their minds, then, but not till then, though 
 his hair had long grown grey, he threw off the mask 
 and gave up all he had, to annihilate at a blow his 
 great and cruel adversaries, those taxes which, when 
 excessive, break the hearts of the people ; a glorious 
 achievement for an individual, though a bloodless one, 
 and such as only can be conceived possible in a small 
 community like theirs. 
 
 Alas, how little did he know of human nature ! 
 How little had he reflected on the ruling passion of 
 his countrymen, so injurious to others and at length 
 so fatal to themselves ! Almost instantly they grew 
 arrogant and quarrelsome ; almost instantly they were 
 in arms again ; and, before the statue was up, that 
 had been voted to his memory, every tax, if we may 
 believe the historian, was laid on as before, to awaken 
 vain regrets and wise resolutions. 
 
A FAREWELL.* 
 
 And now farewell to Italy — perhaps 
 
 For ever ! Yet, methinks, I could not go, 
 
 I could not leave it, were it mine to say, 
 
 * Farewell for ever !' Many a courtesy. 
 
 That sought no recompense, and met with none 
 
 But in the swell of heart with which it came, 
 
 * Written at Susa, May 1, 1822. 
 
 H H 
 
234 
 
 Have I experienced; not a cabin-door, 
 Go where T would, but opened with a smile ; 
 From the first hour, when, in my long descent, 
 Strange perfumes rose, rose as to welcome me, 
 From flowers that ministered like unseen spirits ; 
 From the first hour, when vintage-songs broke forth, 
 A grateful earnest, and the Southern lakes, 
 Dazzlingly bright, unfolded at my feet ; 
 They that receive the cataracts, and ere long 
 Dismiss them, but how changed — onward to roll 
 From age to age in silent majesty. 
 Blessing the nations, and reflecting round 
 The gladness they inspire. 
 
 Gentle or rude, 
 No scene of life but has contributed 
 Much to remember — from the Polesine, 
 Where, when the south-wind blows, and clouds on clouds 
 Gather and fall, the peasant freights his boat, 
 A sacred ark, slung in his orchard-grove ; 
 Mindful to migrate when the king of floods * 
 Visits his humble dwelling, and the keel. 
 Slowly uplifted over field and fence. 
 Floats on a world of waters — from that low, 
 That level region, where no Echo dwells. 
 Or, if she comes, comes in her saddest plight, 
 Hoarse, inarticulate — on to where the path 
 * The Po. 
 
235 
 
 Is lost in rank luxuriance, and to breathe 
 Is to inhale distemper, if not death; 
 Where the wild-boar retreats, when hunters chafe, 
 And, when the day-star flames, the bufialo-herd. 
 Afflicted, plunge into the stagnant pool, 
 Nothing discerned amid the water-leaves. 
 Save here and there the likeness of a head. 
 Savage, uncouth ; where none in human shape 
 Come, save the herdsman, levelling his length 
 Of lance with many a cry, or, Tartar-like, 
 Urging his steed along the distant hill 
 As from a danger. There, but not to rest, 
 I travelled many a dreary league, nor turned 
 (Ah then least willing, as who had not been ?) 
 When in the South, against the azure sky, 
 Three temples rose in soberest majesty. 
 The wondrous work of some heroic race. * 
 
 But now a long farewell ! Oft, while I live. 
 If once again in England, once again 
 In my own chimney-nook, as Night steals on. 
 With half-shut eyes reclining, oft, methinks. 
 While the wind blusters and the pelting rain 
 Clatters without, shall I recall to mind 
 The scenes, occurrences, I met with here 
 And wander in Elysium ; many a note 
 Of wildest melody, magician-like 
 
 * The temples of Psestum. 
 
236 
 
 Awakening, such as the Calabrian horn, 
 Along the mountain-side, when all is still, 
 Pours forth at folding-time ; and many a chant, 
 Solemn, sublime, such as at midnight flows 
 From the full choir, when richest harmonies 
 Break the deep silence of thy glens, La Cava ; 
 To him who lingers there with listening ear 
 Now lost and now descending as from Heaven 
 
NOTES. 
 
 Page 2, line 7. 
 As on that Sabbath-eve vjhen He arrived, 
 ' J'arrive essouffl^, tout en nage ; le coeur me bat, je 
 vols de loin les soldats a leur poste ; j'accours, je crie 
 d'une voix ^touffee. II ^toit trop tard.' See Les Con- 
 fessions. L, 1, 
 
 P. 2, 1. 15. 
 
 'Tis not a tale that every hour brings with it. 
 
 " Lines of eleven syllables occur almost in every page 
 of Milton ; but though they are not unpleasing, they 
 ought not to be admitted into heroic poetry ; since the 
 narrow limits of our language allow us no other distinc- 
 tion of epic and tragic measures." — Johnson. 
 
 It is remarkable that he used them most at last. In 
 the Paradise Regained they occur oftener than in the 
 Paradise Lost in the proportion of ten to one 5 and let 
 it be remembered that they supply us with another 
 close, another cadence ; that they add, as it were, a 
 string to the instrument ; and, by enabling the Poet to 
 relax at pleasure, to rise and fall with his subject, con- 
 tribute what is most wanted, compass, variety. 
 
 Shakspeare seems to have delighted in them, and in 
 
238 
 
 some of his soliloquies has used them four and five times 
 in succession ; an example I have not followed in mine. 
 As in the following instance, where the subject is solemn 
 beyond all others. 
 
 To be, or not to be, &c. 
 They come nearest to the flow of an unstudied elo- 
 quence, and should therefore be used in the drama 3 but 
 why exclusively ? Horace, as we learn from himself, 
 admitted the Musa Pedestris in his happiest hours, in 
 those when he was most at his ease ; and we cannot 
 regret her visits. To her we are indebted for more 
 than half he has left us 3 nor was she ever at his elbow 
 in greater dishabille, than when he wrote the celebrated 
 Journey to Brundusium. 
 
 P. 3, 1. 26. 
 
 like him of old 
 " To admire or despise St. Bernard as he ought," 
 says Gibbon, the reader, like myself, should have 
 before the windows of his library, that incomparable 
 landskip." 
 
 P. 4, 1. 2. 
 
 That winds beside the mirror of all beauty, 
 There is no describing in words 3 but the following 
 lines were written on the spot, and may serve perhaps 
 to recall to some of my readers what they have seen in 
 this enchanting country. 
 
 I love to watch in silence till the Sun 
 Sets 5 and Mont Blanc, arrayed in crimson and gold. 
 Flings his broad shadow half across the Lake 3 
 That shadow, tho' it comes thro' pathless tracts 
 Of Ether, and o'er Alp and desert drear. 
 
239 
 
 Only less bright, less glorious than himself. 
 
 But, while we gaze, 'tis gone ! And now he shines 
 
 Like burnished silver 5 all, below, the Night's. 
 
 Such moments are most precious. Yet there are 
 Others, that follow fast, more precious stilly 
 When once again he changes, once again 
 Clothing himself in grandeur all his own 3 
 When, like a Ghost, shadowless, colourless. 
 He melts away into the Heaven of Heavens ; 
 Himself alone revealed, all lesser things 
 As tho' they were not ! 
 
 P. 4, 1. 18. 
 
 That dungeon-fortress 
 The Castle of Joux. 
 
 P. 5, 1. 14. 
 
 As now thy Chartreuse and thy bowers, Ri faille; 
 The retreat of Amadeus, the first Duke of Savoy. 
 Voltaire thus addresses it from his windows : 
 Ripaille, Je te vols. O bizarre Amedde, &c. 
 
 P. 14, 1. 23. 
 
 Whose can it be, but his who never erred ? 
 Alluding to Barri, a dog of great renown in his day. 
 His skin is stuffed, and preserved in the Museum of 
 Berne. 
 
 P. 15, 1. 4. 
 
 St. Bruno's once — 
 The Grande Chartreuse. It was indebted for its 
 foundation to a miracle ; as every guest may learn there 
 from a little book that lies on the table in his cell, the 
 cell allotted to him by the fathers. 
 
240 
 
 " In this year the Canon died, and, as all believed, in 
 the odour of sanctity : for who in his life had been so 
 holy, in his death so happy ? But false are the judg- 
 ments of men ; as the event sheweth. For when the 
 hour of his funeral had arrived, when the mourners had 
 entered the church, the bearers set down the bier, and 
 every voice was lifted up in the Miserere, suddenly and 
 as none knew how, the lights were extinguished, the 
 anthem stopt ! A darkness succeeded, a silence as of 
 the grave ; and these words came in sorrowful accents 
 from the lips of the dead. ' I am summoned before a 
 Just God ! - - A Just God judgeth me ! I am con- 
 demned by a Just God!^ " 
 
 " In the church," says the legend, " there stood a 
 young man with his hands clasped in prayer, who from 
 that time resolved to withdraw into the desert. It was 
 he whom we now invoke as St. Bruno." 
 
 P. 15, 1. 15. 
 
 that house so rich of old, 
 
 So courteous. 
 The words of Ariosto. 
 
 Ricca — e cortese a chiunque vi venia. 
 The valley was formerly called Acqua Bella. 
 
 P. 15, 1.16. 
 
 and hy two, that passed that way, 
 Ariosto and Milton. Milton was there at the fall of 
 the leaf. 
 
 P. 16, 1. 6. 
 
 Bread to the hungry, 
 In the course of the year they entertain from thirty to 
 thirty-five thousand travellers. — LePereBiseh, Pr'ieur. 
 
241 
 
 P. 21, 1. 22. 
 
 And gathered from above, below, around. 
 The Author of Lalla Rookh, a Poet of such singular 
 felicity as to give a lustre to all he touches^ has written 
 a song on this subject^ called the Crystal-hunters. 
 
 P. 21, 1. 23. 
 
 Once, nor long before, 
 
 M. Ebel mentions an escape almost as miraculous. 
 
 L'an 1790, Christian Boren, propri^taire de I'au- 
 berge du Grindelwald, eut le malheur de se jeter 
 dans une fente du glacier, en le traversant avee un 
 troupeau de moutons qu'il ramenoit des paturages de 
 Baniseck. Heureusement qu'il tomba dans le voisinage 
 du grand torrent qui coule dans I'interieur, il en suivit 
 le lit par-dessous les voutes de glace, et arriva au pied 
 du glacier avec un bras cass6. Get homme est actuelle- 
 ment encore en vie." — Manuel du Voyageur. 
 
 P. 26, 1. 11. 
 
 a wondrous monument 
 Almost every mountain of any rank or condition has 
 such a bridge. The most celebrated in this country is 
 on the Swiss-side of St. Gothard. 
 
 P. 31, 1. 10. 
 
 gazing and shuddering on 
 J'aime beaucoup ce tournoiement, pourvu que je sois 
 en sfiret^. — /. J. Rousseau, Les Confessions. L. iv. 
 
 P. 31, 1. 18. 
 
 just where the Abbot fell, 
 Ou il y a environ dix ans, que I'Abbe de St, Maurice, 
 Mons. Cocatrix, a 6t6 pr^cipite avec sa voiture, ses 
 
 1 1 
 
242 
 
 chevaxiXj sa cuisiniere, et son cocher. — Descript. du 
 Valais. 
 
 P. 38, 1. 24. 
 
 Before the great Masting 
 Mastino de la Scala, the Lord of. Verona. Cortusio, 
 the embassador and historian, saw him so surrounded. 
 
 L. 6. 
 
 This house had been always open to the unfortunate. 
 In the days of Can Grande all were welcome 3 Poets, 
 Philosophers, Artists, Warriors. Each had his apart- 
 ment, each a separate table ; and at the hour of dinner 
 musicians and jesters went from room to room. Dante, 
 as we learn from himself, found an asylum there. 
 Lo primo tuo rifugio, e'l primo ostello 
 Sara la cortesia del gran Lombardo, 
 Che'n su la scala porta 11 santo iiccello. 
 
 Their tombs in the public street carry us back into 
 the times of barbarous virtue 3 nor less so do those of 
 the Carrara Princes at Padua, though less singular and 
 striking in themselves. Francis Carrara, the Elder, 
 used often to visit Petrarch in his small house at Arqua, 
 and followed him on foot to his grave. 
 
 P. 39, 1. 26. 
 
 My omelet, and a flagon of hill-wine. 
 Originally thus. 
 
 My omelet, and a trout, that, as the sun 
 Shot his last ray thro' Zanga's leafy grove. 
 Leaped at a golden fly, had happily 
 Fled from all eyes ; 
 
 Zanga is the name of a beautiful villa near Bergamo, 
 
248 
 
 in which Tasso finished his tragedy of Torrismondo. It 
 still belongs to his family. 
 
 P. 40, 1. 4. 
 
 Bartering my bread and salt for empty praise. 
 After 1. A, in the MS. 
 That evening, tended on with verse and song, 
 I closed my eyes in heaven, but not to sleep ; 
 A Columbine, my nearest neighbour there. 
 In her great bounty, at the midnight-hour 
 Bestowing on the world two Harlequins. 
 Chapelle and Bachaumont fared no better at Salon, 
 
 ^ cause d'une comedienne, qui s'avisa d'accoucher de 
 
 deux petits comediens. 
 
 P. 41, 1. 3. 
 
 And shall I sup where Juliet at the Masque 
 The old Palace of the Cappelletti, with its uncouth 
 balcony and irregular vdndows, is still standing in a 
 lane near the Market-place ; and what Englishman can 
 behold it with indifference ? 
 
 When we enter Verona, we forget ourselves, and are 
 almost inclined to say with Dante, 
 
 Vieni a veder Montecchi, e Cappelletti. 
 
 P. 41,1. 6. 
 
 Such questions hourly do I ask myself; 
 It has been observed that in Italy the memory sees 
 more than the eye. Scarcely a stone is turned up that 
 has not some historical association, ancient or modern} 
 that may not be said to have gold under it. 
 
244 
 
 P. 41,1.18. 
 
 Would they had loved thee less, or feared thee more ! 
 From the sonnet of Filicaja. Italia ! Italia ! &c. 
 P. 41, 1. 19. 
 
 Twice hast thou lived already; 
 Twice shone among the nations of the world, 
 All our travellers, from Addison downward, have dili- 
 gently explored the monuments of her former existence ; 
 while those of her latter have, comparatively speaking, 
 escaped observation. If I cannot supply the deficiency, 
 I will not follow their example j and happy should I be, 
 if by an intermixture of verse and prose, of prose illus- 
 trating the verse and verse embellishing the prose, I 
 could furnish my countrymen on their travels with a 
 pocket-companion. 
 
 P. 43, 1. 1. 
 
 ' In this neglected mirror 
 This is the only instance, with which I am acquainted, 
 of a Ghost in Italy since Brutus sat in his tent. 
 
 P. 46, 1. 9. 
 
 She was walled up within the Castle-wall. 
 Murato was a technical word for this punishment. 
 
 P. 46, 1. 23. 
 
 Issuing forth, 
 An old huntsman of the family met her in the haze 
 of the morning, and never went out again. 
 
 She is still known by the name of Madonna Bianca. 
 
 P. 48, 1. 8. 
 
 Still glowing with the richest hues of art, 
 Several were painted by Giorgione and Titian} as. 
 
245 
 
 for instance, those of the Fondaco de' Tedeschi and the 
 Ca' Grimani. See Vasari. 
 
 P. 48, 1. 15. 
 
 the tower of Ezzelin — 
 Now an Observatory. On the wall there is a long 
 inscription : " Piis carcerem adspergite lacrymis," &c. 
 Ezzehno is seen by Dante in the river of blood. 
 
 P. 48, 1. 18. 
 
 Him or his horoscope; 
 Bonatti was the great astrologer of that day ; and all 
 the httle Princes of Italy contended for him. It was 
 from the top of the tower of Forli that he gave his sig- 
 nals to Guido Novello. At the first touch of a bell the 
 Count put on his armour j at the second he mounted his 
 horse, and at the third marched out to battle. His 
 victories were ascribed to Bonatti; and not perhaps 
 vdthout reason. How many triumphs were due to the 
 Sooth-sayers of old Rome ! 
 
 P. 48, 1. 24. 
 
 Careless and full of mirth; 
 Douze personnes,tant acteurs qu'actrices,un souffleur, 
 un machiniste, un garde du magasin, des enfans de tout 
 age, des chiens, des chats, des singes, des perroquetsj 
 c'etoit I'arche de Noe. — Ma predilection pour les sou- 
 brettes m'arreta sur Madame Baccherini. — Goldoni. 
 
 P. 49, 1. 5. 
 
 the lagging mules; 
 The passage-boats are drawn up and down the Brenta. 
 
246 
 
 P. 49, 1. 9. 
 
 That child of fun and frolic, Arlecchino. 
 A pleasant instance of his wit and agility was ex- 
 hibited some years ago on the stage at Venice. 
 
 ' The stutterer was in an agony j the word was in- 
 exorable. It was to no purpose that Harlequin sug- 
 gested another and another. At length, in a fit of 
 despair, he pitched his head full in the dying man's 
 stomach, and the word bolted out of his mouth to the 
 most distant part of the house." — See Moore s View of 
 Society in Italy. 
 
 P. 50, 1. 12. 
 
 A vast Metropolis, 
 " I love," says a traveller, " to contemplate, as I float 
 along, that multitude of palaces and churches, which are 
 congregated and pressed as on a vast raft." — ''And who 
 can forget his walk through the Merceria, where the 
 nightingales give you their melody from shop to shop, 
 so that, shutting your eyes, you would think yourself in 
 some forest-glade, when indeed you are all the while in 
 the middle of the sea ? Who can forget his prospect 
 from the great tower, which once, when gilt, and when 
 the sun struck upon it, was to be descried by ships afar 
 olF ; or his visit to St. Mark's church, where you see 
 nothing, tread on nothing, but what is precious ; the 
 floor all agate, jasper 3 the roof mosaic} the aisle hung 
 with the banners of the subject cities 3 the front arid its 
 five domes affecting you as the work of some unknown 
 people } Yet all this will presently pass away ; the 
 waters will close over it; and they, that come, row about 
 in vain to determine exactly where it stood." 
 
247 
 
 P. 54, 1. 3. 
 
 Playing at Mora 
 A national game of great antiquity, and most proba- 
 bly the ' micare digitis' of the Romans. 
 
 P. 58, 1. 4. 
 
 The brass is gone, the porphyry remains. 
 They were placed in the floor as memorials. The 
 brass was engraven with the words addressed by the 
 Pope to the Emperor, ' Super aspidem et basiliscum 
 ambulabis,' &c. Thou shalt tread upon the asp and the 
 basilisk : the lion and the dragon shalt thou trample 
 under foot. 
 
 P. 58, 1. 7. 
 
 Of the proud Pontiff- — 
 Alexander III. He fled in disguise to Venice, and 
 is said to have passed the first night on the steps of 
 San Salvatore, The entrance is from the Merceria, 
 near the foot of the Rialtoj and it is thus recorded, 
 under his escutcheon, in a small tablet at the door. 
 Alexandro III. Pont. Max. pernoctanti. 
 
 P. 58, 1. 18. 
 
 " Surely those aged limbs have need of rest !" 
 See GeofFroy de Villehardouin, in Script. Byzant. 
 T. XX. 
 
 P. 59, 1. 1. 
 
 resounding with their feet. 
 See Petrarch's description of them and of the tour- 
 nament. Rer. Senil. 1. 4. ep. 2. 
 
248 
 
 P. 59, 1. 12. 
 
 some of fair renown 
 
 From England, 
 Recenti victoria exultantes, says Petrarch ; alluding, 
 no doubt, to the favourable issue of the war in France. 
 This festival began on the 4th of August, 1364. 
 
 P. 59, 1. 24. 
 
 And lo, the madness of the Carnival, 
 Among those the most followed, there was always a 
 mask in a magnificent habit, relating marvellous adven- 
 tures and calling himself Messer Marco Millioni. Mil- 
 lioni was the name given by his fellow- citizens in his 
 life-time to the great traveller, Marco Polo. " I have 
 seen him so described," says Ramusio, " in the Records 
 of the Republic ; and his house has, from that time to 
 this, been called La Corte del Millioni," the palace of 
 the rich man, the millionnaire. It is on the canal of 
 S. Giovanni Chrisostomo ; and, as long as he lived, was 
 much resorted to by the curious and the learned. 
 
 P. 60, 1. 3. 
 
 the Archangel, 
 In atto di dar la benedittione, says Sansovino j and 
 performing the same office as the Triton on the tower 
 of the winds at Athens. 
 
 P. 60, 1. 11. 
 
 the marble stairs 
 La Scala de' Giganti. 
 
249 
 
 P. 60, 1. 16. 
 
 A brief inscription on the Doge's chair 
 Led to another on the wall as brief; 
 
 Maria Faliero dalla bella moglie : altri la gode ed 
 egli la mantiene. 
 
 Locus Marini Faletri decapitati pro criminibus. 
 
 P. 61, 1. 2. 
 
 Carmagnola. 
 II Conte, entrando in prigione, disse: Vedo bene 
 chi'o son morto, e trasse un grande sospiro. — M. Sanuto. 
 
 P. 62, 1. 1. 
 
 the Chnal Orfano, 
 A deep channel behind the island of S. Giorgio 
 Maggiore. 
 
 P. 62, 1. 6. 
 
 Yet what so gay as Venice ? 
 " How fares it with your world?" says his Highness 
 the Devil to Quevedo, on their first interview in the 
 lower regions. "Do I prosper there?" — "Much as 
 usual, I believe." — "But tell me truly. How is my 
 good City of Venice ? Flourishing ?" — " More than 
 ever." — " Then I am under no apprehension. All must 
 go well." 
 
 P. 62, 1. 17. 
 
 ' Who were the Six we supped with Yesternight ?' 
 An allusion to the Supper in Candide. c. xxvi. 
 
 P. 62, 1. 20. 
 
 ' Who answered me just now ? 
 See Schiller's Ghost-seer. c. i. 
 
 K K 
 
250 
 
 P. 62, 1. 24. 
 'But who moves there, alone among them all?" 
 
 See the history of Bragadino, the Alchymist, as re- 
 lated by Daru. Hist, de Venise. c. 28. 
 
 The person, that follows, was yet more extraordinary, 
 and is said to have appeared there in 1687. See Her- 
 mippus Redivivus. 
 
 " Those, who have experienced the advantages which 
 all strangers enjoy in that City, will not be surprised 
 that one who went by the name of Signor Gualdi was 
 admitted into the best company, though none knew who 
 or what he was. He remained there some months ; 
 and three things were remarked concerning him — that 
 he had a small but inestimable collection of pictures, 
 which he readily shewed to any body — that he spoke 
 on every subject with such a mastery as astonished all 
 who heard him — and that he never wrote or received 
 any letter, never required any credit or used any bills 
 of exchange, but paid for every thing in ready money, 
 and lived respectably, though not splendidly. 
 
 " This gentleman being one day at the coffee-house, 
 a Venetian nobleman, who was an excellent judge of 
 pictures, and who had heard of Signor Gualdi's collec- 
 tion, expressed a desire to see them ; and his request 
 was instantly granted. After contemplating and ad- 
 miring them for some time, he happened to cast his eyes 
 over the chamber-door, where hung a portrait of the 
 Stranger. The Venetian looked upon it, and then upon 
 him. ' This is your portrait. Sir,' said he to Signor 
 Gualdi. The other made no answer but by a low bow. 
 ' Yet you look,' he continued, ' like a man of fifty ; and 
 
251 
 
 I know this picture to be of the hand of Titian, who 
 has been dead one hundred and thirty years. How is 
 this possible?' ' It is not easy/ said Signer Gualdi 
 gravely, ' to know all things that are possible 5 but there 
 is certainly no crime in my being like a picture of 
 Titian's.' The Venetian perceived that he had given 
 offence, and took his leave, 
 
 " In the evening he could not forbear mentioning 
 what had passed to some of his friends, who resolved to 
 satisfy themselves the next day by seeing the picture. 
 For this purpose they went to the coffee-house about 
 the time that Signer Gualdi was accustomed to come 
 there ; and, not meeting with him, inquired at his lodg- 
 ings, where they learnt that he had set out an hour 
 before for Vienna. This affair made a great stir at the 
 time." 
 
 P. 63, 1. 26. 
 
 All eye, all ear, no where and every vshere, 
 A Frenchman of high rank, who had been robbed at 
 Venice and had complained in conversation of the 
 negligence of the Police, saying that they were vigilant 
 only as spies on the stranger, was on his way back to 
 the Terra Firma, when his gondola stopped suddenly 
 in the midst of the waves. He inquired the reason 5 
 and his gondoliers pointed to a boat with a red flag, 
 that had just made them a signal. It arrived 5 and he 
 was called on board. " You are the Prince de Craon ? 
 Were you not robbed on Friday- evening ? — I was. — Of 
 what ? — Of five hundred ducats. — And where were they? 
 — In a green purse, — Do you suspect any body ? — I do, 
 a servant. — Would you know him again? — Certainly." 
 
252 
 
 The Interrogator with his foot turned aside an old cloak 
 that lay there ; and the Prince beheld his purse in the 
 hand of a dead man. " Take it ; and remember that 
 none set their feet again in a country where they have 
 presumed to doubt the wisdom of the government," 
 
 P. 66, 1. 19. 
 
 Those Porches. 
 In the Piazzetta. C'etait sous les portiques de Saint- 
 Marc que les patriciens se reunissaient tons les jours. 
 Le nom de cette promenade indiquait sa destination j 
 on I'appellait il Broglio. Daru. 
 
 P. 67, 1. 5. 
 
 Then in close converse, 
 I am indebted for this thought to some unpublished 
 travels by the Author of Vathek, 
 
 P. 67, 1. 20. 
 
 and he sung, 
 As in the time when Venice was herself, 
 
 Goldoni, describing his excursion with the Passalac- 
 qua, has left us a lively picture of this class of men. 
 
 We were no sooner in the middle of that great lagoon 
 which encircles the City, than our discreet Gondolier 
 drew the curtain behind us, and let us float at the will 
 of the waves. — At length night came on, and we could 
 not tell where we were. " What is the hour ?" said I 
 to the Gondolier. — " I cannot guess. Sir ; but, if I am 
 not mistaken, it is the lover's hour." — "Let us go home," 
 I rephed ; and he turned the prow homeward, singing, 
 as he rowed, the twenty-sixth strophe of the sixteenth 
 canto of the Jerusalem Delivered. 
 
25S 
 
 P. 68, 1. 16. 
 
 Nor sought my threshold, 
 At Venice, if you have la riva in casa, you step from 
 your boat into the hall. See Rose's Letters from the 
 North of Italy. 
 
 P. 68, 1. 18. 
 
 The young Bianca found her father s door, 
 Bianca Capello. It had been shut, if we may believe 
 the Novelist Malespini, by a baker's boy, as he passed 
 by at day-break J and in her despair she fled with her 
 lover to Florence, where he fell by assassination. Her 
 beauty, and her love-adventure as here related, her 
 marriage afterwards with the Grand Duke, and that 
 fatal banquet at which they were both poisoned by the 
 Cardinal, his brother, have rendered her history a 
 romance. 
 
 P. 69, 1. 1. 
 
 It was St. Mary's Eve, 
 This circumstance took place at Venice on the first 
 of February, the eve of the feast of the Purification of 
 the Virgin, A. D. 944, Pietro Candiano, Doge. 
 
 P. 70, 1. 16. 
 
 Such splendour or such beauty. 
 E'l costume era, che tutte le novizze con tutta la dote 
 loro venissero alia detta Chiesa, dov 'era il vescovo con 
 tutta la chieresia. — A. Navagiero. 
 
 P. 70, 1.25. 
 
 Her veil, transparent as the gossamer. 
 Among the Habiti Antichi, in that admirable book 
 of wood-cuts ascribed to Titian, (A. D. 1590,) there is 
 
254 
 
 one entitled Sposa Venetiana a Castello, It was taken 
 from an old painting in the Scuola di S. Giovanni Evan- 
 gelista, and by the Writer is believed to represent one 
 of the Brides here described. 
 
 P. 71,1. 5. 
 That venerable structure 
 San Pietro di Castello, the Patriarchal Church of 
 Venice. 
 
 P. 72, 1. 16. 
 
 Well are they known, the galliot and the galley, 
 Una galera e una galeotta. — M. Sanuto. 
 
 P. 73, 1. 16. 
 They had surprised the Corsairs where they lay 
 In the lagoons of Caorlo. The creek is still called 
 II Porto delle Donzelle. 
 
 P. 74, 1. 4. 
 Laid at his Jeet; 
 They are described by Evelyn and La Landej and 
 were to be seen in the Treasury of St. Mark very lately. 
 P. 74, 1. 11. 
 And thro' the city, in a stately barge 
 he quali con trionfo si conducessero sopra una piatta 
 pe' canali di Venezia con suoni e canti. — M. Sanuto. 
 P. 74, 1. 22. 
 the Rialto 
 
 An English abbreviation. Rialto is the name, not 
 of the bridge, but of the island from which it is called ; 
 and the Venetians say il ponte di Rialto, as we say 
 Westminster-bridge. 
 
 In that island is the exchange j and I have often 
 
255 
 
 walked there as on classic ground. In the days of 
 Antonio and Bassanio it was second to none. ' I sotto- 
 portichi/ says Sansovino, writing in 1580, *^ sono ogni 
 giorno frequentati da i mercatanti Fiorentini, Genovesi, 
 Milanesi, Spagnuoli, Turchi, e d'altre nationi diverse 
 del mondo, i quali vi concorrono in tanta copia, che 
 questa piazza e annoverata fra le prime dell' universo.' 
 It was there that the Christian held discourse with the 
 Jewj and Shylock refers to it, when he says, 
 Signor Antonio, many a time and oft, 
 In the Rialto you have rated me — 
 ' Andiamo a Rialto' — ' L'ora di Rialto' — were on every 
 tongue; and continue so to the present day, as we learn 
 from the comedies of Goldoni, and particularly from his 
 Mercanti. 
 
 There is a place adjoining, called Rialto Nuovo j and 
 so called, according to Sansovino, perche fu fabricate 
 dopo il vecchio. 
 
 P. 75, 1. 4. 
 
 Twenty are sitting as in judgment there; 
 The Council of Ten and the Giunta, nel quale, says 
 Sanuto, fu messer lo doge. The Giunta at the first 
 examination consisted of ten Patricians, at the last of 
 twenty. 
 
 This story and the tragedy of the Two Foscari were 
 published, within a few days of each other, in November 
 1821. 
 
 P. 78, 1. 7. 
 
 That maid at once the noblest, fairest, best. 
 She was a Contarinij a name coeval with the Re- 
 public, and illustrated by eight Doges. On the occa- 
 
256 
 
 sion of their marriage the Bilcentaur came out in its 
 splendour; and a bridge of boats was thrown across the 
 Canal Grand6 for the Bridegroom and his retinue of 
 three hundred horse. Sanuto dwells with pleasure on 
 the costliness of the dresses and the magnificence of the 
 processions by land and water. The tournaments in 
 the place of St. Mark lasted three days, and were at- 
 tended by thirty thousand people. 
 
 P. 79, 1. 5. 
 
 To him whose name, among the greatest now, 
 Francesco Sforza. His father, when at work in the 
 field, was accosted by some soldiers and asked if he 
 would enlist. "Let me throw my mattock on that oak," 
 he replied, " and, if it remains there, I will." It re- 
 mained there ; and the peasant, regarding it as a sign, 
 enlisted. He became soldier, general, prince ; and his 
 grandson, in the palace at Milan, said to Paulus Jovius, 
 " You behold these guards and this grandeur. I owe 
 every thing to the branch of an oak, the branch that 
 held my grandfather's mattock." 
 
 P. 79, 1. 10. 
 
 / have transgressed, amended wilfully; 
 It was a high crime to solicit the intercession of any 
 Foreign Prince. 
 
 P. 80, 1.16. 
 
 Obey. Thy Country vnlls it. 
 Va e ubbidisci a quello che vuole la terra, e non cer 
 car piu oltre. 
 
257 
 
 P. 81, 1. 14. 
 
 the Invisible Three ! 
 The State- Inquisitors. For an account of their 
 Authority, see Page 63. 
 
 P. 82, 1. 24. 
 
 It found him on his knees be/ore the Cross, 
 He was at mass. — M. Sanuto. 
 
 P. 83, 1. 17. 
 
 He wrote it on the tomb 
 Veneno sublatus. The tomb is in the Church of St. 
 Elena. 
 
 P. 83, 1. 19. 
 
 Among the debtors in his leger-book 
 A remarkable instance, among others in the annals of 
 Venice, that her princes were merchants, her mer- 
 chants princes. 
 
 P. 84, 1. 4. 
 
 the Pisan, 
 
 Count Ugolino. Inferno, 32. 
 
 P. 89, 1.11. 
 
 And from that hour have kindred spirits flocked 
 ' I visited once more,' says Alfieri, ' the tomb of our 
 master in love, the divine Petrarch 3 and there, as at 
 Ravenna, consecrated a day to meditation and verse.' 
 
 He visited also the house; and in the Album there 
 wrote a sonnet worthy of Petrarch himself. 
 
 O Cameretta, che gid in te chiudesti 
 
 Quel Grande alia ciii fama e angusto il mondo, &c. 
 
258 
 
 P. 90, 1. 10. 
 
 Neglect the place where, in a graver mood, 
 This village, says Boccaccio, hitherto almost un- 
 known even at Padua, is soon to become famous through 
 the World 5 and the sailor on the Adriatic will prostrate 
 himself, when he discovers the Euganean hills. "Among 
 them," will he say, " sleeps the Poet who is our glory. 
 Ah, unhappy Florence ! You neglected him — You de- 
 served liim not." 
 
 P. 90, 1.14. 
 
 Half-way up 
 
 He built his house, 
 
 " I have built, among the Euganean hills, a small 
 house, decent and proper ; in which I hope to pass the 
 rest of my days, thinking always of my dead or absent 
 friends." Among those stiU living, was Boccaccio j 
 who is thus mentioned by him in his Will. " To Don 
 Giovanni of Certaldo, for a winter-gown at his evening- 
 studies, I leave fifty golden florins j truly little enough 
 for so great a man." 
 
 When the Venetians over-ran the country, Petrarch 
 prepared for flight. " Write your name over your door," 
 said one of his friends, " and you will be safe." " I 
 am not so sure of that," replied Petrarch, and fled with 
 his books to Padua. His books he left to the Republic 
 of Venice, laying, as it were, a foundation for the library 
 of St. Mark 3 but they exist no longer. His legacy to 
 Francis Carrara, a Madonna painted by Giotto, is still 
 preserved in the cathedral of Padua. 
 
259 
 
 P. 92, 1. 4. 
 
 in its chain it hangs 
 Affirming itself to be the very bucket which Tassoni 
 in his mock heroics has celebrated as the cause of war 
 between Bologna and Modena five hundred years ago. 
 
 P. 93, 1. 3. 
 
 'Tis of a Lady in her earliest youth. 
 This story is, I believe, founded on fact^ though the 
 time and place are uncertain. Many old houses in 
 England lay claim to it. 
 
 Except in this instance and another (p. 217) I have 
 every where followed history or tradition ; and I would 
 here disburden my conscience in pointing out these ex- 
 ceptions,, lest the reader should be misled by them. 
 
 P. 102, 1. 3. 
 and what a light broke forth. 
 Among other instances of her ascendancy at the close 
 of the thirteenth century, it is related that Florence 
 saw twelve of her citizens assembled at the Court of 
 Boniface the eighth, as Embassadors from different parts 
 of Europe and Asia. Their names are mentioned in 
 Toscana Illustrata. 
 
 P. 102, 1. 8. 
 In this chapel wrought 
 A chapel of the Holy Virgin in the church of the 
 CarmeUtes. It is adorned with his paintings, and all 
 the great artists of Florence studied there ; Lionardo 
 da Vinci, Fra Bartolomeo, Andrea del Sarto, Michael 
 Angelo, Raphael, &c. 
 
260 
 
 He had no stone, no inscription, says one of his bio- 
 graphers, for he was thought little of in his life-time. 
 Se alcun cercasse il marmo, o il nome mio, 
 La Chiesa e il marmo, una cappella i il nome. 
 It was there that Michael Angelo received the blow 
 in his face. — See Vasari, and Cellini. 
 
 P. 103, 1. 11. 
 The seat of stone that runs along the wall, 
 It exists no longer, the wall having been taken down ; 
 but enough of him remains elsewhere. Boccaccio de- 
 livered his lectures on the Divina Commedia in the 
 church of S. Stefano. 
 
 P. 103, 1. 12. 
 the belfry-tower, 
 It was designed by Giotto ; as we read in his epitaph. 
 
 P. 103, 1. 19. 
 Many a transgressor sent to his account. 
 Inferno, 33. A more dreadful vehicle for satire can- 
 not well be conceived. 
 
 P. 104, 1. 3. 
 That they might serve to be the gates of Heaven, 
 A saying of Michael Angelo. They are the work of 
 Lorenzo Ghiberti. 
 
 P. 104, 1. 17. 
 Nor then forget that Chamber of the Dead, 
 The Chapel de' Depositi ; in which are the tombs of 
 the Medici, by Michael Angelo. 
 
 P. 104, 1. 25. 
 That is the Duke Lorenzo. Mark him well. 
 He died early ; living only to become the father of 
 
261 
 
 Catherine de Medicis. Had an Evil Spirit assumed 
 the human shape to propagate mischief, he could not 
 have done better. 
 
 The statue is larger than the life, but not so large as 
 to shock belief. It is the most real and unreal thing 
 that ever came from the chisel. 
 
 P. 105, 1. 7. 
 On that thrice-hallowed day, 
 The day of All Souls. II di de' Morti. 
 
 P. 105, 1. 14. 
 It must he known — the writing on the wall 
 Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor ! 
 Perhaps there is nothing in language more affecting 
 than his last testament. It is addressed " To God, the 
 Deliverer," and was found steeped in his blood. 
 P. 108,1. 9. 
 she who bore them both, 
 Of the Children that survived her, one fell by a bro- 
 ther, one by a husband, and a third murdered his wife. 
 But that family was soon to become extinct. It is some 
 consolation to reflect that their Country did not go un- 
 revenged for the calamities which they had brought 
 upon her. How many of them died by the hands of 
 each other! — See p. 124. 
 
 P. 109, 1. 23. 
 drawn on the wall 
 By Vasari, who attended him on this occasion. 
 
 J. A. Thuanus de Vita sua. i. 
 P. 110, 1. 1. 
 From the sad looks of him who could have told, 
 It was given out that they had died of a contagious 
 
262 
 
 fever 3 and funeral orations were publicly pronounced in 
 their honour. 
 
 Alfieri has written a tragedy on the subject 3 if it may 
 be said so^ when he has altered so entirely the story 
 and the characters. 
 
 P. Ill, 1.2. 
 
 CiMABUE. 
 
 He was the father of modern painting, and the mas- 
 ter of Giotto, whose talent he discovered in the way 
 here alluded to. 
 
 " Cimabue stood still, and, having considered the boy 
 and his work, he asked him, if he would go and live 
 with him at Florence ? To which the boy answei-ed 
 that, if his father was willing, he would go with all his 
 heart. ' ' — Vasari. 
 
 Of Cimabue little now remains at Florence, except 
 his celebrated Madonna, larger than the life, in Santa 
 Maria Novella. It was painted, according to Vasari, in 
 a garden near Porta S. Piero, and, when finished, was 
 carried to the church in solemn procession with trum- 
 pets before it. The garden lay without the walls 5 and 
 such was the rejoicing there on the occasion, that the 
 suburb received the name of Borgo AUegri, a name it 
 still bears, though now a part of the city. 
 
 P. Ill, 1. 11. 
 Beautiful Florence, 
 It is somewhere mentioned that Michael Angelo, 
 when he set out from Florence to build the dome of St. 
 Peter's, turned his horse round in the road to contem- 
 plate once more that of the cathedral, as it rose in the 
 gray of the morning from among the pines and cypresses 
 
263 
 
 of the city, and that he said after a pause, " Come te non 
 voglio! Meglio di te non posso!"* He never indeed 
 spoke of it but witli admiration ; and, if we may believe 
 tradition, his tomb by his own desire was to be so placed 
 in the Santa Croce as that from it might be seen, when 
 the doors of the church stood open, that noble work of 
 Bruneleschi. 
 
 P. 112, 1.4. 
 Came out into the meadows; 
 Once, on a bright November-morning, I set out and 
 traced them, as I conceived, step by step 5 beginning and 
 ending in the Church of Santa Maria Novella. It was 
 a walk delightful in itself, and in its associations. 
 
 P. 112, 1. 11. 
 
 Round the green hill they went, 
 I have here followed Baldelli. It has been said that 
 Boccaccio drew from his imagination. But is it likely, 
 when he and his readers were living within a mile or two 
 of the spot > Truth or fiction, it furnishes a pleasant 
 picture of the manners and amusements of the Floren- 
 tines in that day. 
 
 P. 1 13, 1. 2. 
 
 The morning-banquet by the fountain-side. 
 At three o'clock. Three hours after sun-rise, ac- 
 cording to the old manner of reckoning. 
 
 P. 114, 1. 12. 
 
 Ms lowly roof and scanty farm. 
 Now belonging by inheritance to the Rangoni, a 
 Modenese family. 
 
 * Like thee I will not build one. Better than thee I cannot. 
 
264 
 
 P. 114, 1. 20. 
 'Tis his own sketch — he drew it from himself 
 See a very interesting letter from Machiavel to Fran- 
 cesco Vettori, dated the 10th of December, 1513. 
 
 P. 115, 1. 6. 
 
 sung of Old 
 
 For its green wine ; 
 La Verdea. It is celebrated by Rinuccini, Redi, 
 and most of the Tuscan Poets ; nor is it unnoticed by 
 some of ours. 
 
 Say, he had been at Rome, and seen the relics. 
 Drunk your Verdea^wine, &c. — Beaumont and Fletcher. 
 
 P. 1 15, 1. 9. 
 
 Seven years a prisoner at the city-gate, 
 Galileo came to Arcetri at the close of the year 1 633 ; 
 and remained there, while he lived, by an order of the 
 Inquisition. It is without the walls, near the Porta 
 Romana. 
 
 He was buried with all honour in the church of the 
 Santa Croce. 
 
 P. 115, 1. 11. 
 His villa (justly was it called The Jewel! J 
 II Giojello. 
 
 P. 116, 1. 4. 
 
 There, unseen, 
 Milton went to Italy in 1 638. " There it was," says 
 he, " that I found and visited the famous Galileo grown 
 old, a prisoner to the Inquisition," " Old and blind," 
 he might have said. Galileo, by his own account, be- 
 came blind in December, 1637. Milton, as we learn 
 from the date of Sir Henry Wotton's letter to him, had 
 
265 
 
 not left England on the 1 8th of April following. — See 
 
 Tiraboschi, and Wotton's Remains. 
 
 P. 116, 1. 24. 
 So near the yellow Tiber's — 
 They rise within thirteen miles of each other. 
 
 P. 117, 1. 11. 
 
 Hands, clad in gloves of steel, held up imploring; 
 It was in this manner that the first Sforza went down, 
 when he perished in the Pescara. 
 
 P. 118, 1.27. 
 And lo, an atom on that dangerous sea, 
 
 Petrarch, as we learn from himself, was on his way to 
 Incisa5 whither his mother was retiring. He was seven 
 months old at the time. 
 
 A most extraordinary deluge, accompanied by signs 
 and prodigies, happened a few years afterwards. " On 
 that night," says Giovanni Villani, " a hermit, being at 
 prayer in his hermitage above Vallombrosa, heard a 
 furious trampling as of many horses ; and, crossing him- 
 self and hurrying to the wicket, saw a multitude of in- 
 fernal horsemen, all black and terrible, riding by at full 
 speed. When in the name of God he conjured some 
 of them to tell him their purpose, they replied, " We 
 are going, if it be his pleasure, to drown the city of 
 Florence for its wickedness." — " This account," says 
 he, " was given me by the Abbot of Vallombrosa, who 
 had questioned the holy man himself." xi. 2. 
 
 P. 119, 1. 14. 
 
 Reclined beside thee, 
 O ego quantus erani, gelidi cum stratus ad Arni 
 Murmura, &c. — EpUaphiuni Damonis. 
 
 u M 
 
266 
 
 P. 119, 1. 27. 
 
 Towerless, 
 
 There were the ' Nobili di Torre' and the ' Nobili di 
 Loggia.' 
 
 P. 121, 1. 13. 
 
 At the bridge-foot ; 
 Giovanni Buondelmonte was on the point of marry- 
 ing an Amidei, when a widow of the Donati family made 
 him break his engagement in the manner here described. 
 
 The Amidei washed away the affront with his blood, 
 attacking him, says G. Villani, at the foot of the Ponte 
 Vecchio, as he was coming leisurely along in his white 
 mantle on his white palfrey; and hence many years of 
 slaughter. 
 
 O Buondelmonte, quanto mal fuggisti 
 
 Le nozze sue, per gli altrui conforti! — Dante. 
 
 P. 122, 1. 2. 
 It had been well, hadst thou slept on, Imelda, 
 The story is Bolognese, and is told by Cherubino 
 Ghiradacci in his history of Bologna. Her lover was 
 of the Guelphic party, her brothers of the Ghibelline ; 
 and no sooner was this act of violence made known 
 than an enmity, hitherto but half-suppressed, broke out 
 into open war. The Great Place was a scene of battle 
 and blood-shed for forty successive days; nor was a 
 reconciliation accomplished till six years afterwards, 
 when the families and their adherents met there once 
 again, and exchanged the kiss of peace before the Car- 
 dinal Legate ; as the rival families of Florence had 
 already done in the Place of S, Maria Novella. Every 
 house on the occasion was hung with tapestry' and gar- 
 lands of flowers. 
 
267 
 
 P. 122, 1. 8. 
 
 — -from the wound 
 
 Sucking the poison, 
 The Saracens had introduced among them the prac- 
 tice of poisoning their daggers. 
 
 P. 122, 1. 10. 
 
 Yet, when Slavery came, 
 
 Worse followed. 
 It is remarkable that the noblest works of human 
 genius have been produced in times of tumult 5 when 
 every man was his own master, and all things were open 
 to all. Homer, Dante, and Milton appeared in such 
 times; and we may add Virgil.* 
 
 P. 123, 1. 4. 
 In every Palace was The Laboratory, 
 As in those of Cosmo I. and his son, Francis. — Sis- 
 mondi, xvi. 205. 
 
 P. 123, 1.12. 
 Cruel T0PHANA3 
 A Sicilian, the inventress of many poisons 5 the most 
 celebrated of which, from its transparency, was called 
 Acquetta^ or Acqua Tophana. 
 
 * The Augustan Age, as it is called, what was it but a dying 
 blaze of the Common-wealth ? When Augustus began to reign, 
 Cicero and Lucretius were dead, Catullus had written his sa- 
 tires against Casar, and Horace and Virgil were no longer in 
 their first youth. Horace had served under Brutus; and Virgil 
 had been pronounced to be 
 
 Magnse spes altera Romae. 
 
268 
 
 P. 123, 1. 14. 
 A sign infallible of coming ill. 
 The Cardinal, Ferdinand de' Medici, is said to have 
 been preserved in this manner by a ring which he wore 
 on his finger J as also Andrea, the husband of Giovanna, 
 Queen of Naples. 
 
 P. 123, 1. 21. 
 One in the floor — now left, alas, unlocked. 
 II Trabocchetto. See Vocab. degli Accadem. della 
 Cmsca. See also Diet, de I'Academie Frangoise. Art. 
 Oubliettes. 
 
 P. 124, 1. 3. 
 There, at Catano, 
 Poggio-Caiano, the favourite villa of Lorenzo j vt^here 
 he often took the diversion of hawking, Pulci some- 
 times went out with him ; though, it seems, with little 
 ardour. See La Caccia col Falcone, where he is de- 
 scribed as missing; and as gone into a wood, to rhyme 
 there. 
 
 P. 124, 1. 6. 
 With his wild lay — 
 The Morgante Maggiore. He used to recite it at 
 the table of Lorenzo in the manner of the ancient 
 Rhapsodists. 
 
 P. 124, 1. 20. 
 Of that old den far up among the hills, 
 Caffaggiolo, the favourite retreat of Cosmo, " the 
 father of his countiy." Eleonora di Toledo was stabbed 
 there on the 1 1th of July, 1576, by her husband Pietro 
 de' Medici ; and on the 1 6th of the same month Isa- 
 
269 
 
 bella de' Medici was strangled by hers, Paolo Giordano 
 Orsini, at his villa of Cerreto. They were at Florence, 
 when they were sent for, each in her turn, Isabella 
 under the pretext of a hunting-party ; and each in her 
 turn went to die. 
 
 Isabella was one of the most beautiful and accom- 
 plished women of the Age. In the Latin, French, and 
 Spanish languages she spoke not only with fluency, but 
 elegance ; and in her own she excelled as an Improvi- 
 satrice, accompanying herself on the lute. On her 
 arrival at dusk, Paolo presented her with two beautiful 
 greyhounds, that she might make a trial of their speed 
 in the mornings and at supper was gay beyond measure. 
 When he retired, he sent for her into his apartment ; 
 and, pressing her tenderly to his bosom, slipped a cord 
 round her neck. She was buried in Florence with great 
 pomp ; but at her biirial, says Varchi, the crime divulged 
 itself. Her face was black on the bier. 
 
 Eleonora appears to have had a presentiment of her 
 fate. She went when required ; but, before she set 
 out, took leave of her son, then a child ; weeping long 
 and bitterly over him. 
 
 P. 124, 1. 26. 
 
 But lo, the Sun is setting; 
 I have here endeavoured to describe an Italian sun- 
 set as I have often seen it. The conclusion is borrowed 
 from that celebrated passage in Dante, 
 Era gia I'ora, &c. 
 
270 
 
 P. 127, 1. 1. 
 It was an hour of universal joy. 
 Before 1. 1. in the MS. 
 
 The sun ascended, and the eastern sky 
 
 Flamed Uke a furnace, while the western glowed 
 
 As if another day was dawning there. 
 
 P. 127, 1. 1/). 
 when armies met. 
 The Roman and the Carthaginian. Such was the 
 animosity, says Livy, that an earthquake, which turned 
 the course of rivers and overthrew cities and mountains, 
 was felt by none of the combatants, xxii. 5. 
 
 P. 127, 1. 20. 
 And hy a brook 
 A tradition. It has been called from time immemo- 
 rial, II Sanguinetto. 
 
 P. 131, 1. 9. 
 
 Such the dominion of thy mighty voice, 
 An allusion to the Cascata delle Marmore, a cele- 
 brated fall of the Velino near Terni. 
 
 P. 132, 1. 5. 
 no bush or green or dry, 
 
 A sign in our country as old as Shakspeare, and 
 still used in Italy. ' Une branche d'arbre, attach^e a 
 une maison rustique, nous annonce les moyens de nous 
 refraichir. Nous y trouvons du lait et des reufs fraisj 
 nous voila contens.' Mem. de Goldoni. 
 
 There is, or was very lately, in Florence a small 
 wine-house with this inscription over the door, Al buon 
 vino non bisogna frasca. Good wine needs no bush. It 
 
271 
 
 wasr much frequented by Salvator Rosa, who drew a 
 portrait of his hostess. 
 
 P. 132, 1. 23. 
 A narrow glade unfolded, such as Spring 
 This upper region, a country of dews and dewy lights, 
 as described by Virgil and Pliny, and still, I believe, 
 called La Rosa, is full of beautiful scenery. Who does 
 not wish to follow the footsteps of Cicero there, to 
 visit the Reatine Tempe and the Seven Waters ? 
 P. 133, L 8. 
 a sumpter-mule 
 Many of these circumstances were suggested by a 
 landscape of Annibal Carracci, now in the Louvre. 
 
 P. 134, 1. 26. 
 Filling the land with splendour — 
 Perhaps the most beautiful villa of that day was the 
 Villa Madama. It is now a ruin ; but enough remains 
 of the plan and the grotesque-work to justify Vasari's 
 account of it. 
 
 The Pastor Fido, if not the Aminta, used to be often 
 represented there ; and a theatre, such as is here de- 
 scribed, was to be seen in the gardens very lately. 
 
 P. 135, 1. 3. 
 
 Fair forms appeared, murmuring melodious verse, 
 A fashion for ever reviving in such a climate. In 
 the year 1 783, the Nina of Paesiello was performed in 
 a small wood near Caserta. 
 
 P. 139, 1. 15. 
 the Appian, 
 
 The street of the tombs in Pompeii may serve to 
 
272 
 
 give us some idea of the Via Appia, that Regina Via- 
 rum, in its splendour. It is perhaps the most striking 
 vestige of Antiquity that remains to us. 
 
 P. 139, 1. 22. 
 Horace himself — 
 And Augustus in his litter, coming at a still slower 
 rate. He was borne along by slaves j and the gentle 
 motion allowed him to read, write, and employ himself 
 as in his cabinet. Though Tivoli is only sixteen miles , 
 from the City, he was always two nights on the road. — 
 Suetonius. 
 
 P. 140, 1. 5. 
 
 Where his voice faltered 
 At the words ' Tu Marcellus eris.' The story is so 
 beautiful, that every reader must wish it to be true. 
 
 P. 140, 1. 14. 
 the centre of their Universe, 
 From the golden pillar in the Forum the ways ran to 
 the gates, and from the gates to the extremities of the 
 Empire. 
 
 P. 141,1. 5. 
 
 To the twelve tables, 
 The laws of the twelve tables were inscribed on pil- 
 lars of brass, and placed in the most conspicuous part 
 of the Forum. Dion. Hal. 
 
 P. 141, 1. 8. 
 And to the shepherd on the Alban mount 
 Amplitude tanta est, ut conspiciatur ^ Latiario Jove. 
 C. Plin. XXXIV. 7. 
 
27S 
 
 P. 141, 1. 25. 
 
 A thousand torches, turning night to day, 
 An allusion to Caesar in his Gallic triumph. Ad- 
 scendit Capitolium ad lumina, &c. Suetonius. 
 
 P. 142, 1. 6. 
 On those so young, well-pleased with all they see, 
 In the triumph of iEmilius, nothing affected the 
 Roman people like the children of Perseus. Many wept ; 
 nor could any thing else attract notice, till they were 
 gone by. Plutarch. 
 
 P. 143, 1. II. 
 
 and she who said, 
 Taking the fatal cup between her hands, 
 Sophonisba. The story of the marriage and the 
 poison is well-known to every reader. 
 
 P. 148, 1. 5. 
 His last great work; 
 The Transfiguration ; la quale opera, nel vedere il 
 corpo morto, e quella viva, faceva scoppiare I'anima di 
 dolore a ogni uno, che quivi guardava. — Vasari. 
 
 P. 153, 1. 1. 
 Have none appeared as tillers of the ground. 
 The Author of the Letters to Julia has written 
 admirably on this subject. 
 
 All sad, aU silent ! O'er the ear 
 
 No sound of cheerful toil is swelUng. 
 Earth has no quickening spirit here, 
 Nature no charm, and Man no dwelling ! 
 
 Not less admirably has he described a Roman Beauty; 
 such as ' weaves her spells beyond the Tiber.' 
 
 N N 
 
274 
 
 Methinks the Furies with their snakes, 
 Or Venus with her zone might gird her; 
 
 Of fiend and goddess she partakes, 
 And looks at once both Love and Murder. 
 
 P. 153, 1. 4. 
 From this Seat, 
 Mons AlbanuSj now called Monte Cavo. On the 
 summit stood for many centuries the temple of Jupiter 
 Latiaris. ' Tuque ex tuo edito monte Latiaris, sancte 
 Jupiter,' &c. — Cicero. 
 
 P. 154, 1. 13. 
 Two were so soon to wander and be slain, 
 Nisus and Euryalus. La scene des six derniers livres 
 de Virgile ne comprend qu'une lieue de terrain.— 
 Bonstetten. 
 
 P. 154, 1. 17. 
 How many realms, pastoral and warlike, lay 
 Forty Seven, according to Dionys. Halicar. 1. IV. 
 
 P. 155, 1. 15. 
 Here is the sacred field of the Horatii. 
 Horatiorum qua viret sacer campus. Mart. 
 
 P. 155, 1. 16. 
 There are the Quintian meadows. 
 Quae prata Quintia vocantur. Livy. 
 
 P. 157,1.21. 
 
 Wander like strangers 
 
 It was not always so. There were once within her 
 walls ' more erected spirits.' 
 
 " Let me recall to your mind," says Petrarch in a 
 letter to old Stephen Colonna, " the walk we took to- 
 
275 
 
 gether at a late hour in the broad street that leads from 
 your palace to the Capitol. To me it seems as yester- 
 day, though it was ten years ago. When we arrived 
 where the four ways meet, we stopped ; and, none in- 
 terrupting us, discoursed long on the fallen fortunes of 
 your House. Fixing your eyes steadfastly upon me 
 and then turning them away full of tears, " I have no- 
 thing now," you said, " to leave my children. But a 
 still greater calamity awaits me — I shall inherit from 
 them all." You remember the words, no doubt j words 
 so fully accomplished. I certainly doj and as distinctly 
 as the old sepulchre in the corner, on which we were 
 leaning with our elbows lat the time." Epist. Famil. 
 
 VIII. 1. 
 
 The sepulchre here alluded to, must have been that 
 of Bibulus} and what an interest it derives from this 
 anecdote ! Stephen Colonna was a hero worthy of an- 
 tiquity; and in his distress was an object, not of pity, 
 but of reverence. When overtaken by his pursuers and 
 questioned by those who knew him not, " I am Stephen 
 Colonna," he replied, a citizen of Rome!" and, when 
 in the last extremity of battle a voice cried out to him, 
 "Where is now your fortress, Colonna?" "Here!" 
 he answered gaily, laying his hand on his heart. 
 
 P. 159, 1. 6. 
 Music and painting, sculpture, rhetoric, 
 Music 3 and from the loftiest strain to the lowKest, 
 from a Miserere in the Holy Week to the shepherd's 
 humble offering in Advent ; the last, if we may judge 
 from its effects, not the least subduing, perhaps the 
 most so. 
 
276 
 
 Once, as I was approaching Frescati in the sun- 
 shine of a cloudless December-morning, I observed a 
 rustic group by the road-side, before an image of the 
 Virgin, that claimed the devotions of the passenger 
 from a niche in a vineyard-wall. Two young men from 
 the mountains of the Abruzzi, in their long brown 
 cloaks, were playing a Christmas -carol. Their instru- 
 ments were a hautboy and a bagpipe 5 and the air, wild 
 and simple as it was, was such as she might accept with 
 pleasure. The ingenuous and smiling countenances of 
 these rude minstrels, who seemed so sure that she heard 
 them, and the unaffected delight of their little audience, 
 all younger than themselves, all standing uncovered and 
 moving their lips in prayer, would have arrested the 
 most careless traveller. 
 
 P. 159, 1. 7. 
 And dazzling light and darkness visible, 
 
 Whoever has entered the Church of St. Peter's or 
 the Pauline chapel, during the Exposition of the Holy 
 Sacrament there, will not soon forget the blaze of the 
 altar, or the dark circle of worshippers kneeling in 
 silence before it. 
 
 P. 159,1. 12. 
 Ere they came, 
 An allusion to the Prophecies concerning Antichrist. 
 See the Interpretations of Mede, Newton, Clarke, &c. ; 
 not to mention those of Dante and Petrarch. 
 
 P. 163, 1. 19. 
 And from the latticed gallery came a chant 
 Of psalms, most saint-like, most angelical. 
 There was said to be in the choir, among others of 
 the Sisterhood, a daughter of Cimarosa. 
 
277 
 
 P. 164, 1. 13. 
 'Twas in her utmost need; nor, while she lives, 
 Her back was at that time turned to the people ; but 
 in his countenance might be read all that was passing. 
 The Cardinal, who officiated, was a venerable old man, 
 evidently unused to the ceremony and much affected 
 by it. 
 
 P. 165, 1. 14. 
 the black pall, the requiem. 
 Among other ceremonies a pall was thrown over her, 
 and a requiem sung. 
 
 P. 166, 1. 4. 
 Unsheaths his wings 
 He is of the beetle-tribe. 
 
 P. 167, 1. ]. 
 
 Blazing by fits as from excess of joy, 
 For, in that upper clime, effulgence comes 
 Of gladness. — Gary's Dante. 
 
 P. 167, 1. 9. 
 Singing the nursery-song he learnt so soon; 
 There is a song to the lucciola in evei-y dialect of 
 Italy J as for instance in the Genoese. 
 
 Cabela, vegni a base; 
 Ti dajo un cuge de lette. 
 
 The Roman is in a higher strain. 
 
 Bella regina, &c. 
 
 P. 167, 1.10. 
 And the young nymph, preparing for the dance 
 lo piglio, quando il di giunge al confine, 
 Le lucciole ne' prati ampj ridotte, 
 
278 
 
 E, come gemme, le comparto al crine ; 
 Poi fra I'ombre da' rai vivi interrotte 
 Mi presento ai Pastori, e ognun mi dice : 
 Clori ha le stelle al crin come ha la Notte. 
 
 Varano, 
 
 P. 167, 1.19. 
 
 Those trees, religious once and always green, 
 Pliny mentions an extraordinary instance of longevity 
 in the ilex. ' There is one/ says he, ' in the Vatican, 
 older than the City itself. An Etruscan inscription in 
 letters of brass attests that even in those days the tree 
 was held sacred :' and it is remarkable that there is at 
 this time on the Vatican mount an ilex of great anti- 
 quity. It is in a grove just above the palace -garden. 
 
 P. 1 67, 1. 24. 
 
 fSo some aver, and who would not believe PJ 
 I did not tell you that just below the first fall, on the 
 side of the rock, and hanging over that torrent, are 
 little ruins vphich they shew you for Horace's house, a 
 curious situation to observe the 
 
 Praeceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus, et uda 
 Mobilibus pomaria rivis. 
 
 Grays Letters. 
 
 P. 178,1. 6. 
 TVhen they that robbed, were men of better faith 
 Alluding to Alfonso Piccolomini. Stupiva ciascuno 
 che, mentre un bandito osservava rigorosamente la sua 
 parola, il Papa non avesse ribrezzo di mancare alia pro- 
 pria. Galluzzi. II. 364. 
 
 He was hanged at Florence, March 16, 1591, 
 
279 
 
 P. 178,1. 18. 
 
 WTien along the shore, 
 Tasso was returning from Naples to Rome, and had 
 arrived at Mola di Gaeta, when he received this tribute 
 of respect. The captain of the troop was Marco di 
 Sciarra. See Manso. Vita del Tasso. Ariosto had a 
 similar adventure with Filippo Pachione. See Baruffaldi. 
 
 P. 179,1. 11. 
 
 As ly a spell they start up in array, 
 Cette race de bandits a ses racines dans la population 
 meme du pays. La police ne sait ou les trouver. — 
 Lettres de Chateauvieux. 
 
 P. 183, 1.1. 
 Three days they lay in ambush at my gate, 
 This story was written in the year 1 820, and is founded 
 on the inany narratives which at that time were circu- 
 lating in Rome and Naples. 
 
 P. 207, 1. 1. 
 They stand between the mountains and the sea; 
 The temples of Psestum are three in number 3 and 
 have survived, nearly nine centuries, the total destruc- 
 tion of the city. Tradition is silent concerning them j 
 but they must have existed now between two and three 
 thousand years. 
 
 P. 209, 1. 3. 
 The air is sweet with violets, running vnld 
 The violets of Psestum were as proverbial as the roses- 
 Martial mentions them with the honey of Hybla. 
 
280 
 
 P. 209, 1. 6. 
 Those thoughts so precious and so lately lost. 
 The introduction to his treatise on Glory. Cic. ad 
 Att. xvi. 6, For an account of the loss of that treatise, 
 see Petrarch, Epist. Rer. Senilium. xv. i. and Bayle, 
 Diet, in Alcyonius. 
 
 P. 210, 1. 15. 
 'Tis said a stranger in the days of old 
 They are said to have been discovered by accident 
 about the middle of the last century. 
 
 P. 210,1. 19. 
 and PosiDONiA rose, 
 Originally a Greek City under that name, and after- 
 wards a Roman City under the name of Psestura. See 
 Mitford's Hist, of Greece, chap. x. sect. 2. It was 
 surprised and destroyed by the Saracens at the begin- 
 ning of the tenth century. 
 
 P. 213, 1. 21. 
 The fishing -town, Amalfi. 
 Amalfi fell after three hundred years of prosperity; 
 but the poverty of one thousand fishermen is yet dig- 
 nified by the remains of an arsenal, a cathedral, and the 
 palaces of royal merchants. Gibbon. 
 
 P. 214,1. 16. 
 
 A Hospital, that, night and day, received 
 The pilgrims of the west; 
 It was dedicated to Saint John. 
 
 P. 215, 1. 6. 
 Grain from the golden vales of Sicily, 
 There is at this day in Syracuse a street called La 
 Strada degli Amalfitani. 
 
281 
 
 P. 215, 1. 20. 
 Not thus did they return, 
 The tyrant slain; 
 It was in the year 839. See Muratori. Art. Chro- 
 nici Amalphitani Fragmenta. 
 
 P. 216, 1.6. 
 
 Serve for their monument! 
 By degrees, says Giannone, they made themselves 
 famous through the world. The Tarini Amalfitani were 
 a coin familiar to all nations ; and their maritime code 
 regulated every where the commerce of the sea. Many 
 churches in the East were by them built and endowed j 
 by them was first founded in Palestine that most renowned 
 military Order of St. John of Jerusalem j and who does 
 not know that the Mariner's compass was invented by 
 a citizen of Amalfi? 
 
 P. 217, 1. 1. 
 ' What hangs behind that curtain P' 
 
 This story, if a story it can be called, is fictitious ; 
 and I have done little more than give it as I received it. 
 It has already appeared in prose ; but with many altera- 
 tions and additional circumstances. 
 
 The abbey of Monte Cassino is the most ancient and 
 venerable house of the Benedictine Order. It is situated 
 within fifteen leagues of Naples on the inland-road to 
 Rome 3 and no house is more hospitable. 
 
 P. 217, 1. 8. 
 For life is surely there and visible change, 
 There .are many miraculous pictures in Italy; but 
 
 o o 
 
282 
 
 none, I believe, were ever before described as malignant 
 in their influence. 
 
 At Arezzo in the church of St. Angelo there is in- 
 deed over the great altar a fresco-painting of the Fall of 
 the Angels, which has a singular story belonging to it. 
 It was painted in the fourteenth century by Spinello 
 Aretino, who has there represented Lucifer as changed 
 into a shape so monstrous and terrible, that it is said to 
 have haunted the Artist in his dreams, and to have 
 hastened his death, deranging him in mind and body. 
 In the upper part St. Michael is seen in combat with 
 the dragon : the fatal transformation is in the lower part 
 of the picture. Vasari. 
 
 P. 221, 1. 21. 
 Within a crazed and tattered vehicle, 
 Then degraded, and belonging to a Vetturino. 
 
 P. 221, 1. 23. 
 A shield as splendid as the Bardi wear, 
 A Florentine family of great antiquity. In the sixty- 
 third novel of Franco Sacchetti we read, that a stranger, 
 suddenly entering Giotto's study, threw down a shield 
 and departed, saying, "Paint me my arms in that shield j" 
 and that Giotto, looking after him, exclaimed, ' Who is 
 he ? What is he ? He says. Paint me my arms, as if 
 he was one of the Bardi ! What arms does he bear V 
 
 P. 224, 1. 24. 
 
 DoRIA, PiSANI 
 
 Paganino Doria, Nicolo Pisani j those great seamen, 
 who balanced for so many years the fortunes of Genoa 
 and Venice. 
 
28S 
 
 P. 224, 1. 26. 
 Ruffling with many an oar the crystalline sea. 
 The Feluca is a large boat for rowing and sailing, 
 much used in the Mediterranean. 
 
 P. 225, 1. 21. 
 How oft where now we rode 
 Every reader of Spanish Poetry is acquainted with 
 that affecting romance of Gongora, 
 
 Amarrado al duro banco, &c. 
 Lord Holland has translated it in his Life of Lope de 
 Vega. 
 
 P. 228, 1.1. 
 Here he lived; 
 The Piazza Doria, or, as it is now called, the Piazza 
 di San Matteo, insignificant as it may be thought, is to 
 me the most interesting place in Genoa. It was there 
 that Doria assembled the people, when he gave them 
 their liberty, (Sigonii Vita Dorise) ; and on one side of 
 it is the church he lies buried in, on the other a house, 
 originally of very small dimensions, with this inscription : 
 S. C. Andreae de Auria Patriae Liberatori Munus Pub- 
 licum. 
 
 The streets of old Genoa, like those of Venice, were 
 constructed only for foot-passengers. 
 
 P. 228, 1. 3. 
 Held many a pleasant, many a grave discourse 
 See his Life by Sigonio. 
 
 P. 228, 1. 10. 
 A house of trade. 
 When I saw it in 1822, a basket-maker lived on the 
 ground-floor, and over him a seller of chocolate. 
 
284> 
 
 P. 229, 1. 22. • 
 Before the ocean-wave thy wealth reflected. 
 Alluding to the Palace which he built afterwards, and 
 in which he twice entertained the Emperor Charles the 
 Fifth. It is the most magnificent edifice on the bay of 
 Genoa. 
 
 P. 229, 1. 24. 
 The ambitious man, that in a perilous hour 
 Fell from, the plank. 
 For an account of the Conspiracy of Fiesco, see Ro- 
 bertson's History of the Emperor Charles the Fifth. 
 
 P. 232, 1. 26. 
 the historian, 
 
 Who he is, I have yet to learn. The story was told 
 to me many years ago by a great reader of the old 
 annalists ; but I have searched every where for it in 
 vain. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHITEFRIARS.