1Tb rary OF THE THE BLACKGOWN PAPERS. ITALY, PAST AND PRESENT. BY L. MARIOTTI. HISTORY, RELIGION, POLITICS, LITERATURE AND ART. ^wonti lEtiitiott, Two Vols,, Post ^vo. 14s. " The work is admirable, useful, instructive. I am delighted to find an Italian coming forward with so much noble enthusiasm, to vindicate his country and obtain for it its proper interest in the eyes of Europe. " The English is wonderful. I never saw any approach to such a style in a foreigner before — as full of beauty in diction as in thought" — Sib E. Bulwek Lytton, Bart. " I recognise the rare characteristics of genius — a large concep- tion of the topic, a picturesque diction founded on profound thought, and that passionate sensibility which becomes the sub- ject — a subject beautiful as its climate, and inexhaustible as its soil," — B. DiSBAELi, Esq., M.P. " A very rapid and summary resume of the fortunes of Italy from the fall of the Roman Empire to the present moment. — A work of industry and labour, written with a good purpose. — A bird's-eye view of the subject that will revive the recollections of the scholar, and seduce the tyro into a longer course of reading." — Athenaeum. " This work contains more information on the subject, and more references to the present position of Italy, than we have seen in any recent production." — Foreign Quarterly Review. WILEY & PUTNAM, 6, WATERLOO PLACE. THE BLACKGOWN PAPEES. BY L. MARIOTTI. VOL. I. LONDON: WILEY & PUTNAM, 6, WATERLOO PLACE. MDCCCXLVI. LONDON : PRINTED BY T. BRETTELL, KUPERT STREET, HAYMARKET. TO SYDNEY LADY MORGAN, AUTHOR OF " ITALY," " SALVATOR ROSA," ETC. Madam, By imcribinfj his work to your Ladyship, an Italian only fulfils a duty. lie repays an infinitesimal part of the debt our country owes you as the early friend of Confalonieri, Capponi, and other patriots — as the first to vindicate our cause, to consecrate it in the hearts of English readers. But in my own case, another and more personal obligation is added to the common score. For the last six years, English hospitality — warm, free, unobtru- sive — has encompassed me. The air of true freedom has nerved and strengthened me, even to regeneration. My new home has been endeared to me, till it has anglicised my very feeling and thought. VI This work of moral and mental naturalization was mainly the result of your unwearied, generous friend- ship. To you I trace my most valued acquaintance. All the success I ever met with in English literature I acknowledge from you — and from one dearest to you^ The following 'papers are mostly reminiscences of the land of my youth. None can judge of their accuracy, as delineations of Italian life, better than your Ladyship. To your long-tried indulgence I, therefore, commend them, and their author. I have the honour to be. Madam, with great respect, Your Ladyship's obliged Servant, L. M. 10, Down Street, May 2, 1846. CONTENTS. VOL. I. PA.GE Domestic Vicissitudes of Eli Blackgown, D.D. - 1 Caterina, a Tale of the Harvest Home - - - - 62 Oraz I A, a Tale of the Carnival 121 AuRELiA, a Tale of the University 183 Evidence of Woman's Love 219 San Nicolo de Bari, a Legend of Southern Italy - - 238 PAGE VOL. II. Morello, or the Organ-Boy's Progress - - - - 1 Irene, a Tale of Carbonarism 1^1 Maria Stella, a Smuggler's Tale 14:5 Caroline, a Tale of Fair Florence 209 Temporary Insanity 246 By JOHN LESLIE, Esq. Morello on his First Journey - - Frontispiece, Vol I. MoreUo on his Last Journey - - Frontispiece, Vol. II. DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. A GLIMPSE OF THE WESTERN WORLD. Not a hundred miles beyond the Alleghany, in one of the remotest districts of West Virginia, there lies a solitary dale, which ancient traditions have designated by the appellation of " The Vale of the Bloody Hearth." The place has been, of old, the scene of daring achievements by the roving adventurers who paved the way for the progress of civilisation; and ap- palling tales are on record of the fierce reprisals to VOL. I. B 2 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF which the hunted-down indigenous tribes were driven by despair. Major Oswald, in his youth one of the heroes of our glorious revolution, afterwards a restless pioneer, whose long rifle had cracked, and whose bowie knife had gleamed far in the wilds of the Mississippi — finally stricken in years and disabled by wounds, settled in the dale, with a few negroes and a young wife he had imported from Richmond ; and his house, the only human dwelling for twenty or thirty miles around, under the name of '^ Oswald's Station," became for a good number of years the resort of all the desperate characters, travelling westward, in quest of breathing-room. One evening, however, at the close of a squally day in December, the hospitable establishment was assaulted, it is supposed, by a party of Cherokee Indians, who were still lurking in the neighbour- hood, and to whom the name of Oswald had long been an object of inveterate resentment. His slaves were slain in their log-hut, and his own body was found lying across the fire-place in his sitting-room. ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 3 with a deep gash in his head, his face awfully burnt, cold on the cold ashes of the fire he had actually put out with his blood. For a long lapse of years Oswald's Station, under its new ominous appellation of the " Bloody Hearth," remained silent and desolate ; but, in pro- portion as the country round waxed settled and quiet, the amenity of its situation, and the fertility of the soil, allured new planters and farmers from the East ; until at length, on the very spot where the humble caravansera of the unhappy Major had stood, timidly hiding its lonely roof among the oaks of the forest, the spruce county town of Oswald Court-House is now growing, with all the mettle and bustle of a young American settle- ment. The hand of man has not yet so far laid waste the work of Nature in this part of the country, that we may not number our own valley among the most favoured spots designed for man's habitation. T^e valley, originally a wide luxuriant heath, an enchanted prairie, has been turned into a smihng 4 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF garden, fenced, as it were, by two long ridges of the Cumberland mountains, sloping in a diverging direction from the main chain down to one of the many tributary streams of the Tennessee. The Eastern range, craggy and steep, is an im- mense heap of sable rocks, piled upon each other like a Cyclopean wall, and frowning from every cliff; from the height of those rocks, maddening and roaring in a hundred waterfalls, rushes down a silver stream, which, as every thing else in our val- ley, goes by the name of " Oswald's Creek." On the other side, the hills rise even and slow : as far as eye could reach, the whole range was once mantled with a lofty forest, as old as creation, naturally clear of all undergrowth, smooth, trim, and snug as Bushey Park or Kensington Gardens. Every tree in that venerable wood has, however, been girdled. The vegetation of a hundred miles, Nature's work, perhaps, of fifty centuries, has been paralyzed at one stroke. The ill-fated timber, the Titans of the vegetable world, are standing still, and will stand thus, bleaching and withering, may-be for an age, ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. O their wide-spreading branches rising to the sky in their squalid nakedness, howling and groaning in the gale, glimmering in the twilight — grim, bleak, desolate, like a legion of ghosts. DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF II. A WORLD OF TRIBULATIONS. A WITNESS; as I have been, of the greatest part of these improvements, and numbered among the earliest colonists, the patriarchs of the land, I am, however, a stranger, and a native of a far-oiF country. I was raised in that part of the American Union which is most properly entitled to the appellation of " Yankee-land." I am from " Old New England " — a Connecticut man. My father, a plain farmer, with moderate means and limited notions, would fain have doomed me, his eldest son, to the plough; but schoolmaster Timothy Riddle, who had discovered in my brains the latent seed of fast-rising genius, prevailed upon the old man to look on his heir with prouder expec^- tations; so that, fitted out and equipped as a ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 7 Divinity Student, I was stowed away in one of the monthly waggons, northward bound, which, after a few days' journey, safely deposited my box and me at the gates of an Orthodox Divinity School in the Bay State. The Rev. Jeremiah Flinch, a proctor in that learned Institution, pounded I know not how many dollars-worth of Latin and Hebrew into my devoted head ; and after four years of knocking and thump- ing, I was sent back a licensed Orthodox preacher, a dubbed Divinity Doctor, — and a betrothed lover of Hosannah Flinch, my tutor's daughter, whom I was to wed as soon as I had feathered a nest for self, mate, and all the brood that might be hatched in the warmth thereof. After a short greeting, and staring and wondering of friends and neighbours at home, I ventured on my experimental tour from village to village, in quest of a parish. Blessed times were those for young men of my calling, when pulpits wanting preachers, were as frequent as are now preachers lacking a pulpit j when a young pastor was not 8 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF obliged to start up a new sect for the sake of getting a flock ; and yet, and nevertheless, even then, parish-hunting was a matter of luck. In one village I was found too tall, in another too slim ; the old folk shook their heads at the shortness of my sermons, the young people yawned at their length ; the mothers objected to an unmarried clergyman, the daughters found fault with my betrothment. I made thus the tour of New England, and came back a by-word to the very sextons and beadles in every parish of that most Orthodox community. As a death-stroke to my earthly bliss, MiSs Hosannah Flinch, who waxed tired of too long an engagement, accepted the more ready offers of Ephraim Cutechap, a New Haven sea captain, and shipped herself on board the " Noah's Ark,'' bound to the Pacific Ocean, whence neither vessel, nor captain, nor cargo, ever returned. Stung to the heart by disappointment, and by my father's death left in possession of a small sum of that greasy blotting-paper we Yankees call ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 9 money, I turned my back upon my native village, and wandered from one to the other of these Western settlements, till chance led me to this valley. Here I purchased two slaves, built a log-house, locked up gown and surplice, and with the resignation of a Cincinnatus I set up a-farming, as my father had done before me. B 5 10 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF III. MUSHROOM CITIES. But what will not time and fortune do for a man? The very parish I had so anxiously run after in vain, now came over to me of its own accord, when I had laid down for ever the thought of it. It was actually saddled, forced upon me. The valley where, at my arrival, I found only two small and shabby plantations, began to be haunted by a swarm of locusts, in the shape of long and lank, scraggy-necked land speculators; who for a long time measured out fields, girdled woods, fenced, tilled, and built at leisure, without encroaching upon each other. But when, at last, all was seized upon that was worth taking, and the old tenants felt the necessity of securing their property against new emigrants, and avoiding all ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 11 subjects of collision between themselves, it was unanimously resolved that the valley and the adjacent territoi-ies should be incorporated into a county, and that a council should be held of the landed proprietors, to appoint county magistrates, and build a court-house. The building of a court-house in these Western settlements is an event of the highest moment. It signalizes the epoch in which the patriarchal life, the golden age of independent hunters and squatters, is to give place to that complex and artificial state of constraint which is called amon| men social order. A court-house is a bond of union, a centre, a name to a district which had hitherto flourished unknown ; but it is likewise the forerunner of workhouses and jails ; it becomes a nest and a hot-bed of sharks, rattle-snakes, and alli- gators, under the name of lawyers, bailiffs, and sheriffs, mischievous beings that had been hitherto deemed quite unnecessary, and beyond whose reach the early settler had flattered himself to have, for all his life-time, escaped. 12 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF It is, however, a day of excitement and public rejoicing, and far from undergoing the ceremony as a matter of fatal necessity, the newly-chartered territory puts on an air of importance and dig- nity, which reminds us of a young colt, proud of the finery of his housings and trappings, when saddled or harnessed for the first time. The council of electors of Oswald county, like the Parliaments of ancient Saxons and Franks, met in the open air, on the very spot where Oswald's Station had stood, chosen now as the centre of the little province, of which it was hence- forth to become the metropolis. The freeholders of all farms and plantations for twenty miles round came on horseback, or in tneir quaint carryalls, followed by women and children, slaves, donkeys, and dogs, carrying, likewise, provisions, tables, and chairs, for the meeting. A crowd of attornies, notaries, masons, and builders, came also from the neighbouring counties. We mustered two parsons, two militia colonels, three Yankee pedlars, a few showmen, quack-doctors, and fiddlers j for the ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 13 caucus and election day was, at the same time, intended to be a camp-meeting, a fair, a pic-nic, a shooting-match, and a ball. Well ! that was a memorable day — and the result of its transactions was seen only a few months afterwards, in the shape of a low, squat brick-buiiding, half-Corinthian, half-Indian, with four short and thick columns, two small oval win- dows, and a round dwarfish steeple in front, bearing, on the whole, no small resemblance to the legs, eyes, and horn of a rhinoceros. Now a town-hall generally presupposes the existence of a town. By the side of the court- house. Lawyer Ketchum and Lawyer Cheetum, two half-starved attornies, built their offices*. On the other side of the road, Giles Sharpe opened an " Entertainment." The three Yankee pedlars • They afterwards joined in partnership, under the firm of " KETCHUM & CHEETUM;" and as this combination of strange names called forth many a joke from the town wags, they thought to do away with the aukward cacophony by inter- posing the initials of their christian names, *' I. KETCHUM & U. CHEETUM." 14 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF settled in town as downright shop-keepers. A Dutch bankrupt merchant opened a wooden clock manufactory. The rest of the ground was fast filling up with washerwomen, butchers, tinkers, and cobblers. The town boasted a paper-mill, a bake-house, a bank, a jail, when it finally felt the want of a church. For in these matters, you see, they proceed in the West after a system diametrically opposite to what is practised in staid, pious, orthodox, " Old New England," w^here that worthy race of Puritan pil- grims cannot rest, with any degree of comfort, under their roofs, unless it be within the shade of their beloved meeting-house-steeple, rising gay and trim in its unspotted purity, and glittering over hill and dale above its green cluster of elms. A church in these Western woods, T am grieved to say, is not unfrequently a low building, a log- gery, men and cattle might equally object to live in — a dark, grim lurking place, hidden in the corner of a wood, as if ashamed to come forth into the daylight — a mere barn, and such as the very ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 15 Indians would have blushed to raise to the High Spirit. No sooner were the funds for the house of worship voted, after the volunteer system, than Giles Sharpe, our publican, a man as influential as any Swiss innkeeper, took it warmly into his head that I should be elected to officiate as its parson. He was a Yankee, consequently an Orthodox, like myself; and from our very first settling in the valley, he, the three pedlars, and I, had entered into an alliance, offensive and defensive, to bear up against the ill-will and prejudice so deeply rooted" in the South and West against the name of New England. With all this ill-natured disposition against us, however, a notion prevails over the whole Union, that the six Yankee States are the only spots on this side the Atlantic where parsons, doctors, and school- masters are of spontaneous growth. These learned trades, therefore, are almost invariably given up to us Down-Easters, in consideration of our superior acuteness ; and my name was, therefore, no sooner 16 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF proposed, than received with a burst of unanimous acclamation. One day I went to bed a plain farmer, on the morrow I got up a minister. My house lay on the top of a hill rising imme- diately behind the court-house. They took ten acres of my best pasture land, they laid down a church and churchyard with ample liberality — at my expense ; and my plain farming settlement was dignified into a parsonage. I dusted what I considered the best of my ser- mons, I rubbed and scrubbed my rusty elocutive faculties, I aired and donned my long-forgotten suit of black clothes, combed my hair smooth, and washed my hands white, and arm-in-arm with my patronising publican, I was led in front of my congregation. It proved a complete triumph. As soon as my last blessing was over, the whole flock rose like one man : they surrounded their new pastor with due love and reverence, escorted him to the parsonage with congratulations and plaudits, and the very heads of the people actually condescended ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 17 to invite themselves to dinner with him. This glaring success, however, (I call Giles Sharpe to witness,) and that air of popular favour, did not so far cloud my understanding as to extinguish for a moment in my heart the sense of my real un- worthiness. They were aware that the money they had voted for the support of their clergyman was but a starving income, and paid their compli- ments where they were loth to volunteer their dollars. Thanks to Providence, however, twenty years of thrift and industry had placed me far above any need of their bounty. The number of my slaves had been increased from two to twenty ; my plan- tations extended from the creek to the outskirts of the forest j the shingle in my premises had every where superseded the log: and as the Lord had so largely bestowed his blessings on the labour of my fields, I was now at leisure to set up as a labourer of his vineyard. Happy as I was, and placed so widely above want — I was yet reminded by some of my well- 18 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF wishers, that my earthly bliss was incomplete. I was now on the shady side of fifty, and yet a bachelor. Giles Sharpe threw out some hints about the inexpediency of a man being alone : the gravest of my flock descanted on the dignity, weight, and consequence accruing to a parson from a wife and long train of children trudging at his heels on his way to meeting. My bachelor estab- lishment, also, now I was more steadily established at home, seemed a prey to raving anarchy ; so that, what with my slaves, who worked only on com- pulsion, and the free helps, who worked not at all, I was often compelled to lay down my pen, in the very heat of my homily, to attend to the blacking of my shoes or mending my stockings. The remonstrances of the male, and the sarcasms of the female part of my friends (to whom the whole of Hosannah Flinch's story was not well known), conspiring with my own longing for order and comfort, w^ere, then, urging me to a fatal, irretrievable step. A boarding-school mistress, for\ boys and girls, had lately been established in our ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 19 house. She was an old girl of five-and-forty, if she was nine days. She wore cork-screw ringlets, and sang falsetto in our choir. Mortals knew her under the name of Miss Proserpina Simper. I penned a letter to this formidable person — being neither more nor less than an invitation to place herself at the head of my domestic concerns. .Yes, ye heavenly powers ! I went all the length of writing and sealing an hymeneal epistle ! For seven days and seven nights, however, I stood the awful temptation. At last I was relieved by the* timely interference of an angel — in the shape of my niece, Emily, whom Providence in its clemency conveyed to me all the way from the East. 20 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF IV. THE HOUSEHOLD QUEEN, My brother, with whom I had parted since my father's death, had settled and married in Salem, Massachusetts — had invested his petty capital in the East Indian commerce, and thriven with astonish- ing speed. Emily, his only daughter, had been destined by him for one of the wealthiest of Salem Nabobs ; but the girl, with true Yankee spirit, gave the gouty old gentleman the slip 5 she eloped with an English adventurer, to whom she was wedded in Providence, and with whom she tra- velled all the way to Washington — where she lost him three weeks after marriage, in the famous disaster of the steam-boat, Susquehannah, whose shipwreck, she alone, and the black steward of the ship, had the good luck to survive. ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 21 Landed on a desert shore, near Frederick-town, and thrown upon the charity of strangers — dreading the consequences of her father's displeasure, if she returned home, she expressed a desire to be directed to her uncle's, in Oswald County, whither she pro- ceeded, aided and supported, wherever she passed, with real Virginian hospitality; and where she arrived, one fair summer evening, worn to a shadow, poor thing, by chagrin and anxiety. Ask not how many times I embraced her, as she was telling her piteous tale ; or by how many' kisses I dried up her tears. Suffice it to say that, on the same evening, I cast the letter for Miss Proserpina Simper into the fire, and kicked it on the burning coals with a fiendish delight, calling myself an ass loud enough to be heard from the tops of the Cumberland mountains. It would be superfluous to say how soon every- thing at the parsonage was made to feel the influ- ence of the new genius of the place. In proportion as the weight of her anguish began to give way, and she was enabled to bestow her cares upon the 22 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF things of this world, the sweet expression of her beautiful countenance, and the serene melancholy that accompanied all her acts and words, wrought a spell upon even the lowest menials of the house- hold. The rudest of my negroes would sooner have expired under the lash, than endure a rebuke from her, or cause the slightest cloud of displeasure to pass over her brow. Emily brought us the blessings of Heaven with her. She talked to me, sang to me, copied my sermons in her very best hand. She cast a spell over the idle hours, which the discontinuation of my rural labours had distressingly lengthened. She read to me, made me a reader. I gradually shut out my neighbours — barred and bolted my house against all intrusion. The parsonage became an enchanted castle, haunted by a benevolent fairy, who rendered it inaccessible to the inclemencies of the seasons and the petty annoyances of mankind. Lord! what a treasure of happiness hast thou placed in the gift of woman ! ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 23 V. THE PLOT. An unexpected event, however, led, one evening, a visitor to our door — a young stranger, of highly prepossessing mien, of a very dark, sunny com- plexion, whose appearance was of one somewhat short of thirty years of age. He had, he said, lost his way in a pedestrian excursion to our valley, and asked for a night's rest and shelter with us. Now all this sounded rather aukward, at least, if not actually suspicious ; for there was scarcely any practicable path to our gate, save through the town; nor was it possible to walk up the town, without, as it were, stumbling against the post, on which rose Giles Sharpe's sign of the " Wild Buffalo," and to which the honest publican never 24 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF failed to add, by night, a lantern or beacon, for stage-drivers or waggoners — a ray of hope to cheer weary wayfarers, and " pilgrims who can pay." Forasmuch, however, as the first opening of a house of public entertainment may prove fatal to the right of private hospitality, it could never be I who would find fault with a traveller for preferring the parsonage cheer to the tavern ; and, without further comment, I bade my guest a hearty welcome, and we sat down to table with him for the sake of company. Our strange gentleman was decently dressed ; yet his travelling on foot, and with no luggage of any description, did not tell much in favour of his present circumstances, and as there was in his lan- guage a very slight, an almost imperceptible dash of foreign accent, we set him down, in our minds, for one of the many adventurers from the Old World, toiling and wandering through the States to better themselves. Our new friend, however, did little honour to our repast. After a few vain attempts to ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 25 eat and converse, he pleaded indisposition and weariness, and was shown to his apartment. " A Frenchman ! " I observed, as the parlour door was closing after him. " A Spaniard, rather, or a West Indian, if we may judge from his complexion," was Emily's reply. " Handsome boy, anyhow," I said, with a little malice in my smile. Emily heaved a deep sigh. She held up the miniature of her ill-fated English lover, which invariably hung round her neck, and, after a few seconds' gloomy meditation, took up her light and was gone. There could only be one handsome man in the world ! I know what I am now going to relate will sound odd, and even silly to people conversant with the habits of the old settlement. But we are queer fish in the West, and very strange crotchets will occa- sionally get into our heads. That night I slept little or nothing. I could not take the stranger off c 26 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF my mind. Emily and her books had filled my silly old brain with romantic notions. Our guest's manner had something uncommonly refined and elegant. The newspapers had given us the most melancholy accounts of fi)reign exiles landed in shoals by Austrian frigates on our shores. Confa- lonieri, Foresti, and other unfortunate victims, hardly yet restored to life, after their long burial at Spielberg, had been exhibited, with a feeling of horror and pity, through every circle of our Atlantic cities. Our guest was a dark man and handsome. He must needs be an Italian ; a poli- tical refugee ; a man of high birth and feeling, thrown, by the noblest of causes, into all the miseries of loneliness and destitution. Full of these fancies I rose in the morning, and went in quest of our stranger. He was up before any of us, and I found him in the garden waiting for an opportunity to take his leare. I walked up to him : I shook him by the hand with a hearty : " Good morning, signer." I prevailed upon him to tarry a few minutes, ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 27 and have his breakfast with us; took him on a short walk through our grounds, showed him the vistas, and told him the annals of our valley ; and, at length, coming to the point that stood nearest my heart, lowering my voice and choosing the best phrases my delicacy could suggest, I let him un- derstand that I knew his position, and was deter- mined to stand between him and his fortune. I continued to inform him how ardently my niece Emily, who was, above all things, fond of music, had for many years longed to be initiated in the study of foreign languages, especially in the Italian, the soul of all music. I added that if he would consent to stop for a season in Oswald County, I should look upon his fortuitous arrival as a special favour of Providence. It would not be easy to convey the expression of his countenance during this long tirade of mine. He first looked astonished and confused ; then a smile of good humour played over all his handsome features, as if he found something inexpressibly droll in my proposal. He had, however, no time 28 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF to accept or decline the offer, for in that very mo- ment we had crossed the threshold of my house, and were entering the parlour. There we found sweet Emily awaiting us with her smile of welcome ; and perceiving, from our familiar intercourse, that the best understanding was established between us, she performed with freedom and grace those duties of hospitality, that a guest, her uncle had honoured with his intimacy, had a right to expect. The charm of her man- ners wrought wonders on the stranger's heart j and when, after rising from breakfast, I introduced him to her as a member of our family, and her teacher of Italian, his face glowed with delight, and he looked as if a domestication with us were for him the most natural, no less than the most desirable event. A few days after, several boxes and portmanteaus bespeaking a traveller in far easier circumstances than I had been led to expect, were forwarded to the gentleman from one of the neighbouring towns. They were addressed to " Walter, Esq." But ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 29 as he had already informed us that his name was GuALTiERi, and as we understood this to be only a modification of the English denomination, we easily perceived that he had adopted the latter as less likely to expose him to remarks and curiosity on the road. Together with the luggage there came a good quantity of books, and being now provided with sufficient materials for their studies, master and pupil sat down to work in the library. It was, from the beginning, agreed that there should be a lesson every day, and these, in progress of time, became wondrously long. I was with them the best part of the time, rock- ing in my easy chair, and apparently busy with a book that lay open in my hands, but in reality watching the process of that parrot-schooling, which has, however, so much effect towards remov- ing the curse that weighs upon the various races of mankind, since the days of the Tower of Babel. It is certainly a ludicrous, but withal not an unin- teresting spectacle, to see two young persons of 30 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF different sex, both young, both handsome, seated close to each other, holding the same book with four hands, their arms crossed, their heads bent, starting at times as their hair comes into contact ; or, as the ringlets of the pupil heave under the impulse of the warm breath of the master ; at times staring at each other wistfully, as a word occurs of parti- cularly hard pronunciation, for which a more care- ful inspection of the inflections of the organs of speech may become necessary ; for, I observed, the study of language is a matter altogether of organs ; that of the Southern tongues especially, whose arti- culation entirely depends on the play of lips and teeth. Such a handsome pair — teacher and scholar — as I daily had before me at the parsonage, were certainly never seen since the days of Abeilard and Helo'ise : the foreign youth looking so proud and manly, his coal-black eyes beaming so full of fire and intelli- gence under his almost swarthy brow ; Emily who, wholly absorbed in her new pursuits, had regained all the serenity of her mind, so full of youth and ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 31 spirit, so tender, so gentle, so woman-like, as she hung, with all the interest of a willing student, on every word that fell from her instructor's lips. Such a contrast of hair, and eyes, and complexion — so happy a group of countenances, forms, and atti- tudes, never were exhibited by the happiest effort of an artist's inventiveness. Diligence and assiduity were soon crowned with a brilliant success. They had soon entered what they called the sanctuary of the Italian muses, and now, I confess, that listening to the empty sounds of a language utterly unknown, was not deprived of a real, though unaccountable delight ; especially as, though an incompetent judge, I was inclined to think, that, if softness and melody be the character- istics of the Italian language, my Emily's flexible voice had got the advantage even of what we thought the native accent of the Signor. The Italian lessons, however, were not the only benefit by which our guest more than amply repaid what he considered his debt towards our hospitality. To the advantages of a high education he added 32 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF other talents, wliich may form a part of a gentle- man's acquirements in Europe, but which are not within our reach in our back-woods of the West. Italian seemed hardly more his native language than French or German. As to his English, when the novelty of the first impression had worn off, we had the utmost difficulty in detecting the least outlandish anomaly or peculiarity in his speech. He was likewise an able musician, as well as an able imitator of our forest and mountain scenery. There was something in his very walk, in his style of riding, in his habit and manner so highly dis- tinguished, that, in our heart, we felt inclined to look upon him as little short of a prince in disguise. Emily, possessed of such talents only so much as a hasty boarding-school training in Yankee-land can afford, — at every discovery she made of her teacher's perfections, came to me delighted, en- raptured, exhibiting all the motions of a child, who, being made to climb a hill for the first time, turns round, at every step, to look on the plain, exclaiming and wondering how wide the world is ! ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 33 From that moment they became indivisible. Books in the morning ; the piano and guitar in the evening, absorbed all their time within doors; abroad, long rides by day, moonlight walks by night, made of their life a continual duo without accompaniment. My neighbours murmured : they called my niece " an arrant flirt ;" myself " an old fool ; " our gay Lothario " a foreign beggar." A beggar, however, he certainly could not be, however justly the other epithet might apply to him. He had evidently more money about him than he could well dispose of. My servants, black and white, doated upon him; he had an easy manner of slipping half-dollars into their hands, which won him every heart and soul within reach. He drew largely on the Richmond and Norfolk banks, and indulged in extravagant expenses. My stables were crowded with half-a-dozen blood- horses. Large supplies of books in all languages were almost weekly forwarded to us from Phila- delphia. He had a careless, dashing manner of lavishing gold about him, which, in our frugal c 5 34 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF West, seemed to border on folly. Horses and books, piano and harp, and fancy articles without number, seemed, however, procured only with one view — the gratification of Emily. Who ever was happier than that dear girl under this new order of things ? Her naturally gay dispo- sition was roused to the highest pitch of buoyancy and exultation. Who can say by what adroit contrivances every article of her mourning attire was gradually laid aside? Even the miniature of her short-lived English lover and husband, which had so long hung indivisible on her breast — even that last token of blighted hopes and withered affec- tions — who shall guess what had become of it ? ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 35 IV. THICKENING OF THE PLOT. But while she revived thus to existence, and plunged into the new sources of enjoyment so unexpectedly opened before her, her new lover — for lover I certainly apprehended him to be — seemed not unfrequently affe(;ted by fits of melan- choly, for which we were at a loss to assign a just cause ; though we could not fail to perceive that we often unwittingly contributed to rouse, or to aggravate it. There were ticklish topics of conversation that caused him unspeakable distress. He was, for instance, an abolitionist ; any allusion to the condi- tion of our slaves, was sure to raise a cloud on his brow. Not that he was remarkably warm or vehement on the subject 5 on the contrary, he 36 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF seemed anxiously to avoid all discussion ; but if he discoursed at all on the great point, his words were wild and incoherent. He spoke under the most painful constraint. It struck me, in short, as if he felt bitterly on the subject, and feared to commit himself before his hosts, whose position, he knew, must necessarily place them in the ranks of his opponents. That was, however, a rock above water, not very difficult to steer clear of; but there was also no lack of shoals and breakers, upon which we would venture unawares, never perceiving the danger till we actually struck. Against these no regard or caution availed us. A word was spoken, a wrong key was touched, a damper was spread over the warmth of our domestic intercourse, a random shaft of my sweet Emily in her liveliest sallies, wounded the stranger to the heart. A pang shot across his brain. Conversation lagged yet for a few minutes, perhaps, but joy was at an end for the evening. One day, for instance, the discourse fell on ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 37 the characteristic beauty of Italian and English women. " English loveliness," observed our friend, " rises with the different ranks of the social scale. In Italy it is quite otherwise. The handsomest person I ever saw between the Alps and the sea, was a flower- girl at Florence." " It is a common remark with all travellers," rejoined Emily, " and they endeavour to account for it by the fact that the old Roman type of form and countenance has been preserved in all its purity among the people, whilst the upper classes are a mixture of a hundred tribes of barbarians." " The blending of various races improves the breed," said the stranger, huskily. " Say you so?" replied the girl quickly. " I hate a cross, even though it be between angel and mortal. The Arab knows better how to value the spotlessness of his horse's pedigree — Blood is NOT water!" The stranger's countenance fell. It was some time before he could rally from what had evidently OO DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF been a home-thrust. He struggled for some time to turn the discourse upon other subjects ; but see- ing the futility of his endeavours, he rose abruptly, and took his leave for the night. From that moment I fancied I had read his secret. I apprehended, however high the shield he might be entitled to wear, that a fatal bar- sinister must be drawn across its proud blazonry. Meanwhile, whatever might be the shrewdness of my surmises, our guest himself did not seem inclined to gratify us as to their correctness. No subject on which he could be more uncommunica- tive than all that concerned himself. He could converse, and that right pleasantly, on all men and things under the moon ; but it was only incident- ally, we could find out what countries he had visited, what persons he had been brought into contact with ; his very birth-place, though we con- tinued to take it for granted he came from Italy, and his real rank and titles, alike a mystery. Young as he was, he seemed to have seen and known hardly less than the Wandering Jew. He ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 39 gave us amusing details of other people's adven- tures ; his own life seemed to form a blank in his memory. So far as might be judged from his pre- dilections or antipathies, he might belong to any country or party, to any sect or persuasion. 40 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF VII. HALF-PIGS HALF-ALLIGATORS. One day, at last — our stranger had been with us a whole autumn and winter — one day the secluded monotony of our existence was broken in upon by unknown, and, as it proved in the end, unwelcome visitors. Two of the newly-appointed Members of Congress, from the neighbouring State of Tennessee, arrived with a broken carriage at the door of the village inn below. Every room of Giles Sharpens establishment was thronged with a host of pig- dealers and drovers, on their way to Abingdon Fair. These, with a proper spirit of American equality, stoutly refused to make room for their betters. The honourable gentlemen, therefore. ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 41 were under the necessity of throwing themselves on the hospitable mercies of the parsonage. As I am now in the vein of making confessions, I may just as well candidly avow that I hate these bragging and brawling, unclean and ill-bred, down- right Westerners. The two honourable gentlemen were' no sooner under my roof, than carpet, hearth- rug, and fender — those household Gods my ser- vants had been taught by Emily to pay so incessant a worship to — were converted into a pig-stye. With their feet on the mantel-piece, throwing themselves back on their chairs till they cracked under their weight, they rocked and rocked themselves, without even an attempt at rational conversation. I was alone at the time, my young people being out on a long ride to one of our mountain springs. But just as the announcement of dinner relieved me from the disgust I experienced in the presence of these honourable brutes, and I hastened to show them into the dining room — behold, the happy pair rushed in from an opposite door, arm-in-arm, 42 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF flushed, enraptured, famished, with their day's exercise. It was an ominous encounter. Wishing to show my guests that their ill-breeding did not make me forget my better manners, I went through the forms of introduction in the most approved style of Western punctuality. " This, gentlemen," I commenced, taking my own Emily by the hand, " is my niece, Emily, daughter of Jeconiah Blackgown, Esq., of Salem, my younger brother, and relict of the late Alfred Lackland, of H M.'s 35th Foot. " My dear niece," I continued, " let me intro- duce the Honourable Balderdash Popgun, M.C. for Babylon, and the Honourable Rigmarole Keen- blade, M.C. for Memphis, both of the State of Tennessee . . . " And, gentlemen," I added, looking round for my young friend who kept aloof from the new comers, " allow me to make you acquainted with the Signor " "Oh!" groaned Popgun, drawing himself up ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 43 stiffly, after a rapid glance at the stranger. " Mr. Walter and I are already perfectly acquainted.*' '^ Thoroughly acquainted," muttered Keenblade, echoing the tone, no less than the words, of his honourable colleague. Gualtieri, or as they called him, Walter, turned deadly pale, but made no reply. Well, we sat down to dinner. How we got through it, I could not, for the life of me, recollect. Our new guests seemed determined not to take any further notice of the old one. This latter, on his own part, never broke silence, except in a whisper to Emily. The good girl played dummy from sympathy ; and I, poor I, aware that there must be a screw loose somewheje, was wondering and wondering, and whilst I wondered, said nothing. Our honourables were, therefore, left to their own social resources. They drank long and deep, and fell into political discussions. Popgun did not fail, indeed, to make one or two attempts at some sort of bearish gallantry towards Emily ; but the 44 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF staid and demure look of the disdainful beauty, and the dry monosyllables with which his advances were received, had soon the effect of striking him dumb. Abashed and crest-fallen, he turned for relief to his bottle, or continued to bandy words with his compeer across the table. Towards the end, they became noisy and violent. They rehearsed the scenes of riot and blackguardism they intended to perform in the Capitol. " They would do," they said " for those white-livered Down-Easters. They would eat them up like the Johnny-cakes, of which they bore the name. Let them only moot the abolition question once more ! aye ! let them only say one syllable on the score of our niggers Jt-Let only the old fool, Adams, stand on his legs ! the doating old fool — we'll give it him ; — Lynch him — roast him alive ! The old humbug who would undertake to prove that black is white ! " The blacks, aye, the blacks ! the accursed race of those Africans — doomed to thraldom to the very last drop of their blood ! It is so written in ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 45 Scripture : and the Bible, by Jingo, must be made the law of the land. There shall not be a free black in the Union. No, nor a Mulatto, or Quad- roon either ; the fairest of them must be branded with a red-hot iron. They shall walk about the streets with a pack-saddle on their backs. The bleaching of two or three generations shall not rob us of our rights.*' During all this string of absurd and villainous invective, I had not raised the eyes from my friend. I knew his feelings on the subject, and was pre- paring for some violent outbreak. The working of his countenance was truly terrific. Once or twice I saw him lay his hand on a black bottle on his right, and with such a tight and convulsive grasp, that the blood oozed from the nails. Once or twice he sat up in his chair with a sudden start, as if about to rise, but sank back overpowered by the very agony of his passion. Cold drops of anguish and torture stood on his throbbing temples. His eyes flashed fitfully, the strained visual beams oscillating till they actually squinted with rage. 46 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF He sat it out, however ; he devoured his ^vrath in silence, and mastered it so far as to address Emily with an unfaltering voice. I had never before witnessed so painful an ex- hibition of smothered fury ; and, however disposed I might be to make allowance for the heat of a Southern temperament, I could not bring myself to believe that mere dissent in moral or political opinions could raise such a storm in the heart of a civilized man. My honourable visitors, it was plain, knew more about Gualtieri than I did ; and, though unable to explain by what means, I sus- pected they had, with the malicious instinct of ill- bred people, purposely touched on what they knew was the vulnerable i)oint of their adversary. Time and Giles Sharpe brought a late but most welcome relief. It was found, upon trial, that the breakages of our honourable gentlemen's vehicle were past our village smith's ingenuity. Mine host of the Wild Buffalo, as he conveyed these tidings, added, in the same breath, that he had procured good sound saddle horses, wherewith the ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 47 honourables might continue their journey as far as Abingdon, where they could not fail to meet the stage-coach. Our uncouth visitors did not wait for a second intimation. Popgun lighted his cigar ; Keenblade pared and carefully whittled his quid ; they drained their tumblers of the last dregs of grog (I beg to state that such luxuries never before or afterwards were seen on the table of Eli Blackgown, and were now provided at the loud request of the Westerners themselves), and got up. They snatched up their hats, squeezed my hand, and with a most uncere- monious ducking of the head towards the lady, made for the door. I do not know whether it was from a rest of civility, or from an ardent desire of seeing them gone, but I actually went the length of following and showing them to the gate, where their horses were in waiting. " Good-morrow to you. Parson Blackgown," growled Popgun, as he laid his foot on the stir- rups, " you are from the East, that's flat, or you'd 48 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF not a-bear a nigger at table, when you ask Christians to dinner." " And, Parson," grunted Keenblade, as he vaulted on the saddle, " tell that nut-brown chap of yourn to let white whimmen alone, or we'll teach him better if we ketch him again down to Babylon, we will !" They moved off, and I banged the gate after them ; and yet, whilst they were clattering down hill, I could hear Giles Sharpe as he walked be- side the two riders : " I would have told him so. Sir ; I thought it would come to that in the end ; but there's no getting at him of late. Minister is getting strong- headed and crotchetty. The blackey, I tell ye, has bewitched them — both uncle and niece. To be sure, he flings gold about him as though it was dirt." I could hear no more, but I had enough; I burst into a fit of loud laughter. "What?" I said, as I walked leisurely home- wards. " Is this the way the wind blows ? And ELI BLACKG.OWN, D.D. 49 those Western blackguards presumed to know him ! My accomplished foreigner a nigger ? The boobies ! My illegitimate scion of a princely house only a hlackey after all ? ha ! ha ! Come, that's rather good !" VOL. I. 50 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF VIII. THE DENOUEMENT, As I said this, I reached the door of the parlour^, which I found empty. I proceeded to the drawing- room, which was equally untenanted. I made my way towards the library, where, I had no doubt, the two young friends must be at their studies. It was now dusk, and, as I slowly groped my way along the dark passage, I was struck by the loudness of their passionate tones. " You know it now — you know all, Emily !" exclaimed the stranger, with all the bitterness of long-repressed rancour. " Despise me, trample on me ! The negro blood flows in my veins ! " These empty braggarts, these brutified sots may brow-beat — may crush me. Every word from their lips maddens me; yet have I no right to ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 51 resent their taunts. The lowest in the land would not exchange shots with a slave." These words startled me. I stopped on the threshold of the dark apartment as if spell-bound to the spot. I could hear Emily's heart beat in the intervals of his wild speech. " A slave !" he repeated, with towering emphasis. " The son, the grandson of a slave ! What matters how remote the degree ? All the waters of the broad Atlantic could not wash away the indelible stain. " Hear me, Emily ! I have deceived you — or' what is tantamount to it — I have suffered your good uncle to fall into an error, of which I shall be the first victim. I am no Italian — no stranger to this land. I am an American by birth and descent. "Your confiding kindness alone, must have lulled all suspicion, or my name would have told you my dreaded tale. Surely you must have heard of Edmund Walter, the wealthy mulatto of Du- verney Grange, in Tennessee. I am that man's son and heir." 52 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF ^^ That man !" sobbed poor Emily. " You^ Gualtieri, the son of that man ! " " His only son, I tell you, — the only son of the son of a slave ! — that vain fool, the member for Babylon knew me well. My father's estate borders on the territory of their upstart town." "You an American?" again faultered Emily, " and a coloured man !" " A very dark half-cast, as you may see," answered Walter, with a tone of bitter irony. " The fairest Spaniard is hardly a shade lighter, but the brand of vassalage is no less stamped on my face. — Listen to me, Emily ! — I have led you into error, or, at least, I have allowed you to dwell upon it. But I am guilty of no direct falsehood or deceit. Gualtieri is also my name. It was thus my father named me at the fount. My long wanderings in happier lands, my intercourse with the noblest beings, is also no idle boast; at home I am nothing but a trodden worm — abroad I was the friend of the great, and the equal of princes. ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 53 " My father's history must be partly, at least, familiar to you. His parent, Colonel Walter of Virginia, one of the wealthiest men in the Union was guilty of an irreparable folly — the result of which was an only child — a very dark mulatto — my father. That son was sent to a German University, where he spent the happiest days of his youth. On his parent's demise, he re-crossed the Atlantic, followed by a German wife — a para- gon of beauty. On their first landing on the pier at Philadelphia, they found themselves encom- passed by a riotous mob, hooting and yelling, and ready to tear to pieces the ^ White woman and Niggar /' "They made their escape with difficulty; and, after severe contentions, my father was acknow- ledged legitimate successor to his parent's vast patrimony. So far the law befriended him; but it could not break down in his favour the fatal barrier of prejudice. In town and country, at the play-house, on the road — nay, even at church — Edmund Walter was received with withering scorn. 54 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF My father's temper was hot and disdainful. He shot two of his more over-bearing neighbours through the brain. That over-awed, but did not conciliate the rest. A slow, but untiring, dastardly war was waged against him. My poor mother, unused to the scoff of the world, died broken- hearted. Her husband, a sterner being, gathered the o^auntlet mankind had hurled at him, and en- trenched himself in the strong hold of the darkest misanthropy. " He sold his estates in Virginia. He gave the last offence to that bigoted community by manu- mitting his slaves. He purchased an immense wilderness of Tennessee lands, and converted it into a flourishing farm by the aid of free German colonists. Surrounded by these honest people, he lived a stranger in the land of his father's. In his earliest settlement, the obnoxious example of thriving free labour, brought him into hostilities with his emulous neighbours; but, after two or three serious encounters, he became an object of dread even more than envy : and years have passed ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 55 since the boldest trespasser ventured within the boundaries of Duverney Grange. " Within those beleaguered confines, within that solitary home I passed my boyhood. But brighter prospects dawned on my youth. I had hardly reached my tenth year, when I bade my unnatural country a long farewell. — With the particulars of my life in the Old World, Emily, you are fully ac- quainted. In Germany, among my mother's kindred, in France, and, for a longer period, in Italy ; at Court, at the University, in the most bril-* liant circles, the wealthy young American was rather idolized than cherished. Lapped in all the luxuries of unalloyed bliss, the very remembrance of my native land, the dreariness of my childhood, my father's wrongs, the remote, and to me unac- countable, source of our domestic misery — all faded gradually from my mind ; and the longing for the embrace of my parent, and the breathing of my native air, was never blended with the faintest misgiving of the reception that awaited me. " I have now been at home a twelvemonth ; 56 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF but one day was sufficient to reveal all the horror of my position. Your uncle and yourself, Emily, are not the first instance of self-mystification, as to my real origin. Throughout New York and Pennsylvania, in these very slave states, no man ever detected a trace of negro blood in my veins. But I had a name and a father, and no sooner were these announced than I seemed to lose, at once, all title to the respect of my fellow-beings. The absconding felon could hardly be more uni- versally shunned and stigmatized — more opprobri- ously cast out of the pale of society ! '"' The refuge of my father's hermitage soon be- came a very paradise to me. For a whole year I shared his confinement, and was gradually falling in with his deep-rooted hatred of mankind. He was, himself, alarmed at the symptoms of my brooding melancholy. He urged me to travel. Unknown, he argued, I was safe from the taunts which had envenomed his own life. " I obeyed him. — In my wanderings in these mountains, I was led to your valley. ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 57 " Now, all is known to you, Emily ! the mask has dropped, and I stand before you the being Providence has made me. — Do not say a word ! — I know your views on this subject. My sentence has long fallen from your lips — when you were so far from dreaming of the exquisite torture every syllable inflicted. — You, too, Emily are an Ameri- can. You hate a cross, even though it be between angel and mortal. Blood is not v^ater ! " There was an awful pause after these ominous words. *^ Blood is not water, Emily," he resumed, " but oh! how far more lavishly than water would I pour out all this impure blood of mine, if with the last drop I could purchase your forgiveness : if I could rehabilitate myself before you — if I could do away with the impression my unwilling deception must leave upon you. *' Emily ; I have cheated myself far more than either your uncle or you. I have lulled myself in the blissfulness of our daily intercourse, till I slum- bered in the flattering hope of lasting happiness. D 5 58 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF I had devised a hundred schemes to break the awful truth to you. I fancied I should entwine myself so closely around your heart, that a season- able revelation of my grandfather's sin would no longer have power to tear us asunder. ' The world is wide/ I thought, * and my father's wealth as un- bounded as his parental tenderness ; and the sun shines elsewhere as bright as in this miscalled land of Freedom. And God is great, and can work wonders in Emily's heart.' — The day would come, I fancied, when I could muster up courage to kneel before you; when I would take your hand, cover it with kisses, bathe it with my tears. ' Emily is just,' I said within myself, ' she is pious, she is tender. She will not visit a father's guilt down to the second generation. She will follow me to my mother's home in true-hearted Germany. She will learn to love the land of my adoption. " Thy country," she will say, *^ shall be my country ; and thy God my God."' Together with these words came other sounds not easily to be written down. It struck me as if the ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 59 orator deemed it expedient to suit the action to his speech, and as if his eloquence was not lost upon the susceptive heart of my niece. There was more sobbing and crying, and at last I could hear sweet Emily sighing out distinctly the very words that had last fallen from his lips — the meek, woman- like declaration of Ruth. 60 DOMESTIC VICISSITUDES OF IX. LENVOY. Weeks and weeks have now passed away since that memorable evening. The wedding, and, alas! the departure are in progress of simultaneous pre- paration. Yet a few days, and Eli Blackgown shall be once more the moping-owl-like, lonely tenant of his old bachelor's establishment ; Emily and Walter far away in another, and, I really bethink me, a better world. In anticipation of their bright future, the happy pair are, even now, standing on the embrasure of yonder window, whispering, I have no doubt, some of that nonsensical trash, in which, since the defection of Hosannah Flinch, I have never been known to indulge. The reader, meanwhile, may see the drift of all the foreo^oinsr narration, which was merelv to make ELI BLACKGOWN, D.D. 61 him acquainted with the sources from which I derived the following papers. These are, then, mere rhapsodies of the scenes of foreign — chiefly Italian — life, our stranger entertained us with, during the long winter evenings ; and they are here laid down as much as possible in his own words. I will not vouch, of course, that the stories will afford as much amusement to others as they did to ourselves ; but, to avail myself of the apology of the Italian poet, if the book be found remarkably silly and dull, the reader may rest assured I have not done it so on purpose. CATERINA: A TALE OF THE HARVEST HOME. VILLEGGIATURA. The Lombard gentry are fonder of country-life than their brethren of southern Italy. There are three seasons in the year, in which the landlord is expected to encourage the toils and to grace with his presence the sports of his peasantry. These are the Mietitura, or wheat-harvest, in June ; the Scartocciata, or gathering in and husking of the Indian corn ; and the Vendemmia, or vintage. Each of these three successive harvests, espe- cially if the crops are luxuriant, becomes an occa- CATERINA. 63 sion for rural rejoicing, in which the signori, waiving all dignity of rank, join their humble retainers in the pleasures of the banquet and the dance. It was mid-August, the season for the maize harvest. The Consigliere Serventi, a man whose agricultural abilities chiefly consisted in kind regard shown to his labourers, had assembled a few of his town friends at St. Martin's Court to dance 2i.furlana and to eat gnocchi with them. St. Martin's Court, once La Badia di San Mar- tino, lies four miles to the north of Parma, on tha road to Colorno. It was from time immemorial the principal estate of a wealthy Benedictine con- vent, which had for many centuries managed to thrive amidst the frequent convulsions which changed the aspect of all things around ; whose pious inmates, placed beyond reach of the tide of human passions, had always impartially blessed all standards, and invariably prayed for all govern- ments. Towards the last century, in an evil hour for that holy community, the convent itself had be- 64 CATERINA. come the seat of government. Don Ferdinand of Bourbon, Infant of Spain, and last Duke of Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla, not unfrequently held his court at St. Martin's ; and its holy ceno- bites became his temporal, no less than his spiritual advisers. The example of his father, Don Philip of Bour- bon, a hunter and a warrior, who had been dragged to death by a mad horse through the woods of Colorno, had early warned the young duke against the dangers attendant on the wild sports of the field, and inspired him with a taste for humbler but safer pursuits. He dismissed hounds, hunters, and foresters, abolished his bloody game-laws, ridded himself of his French tutor, the Jacobin philosopher Condillac, and of his hot-headed wife, Maria Amalia, Archduchess of Austria (who spent her life in her royal stables at Sala, currying her horses, and horsewhipping her grooms,) and re- paired to the hospitable board of St. Martin's refectory, where he betook himself to the edifying functions of psalm-singing and bell-ringing (a most CATERINA. 66 princely occupation, which won him the appellation of " Principe Campanaro") ; or, in leisure hours and after confession, he set out in quest of adven- tures, hunting peasant girls in the neighbour- hood — a more harmless chase on the whole, and attended with less danger than that to which his hair-brained parent had miserably fallen a victim. The happy days of St. Martin's were, however, soon over. Duke Ferdinand was, with all the other inoffensive but unwarlike potentates of Italy, involved in the calamities attendant on the French Revolution, and no sooner had the good King Log died of chagrin, or, as it is stated, of indigestion, than a host of King Storks, in the shape of a regiment of sans-culottes, seized upon the convent and land, ransacked its time-honoured cellars, sang their ga-ira in the choir, and hung their red-cap over the high altar ; scared the rooks from their old haunts, and set fire to their nests. The wide and rich domains of the monastery escheated, by right of conquest, to the new rulers, ai;d it was not until the happy restoration of 1814, 66 CATERINA. that they were, with pious fidelity, given back to their legitimate owners. Such, however, of the scattered Benedictines as had not found the wide world to their taste, and longed for the fattening stye of their cloisters, were incorporated with the monks of St. John, a wealthy relio-ious order of the same denomination at Parma, and the ruins of St. Martin's Abbey were left to moulder in silent desolation. The lands, which the monks of St. John were now too rich and idle to farm for themselves, were let on a long lease to the Consigliere Serventi, one of the seven judges of the -Tribunale di Revisione, the supreme court of the State. The good judge understood not an iota of agriculture, so that the management of his extensive farm devolved on his fattore or steward, who, while he afforded to his employer ample means of upholding the dignity of his station in town, did not fail, at the same time, to scrape together a few scudi for himself; such being the excellence of that bountiful Lombard soil, that it can afford to support, at once, without diffi- CATERINA. 67 culty, labourer, farmer, and landlord; court, church, and state, together with the strenuous Austrian soldiery, whom Heaven, in its mercy, appointed to Tule and protect it. Dividing his time between his magistracy and his rural cares — or sinecures, the judge had built a modern court or villa on the ruins of the monastery, and with the very materials of that dismantled edifice. The villa was a plain two-story building, massy, and ponderous, surmounted by a square dovecot in the shape of a donjon, with mock loop- holes and battlements, and a large portico in front, under which the judge and his friends were now reclining on straw sofas, waiting for the refreshing coolness of the western breeze. The front of the house faced the ruins of the old church. On the right, the grounds were still encumbered with ivy-clad arches and pillars, the remnants of the cloisters ; on the left, at some dis- tance, was a cluster of white but squalid huts, the hamlet of the former menials and vassals of the convent, now the free but not less starved and 68 CATERINA. ragged labourers of the soil ; further on, the stables and dairies, kept up with that cleanliness, airiness, and comfort, which constitute the chief pride of the Lombard peasant, who seems happy to show how far better housed, fed, and washed are his cattle than his family. Behind the ruins of the monastery, the view was closed by a lofty mound or artificial hill, covered with dense shrubs, overtopped by a crown of twelve wide-spreading oaks of ancient growth, under whose shades were once the ample cellars, the butchery, and the ice-house of the monastery, and where now, if you believe the old crones and the thick-skulled bumpkins at the hamlet, elves, goblins, and witches, held their abominable conventicles, playing over again the unholy scenes of orgies and debauchery, which, in the hey-day of monastic revelry, those dark caves were said to have witnessed, " If ancient tales say true, nor wrong those holy men." The convent, church, and premises had occupied a wide extent of twelve acres, which was still sur- rounded by a large but shallow ditch, overgrown CATERINA. 69 with reeds, and planted all round with those pyra- midical poplars, which are nowhere fine trees but in their native climate of Lombardy. All round, the view was tame and circumscribed ; no lake or river enlivened the level landscape, and wherever the eye was allowed to roam beyond the lines of poplars that confined it, it rested upon yel- low corn-fields or orchards, and richly-laden vines hanging in wide festoons from their elms. There was, however, no dusty road, no paltry house, no sign of human habitation, in sight. The owner of that sequestered abode could fancy that ditch and those trees the limits of the known world. It was not, perhaps, a sublime nor even a romantic scene, but everything had an air of quiet and comfort. The monastic genius of the place lingered still in that happy retirement, imparting to its ancient shades all the contemplative solemnity of claustral repose. At the moment, however, to which we refer, the wdiole scene was alive with the bustle of the ex- pected fete. The wide threshing-floor, a large 70 CATERINA. square opening between the barns and the mean dwellings of the rustics, presented a quaint and motley picture. The crop of Indian, or, as it is there called, Turkish or Saracen corn, had already been diligently husked, threshed, and winnowed ; the floor had been carefully swept, the grain con- veyed to the barns, the husks and cobs heaped up in huge stacks around. Some of the judge's guests had already repaired to the spot, and had even been there for hours, volunteering their co- operation to the ruddy-cheeked contadiney causing more bustle than good speed, and occasionally incurring the displeasure and frown of the steward's wife. Clothed in her Sunday best, her frilled cylindrical cap towering on her head, her black velvet bodice glancing in the sun, her stiff" crimson gown rustling at her heels, her huge old-fashioned ear-rings jingling on her neck, the worthy fattore was now busy with two enormous cauldrons, in which the gnocchi and lasagne (the macaroni of Northern Italy) were boiling. Vain were her efforts to CATERINA. 71 recall to her aid the truant peasant girls, who were now romping and frolicking with their riotous gallants from town, pelting each other with corn- cobs, or diving into the dry rustling husks in pur- suit of each other. Not far from the stewardess's temporary kitchen was a long oaken table, on which had already been spread a coarse but snow-white hempen cloth ; on the opposite side was a wooden bench for the orchestra. The orchestra was composed of four itinerant musicians, two violins, a violencello, and a bass- viol or contrdbassoy the three first stone-bhnd, the last with only half an eye, acting the part of manager, leader, and treasurer. Reared up in charitable asylums where, from infancy, they are taught nothing but music, aided by the keenness of their acoustic organs. Nature's compensative boon for their gloomy infirmity, wedded, as it were, to their crazy old instruments, to which use has imparted the most exquisite tone, the orhi of Parma and Bologna often astonish 72 CATERINA. foreign travellers by the display of talents, which are but too often wasted amidst the riot of a wine- cellar, or the din of a country fair. In this manner had the threshing-floor been con- verted into a heaven-canopied ball-room and ban- queting-hall. Life in that climate, in August, by day or night, requires no safer shelter. The sun was setting behind a huge mass of clouds, drawn up in a long line on the West, pro- jecting in bold relief from the deep azure of the firmament, dark and motionless, like a range of gigantic rocks frowning over the main. The glare of the last sunbeams seemed drowned in the density of those heavy vapours ; but their craggy outlines were hemmed by a fiery purple, which even at that late hour preserved still too much of the intensity of an Italian sun to be endured by any eye but the eagle's. Occasionally a flash of lightning would shoot across the gloomy opacity of those phantom clouds, and as the stillness of evening prevailed, you might hear the faint growl of distant thunder, CATERINA. 73 gladdening plants and animals with the tantalizing appearance of a cooling shower, which the first fanning of the evening breeze was sure to dissipate. The shade of the old ruined abbey fell length- ening and widening on the rich grass of the church- yard, broken here and there by the gaps of shat- tered windows and dismantled doors, and by wide chasms in the walls. The evening breeze lingered still on the parched foliage around, like a young bird, rocking on its native branch, and fluttering in fear and hesitation before venturing on its first flight. And now the one hundred and fifty cows of St, Martin's stalls were driven slow and reluctant to their night-shed, and the plaintiff" notes of the herdsman's flute died faint and languid on the stagnant air. Presently the half-cracked bell of the abbey-steeple tolled the solemn knell of parting day, and a deeper tint spread over the lowering sky. The time had long since gone by when the brazen warning of that evening monitor would have thrown the faithful on their knees. Still, VOL. I. E 74 CATERINA. even in this more sceptic age, even in such a close vicinity to a corrupt town, the din of laughing voices from the thieshing-floor was instantly hushed; all eyes were, as if instinctively, raised towards heaven, and even the children who were playing their pranks under the roofless aisles of the abbey, ceased for one moment their chirruping, and came up to their mothers in silence. The Consigliere and the gravest of his friends, as we have seen, had not yet joined the main oroup of revellers on the threshing-floor, but were engaged in genial converse under the portico of the modern villa, whilst others again were saunter- ing alone among the ruins, or strolling in couples about the grounds. CATERINA. 75 II. CONVERSAZIONE. Conversation is as essential to an Italian as the air he breathes. He is a fervid, imaginative, consequently an expansive being j as he is fond of, so is he eminently qualified for, society. He may * often be, especially in the South, noisy and irri- table, but seldom deficient in originality, verve, and amenity. The Italians do not, like the English, pair off in conversation ; not even for the purpose of flirting, for that people never trifle with affection, neither for earnest love-making; for passion needs no words in that country. An Italian salone is organised after the rules which preside over the arrangement of a classical drama ; it combines harmonious unity with pleas- 76 CATERINA. ing variety; every individual has a part to act; from the protagonist down to the humblest figu- rante. It is an open arena, in which those alone who wish to shine engage in a tournament of wits. It is possible to frequent the same circle for a season without ever uttering one word ; it is less important to be able to talk than to know how to be silent. Every circle possesses its professional talker, as notorious a character as the wrestler at Corinth, or the jockey at Newmarket. His fame is a pass- port to all company independently of rent-roll or pedigree. The fire of such a man's kitchen needs never to be lighted. Of these distinguished individuals the company now assembled at St. Martin's could boast more than its ample share. There was the one-eyed Pinelli, a wag of first-rate abilities, vrith a joke leering from every wrinkle of his deep-furrowed phiz; there was the double-chinned Cavalier Polpetti, a con- summate gastronomer, who could lecture for hours on ortolans and beccaficoes, till every mouth around. CATERINA. 77 no less than his own, watered from sheer delight ; then Marchess Bauli, the celebrated traveller, who had been twice to Rome, and spent one season in Paris, and could give accurate descriptions of every object he had come across, from the brightest jewel in the pope's diadem to the golden tassel in the cap of the conductor of the French diligence ; also the avvocato Delle Quinte, a "vastly well- informed theatrical amateur, a haunter of the coulisses, rich in petty scandal and anecdotes of the green-room, proud of his having thrice been' hissed off the stage where he had unwittingly tarried after the raising of the curtain, vain of a precious relic in his possession, being nothing less than the very garter dropped on the stage by. Pasta in her superb costume of Anna Bolena. Besides these highly-gifted personages, might be descried in the crowd the long and lank improv- visatore, with his unmistakable hungry look, with very long hands projecting from very short sleeves; — the droning seccatore, the bore of the company, with head bewigged, and ears stuffed, as deaf and 78 CATERIxNA. dull as nature and art could make him — the shrinking placca^, the bashful dummy, evidently in quest of a talker, and the dreaded ciarlone, the everlasting proser ever at a loss for a listener. All these choice spirits, however, each of whom might be entitled to shine in circles of minor pre- tensions, were in the present instance overawed and curbed by the master-mind of their lovely hostess, the Consigliere's wife. Costanza Serventi, nata Fulchieri (for so she invariably signed herself, probably out of regard for her illustrious family), was one of the rarest models of feminine grace, tact, and amiability. She had talent sufficient for a whole community, and consequently could brook not only no rival, but even no sharer of empire. Ladies' company was seldom or never admitted at her house. She had no tenderness for those of her sex, and shammed none. She would reign alone. She was sure to please, and to make every one pleased with himself. * A Lombard word for a candle-branch or sconce hanging from the walls in a ball-room. CATERINA. 79 She had the great gift of conversing upon every- thing and upon nothing. The secret of her success was written in every motion of her small, graceful person, in every feature of her beaming countenance. It was sym- pathy and pliability. Her taste and feelings, her very age and appearance, seemed to reflect as a mirror the different characters of the persons whom it was her desire to please. She captivated by identification. This talent of instinctive sympathy of course originated in an innate desire of pleasing. But the gentler sensibilities of feminine tenderness had turned to a good purpose even that wanton aspira- tion of womanish vanity, and those very charms, which might have proved so dangerous to the peace of inexperienced hearts, were seldom turned to any other purpose than that of promoting the happiness of all beings around 5 and her friendship had soothed more sorrows and healed more wounds than in her brightest career of success her coquetry had ever inflicted. 80 CATERINA. Her age — had there ever been any one indiscreet enough to speculate on such a subject — might have puzzled the most discriminating. The strongest pre- possessions of her warmest admirers could not make them blind to the fact that she was past her middle age. In the grave air, too, and in the admonitory tone which she not unfi'equently affected to assume, in the fondness with which she dwelt on the past, and appealed to her oldest adorers for their assent to her glowing descriptions of the " happy old times," there lurked a manifest intention of making the young aware of the distance existing between them and the " idol of the past generation." And yet the buoyancy of her spirit, and the light bound of her step, the very enthusiasm by which she gave life to her ^* tales of other days ;" above all, the brightness of her eye, and the freshness of her smile, could hardly allow any one to perceive much difference between her and her rosy Marianna, her eldest girl of fifteen ; and there was, perhaps, hardly one among the younger members of the little commu- nity now frolicking in pursuit of the rustic beauties CATERINA. 81 on the threshing-floor, who would have hesitated to renounce the hand of a princess, could he have hoped by such a sacrifice to win one smile from Costanza Serventi. Such was the fascinating beauty now reclining on a sofa with that graceful languor which is so peculiar to delicate women in southern climates, and holding in her hand a little origuela snuff-box, rather from ostentation of elderly habits than for any real use, whilst her fan, the sceptre of gallantry, was suffered, as if in silent acknowledgment of abdicated power, to lie unheeded at her feet. Opposite to her, the Consigliere, her husband, a handsome, but portly personage, at no time a very important or conspicuous character in her house- hold, was lounging lazily in his easy chair, with his right leg thrown across its arm, half plunged in the sweet oblivion of that afternoon doze which constituted for him the most blissful stage of existence. " Where, in the name of w^onder," said the travelled marchese, who had just returned from E 5 82 CATERINA. taking a survey of the festive preparations, now in progress on the threshing-floor ; " where did yon find that grirn giantess, busy at her cauldrons, as if she were Medea, boiling her lover's limbs to im- mortality ', that Noma of the Fitful Head, brand- ishing her huge ladle, as if she were conjuring up legions of fiends to help her in the concoction of her mighty spell ?" " Caterina?" answered the Lady of the mansion. i' Why, do you mean to say that you never saw our stewardess? Confess now, marchese, in all your wanderings by land and sea you never met any being like that — or you would hardly have ran- sacked both ancient and modern mythology to characterise her. Is she not a prodigy ?" (' Why," rejoined the traveller, regretting to have been caught in any exhibition of wonder, "she must have been a fine woman certainly, but I could not positively asseverate never to have beheld a larger one. Now if you had seen the women of the Trastevere at Rome — " " Or if you could recollect Lunghigna, the CATERINA. 83 straggling figurante at La Scala," interrupted the theatrical gentleman — " Or the squaw of the King of the Patagonians, or my cousin's wife, Madame Polyphemus, of Sicily/' retorted Pinelli, the wag with one eye. " You hear them, Consigliere !" sighed the Con- sigliere's wife. " That comes of having been half over the world — but, in good sooth, gentlemen," continued the lady, " I will allow none of you to rob St. Martin's of one of its lions, or to institute odious comparisons in its disparagement. Our. own Caterina may not be the tallest of women — granted; but I defy you to name another who exercises as wide an ascendancy over all around her." " Present persons always excepted," said one of the guests, with a significant bow. " A compliment is no argument any more than a jest, my good friend ; so, in whatever sense they may be spoken, I shall take your words as a manifest evasion of the question. I thought every one of you was acquainted with our stewardess's 84 CATERINA. peculiarities. Why, there is not a husbandman twenty miles round would think of haymaking, not one girl would pledge her troth to her suitor, without previously consulting Caterina, the wise woman of St. Martin's." ^' She has seen summers and winters enousch to be weather-wise, I dare say," observed one of the company. " Why, how old do you take her to be ?" *' Heaven forbid that I should presume to guess how rudely time deals with one of your sweet sex," said the gentleman ', " but if I venture to name her and my grandmother at one breath, I do not think I say any thing to the worthy gentlewoman's disparagement." "There, I thought so! You never were more at fault in your life. This is not one of the least peculiarities of that singular woman. Well, sir, she is hardly a few years older than myself." " Signora?" " She has not yet seen her fortieth year, I tell CATERINA. 85 you, though the oldest of our countrymen scruples not to address her as mother. Her youth and beauty withered at one blast of adversity." " Her husband certainly," observed another, " is still in the prime of manhood." " Her husband is by several years her senior, though, when he married her, poor Caterina was well-nigh as shrivelled and palsy-stricken as she is now. But our steward had beheld her in the pride of her blooming loveliness — affection blinded him to the sad havoc which a single season had made on her beautiful frame. He wedded her with the blind faith of a devotee, and a real blessing she has proved to him. Her sound judgment, her watch- ful intelligence, stood him instead of that angel beauty he had worshipped, and which he fondly fancied was only temporarily blighted, and time and his assiduous cares might have power to restore." " Good gracious !" exclaimed the travelled noble- man, thrown off his guard, and evincing more curiosity than was possibly consistent with a man who had gone so far as to find nothing new under 86 CATERINA. the sun, ^^ what portentous creature do you describe, dear lady, or what awful events are you so vaguely alluding to ? In Heaven's name if there is any story connected with that odd-looking Pythoness of yours, do not keep us on the rack, and let us hear some- thing more positive about her." The lady of the mansion looked silently at him for some time : " It is plain, dear marchese, that you have es- tranged yourself from home till the most familiar objects have become sphynxes and chimeras to you, for otherwise, which of our friends has not heard of the wise woman of St. Martin's? However, your curiosity must for this once be baffled, my Lord; every one else here present is conversant with all particulars respecting our giantess, and I cannot attempt to bore twenty persons for the gratification of one." Here the whole company broke out into protes- tations, solicitations, remonstrances, till the com- placent lady, tapping on her satin-wood snuff-box, as if to command silence, exclaimed — CATERINA. 87 " Do you really wish it ? so be it then. — But remember, I have forewarned you ; now do not go and say that your hostess in her dotage entertains you with twice-told tales/' Then stretching herself more at leisure on her couch, acknowledging with a slight wave of the hand the politeness of the marchese, who had for the twentieth time raised from the ground and handed her her discarded fan) the amiable lady of St. Martin's thus commenced. 88 CATERINA, III. THE STEWARDESS S STORY. " Caterina is a child of St. Martin's ; she was born within the jurisdiction of the monastery, under its protection. Her father was head farmer of these lands in the days of monastic prosperity. The last lord abbot, and Duke Ferdinand himself, both partial to the good man — or to his good woman — had stood godfathers to this their only child. After the downfall of the old regime, farmer Domenico was by the grasping French government trusted with the management of the confiscated property of the monastery, under the title of steward, in which place the Consigliere found and confirmed him, when he rented these lands from the monks at their restoration. CATERINA. 89 " By that time, Caterina, now motherless, had grown in beauty in the same proportion as her father had risen in wealth and consideration. She was the pride and delight of the old man's widowed home; but, the dearer and more necessary her presence had become to his comfort and happiness, the colder and more cheerless did her father's fire- side appear to the blooming girl. " In such cases, you know, how easily parties will come to a compromise in the country. It was tacitly stipulated between parent and child, that the - latter should continue an inmate in the house, pro- vided that the former would admit a third party into their domestic partnership. " Among the hundred rustic swains who con- tended for the honour of picking up the fattorinas spindle at la filanda — the village meeting in the long winter evenings — or who aspired to the dis- tinction of offering her the first bunch of violets in spring, there were two, whose pretensions seemed backed by such merits as might well drive the whole host of their rivals to despair : these were 90 CATERINA. Bertolclo, the wealthiest, and Giannetto, the hand- somest, youth in the neighhourhood. " Here the wishes of father and daughter for the first time began to clash; farmer Domenico being naturally disposed to countenance Bertoldo's advances, and Caterina inclining to favour Gian- netto's suit. " I owe the old steward this justice, however, that pecuniary considerations were not the only reasons which militated in his mind against his daughter's predilections. The very occupation of Giannetto, who was ranger and forester to St. Martin's estates, seemed to have engendered in him habits of idle roving and rioting, which plainly un- fitted him for the monotony of wedded life. His intimacy with sportsmen of all ranks, and even with poachers and other loose characters of every description, had occasioned serious alarms to all who felt any interest in his reputation, and it needed only his long-contemplated ejection from office to turn him adrift as an irreclaimable vagabond. " To this last blow upon the forester's prospects, CATERINA. 91 his love for Caterina was mainly instrumental. High words passed between him and the steward on the subject of the young man's presumption in accosting Caterina on her return from the parish church on the Sunday. The steward preferred his complaint at the prefecture, in whose bureaux the management of St. Martin's lands was chiefly in- vested, and obtained a warrant for the immediate removal of the obnoxious officer. " On the evening of the very day on which the decree of his expulsion was signified to Giannetto, he asked for and obtained a clandestine interview with his sweetheart. There was a profusion of adjurations, protestations, sobs, tears, and kisses, after which the two young people parted as fast betrothed to each other for life as lovers' oaths and sacraments could possibly bind them. " On the same night, the disgraced forester re- paired to a recruiting sergeant's in the town, and, on the following morning, was ordered off to join the army of Eugene Beauharnais in Hungary, then in full march to the North. 92 CATERINA. " Giannetto entered the ranks at the very open- ing of the Russian campaign. He was all but burnt alive at Moscow, all but cut to pieces at Malo- Yaroslavitz, all but drowned at the Berezina, and all but taken prisoner by the Cossacks at Wilna. He got off safe and sound nevertheless, and, at the downfall of JYapoleon, he reappeared at St. Martin's after three years' absence, all the handsomer for a little swagger in his martial bearing, all the more interesting for the tales of hardship and peril he had triumphantly gone through. " His manly spirit, however, his reckless intre- pidity, was all that ever was praised in the young soldier's conduct. At an epoch when the most daring dreams of ambition fell widely short of the goal to which personal valour in the soldier serving under the same standard was in many instances known to have led, Giannetto had never risen above the rank of a common trooper ; a fact which he attributed to his proud insubordinate dis- position, but which his commanding officers more readily accounted for by hinting at some dark deeds CATERINA. 93 of plunder and violence, for which the Italian regi- ments were but too unfortunately signalised, and in which the late ranger and forester was known to have borne more than his ample share. " A life of idleness and dissipation awaited the discharged soldier at home. He set up as a licensed game dealer in the neighbourhood, and, together with his former employment, he renewed his former vagrant habits and obnoxious con- nections. " During the long interval of his absence, Caterina had continued religiously true to her own part of their secret compact. In vain had her father laid the most harassing siege to her peace, in his attempts to bend her in favour of Bertoldo's pretensions. Whenever the hateful subject was mooted before her, she would intrench herself behind a stronghold of passive obstinate silence, the most impregnable defence of women on all topics of dispute, were they only aware of its never-failing efficiency. " The character of the steward's daughter had in the meanwhile reached its full development. Her 94 CATERINA. grand, commanding style of beauty was hardly a more universal theme of discourse than the eccen- tricity of her manner of living. She seemed to have contracted the tastes and inclinations of the w^ild man to w^hom she had pledged her troth. She was to be met abroad at all hours, in the lonely fields, and in the depths of the woods. At home she appeared sullen and miserable. She would sink into long trances of deep musing and self-communing, from which she alternately broke out into peals of vehement laughter, or melted into floods of tears. Occasionally, also, and without the least provocation, she would fly off" in fits of irresistible fury. " These evidences of an ill-governed mind, how- ever, which made her father's house much too hot for the old man, were looked upon with a kind of awful veneration by the superstitious peasantry of this district. They thought her possessed, and though it was not quite clear in their minds, whether by good or evil spirits, yet they accosted her as a being of a superior nature, and listened to every CATERINA. 95 word from her mouth with a feeling of implicit deference and reliance. " All these aberrations of intellect, and her staunch rebellion against his paternal will and pleasure, the good farmer had patiently borne with, as long as wide plains and high mountains lay between her and the cause of all her distraction, but when Giannetto made his reappearance, as safe and sound as if the lances of the Cossacks and the snows of Lithuania had conspired to spare him for his misfortune, when he received unequivocal « proofs of the best understanding still existing be- tween that scape-grace and his own moon-struck girl, then the old man, alarmed for the safety of the latter, and deeming it prudent to tighten the rein of his paternal authority, had recourse to the desperate measure of putting his daughter in a state of siege, by watching her every step and movement, and carefully shutting her up at home. " All those who were thoroughly acquainted with the wilful and impetuous spirit of Caterina, and with the enterprising genius of her suitor, Ub CATERINA. could be at no loss to foresee the result to which this injudicious appeal to the argument of bolts and bars would eventually lead; and every one was looking out for the day in which the two thwarted lovers would be sure to be missing, without having left even the trace of their footsteps on the morning dew. " One night, at midnight — it was in the heart of the severest winter — " CATERINA. 97 IV. RURAL REJOICINGS. The Consigliere's wife had brought her tale to this point, when she was suddenly interrupted by a loud peal from the turret-bell, announcing that the supper was upon the table. Presently, the important fact was confirmed by the appearance of the stewardess, Caterina, the very subject of her mistress's narrative. The interest of the company had been so forcibly roused in behalf of this woman, that her presence created a sensation even amongst persons who had been lonor familiar with her. Caterina's uncommon height was set off by her erect and lofty bearing, not less than by her severe but harmonious cast of features. It was the stern gravity of its expression, the blank wanness of the VOL. I. F 98 CATERINA. cheek and glassiness of the eye, rather than any- real symptom of decay, which gave that counte- nance, on a first survey, the ghastly look of decrepitude. It had a marble-like, death-like fixedness and vacancy, which had the effect of chilling the beholder, and which was rendered still more appalling by the spasmodic tremulousness of premature paralysis. The primness and stiffness of her festive attire, especially of her ponderous head-gear, to which we have already alluded, and the slow and measured step with which she stalked through the crowd of guests, and made her way to her mistress, added in no small degree to the austerity and solemnity of her singular appearance. " Whenever it may please the signora," she said, courtesying gravely, " we are all ready." These words were followed by an instantaneous rush. The mistress of the house stepped gracefully up, and, leaning languidly on the proffered arm of the marquis, repaired to the spot which she was requested to grace with her presence, followed by CATERINA. 99 the minor crowd of her twenty-one cavaliers, the sleepy husband dutifully closing the rear. The last faint streaks of lingering twilight had, meanwhile, utterly faded in the sky. The broad, full harvest-moon ruled alone in the bright-polished firmament. The dense vapours which had hitherto lingered in the western horizon, as if their only purpose was to cover the sun's retreat, had followed it, growling and threatening, in their flight. The remark of the Neapolitan ambassador, so dispa- raging to the credit of the English climate, seemed, in the present instance, no idle vaunt. The evening had little to envy the glare of the broadest noon- tide. The blessed moon showered down her chaste light in wide streams, invading land and water, lawns, forests, and pasture grounds, like a noiseless, universal, irresistible silver flood. It lingered lovingly on the gray ruins of the monastery, it gleamed weirdly through the painted glass of the few standing windows, it glanced dazzlingiy from the lead of the dismantled roof, it bounded glitter- ingly from the dewy foliage of the rustling poplar 100 CATERINA. trees. It softened the deep green tints of the luxuriant turf, it mellowed the rich hues of the golden stubble fields, it blanched the flushed cheeks of the heated country girls. As if in sad mockery of the glories of that heavenly illumination, a few links or torce da ventOj stuck up on clumsy stakes, had been lighted around the well-spread board. Huge dishes of popular Lombard cookery, such as the (jnocchi and lasagne before mentioned, and Milanese risotto, Genoese ravioli, and similar luxuries, were smoking on the table with hospitable profusion. At a kind of temporary side-board stood the steward, filling the hoccali, or mugs, from a large hogshead of the dark, full-bodied wine of the district. The refined epicure, Polpetti, and a few other biases from town, turned up their noses at this lavish display of coarse fare, but were soon reconciled by the appearance of a little tegame or stew-pan, containing a dish of jwlenta e uccelletti, a sort of beccafico pudding, and a few cobwebbed bottles of choice Pannocchia and Scandiano, the pride of the Appennine vineyards. CATERINA. 101 This primitive feast, a kind of rural agape, in which all distinctions of rank were, for the moment, waived, was of shorter duration, and gave rise to less convivial uproar than might be expected from the footing of perfect equality on which the parties were met, and from the free application made to the no less bountiful than capacious hogshead. It was quite plain that supper was not the great object of the evening, for, scarcely had large baskets of jet-black grapes and fresh downy peaches super- seded the hot dishes on the snow-white table-cloth, when a few strokes from the blind fiddler were sufficient to thin the ranks of the unceremonious guests. The condescending lady of the manor was at no loss to interpret these symptoms of general restless- ness. She rose, and, still hanging on the arm of the march ese, her cavaliere dbhligato for the evening, she hastened towards the centre of the smooth paved, sky-roofed dancing saloon. In less time than it takes to describe it, full fifty other couples were likewise at their places ; a gentle toss of the 102 CATERINA. head from the lady, a clapping of the hands from her partner, and a burst of swelling melody from the orchestra, ushered in the opening contraddanza, a crowded quadrille, being, in fact, a kind of muster in which every one who intends to partake of the evening festivities is expected to make his appearance. After that first dance of etiquette, a variety of national steps followed in rapid succession, more numerous, indeed, and more complicated than I, at no time well- versed in the mysteries of chore- graphic lore, could attempt to mention by name, far less to describe. First came the spinning /wrZawa, a giddy whirl- wind-like series of rapid turnings and windings, only meant, as it seems, to test the nerves of the spectators, not less than the brain of the parties engaged. This was succeeded by the stately and chaste monferrina, or Italian minuet, indigenous to the vine-clad hills of Montferrat, whose name it bears ; then the voluptuous and grotesque trescone or tarascone, resembling, and yet more varied and CATERINA. 103 graceful, and less gross and sensual, than the German waltz, which was perhaps only an awkward northern imitation of it ; then la j)wa, a dance of fauns and satyrs, so called from the bag- pipes by which it is generally accompanied ; besides innumerable sets of reels and jigs, and other dizzy sports of the same description, which, whatever country may lay claim to their invention, have been equally naturalised in all climates, and are everywhere distinguished by analogous names. The first ardour of the revellers having by this» time considerably abated, those noisy entertainments gave place to more ambitious and interesting games — figured cotillons, acted country-dances, the pathetic Contentino delV ahi! the romantic Regina d'Etruria, and the Cavalier e della Trista Figura, with other performances in that style, half- comic, half-tragic scenes, interspersed with dialogue, song, and pantomime, traditional farces and buf- fooneries, of which it would puzzle the wisest to trace the origin, or to explain the recondite meaning. 104 CATERINA. All this, however, did not come up to the riotous buoyancy of the most lively spirits assembled at St. Martin's Court. As the night wore on, the ball degenerated into a frolicsome carnival scene. Long phantoms, walking on stilts, and shrouded in blankets, stalked in gaunt and grim, breaking through the maze of the jaded quadrille. Gentle- men's coat-tails were pinned to the petticoats of their fast-chnging partners. Treacherous squibs and crackers lurked beneath the tread of the unwary waltzers, giving rise to great consternation, screaming and mock-fainting, by their sudden ignition. Frying-pans, kettles, and fire-irons volun- teered their co-operation to the plodding orches- tra, and turned the death-march of La Gazza Ladra into a hideous charivari. Finally, as a soother to the incensed feelings of the much- annoyed performers, Pinelli, the wag of wags, called for — and his motion was instantly received with a shout of applause— r" La Contraddanza del CiechL" And certainly a more quaint and ludicrous scene CATERINA. 105 than this same blind men's quadrille is not to be easily imagined. Each of the four poor fiddlers was led by the master of the ceremonies, with measured steps, and always scraping his instrument, to his distinct place in the vacant arena. There, bowing and courtesying to all the four cardinal points, and kicking up their heels as if the ground had been scalding hot beneath their feet, the four debutants started. It was sad and it was laughable to see how they grinned and grimaced, winking and leering from their dark, lack-lustre orbs j how the one wagged his fiddle-stick, and the other hugged and fondled his cumbrous bass-viol with the tenderness of a warm-hearted dancer, while he blundered and staggered under its weight. It was awful to hear the screeching and grunting, the howling and growling, of those poor tortured instruments as one or the other of those drunken gropers tottered and reeled out of all balance and cadence at once. And as they met and knocked against, and all but tumbled upon each other, in the bear-like evolutions of that lumbering tour- F 5 106 CATERINA. nament, it was dismal to hear the scolding and cursing, and the half-muttered oaths, with which each of the creatures saluted his ill-mated partner. Finally, when the thoughtless youths for whose gratification that sorry exhibition was given, had laughed themselves out of breath, four of the prettiest country lasses stepped up between the panting and discomfited performers, holding up a brimming goblet to their lips, which, filled as it was with seven thieves' vinegar, had no sooner touched their parched lips than it sent them cough- ing and sneezing, stamping and roaring to their seats. Long before the pranks and gambols of mis- chievous mirth had reached this stage of licentious- ness, the soberest part of the company had singly disappeared. The Consigliere's wife, always at- tended by the same companion, was among the first to make her exit. She led the way behind the ruins . of the cloisters, and, climbing a little hillock, behind the ice-house, seated herself on a stone bench, near a marble table, delightfully CATERINA. 107 screened by the waving branches of the oak trees above. The strains of joyous music still reached their ears, wafted by the evening breeze, and mellowed by the intervening distance. The orb of the moon was right over their head, and its glare fell directly on the smooth brow of the pale lady. She was dressed in white, and her cape fell negligently from her shoulders, as she leant back on her seat, her bosom still heaving with the slight exertion of the ascent. The rich brown of her hair and eyes, deepened in the soft hues of eve, and her habitual paleness, received from the rays of that kindred light a dazzling lustre which might rival the chaste polish of the costliest marbles. Presently, one after another, her choice friends, as if by previous agreement, joined her in that cool, mystic retreat. Presently the stewardess, Caterina, laid before them a large waiter with coffee ; and with it the tide of genial conversation once more began to flow. " There is the giantess again!" said the mar- chese, with one glance at the retreating domestic. 108 CATERINA. " Her phantom will haunt me like a nightmare in my sleep/' " Treat her, then, even as a ghost should be dealt with, my friend," quoth the lady. " Speak to her ; you will find enough in her manners to wear off the impression of her forbidding appearance." " I shall not until I know more about her. Re- member, dear lady, your story is not yet brought to a close ; — though it is not difficult, perhaps, to anticipate the final catastrophe." " Perhaps ! I should like of all things to hear your conjectures on the subject." " Why, I suppose the — how do you call him ? — the soldier or forester, Giannetto, ventured on the abduction of the tall maiden, and got shot by her father in the attempt." " Or, more probably," suggested another, " the two rivals fell out at some country fair on the vil- lage green, and gored each other in the very eyes of the fair object of contention." " Perhaps !" again said the lady ; " that is the issue to which each of you would bring it, were CATERINA. 109 you to write a romance on the subject. I con- gratulate you on your inventiveness and discrimi- nation. Now, hear me, and judge which of the two is nearer the mark." With this the gentle hostess slightly leaned her elbow on the marble table, and resting her cheek on her hand, she thus continued — 110 CATERINA. V. THE STEWARDESS S STORY. " It was a dismal night, as I was telling you, and yet all St. Martin's tenants were from home. It was Twelfth-night, or, as it is called in this part of the country, ^ Fire-dog's night,' (la notte delV alare) from an ancient custom, dating, perhaps, from the time of heathenism, of laying on the table a dog or andiron (the household god) as a sign that joy is to run riot, and feast and laughter to be the order of the night. " Well, our peasantry of the Abbey, in return for a similar entertainment they had given on Christmas Eve, had been invited to a grand sup- per and casting the slipper* in the large barn at * Casting the slipper in Italy is sometliing very different from hunting the slipper in England. The game consists of CATERINA. Ill Ramoscello, three miles off. Women and children had patriarchally been carried to the spot in one large caravan. One living soul alone had been left behind, and that was Caterina. " She had shown in the course of the evening more stubbornness and moroseness than her old father could well put up with, and, having peremp- torily refused to attend the festive ceremony, she had, as usual, been locked and bolted in at home. " Towards midnight, she had at last frowned, and sulked, and sobbed herself to sleep, when she was suddenly roused by the sound of stealthy footsteps and whispered voices outside. " She was a girl of firm nerves and high spirit, and the legends of ghosts and spectres, so rife in this as in all monastic neighbourhoods, had no power with her. Lately, however, and exactly at a wager between the country girls, as to which of them can, lying on her back on the floor, cast her slipper from her right foot farthest above her head. It is surprising to see what a knack those contadine acquire of kicking up their chaussure, without exposing their ankles to the eager eyes of the be- holders. 112 CATERINA. the epoch of the peace of 1814, the breaking up of so many armies had filled the country with vagrants of the worst description, and the current tales of highway robbery and house-breaking were sufficient to occasion serious alarms even to one who might otherwise have set Pandemonium itself at defiance. '^ It happened, moreover, and none could be more aware of it than Caterina, that farmer Do- menico had for the last fortnight been collecting his yearly rents, and selling fat cattle, so that a larger sum than usual was at that moment hoarded up in the old man's sleeping-room. Caterina knew this, and, only alive at that moment to her father's interests, she bethought herself of the most effectual means of resisting aggression. " The modern villa and premises were not yet built at that time, and the steward and his daughter had taken up their temporary residence in yon left wing of the cloisters, a part of which was yet habitable. Two of the cells on the first floor con- stituted their sleeping apartments ; on the ground- CATERINA. 113 floor below were the parlour and kitchen, as well as the wine and wood cellar, crowded with imple- ments of husbandry. ^^ The windows on the ground-floor were pro- tected by thick but mouldering iron gratings, and by shutters in a still worse condition. In a few seconds Caterina could hear these latter cracking and bursting under the efforts of the house-breakers' crow-bar. " In proportion as these sounds satisfied her as to the intention of her nocturnal visitors, and of the inefficiency of the means of resistance that her dismantled dwelling could afford, the brave girl felt the energies of her soul roused within her. *^ One instant's reflection was sufficient to induce her to discard as impracticable the idea which had first presented itself to her mind, of rushing from the house and reaching the abbey steeple, to rouse the country by tolling the alarm bell. Such a step could only have led her into the hands of her enemies before she had even time to reach the bell- rope. 114 CATERINA. " She rose from bed wide awake, collected and mute. She snatched a little brass crucifix from the wall and muttered a short prayer, then slipped on a loose gown, and hastened to the threatened tene- ment below. ^^ The night was pitch-dark, and, although the shattered shutter no longer obstructed the outside view, her eye in vain attempted to pierce the density of the wintry gloom. Her ear, however, availed her better. She could hear the murmur of divers voices, and the brushing and scuffling of many busy feet. ** The window, against which the robbers' efforts were directed, belonged to a part of the cellar which served likewise as a butchery. In a corner, two steps from the window, lay a large block and an enormous cleaver. " Caterina lifted up a thankful glance towards heaven. She snatched up the ponderous instru- ment, with eyes beaming with faith and courage. Judith's countenance was never lighted up with a more calm and confident enthusiasm. Thus armed. CATERINA. 115 she stole up to the window and posted herself on one side close to the wall. She curbed the quaking of her limbs, smothered the fluttering of her heart. " There was a hasty consultation among the malefactors outside. Then a large wooden bar was introduced between the rusty iron grating. Then a more hasty stamping of feet, a hard, elaborate breathing, and several of the middle bars, bent and bruised, were forced from their sockets. " The passage being now effected, the house- breakers once more fell back to their anxious deliberations. It was only for one moment, how- ever, and presently something round and dark peeped in through the gap left by the demolished bars. Caterina raised a mental ejaculation to God ; she raised her murderous weapon, and dropped it on that dim undistinguishable object. " There was a short stifled sob ; something heavy fell helplessly outside ; hasty footsteps were heard gliding away rapidly and stealthily through the cloisters ; then all again was silence and gloom. 116 CATERINA. " Caterina remained motionless ; a shiver of horror ran through all her veins; a reaction of dismay, now that all danger had vanished, wrought on her re-awakened feminine sensibilities. She did not faint or falter, for a vague sense of duty seemed to bid her heart to hold on and die at her post. She stood breathless, as if spell-bound, gazing at the shattered casement, for Heaven knows how long ; she hardly knew, she dreaded to inquire, by what deed she had so heroically defended it. " She was roused from her terrific trance by a sensation as if of warm moisture on her bare foot ; mechanically she stooped and groped with her hands on the ground ; she uttered a faint shriek as her hand came in contact with the matted hair of a human head. Hastily, instinctively, she raised that severed skull from the ground and laid it on the window-sill — the gory trophy of her murderous victory. " Early in the morning, the revellers from Ramos- cello returned home with song and frolic ; a few of the old fathers of the village attended the old CATERINA. 117 steward to his dwelling. The first objects that struck them were the smashed window and a life- less body underneath. On a nearer approach, they descried the hideous spoil on the window- ledge, and behind it the conquering Amazon still brandishing her blood-stained weapon. " During many mortal hours the distracted girl had stood her ground, rather with the helplessness of despair than with the true firmness of valour. Amazement and consternation rooted her to the spot, and fastened her eye on one hideous object — for a long time an undistinguishable object. " The first pale dawn of morning at last began to give that object colour and shape. It assumed outlines and form ; it breathed, as it were ; it lived beneath her startled gaze. It was the black bushy hair, the harsh but fine features of — Giannetto. " Whether that worthless man had joined a band of his former associates with the purpose of plunder, or, whether, perhaps, he only asked their co-opera- tion for the abduction of his betrothed, remains to this day a subject of vague conjecture. His accom- 118 CATERINA. plices were never heard of, and he carried his secret to his grave. " Meanwhile, the desolate murderess seemed hardly to have come to a full consciousness of the enormity of her deed : they removed her from that chamber of death still plunged in speechless stupor. Once in her bed, she was assailed by burning fevers from which she only recovered after the lapse of forty days. Reason and memory seemed hope- lessly to have forsaken her ; and that same ghost- like rigidness of features, that vitreous dimness of the eye, and that paralytic trembling of the head which has struck you so painfully, had already and and for ever become characteristic of that youthful countenance. " In the third year after that tragic catastrophe, farmer Domenico was brought to his death-bed. He called to him his miserable wreck of a daughter, and with dying words besought her to accept of a protector and partner for life in the person of the long-disregarded but ever faithful Bertoldo. Soon after the old man's decease, Caterina consented to CATERINA. 119 be led to the altar, and the Consigliere bestowed upon the bridegroom the place of steward, left vacant by his father-in-law. " Time, and the unshaken devotion of her hus- band, finally recalled Caterina to the duties and almost to the enjoyment of existence." As the Consigliere's wife was thus drawing her tale to a close, the uproar of the merry-making on the threshing-floor became so loud and unruly, that the lady felt it incumbent on her to soothe and allay it by her presence. On arriving at the scene of mirth, she found the ball-room converted into a battle-field. The law- less youth of both sexes had drawn themselves up in hostile array, and were now hotly pelting each other with the light missiles which the arena too plentifully afforded. Corn-cobs and husks flew into the air with such a fury as not only completely to cover the combatants from view, but even almost to darken the moon in the firmament. Costanza and her friends were too wary to ven- 120 CATERINA. ture into the midst of that hot melee ; they deemed it prudent to leave the belligerent parties to settle their disputes, and these latter continued to enjoy the fine fun of their skirmish till the morning blush broke upon them, and sent them pale and jaded to their resting-places. R A Z I A: A TALE OF THE CARNIVAL. I. THE VEGLIONE. Those of our gentle readers who have never been in Italy can form no idea, and those who have, can hardly flatter themselves to have pene- trated half the mysteries of a Veglione. Veglione or Gran Veglia, according to the Italian denomination, means nothing but a grand rout, a public masked ball. It is a ball where nobody dances, a masquerade where none mask but fools. VOL. I. G 122 ORAZIA. " There is a season in the year," say the Miissul- nien, a plain people who take things as they see them, " when the Franks are religiously bound to turn mad." Carnival is the Rhamadan of the Christians. This madness, however, like the taran- tula, is more peculiar to the climate of Italy. Carnival in the good old times lasted nearly three months, from Christmas to Lent. Thanks to political discontents, the improvement of morals, ;iud scarcity of money, it has now been curtailed to three days, and even of these, the last night alone is worth mentioning. It is only the last Veglione, the solemnization of burying carnival, that concen- trates the quintessence of all the pleasures of the season. The Corso at Rome, the Ridotto at Venice, and the volleys of sugar-plums at Naples, are as familiar to the English as the fireworks of Vauxhall, or the orgies of Bartholomew fair. They know of carnival only what strikes the eye. They want the clue to tlie most awful secrets of these Eleusinian festi- vities. ORAZIA. 123 It is past midnight — carnival is therefore virtually dead and buried. Yet the Veglione is hardly at its height. Pleasure would prove tasteless unless it became sin, by encroaching on the sacredness of sober Lent. Ash Wednesday is almost dawning wan and gray in the sky, but many hours will yet elapse before the revellers, moi;e wan and more gray than the morn itself, will repair to the churches in their dominos, to have their brows besprinkled with ashes, and hear the sour, croaking priest proclaim, " that they are but dust, and soon doomed to mingle with the dust." But until eight in the morning, let the surly raven scowl and anathematise to his heart's content. It is just past midnight — we will to the Veglione at Parma. Naples and Rome are too large — Venice and Florence too much spoiled by the English to answer our purpose. Processions, horse- races, and such popular shows, are best viewed in a large metropolis ; but a masked ball never thrives so well as in a small gossiping town. Enter : the stage has been joined to the pit, so as 124 ORAZIA. to form an immense dancing-hall. This ducal theatre, erected by the royal munificence of the reigning duchess, Maria Louisa, A^rchduchess of Austria, Ex-Empress of France, is wider than the Italian opera-house in London. It is all glittering with marble and gold, glaring and blazing with ten thousand tapers, flashing and dazzling like the palace of the sun. The moment you enter, you are absorbed and engulphed by the crowd — a mere drop in a vast ocean of life. Whoever ventures into this place is understood to forfeit the use of his legs, of his arms, of his free will. The crowd is divided into two vast currents, the one ascending, the other descend- ing; with the one you must ebb, with the other flow. It takes three or four hours for an able- bodied man to make the tour of the hall, borne by the tide. A steamer of four hundred horse power would not be able to stem it. If you only come here as a spectator, and if a thronged place is not too much to your taste, you will do well to go and take your seat by the side of ORAZIA. 125 that fair young countess, whom you see there behind a screen in her box on the ground-floor, almost on a level with the pit, and close upon the sorely-beset entrance. Who that same lovely countess may be, you shall learn by-and-bye. Meanwhile, thank your stars, and make yourself at home with her. You need no introduction in carnival. The boxes, six tiers of which encompass the whole building, offer a secure haven from the tem- pest that is roaring beneath. Females of rank and education are understood, many dutiful daughtei*s and wives solemnly promise their respective parents and consorts, never to set their foot on the heated pit-boards. From those tranquil recesses, secure against all profane intrusion, they sit like so many Madonnas in their shrines, in all the glory of their charms, stared at, bowed at, fired at by a thousand eye-glasses, and in their turn, courtesying, coquet- ting, tittering, and waving their fans — those tele- graphic conveyers of female intelligence. Every box-door is wide open. Strangers never seen before, never afterwards to be seen, are entitled. 126 ORAZIA. masked or unmasked, to call. Every box is a kind of diminutive drawing-room, in which every lady holds an universal levee. Behind every box is a room ten feet by eight, with tiny sofas, and a tiny table, on which all the luxuries of Italian confec- tionary are hospitably spread. You find there the rich sponge-cake, the nun's own sweetmeats, and the more fashionable maringue, with, perhaps, a couple of bottles of Vino d'Astiy a sparkling wine, far more palatable, and not less racy and piquant than the choicest champagne. At last, however, want of air and exercise, ennui, curiosity, the excitement of the enrapturing strains of the orchestra, and, above all, the artful insinu- ations of flattering cavaliers, and the irresistible force of example, have power to shake the determi- tation even of the most reserved prude, and they allow themselves to be tempted, persuaded, and almost carried away by storm, but only for a few seconds, into the hall. Once launched into the surging eddies of that mare magnum^ willing or unwilling, they are ORAZIA. 127 forced away by the stream, and their mammas are lucky enough if they can get them back again safe and sound, though a little the worse for rumpling and tumbling, by daylight. For it is a fact, for which I shall by no means presume to account, that ladies, even the most gentle and delicate, are, in Italy — and if in Italy alone, let the crush-room testify — desperately fond of a squeeze. A mighty squeeze to be sure is here. Your eyes grow dizzy and ache as you look down upon the swarming arena. The whole house is reeling and quaking, throbbing and panting, with the frantic joy of that giddy carousal. The harsh sound of thousands of voices, the shrill. Punch-like crowing and squeaking of the coucous; the hideous charivari of mock-pipers and fiddlers, and swelling over all the full strokes of a military band, with the occa- sional rolling and clattering of the iron-wheeled chariot of the Montagues Russes; all this comes to your ears blended in a wild appalling clamour resembling the roar of a hurricane. 128 ORAZIA. II. PASTEBOARD FACES. It takes some time before you can discern any- particular object, or single out any individual sound ; before you can give yourself an account of that overwhelming chaos of sensations. Screen your eyes from the glare of the tapers, and listen to your lovely neighbour, the sprightly countess, who will gladly undertake the office of a cicerone. She knows every person under any costume whatsoever. She needs not, like Asmodeus, unroof the houses of the town, for the whole town — all creation, as the Yankees phrase it — is here ; but she will lift up, at your request, the sash of Momus's window, and lay bare not only every face, but every mind and heart before your eyes. Masks — both occa- sional and every-day masks — drop from every face ORAZIA. 129 as if by a magical spell, wherever she directs the point of her little finger. She will not merely tell you who is here ; but how, and wherefore, and in pursuit of what game he is here. Do not expect she will condescend to call your attention to mere material objects. You must see these for yourself: fancies and costumes have no interest in her eyes. She leaves the outside to the scrutiny of vulgar critics, and only busies herself with the invisible world. I have already said that none but fools come* here masked. Thank Heaven, however, as you see, the number of fools is pretty considerable. Every third person wears a wax, a pasteboard, or an iron-wire face ; others, only some preposterous nose, or a huge pair of spectacles, so as to disfigure without actually disguising themselves; others again, preserve their incognito by screening their features under the shade of hoods, or cowls, or be- hind the folds of their flowing attire. Men of all colours are hei*e, of all nations, of all ages. The memorials of the past, ancient, medi- G 5 130 ORAZIA. eval, and modern history; mythology, chivalry, Pagan and Christian demonology ; the drama, the ballet, and the opera ; the whole range of literature and art are ransacked to furnish forth subjects for a hundred groups in that motley assembly. More the pity for you if you are easily to be shocked by anachronisms, or by incongruity of manners, habits, or fashions. It is here wisdom to be no wiser than your neighbour ; men at a mas- querade vie with each other in absurdity, with just as much zest and earnestness, but with more un- pretending candour and naivete than they do in the world. For the rest, these historical show-groups, these glittering tableaux vivants, these mock heroes, kings and Paladins, these knights of the Round Table, these paynim caricatures of Saladin or Malek Adel, belong to the lowest rank, to the less enterprising or ambitious style of maskers. They are mere figures in this busy and spirited drama. Woe to the mask who aims no higher than to attract the eye. We have been surfeited with this I OEAZIA. 131 display of tawdry finery, of tinsel and paste dia- monds, for these many years ; we have grown too rational to put up with a mere puppet-show. Away with these paltry plagiarists of the inventions of their betters, they are the mere sabbioni, the shabby snips and snobs of the fete. The time has long since gone by, when a plump baroness would appear in her no-costume of Andro- meda, for the mere purpose of making a display of her well-rounded shoulders ; or when a pattern lieutenant would squeeze his limbs into a tight mail, to show the well-turned calf of his leg to the best advantage. The wisdom of the age has out-, grown such gross and primitive exhibitions. Ac- quired tastes have inverted the natural instincts of mankind; you must captivate the senses by addressing the understanding. More of our attention might therefore be pleasurably turned upon what are called, Maschere di Carattere, speaking or acting masks. Some of them have an Italian, they almost flatter them- selves, an European reputation. That surgeon is 132 ORAZIA. inimitable in the Harlequin ; that woollen-draper shines in the Pantaloon ; yonder bookseller amazes you as a Dottoraccio, or Dottor Balanzoni, the pettifogger, and quack-doctor. There are also Brighellas, Tartaglias, Rogantinos, and Mene- ghinos, without number ; the far-famed provincial buffoons in the ancient national comedy ; amongst otliers, the Parmesan clown, the Disevido, or the insipid fool ; and no one could believe how much -wit the acting of that very silly part does require. Most of those consummate actors have been trained in private theatricals ; you may have here a specimen of all the dialects in the Peninsula ; be- sides maimed French, broken English, murdered German, dog-Latin, and Greek — a Babel of all languages, dead or living. Each of these per- formers has his little knot of gaping auditors; noisy, fretful, ever-fluctuating. Mimicry and satire are at the bottom of all their success. Some deliver their ready jokes extempore ; some recite elaborate squibs and pasquinades. No topic is too arduous or dangerous ; no theme too sacred for ORAZIA. 133 their daring lampoons. Church and state them- selves are not beyond the reach of the shafts of their ridicule. A poor, fettered race, they make up by one night of unbridled licentiousness for a whole year of sullen and silent submission. Each of them is ready to enter into discussions with any of his hearers, or even single-handed against the whole audience. Sometimes, also, two or more of the most notorious wrestlers are acci- dentally or designedly brought face to face, and then indeed high rises the strife, and close comes the , tug of war. Sharp jeers and jibes, and rattling retorts fly about like sparks from an electric bat- tery; dense and stormy the sympathising ring of delighted spectators throng upon the goaded com- batants ; and loud peals the laughter, and keen and shrill ring the hisses as one or the other of the champions, at a loss for a timely repartee, skulks brow-beaten and crest-fallen from the battle-field. Even these comic characters, however, too often mere retailers of stale fun and obsolete trivialities, have, in our enlightened age, become commonplace 134 ORAZIA. enough. Almost utterly banished from the stage, Goldoni's masks are hardly any longer endurable on the pit boards. Personages from the Opera have supplanted the heroes of the old comedy. Figaro and Leporello have superseded Harlequin and Stenterello. Don Juan in his silk shorts and pumps, and strumming his gittern, prowls about seeking whom he may devour. TartufFe and Don Pilone, the personification of Loyola's fraternity, steal noiselessly from group to group, wrapped in their shroud-like cloaks, and shaded by broad- slouched hats, like bats and owls flapping their wings, and shrinking from the broad glare of this noonlike midnight. Don Magnifico, the powerful Lord of Montefiascone, is hospitably uncorking the bottles of his famous Est. Est. Est. wine for the gratification of the amateurs ; and Dulcamara, the great phoenix of quacks, is selling off* his Elisir d'amore, anxious to get rid of his stock, ere Lent may come to put a stop to his commerce for a season. Other characters from every-day life crowd the ORAZIA. 135 scene in still greater numbers. Runaway ntins and heguines, fluttering like unfledged birds fallen from off" their native branch, take from under the deep folds of their stiff" veils a peep at this wicked world, which looked so dazzling fair, viewed from behind the green blinds of their enshrined prisons. Gardeners and flower-girls force their roses under their customers' noses, sweet flowers to look upon, but deuced prickly to pluck. All trades and call- ings have here their followers. The grand rout is likewise a grand fancy fair. Every one has, something to sell; none a farthing wherewith to buy. There is but a universal bartering and bandying of more or less happy jokes, of more or less pungent remarks. Impertinence in speech and impertinence in writing. Saucy letters, and cards, and billets-doux^ and epigrams conveyed in bonbons; everywhere the sting under the honey, the snake lurking amidst lilies and violets. It is here, as everywhere, all the world a stage. Each personage chooses his part, and acts it to the best of his abilities — and here, as in the world, pro- 136 ORAZIA. minent above all characters, meddling in all trans- actions, omnipresent, omniscient, and all but omni- potent — THE Devil plays the Protagonist. Black devils, red devils, and blue, with flaming eyes, and horns, and frizzled hair, and upreared forked tails ; devils in a thousand shapes, baffling description ; brandishing their cat-o' -nine-tails with huge bladders at each end. Let no man of common capacities ever presume to play the Devil. There is hardly a more difficult character in the whole range of masked dramatics : and it will not always do for his Satanic Majesty to rid himself of a puz- zling question, or of an embarrassing position, by laying about to the right and left with the scourge with which every imp of them is de rigueur pro- vided, and which mere bunglers in the trade are but too frequently apt to abuse. For be it understood, once invested with a part, you are not allowed to lay it aside for one moment. Sybils and gipsies, wizards and soothsayers, all, in short, who deal in fatidical lore (and of these, as you may see, the number is legion — and in that ORAZIA. 137 role no one was ever more at home than your fair neighbour, the lively countess, when she deigned to curtain her wit — hide it she could not — behind a mask), all dealers in prophecy, I was saying, must have an answer ready for every booby that chooses to test their divinatory abilities; and though nothing could well be easier than to settle the future to every man's satisfaction, it is not always equally practicable to get rid of the' more stubborn past and present; and he who ventures on a fortune- teller's speculation without a thorough knowledge of every circumstance of every person present, whether masked or unmasked, will soon be com- pelled to shut up shop and plead bankrupt for the night, unless he can ward off the importunity by a ready pleasantry, which may dumfound his harassing questioner, and turn the laugh against him. All these maskers, however, belong to that be- nighted class who are still dull-witted enough to see an object in the mask itself, who do all in their power to court public attention, and strain every 138 ORAZIA. nerve to exhibit in a place in which, after all, hardly any one comes to be a mere spectator. But the really wise only consider the mask as a means. They cover their face only to avoid obser- vation. Incognito is for them the summum honum of a great masked ball. No domino can be too plain, no hautta too commonplace, no coucou too long, and wide, and loose to hide their person. Their costume should be the ring of Angelica, enabling them to move invisible through the crowd of their most familiar acquaintance, allowing them to track their object, and follow up their intrigue with the most perfect impunity. Even on this point they are often disappointed. There are eyes on these boards could peer through the waterproof and air-tight pores of a mackintosh ; old stagers who know by heart every nod of your head, the least perceptible trick in your gait, ges- ture, and bearing. The moment you step into the hall you'll hear your name whispered behind you, either broadly or under some pun, anagram, or any other knavish allusion; and this when you ORAZIA. 139 fancied that your brown coucou exhibited no- thing but a shapeless sack, eclipsing your figure from the crown of your head to the sole of your foot ; when you flattered yourself you could flirt with, and pinch and rumple that black-eyed milliner to your heart's content, and your wife be never the wiser. All this, in short, when you thought that for one night at least you had dis- appeared from the face of the world, and were responsible for your deeds to yourself alone, being alone conscious of your own identity. 140 ORAZIA. III. DIAVOLO AND ARCIDIAVOLO. Of those mischief-makers and Marplots, known under the name of mask-seers, or unmaskers, the hall has a more than sufficient number. It is superfluous to say, that such as these never appear under any but their every-day costume, unless some practical joke, some rich fun, as they term it, requires the aid of a temporary disguise. The object of their assiduous endeavours is to leave nobody at peace. As soon as they descry you as you force your way though the entrance, they set themselves at your heels. They stick a large bill with your name, surname, and nickname on the skirts of your domino. Under pretext of shaking ORAZIA. 141 hands, they pluck off your fair partner's gloves, to judge by the colour of the skin whether she be a seamstress or a washerwoman ; finally, if you appear to put up with their insolence, they cut off your mask-strings from behind, or wrench your pasteboard nose off your face; and if you show some pluck, and appear ready to resent the affront, they crowd together to each other's rescue — they cry out, " Dagli V onda^' and make an irresistible rush upon you. This rascally system of " raising the wave," so common and frequent a source of disturbance in this place, will be readily explained. In this ocean- like crowd, where every one moves rather on other people's shoulders than on his own limbs ; whei-e every one swings and wavers as he is borne by the tide, every impulse from the combined efforts of a few broad-chested individuals, is easily communi- cated from one end to the other of the hall. These rousers of the swell, these Nep tunes of a stormy sea, so long as they push and plunge heartily together, can, therefore, direct its billows in any direction. 142 ORAZIA. and against any object they please. Knights in armour, turbaned Saracens, and sceptred monarchs, seem to be the main object of their ruthless ani- mosity. The moment any of these ill-fated heroes is seen strutting pompously through the hall (some of them are hardly allowed to have a peep at it), the gentlemen of the swell-mob take him in amongst them. " Ecco ilsahhione ! Dagli V onda /" " Here is the Guy ; a wave upon him !" The sound of these redoubted words spreads dismay and confu- sion throughout the tumultuous assembly. There ensues a mighty trampling and scampering, a rum- bling and tumbling, a noise as if of earthquakes and avalanches ; a swearing of men and screaming of women. Sober couples are forced asunder, happy groups dispersed, amazed, bewildered, and hopelessly severed for the night. Fringes and flounces, lace, veils, feathers and flowers, and caps and hoods, and shawls and mantles, tattered to rib- bons, fly about like the sand of the desert before the tornado — and through the midst of that awful melee (for your raisers of the storm never lose sight of ORAZIA. 143 their victim), only one luckless individual is seen to emerge, the centre, the object, the innocent cause of all the uproar, sailing along before wind and wave, rolling and whirling blindly and helplessly like a top under the lash of an active urchin ; hoarse, panting, bruised ; and still vowing vengeance, and still laying hold of all objects, animate or inanimate, within his reach, to steady himself, to stand his ground, to repel his inexorable as well as invisible persecutors. All in vain ! In vain will he draw his wooden scimitar or his whalebone atagan (edged tools are not, happily, suffered to enter here). In vain will he butt, like a battering ram, with his heavy hel- meted head against the fat sides of a harmless Zenobia or Cleopatra, who roars under the violence of his onset. In vain will even the Signor Com- missario and four of his armed myrmidons — gro- tesque enough in their dress and appearance to be mistaken for the most ludicrous masks — step for- ward to the rescue of the much-wronged wight, remonstrate, urge the inoffensiveness of the indivi- 144 ORAZIA. dual, the ticket he has paid for, the equality of every man's rights to his money's worth of enjoy- ment. In vain — Down with the guy, and down with his abettors and partisans. The law has no power on Ash Wednesday eve. Down the steps they tumble masks, gendarmes, and commissary, on their head, on their heels, in a shapeless mass of knees, shoulders, and elbows, broad-swords, cocked- hats, and top-boots, struggling and writhing like snakes in a conjuror's basket. Of these tumultuous episodes breaking in upon the more peaceful festivities of the evening, every Veglione has generally seven or eight. Not that a certain degree of undulation may not be perceptible in the thronged assembly throughout the night, for the plotters of mischief cannot be said to be ever at rest. But it is rare that they congregate in suffi- cient numbers, rarer still that they light upon a worthy subject, or that they meet with sufficient resistance to change a gentle agitation into a stormy commotion. Every one here present is more or less prepared for similar vicissitudes. On the first ORAZIA. 145 hollow murmar of an approaching hurricane the smaller and more frail craft make for the nearest haven. The gentlest and loveliest find shelter in some of the friendly pit-boxes ; others again, less fortunate, weather the storm as they best can, and when calm is at length restored, the scattered sur- vivors may be seen gathering together and congra- tulating each other on their escape, smoothing and shaking their rumpled garments, refitting and re- rigging themselves, chatting and laughing as if nothing had been the matter. It is, perhaps, not unworthy of remark, that the chief actors in these wanton disturbances, the Euruses and Notuses of these raging billows, are men belonging not unfrequently by birth, by wealth, and talents, to the highest ranks. The very Eolus of that restless brotherhood, Count Antini, is a wit and wag, whose company is solicited in the very best circles. You may see him in that corner, with his hands in his pockets, with lolling tongue, looking on the restless groups around, with a sly though apparently a dreamy eye, plotting Heaven VOL. I. H 146 ORAZIA. knows what new mischievous scheme. He is young, as you see, and, notwithstanding a certain sallowness and flabbiness of his cheeks, remarkably handsome. He has but lately left the university, where he was the terror of censors, proctors, and beadles. He has wrenched off more house- knockers, and pulled off more bell-handles than would furnish a whitesmith's shop of moderate pretensions. Call upon him, and he will show you to his little arsenal, as he calls it, where he trea- sures up flower pots, door-signs, benches, barber's poles, and other booty captured in a fair war during his nocturnal perlustrations of the town. In daytime he studies, eats, shaves, courts the ladies, and smokes. The night is dedicated to the ex- citing task of plaguing his neighbours. Who happier than he, now that carnival has here con- gregated nearly all his neighbours under one roof, as if for his especial gratification ? Who can reckon how many Venetian magnificoes he has unwigged, how many Arcadian shepherdesses unsandalled, how many Ursuline nuns un- ORAZIA. 147 hooded ? Who can tell what a variety of odds and ends of masquerading articles will be brought to swell the list of his peregrine collection ? 148 ORAZIA. IV. COCKNEY-GREEN. Among the first hapless bemgs he chose to make game of this evening was his new acquaintance and guest, an English traveller, whom he picked up at the Hotel de la Poste, and secured as a companion for the evening, to have a laugh with or at him, as the case might turn out. John Round-o'-beef, Esq., as he fondly styles himself, or Milord Runebif, as valets de place affect to christen him abroad, is the son of a worthy butcher of Smithfield, living now in grand style on the income of what he calls his ancestral estates. He boasts of having invariably enjoyed the best of all the delicacies produced by the various countries he has visited. A more curious traveller about German sausages, Gruyere ORAZIA. 149 cheese, Louvain beer, and Vienna sweetmeats, never before crossed the Channel. An Irish fortune- hunter he met at the table iVhote at Baden- Baden assured him no country could rival Italy for its nectarines and princesses. Both rich and fragrant, soft and melting, high-flavoured and juicy ; both equally to be had on reasonable terms. With such inducements, no one can doubt, to Italy our traveller repaired. He feasted on apricots, plums, figs, and peaches, till he was laid down with a raging cholera. Nothing, daunted by this severe admonition, he had no sooner recovered than he set out across the Po in quest of princesses. Emboldened by the easy manners of the Parmesan nobleman, and by a few flasks of choice wine of Torrechiara, Milord Runebif, made no scruple of acquainting him with the strange nature of his ambitious errand. Count Antini listened to him with the brazen com- posure of an Italian, nodded his head approvingly, shook him heartily by the hand, and said, *^ Milord, I'll help you to a princess." 150 ORAZIA. Having given a few orders to his trusty valet, the count and the lord repaired arm-in-arm to the Veglione. They had not proceeded many yards on the first tour round the hall, when they were jostled by two masks in the costumes of Jupiter and Juno. The thundering god himself looked shabby and common-place enough, but the dazzling whiteness and freshness of arms and shoulders of his soro7' et conjux, bespoke reverence and admi- ration at the very first glance. ^' As I live," quoth Antini, in a whisper to his friend, " here is the Princess Spasimi and her Cicisbeo !" " ' Pon my honour," exclaimed milord, " a fine woman ! How the deuce can you make her out with that painted wax on her face ?" " Woe to us, my good friend," said the count, " if a little paint were to rob us of our fair friends." " You do not mean to say that your ladies of rank ever venture into this dreadful hubbub." " Do they not ? — does not our reigning Duchess, ORAZIA. 151 Maria Louisa — or rather did she not before she took to her Marquess of Bombel and the Jesuits — did she not condescend to grace the Veglione with her royal presence ? and did I not with this very thumb and finger pinch her imperial Austrian arm, when she appeared under the costume of a flower- girl, notwithstanding the nods and frowns of her one-eyed lover or husband, Count Neipperg, who preceded her to warn us of our danger/' " But this Princess Spasimi," insisted milord, still hampering on his favourite subject, " she is^ not of the blood royal, I warrant." " Not exactly," replied his companion ; " she is of a very ancient nobility though : you may see her armorial bearings on the threshold of her man- sion ; a staff or pole gules and azure on a field argent. Motto : ^ Cielo ai miei lunghi Spasimi.' " " But her companion ?" " Oh, her companion is an old marechal of the empire, a hero, if you believe TsTapoleon's bulletins ; a fire-eater, a duellist, a wholesale carver and slasher ; a very butcher, milord." 152 ORAZIA. The Smitlifieldian winced. " You amaze me, count. I should have thought, however, that under a mask — " " I may have made a quid pro quo ; — see if I mistake then. See if I do not make the princess start and smart with two words," saying which the mask-seer stooped towards the lady, and with a courtly air, " Bella Mascherina," he said, " will you not receive us among the crowd of your Spasimanti ? " The effect was electrical. The proud goddess turned sharply round, and disengaging her arm from her strapping cavalier, laid her hand forcibly on the count's wrist. " Here you are, you ruffian, are you ? You have found me out, have you ? So much the worse for you. I was just beginning to get tired of this dolt of a marshal. Now then you are booked and bound to me. You play no more tricks for the night." " Delighted to be your captive, fair lady," re- joined the count ; " but first allow me to introduce ORAZIA. 153 to your favour my friend, Milord Runebif, the dis- tinguished traveller." The princess turned up her nose and stared at the Englishman half disdainfully. " Where have you picked up that red-haired monster ? " she inquired, in an audible whisper, after a slight acknowledgment of the traveller's bow. This cavalier reception irritated without daunt- ing the enterprising spirit of our gallant princess- hunter. He pushed himself close to the proud beauty, the more ardently the more plainly she affected to spurn him. Luckily a sudden alarm and general rush being made towards an opposite end of the hall, the count, who longed to find himself in his own element, suddenly released him- self from his precious burden, and, with a few hurried words of apology, resigned it to his Smith- fieldian friend. The repulsive manners of the princess towards her new acquaintance considerably softened when she found herself left to his sole protection. She laid her white-gloved hand on his arm, and even h5 156 ORAZIA. fancier to urge his suit. He sat down by her side, he seized her hand, he sobbed, he scolded, he swore, till he obtained a gracious permission to attend the grand lady to her palace. With fluttering heart and faltering tread, the happy Runebif issued with his fair prize into the frosty streets. Dreading lest her mantilla and muff" should prove but a poor shelter against the gusts of the wintry gale, he wrapped her in the ample folds of his cloak, heedless of the cold which would be the inevitable results of his imprudence. Away, away, through street and square, and court and alley, the indefatigable princess led the way. Avi^ay in the dark, by silent dwellings and gloomy convents and half open churches, till the little town of Parma seemed to expand into a gigantic metro- polis. They had walked for hours, and the be- wildered Briton began to look upon himself as the victim of some magic spell, when they emerged into an open space before a large mansion, lighted up with flaring torches, and beleaguered by a noisy crowd. ORAZIA. 157 Lord Runebif rubbed his eyes. " Is it ? — can it be ? — it is indeed the Veglione ! — it is the theatre again !" No time, however, was left him to ascertain the astonishing fact, for his fair companion in a paroxysm of sudden terror, forced herself from his sheltering embrace, screaming with all her might, " The marshal ! Saints in heaven ! I am dead ! The marshal ! " Saying this she stooped to the ground, and hurriedly tucking up her petticoats, exhibited a pair of long trousered legs, and took to her heels with a nimbleness and activity of which milord had never seen an instance before. And lo and behold! at the same instant tlie strapping Marshal — or Jupiter — the former com- panion of the princess, rushes forth from the crowd, and collaring the puzzled cockney, gives him so hearty a shake that it raised him several inches from the ground. " I have you ! I hold you, milor'dino/' (the Italian for a fop). '* Now I'll show you 156 ORAZIA. fancier to urge his suit. He sat down by her side, he seized her hand, he sobbed, he scolded, he swore, till he obtained a gracious permission to attend the grand lady to her palace. With fluttering heart and faltering tread, the happy Runebif issued with his fair prize into the frosty streets. Dreading lest her mantilla and muff" should prove but a poor shelter against the gusts of the wintry gale, he wrapped her in the ample folds of his cloak, heedless of the cold which would be the inevitable results of his imprudence. Away, away, through street and square, and court and alley, the indefatigable princess led the way. Away in the dark, by silent dwellings and gloomy convents and half open churches, till the little town of Parma seemed to expand into a gigantic metro- polis. They had walked for hours, and the be- wildered Briton began to look upon himself as the victim of some magic spell, when they emerged into an open space before a large mansion, lighted up with flaring torches, and beleaguered by a noisy crowd. ORAZIA. 157 Lord Runebif rubbed his eyes. " Is it ? — can it be ? — it is indeed the Veglione ! — it is the theatre again !" No time, however, was left him to ascertain the astonishing fact, for his fair companion in a paroxysm of sudden terror, forced herself from his sheltering embrace, screaming with all her might, " The marshal ! Saints in heaven ! I am dead! The marshal!" Saying this she stooped to the ground, and hurriedly tucking up her petticoats, exhibited a pair of long trousered legs, and took to her heels with a nimbleness and activity of which milord had never seen an instance before. And lo and behold! at the same instant the strapping Marshal — or Jupiter — the former com- panion of the princess, rushes forth from the crowd, and collaring the puzzled cockney, gives him so hearty a shake that it raised him several inches from the ground. " I have you ! I hold you, milordino," (the Italian for a fop). " Now I'll show you 158 ORAZIA. how to meddle with masks you know nothing about." " Sir, sir ! " faltered milord, " I am not aware what claims you may have on the lady." " The lady ! — the devil ! I tell you, sir, you have no business to interfere with 'jDrentices, and keep them from their duty. There ! — it will soon be daylight, and Ash- Wednesday morning too ! — Who is to open the shop, I wonder, and set wigs and blocks to rights, against the crowd of countrymen who flock in for their weekly shave? — Just answer me that, will you ? " " I — I really don't understand you." " You do not, of course, but I'll make you — see if I don't. There ! — where is the boy ? Hang the boy, where is Giannetto? — What will the worthy Garofolino, his master and principal say? And who is answerable for his conduct but me — but me, Antonio Rompicollo, foreman in the grand butcher-stall in the Ghiara, who promised to bring the boy home and to bed before one ? but no — the young rascal must go gallivanting about with ORAZIA. 159 dandies, muscadins, and boobies like you ? Now, then, what would you have with him, I should like to know — you mistook laddie for lassie, did you ? Ha ! ha ! ha ! I'll bet now you took the barber's 'prentice for one of your frolicsome wenches." With this the fellow broke out in a roar of laughter, in which he was soon joined by Count Antini and a crowd of his companions who had been witnesses to the scene. Lord Runebif looked foolish at first ; then shame and anger were roused in his breast. All he had ever heard or read about Italian stilettoes and sword-canes was for the mo- , ment forgotten ; he sprang forward and closed with his burly antagonist. The battle — it was but fair play between a butcher's son and a butcher's foreman — was not suffered to last two seconds. The spectators tore the wrestlers asunder, the count and his friends persuaded the Briton that similar contretemps were matter of course in carnival, and that he was per- haps the hundredth man who had in the same 160 ORAZIA. manner fallen a victim to the blooming charms of the barber's garzone. Peace being thus restored, and Jupiter dismissed with a few lire, the placable milord was led back to the hall. Antini, strongly suspected as he was by his British friend of being at the bottom of the roguish trick which had just been played him, had, how- little difficulty in removing all unfavourable im- pressions by offering to introduce him to a real lady of rank j and leading the way behind the pit-boxes, ushered him into the one belonging to the gay and amiable countess, whom the reader has already re- peatedly heard mentioned, but with whom he is now invited to make a closer acquaintance. ORAZIA. 161 V. THE GREAT UNTAMED. Countess Orazia Paulucci was a young widow. She had been married by her parents to an old Italo- Austrian field-officer, who, after a few months' wedlock, had left her the only heiress of his name and fortune. For the last three years the young relict (now hardly in her twenty-first year) had in vain been solicited to name his suc- cessor. Nothing apparently more smooth and plain, nothing in reality more deep and unfathom- able than the mind and heart of Orazia Paulucci. She hardly denied her house, her table, her opera- box, to any man living. Her levees and genial suppers were the quintessence of all that could be refined and delectable. Her drawing-room was the rendezvous of the elite of the place, and of its 162 ORAZIA. foreign visitors. But she granted her confidence, or even her esteem, to none. She had a host of acquaintances, but not one intimate. Some one amongst the number of her assiduous worshippers seemed for a time to have arrested her attention. For a fortnight, she would treat him with marked distinction; but all at once she dropped him dis- enchanted, she recoiled from him in utter disgust, and suffered him to fall back among the crowd. The fact is, there was something of Diogenes' humour in the countess's disposition. She was looking for a man, and she met but with selfish, vapid, frivolous creatures. For one moment her fancy might be captivated by a deceiving exterior ; but she raised the lid, and immediately shrunk back from the noisome contents of the whitewashed sepulchre. These misanthropic feelings were, however, her own secret. No woman could be more popular at home and abroad; none more complacent and sociable. Except for a few sallies of the keenest irony — and that so covered as to escape the less ORAZIA. 163 observant part of her attendants — nothing revealed in her an exception from the generahty of those brilliant ladies of fashion, who seem exclusively to live by, as they are the life of, the great world. A female Machiavel, the countess sought the inter- course of her fellow-beings, and delighted in sound- ing men's hearts, though she derived nothing from her researches but fresh arguments to confirm her in the sovereign contempt in which she held the whole race. From these all-sweeping, uncharitable conclusions, exception was made only in favour of one being — but he was far away, and she had only known him for a short time before her marriage, in the prime of her inexperienced youth, and had, therefore, perhaps, only imperfectly fathomed him. She had been acquainted with him only in moments of general excitement at the time of the ephemeral in- surrection of central Italy in 1831. During those short, and to all the rest of the world, unimportant troubles, young Rinaldo Malaspina had shown himself earnest, disinterested, and daring. He had 164 ORAZIA. always been foremost in the most decisive measm*es. He had displayed the eloquence of the heart in many a patriotic harangue. He had given proofs of personal valour in one of the short but not blood- less encounters with the Austrians. He had done his utmost not to survive the downfall of his country's hopes. Young, and full of transcendental ideas, he was the type for a hero of romance. He became the ideal of Orazia's ardent imagination ; and what mere mortal could stand the test of that crude, juvenile impression ? Married to an officer in the Austrian service, though an Italian by birth ; introduced to Court, singled out by the Duchess Maria Louisa as one of her favourites ; the countess's patriotic feelings had been, to all appearance, smothered in the bud. Never was there a more powerful dissembler. She entertained the whole staff of the Austrian garrison with the most charming courtesy; she propitiated the men in power by every attention consistent with the dignity of her sex and rank. She w^as looked upon as the staunchest abettor of ORAZIA. 165 government; and, all the while, she offered up prayers for their overthrow and confusion ; and her heart longed for the young patriot, now far away in the land of exile. Nothing, indeed, had happened to lower her idol in her estimation. Malaspina had seldom been heard of. Her secret wishes had followed him in his ramblings abroad. Her ardent hopes unweariedly pictured him as busy in a hundred schemes for the restoration of his country's desti- nies. Her partiality w^ll nigh seemed to endow him with ubiquity as well as with omnipotence. There was no achievement she could fancy too arduous or too daring for him. Vague reports conspired to give weight to her most sanguine conjectures. Malaspina, after having fought with brilliant valour in Poland, was known to have taken an active part as the leader of some of the bands who attempted an ill-directed attack on Savoy in 1833. He had been since that time met in several parts of the country under different disguises. The King of Sardinia and the Duke of Modena had laid a 166 ORAZIA. reward on his head. Orazia's very alarms for his safety added new strength to her enthusiastic interest for him. One day she dreamed of him as led to the scaffold ; another, she thought of him as of another John of Procida, laying deep mines from one end of the country to the other, to destroy all the forces of Austria at one blast. ORAZIA. 167 VI. THE FAIR CICERONE. Such was the woman who now, with a slight but kind nod of reception, motioned Lord Rimebif to a vacant seat by her side, whilst she suffered Count Antini to press and kiss her hand, according to the most approved, though now-a-days old- ' fashioned, style of Italian gallantry. The entrance of these new guests into the box (for whom some of the previous occupants hastened to make room,) diverted but for a moment her attention from the thronged hall into which her eyes wandered, evi- dently in pursuit of some object. " I say, Antini," she said, rattling away with a silver voice, and a laugh which seemed to come from a heart perfectly at ease, and entirely en- 168 ORAZIA. grossed by the scene before her. ^^ Do you see that portly gentleman in a Pulcinella's costume sitting on yonder bench, with that slight, tiny Columbine sidling and fondling at his side ? Of course you know them ? No ! I thought you had eyes in your head as well as myself. Why, who else should it be but the Consigliere Baggei and his fair Morosina ? I know the little minx from the trick she has of sitting bolt upright with one of her feet peeping out of her robe to display the exquisite neatness of its dimensions — vanity of vanities ! " And," continued the countess, with her opera- glass always pointing in the same direction, " can you descry that sliapeless mass of clothes intended to represent Ariosto's Gabrina? Well, my friend, that is no other than Mother Cipriani, snoring as fast as if this hall were the cave of the seven sleepers. " Poor good dame ! I have watched her ever since she made her entrance here. Some naughty youngster, who waited for a good opportunity, must have put it into her head that the Veglione is ORAZIA. 169 the very best market in which to dispose of her black-eyed Susanna to the best advantage. Soon after midnight in came mother and daughter arm- in-arm, fast linked to each other. Where is the girl now ? Ah, where indeed ? Some of your precious friends, count, I dare say, might best answer the question. *^ Mother Goose meanwhile has been waddlinsr about, cackling for her stray gosling. She has been knocked about till she is fairly overcome. Now she sat down in despair, and weariness got the better of her sorrows. There let her rest ! " Rest ! No, poor thing ! There is no rest for her there below. Do you see. Count Antini, your fellow mischief-maker, Ferretti, has singled her out. What is he doing to the poor weary body? Tickling her? Pulling off her sham golden ringlets ? No ! as I live ! he has stuck wafers on her mask's eyes. Now he shouts in her ear. Up she starts — she gropes about — stag- gers. You hear her screams : * O, good gracious ! I am blind! I am blind! O, good gracious!'" VOL. I I 170 ORAZIA. With this the lovely lady indulged in a long fit of irresistible laughter. After she had, to some extent, recovered, she turned her attention to the other side of the hall. "Was there ever such a place as a Veglione ? A little world in miniature ! We cover our faces to lay our hearts bare. And how many intrigues ; how many interests at stake ; how many vows, and promises, and oaths ! Ah, well-a-day ! ' Amor di carnevale non passa la quaresima.' " Well now, who are those ? Oh, the monster ! Did you ever see such a stupid wretch as that same Ignazio Fainardi ? Do you not recognize him ? He is robed as a Faun, and has a Hamadryad with him. A Faun, indeed ; he deserves amply to be a Satyr, and would soon be so if his handsome wife had all her wits about her. " Poor little dear ! I wonder how she could be cheated into a marriage contract with that dissolute dolt ! A woman worth twenty like him ! And now, after a year's wedlock, how does the ORAZIA. 171 brute behave to her ? Why, he leaves her alone, like Ariadne in her nuptial couch, and creeps out like a thief from her apartment. And he comes to the Veglione with whom ? With that impudent old hag, Ortensia, the opera-dancer ; a stale coquette, who paints off, as well as on, the stage. There is taste, forsooth, and common sense in his preference, if there is no loyalty and principle. O, ye men! — ye naughty men! Tell me, Signor Inglese," turning to Milord Runebif, " tell me if husbands are such arrant rakes in your country ? " " Morals in England," said the Lord of Smith- field, who was still smarting under the severe joke which had been practised upon him, " do not admit of such ribaldries as I have here witnessed this evening. Our native island is the land of conjugal fidelity." " Good reason why," retorted the Count, tartly. " You must manage matters very nicely, or you pay dear for your transgressions." " We have heard, indeed," observed the 172 ORAZIA. countess, " that you have a court in England before which all conjugal differences are brought, and settled in pounds, shillings, and pence. Is it not so ? " " There is such a place as Doctors' Commons, no doubt, ma'am; but the magistrates are about to shut up shop, from sheer lack of custom." " I wish we could send that guilty couple to keep your magistrates in exercise," said the lady, once more pointing to the object of her animad- version ; " or I wish, count, that you had reason and method in your espiegUries. Where will you find a better subject for one of your rows. Now if you would just go down and engulph those vile sinners in one of your mighty waves — but stay ! here comes retribution. Hurrah ! hurrah !" continued the countess, clapping her hands, and directing the attention of her companions towards a mask who had just made her appearance. " It is her ! There is no mistaking her lofty stature and bearing of the head. Here is the much aggrieved consort. How well she looks in ORAZIA. 173 lier long, dark, flowing costume of a sorceress. A Witch of Endor, I declare — a very Medea ! " See ! she waves her ebony wand, and the crowd fall back with almost a superstitious awe. Poor deserted one ! She stretched out her feet, I have no doubt, and felt her bed chilly and lonely. She started up, she filled her house with shrieks of despair. But her spirit at last was roused o She hurried to the next fancy shop, she donned her magic costume, and here she is breathing- fury and vengeance from the holes of her black waxen visor. " See, how straight she stalks towards her victims ! She heeds no remark — brooks no inter- ruption. She has perceived them — she I'aises a glance of thanksgiving towards the ceiling. She is yet in time. On them she pounces, like a hawk on its prey. Hurrah ! Rights of women for ever ! She has reached them ! — she severs them. You hear the strokes of her formidable wand : right and left ! Thick as hail! Serves them right ! What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander." 174 ORAZIA. VI. THE LdNG-LOST-NEVER-FORGOTTEN. The Countess was more than ever alive to the spectacle at present exhibiting under her eyes, when on a sudden she stopped short, and dropped her eye-glass. She sank back on her chair and raised her hand to her eyes. Presently she rose again by a painful effort; she raised her hand, pointing to the hall beneath ; all colour had fled from her face, her finger trembled, and her voice faltered. " In Heaven's name ! who — who is that mask V* Her friend's eyes followed the direction of her hand. Not far from the spot where the man whom she had designated as Ignazio Fainardi was paying the forfeit of his heartless desertion, stood the tall ORAZIA. 175 figure of a man in a green domino. He took no notice of the riotous scenes around him, but stood motionless, leaning against one of the pillars of the stage, with his dark eyes riveted on the countenance of the lady whom his presence had thrown into such unaccountable consternation. Antini and his companions looked at the stranger, but after a short and unsatisfactory survey, they turned to the countess with a mys- tified air. " It cannot be !" ejaculated Orazia. " Only say it is not him \" " Good sooth, my lady," returned Count Antini, " my ken is this evening much duller than usual, or that green domino is an utter stranger in town. I see, however, you are not the only person in- terested in his behalf. The man is some suspicious character ; I see the director of the police, Sartorio, and some of his Scribes and Pharisees, covertly lurking after him.'' " Heaven in his mercy forbid ! Heaven in his mercy shield him !" almost shrieked the lady. 176 ORAZIA. who had now lost all self-possession. " Are yon blind, Antini, or have you forgotten your best friend ? — that is Rinaldo Malaspina V " Forbear my lady !" screamed the count, in his turn; " only utter his name, and he is lost." Then sinking his voice into a whisper, " Yes, it is him ; from your first alarm I had recognised him. What fiend can have decoyed him into this place ?" " Save him, count! As you hope for mercy let him not perish without an attempt to apprise him of his danger." " 'Faith, any warning would be too late now. The blood-hounds have tracked him out, and are not to be beaten off" their scent. We must strike a blow for him though — we must see how far we can presume on our carnival privileges.'* So saying, the good-natured Count clapped his hands ; the nearest of his friends looked up. " Mischief astir \" he roared out. " Boys, one more frolic ere old carnival be laid in his grave." So saying, he rushed from the box. Behind the tiers he was met by several of his most faithful ORAZIA. 177 dare-devils. They hastened in a crowd to one of the green-rooms, where they kept masquerade dresses innumerable ready for immediate use. A few instants afterwards, a band of long-sweepins coucous dashed into the hall. The eyes of Orazia Paulucci had not deceived her. Her proscribed lover, Rinaldo Malaspina, stood in her presence. Hotly pursued by the Sardinian police, after the unsuccessful attempts against Savoy in 1833, he had betaken himself to the Appennines, where, with the aid of numerous friends, he had baf- fled the vigilance of his harassing enemies. From house to house those hospitable mountaineers had sheltered him at their own peril, had provided him with guide and escort, had conveyed him safe and sound through many a well-watched post on the borders. From Montferrat into the bare hills of Genoa, from the rocks above the Gulf of Spezia to the wooded glens of Lunigiana, and hence through the defiles of Mount Cento Croci into the valleys of Taro and Baganza, they had befriended him till they saw him comparatively safe in the land of his I 5 178 ORAZIA. fathers ; here, among his friends, always secreted in some secure abode, he had tarried autumn and winter, awaiting an opportunity to make good his escape. The police of Parma, as well as of the neighbouring States, was on the look out for him; but what is even the hundred^eyed watchfulness of the police, to those who are shielded by the sympathy of a whole people ? At last, the opportunity of the last masquerade, and a strong desire of viewing his old friends unseen — above all, an imperious desire to behold one, whose image had reigned alone in his heart, during three years of a life of feverish excitement — the hope of seeing Orazia Paulucci — had induced Malaspina to venture into the city, and even to appear in disguise at the Veglione. The base agent of Austria, Sartorio, the director of the police, the same that fell victim to a myste- rious assassination only a twelvemonth afterwards, had seen and recognised him. He had tracked him out with that sagacity on which he prided himself above all men filling his odious office; he had ORAZIA. 179 pointed him out to some of his sateUites. They would not for the world have created a disturbance by setting on him at once; but they dogged him from one end of the hall to the other, waiting for the moment when he should fall helpless into their clutches, on his first issuing into the silent streets. It was now late, or rather early in the morning, and the crowds of revellers had become compara- tively thinner. The surging waves of the multi- tude had subsided into a calm, but there still remained that gentle swell which every freshening' of the gale might still rouse into a dangerous tempest. In this state of things the band of coucous appeared at the door, uttering their dreaded war- cry, an imitation of the bird from which they take their name. In dashed Antini, and his roistering partisans after him. In one instant, all was uproar and confusion; but there was order and method, there was a deep design in the rioter's movement. The thronged mob of masqueraders fell back before 180 ORAZIA. that sudden onset. The director Sartorio and his agents hastened to leap into their box, from which they followed every step of the unconscious green domino. They lost sight of him but one moment ; and this was when the coucous, crowding upon him with demoniac yells, seized him by both arms, and drawing him in the folds of their flowing garments, whirled him giddily around with them. After a few minutes, however, he either extri- cated himself from, or was given up as a dull unsociable dog by them. They then joined hands, and forming themselves into a wide circle, began to wheel round in rapid evolutions, regardless of the screams of women, whom they all but trampled down in their mad career, till, apparently exhausted, they raised one more shout and made their exit, to the great relief of every person present. A carriage was in waiting at the door of the theatre j on it the crazy coucous set stormily, and forced one of their company by the side of a lady, who was the sole occupant of the vehicle. This intrusion seemed by no means unacceptable, for the ORAZIA. 181 lady hastened to make room for her masked companion, and the carriage drove off. Only a few minutes later, the green domino issued alone from the theatre; but had no sooner set his foot on the portico, than four gendarmes secured him, and the hated Sartorio intimated to him to surrender in the name of the law. The green domino attempted some remonstra- tion in an unknown tongue; but was soon forced into a coach, which was kept ready for the purpose, and thus safely conveyed into the police gaol. It was only late in the morning that the police director condescended to pay a visit to his prisoner, and peremptorily bade him doff his mask and divest himself of his carnival costume. The green domino complied, and exhibited to the eyes of the astounded sbirro — the ruddy face and honest features of Lord Runebif. Lord Runebif had followed his new friend. Count Antini, into the green-room, and requested to be permitted to robe himself in one of the coucous, and to join in their last carnival farce. He had been 182 ORAZIA. one of the iirst and foremost of the count's sup- porters, and his broad shoulders had lent no trifling service in making way through the crowd. Screened by the unfolded mantles of his com- panions, he had hurriedly closed with the threat- ened Malaspina (to whom the count had mean- while communicated the nature of his danger), and in the twinkling of an eye resigned his costume to him, and donned the fatal green domino. The poor Smithfieldian had to endure the conse- quences of his good-natured compliance. Suspected of connivance with all the rebels and outlaws in the country, he was detained in a prison of state till the British minister at Florence, having succeeded in clearing him of all guilt, finally obtained his release. The countess's palace in town, and her villas in the country, offered meanwhile a safe asylum to her imprudent admirer, till all cause for alarm having gradually subsided, she was able to smuggle him off to Corsica, where she soon joined, and was joined to him, by those bonds which death alone has power to sever. AURELIA: A TALE OF THE UNIVERSITY. I. RED COATS AND BLACK GOWNS. Reader, are your legs so long that people may think that] you are walking on stilts ? — Put on a red coat. Is your neck so thin that without starch and whalebone the head might droop like an over- grown flower on its wilted stem ? — Then, by all means, put on a red coat. Trust your bag of bones with a military tailor. He will wad you up, stuff" you up, till he has made a man of you. A red coat ! Let no one imagine that the irre- sistible attraction of an English uniform resides in 184 AURELIA. the peculiarity of its sanguine hue. At Paris the blue, at Vienna the white, prove equally dazzling colours, and carry on an equally active work of destruction amidst female hearts. Still, among the cleverest contrivances of martial coxcombry, hardly anything can be found to match the gaudiness of an Austrian Uhlan. The coat itself, unlike the generality of those of the imperial troops, is scarlet, but a Genoese mule wears not half so many gingling gewgaws, — there are not half so many colours in a peacock's tail. The first corps of these showy cockatoos, named the regiment Lichtenstein, was, in 1816, stationed at Pavia. They were still all flushed wdth their glo- rious campaigns of the preceding years, when they were proverbially known to make their appearance one day too late on the battle-field, like faithful jackals at the tail of English leopards and Russian bears. The University of Pavia, at that epoch, was also in its prime, and was looked upon as an inex- haustible market for half the spinsters in Lombardy. AURELIA. 185 It numbered nearly three thousand students, from every quarter of Italy ; a set of boisterous youths, privileged, from time immemorial, to wear a black gown and tasselled cap, to serenade the ladies, and to kick up frequent rows with the people and gar- rison of the place. Times have since pressed rather hard upon that time-honoured academical institution. Aliens have been excluded (by such an appellation an Italian is designated in his own country, when once without the limits of his narrow territory), and the few remaining natives were stripped of their academical costume, and thus exposed to their military rivals as naked and helpless as the painted warriors of Montezuma against the iron-cased soldiers of Cortez. But our tale belongs to the palmy days of Pavia. The maxim " Cedant arma togce'^ was then still in full vigour. A student, clad in his armour of cap and gown, was at any time a match for an ensign or cornet, and three thousand of them, bound together by an esprit de corps to which secret associations 186 AURELIA. added the compactness of political brotherhood, could set up a cry loud enough to blanch the kaisers's sallow cheeks, and curdle his white blood, even on his throne at Schonbrunn. Poor Kaiser Francis the First! This Pavese archigymnasium — this dear hobby of Maria Theresa and Joseph II. — caused him not a few nights of imrest. Every day fresh tidings of desperate affrays between red-coats and black-gowns reached his imperial ears. Pavia was the focus of riot and rebellion, and he never breathed freely till the events of 1820 afforded him ample pretexts to lay waste that pejjiniere of M.D.'s and LL.D.'s which he scrupled not to call a hotbed of Mischief Doers and Lawless Demons. The proverbial hatred of Italy for her Austrian rulers was then carried to its utmost pitch of intensity. To be seen walking side by side with officers, to enter their military cafe, or any other of their favourite haunts, even to return their bows, was sufficient to brand a student for life. In every public place^ at church, in the theatre, there AURELIA. 187 were benches set apart for the garrison, and these were as carefully shunned by the civilians as a lazaret in days of pestilence. The females of Pavia, of whatever rank, were made to share these uncharitable animosities. Not that the dear things to any extent embraced, or even understood, these exaggerated notions of Italian patriotism. Woman is by nature a cos- mopolite ; out of the large mass of human beings, of all colours and languages, she individualizes her own object of affection. The Sabine daughters took to their Roman captors as naturally as if they had been brought up under the Tarpeian rock ; the factory ladies at Lowell petition Congress for free intermarriages with the black. Every marriage- able girl looks even on her mother's house as a temporary abode. She is as willing to adopt the country as the home of the man of her choice. Like the undutiful child in Scripture, she will even steal her father's household Gods, and convey the very blessings of Heaven into the land of the stranger. Still even women are more or less carried away 188 AURELIA. by the tide of opinion. At Pavia patriotism had, at least, the charm of fashion and romance. The eyes of the Italian ladies could not, of course, be blinded to the gay plumage and the gorgeous lace in which those martial popinjays glittered, as they strutted or cantered on their long-maned, long-tailed Hungarian war steeds, on the parade- ground. But the days were not yet far back in the past, when their own Lombard brothers and lovers stood before them, clad in their simpler but manlier green garb of Cisalpine guardsmen; andthey remembered how vividly their southern eyes glowed beneath the brim of their dragoon's casque. Those Austrians, too, were not marrying men. None of their officers, for the most part younger sons of noble houses, could wed without the Kaiser's spe- cial permission. Moreover, the best of them, though certainly tall and handsome, were awkward and dull : their harsh, guttural accent sounded gratingly on Italian ears ; and their northern hearts were cold, and their German blood was white. The black-gowns had thus still a wide ascen- AURELIA. 189 dancy over the red-coats, and jealously did they watch over their well-grounded advantages. Had any ill-advised girl so far forgotten herself as to wish — Prometheus-like — to dart a spark of fire into one of those lumps of German clay, had she ever thought of mingling southern ichor with northern lymph, she would have found no rest eithet by day or night. Withering scorn would have lighted upon her wherever she showed her- self Charivaris and ribald verses would have startled her from her slumbers. ^ There was a song in circulation, the recent pro- duction of a young popular bard belonging to the university, in which an attempt was made to de- scribe the feeling of unavailing repentance, which must be the unavoidable consequence of such an unnatural event as an intermarriage between the two races would be, — a poetical effusion rather in- tended as a warning in the pre- supposition, than expressing a belief in the possibility, of such an awkward contingency. Rendered into English metre, the song ran thus : — 190 AURELIA. " REMOKSE.* " She sits in grief and loneliness, amidst a merry throng The sole unwelcome guest, And on the happy contenances that smile and glide along, Her looks dare not to rest. She hears them dancing, caroling, hut none for dance or song Asks her their joys to share ; And every eye beams tender, and soft whispers every tongue. Of her none seems aware ! " And now with infant haste a chUd, a lovely child draws near, Down on her knees to lie, And by his playful tenderness calls forth the lingering tear That trembled on her eye. Oh ! like an opening primrose bud, in all its morning bloom, Is that fair cherub's smile ; Yet all his smiles and plays cannot dispel his mother's gloom, Her anxious care beguile. * As the above is rather a free translation, it may perhaps be justice to the author to subjoin the original. " IL RIMORSO. " Ella e sola, dinanzi le genti ; Sola, in mezzo dell' ampio convito : N6 alle dolci compagne ridenti Osa intender lo sguardo avvilito : Vede ferver tripudi e carole, Ma nessuno 1' invita a danzar ; Ode intomo cortesi parole, Ma ver lei neppur una volar. " Un fanciuUo che madre la dice S' apre il passo, le corre al ginocchio, E co' baci la lagrima elice Che a lei gonfia tremava nell' occhio. Come rosa, h fiorente il fanciullo ; Ma nessuno a mirarlo rista. Per quel pargolo un vezzo, un trastullo, Per la madre un saluto non v' ha. AURELIA. 191 " If strangers ask, who is that fair one who sits in grief, alone, As branded with disgrace ; Who on the glossy ringlets of the child she calls her own Hides more than rests her face. One only voice unanimons, in bitter, withering tone. Replies on every side : ' They are of our oppressors' race — the child's an Austrian's son She is an Austrian's bride.' '• Along the streets, in festive halls, at church before the throne Of a forgiving God ; Amidst a crushed, a trampled race, bred up to toil and groan Beneath an iron rod ; A word of wrath is murmured round — a word by fear repressed, Repressed by fear — not mute. — * The curse of Heaven on her who dared on an Italian breast To bless the Austrian brute !' " Se un ignaro domanda al vicino Chi sia mai quella mesta pensosa Che su i ricci del biondo bambino La bellissima faccia riposa ; Cento voci risposta gli fanno, Cento schemi gl' insegnano U ver ; - * E la donna d' un nosti'o tiranno, E la sposa dell' uomo stranier. — ' Ne' teatri, lunghesso le vie, Fin nel tempio del Dio che perdona, Infra un popol ricinto di spie, Fra una gente cruciata e prigiona, Serpe 1' ira d' un motto sommesso Che il terrore comprimer non puo: ' Maladetta chi d' italo amplesso II tedesco soldato beo ' — ' " 192 AURELIA. The song continued in this strain, but we have perhaps quoted enough to make the reader aware of the state of men's minds at the period in Lom- bardy. At Milan, Venice, or Mantua, such hos- tile dispositions were partly held in check by the presence of a superior armed force, by a watchful police, and by that mixture of craft and energy which constitutes the basis of Austrian policy ; but at Pavia, whilst the black-gowns still carried the day, the assemblage of a vast body of reckless youths was strong enough, not only to emancipate, but even to enforce, patriotic opinions. AURELIA. 193 II. PATRIOTISM AND COQUETRY. A REBEL against this universal tyranny of libe- ralism was, however, found among the Pavese young ladies, in the person of Aurelia Malatesta, the daughter of the weaUhiest banker, as well as the reigning belle, of the place. Against that uni- versal proscription by which Mars had, in so unexampled a manner, been driven from his place of honour by the side of Venus, an exception was made in Aurelia's heart, or perhaps in her fancy, in favour of one of the red-coated northerners -, but that one — we must be willing to allow her the benefit of all extenuating circumstances — was no other than the colonel himself of the regiment, the young Prince Lichtenstein, a youth of twenty-five — tall, VOL. I. K 194 AURELIA. fair, handsome as the handsomest of Arminius's warriors. The cavaliere Malatesta, bound to the existing government by the large sums he had invested in the pubhc funds (no Italian is ever attached to the cause of Austria except from interested motives), had deemed it good policy to admit the most con- spicuous officers of the garrison into his domestic circle, — a step which had of course banished from his house his most intimate friends, and drawn upon him the undisguised animadversion of his countrymen. His only daughter, charged with the household duties of the widowed banker, did the honour of her father's establishment in a manner but too well calculated to exasperate public resent- ment. Haughty, self-willed, and spoiled as an only child, a wealthy heiress, and a beauty, she experienced a wanton pleasure in the wild exercise of her maidenly independence, and hurled dejfiance against popular opinion. The beauty of Aurelia Malatesta was of that grand and lofty style, which seems rather fitted to AURELIA. 195 grace the diadem, than suited to the quiet and gentle intercourse of private life. Her tall ma- jestic stature, her queen-like brow, her large, coal- black eyes, her rich and slightly bronzed com- plexion, might equally answer as a personification of the strong mind of Lady Constance, or of the wild spirit of Petruchio's Catherine ; a counte- nance after the model of Raphael's Fornarina — with a frown lurking under her warmest smile — with an expression of firmness and imperiousness — untameable and even formidable in her matchless loveliness. Notwithstanding his rank, wealth, and personal advantages, it is not improbable that the handsome Uhlan might have appeared too dull and effeminate a suitor in the eyes of the high-minded Aurelia. She might, perhaps, after a brief period of heart- less flirtation, have shaken him off" like a feather from her cap, by a single toss of her proud head, or driven him from her as she would a butterfly, by a single wave of her fan — had not the outcry raised against her by her jealous countrymen 196 AURELIA. roused the demon of contradiction within lier stub- born mind, and determined her on a course of unmeaning levities, which the gallant prince con- strued into an open admission of his pretensions. She suffered his Arabian to stop by her carriage- door on the Corso ; she dropped her handkerchief to him at the governor's ball ; she admitted him to her box at the opera. Finally, one memorable afternoon, on the last day of February, as the whole town was pouring out into the meadows out of Porta a Milano, to gather the earliest violets of the season, she alighted from her barouche, and was actually seen walking arm-in-arm with the red-coated stranger, among the motley crowd of promenaders. ^' Jesus Maria ! Engaged ! to an Austrian !" The young men of the university threw down their violets and tucked up their academical petti- coats. They joined in angry threatening groups. Wherever the happy pair made their appearance, they were received with a stare of astonishment, which soon gave way to a scowl of resentment. AURELIA. 197 The pleasures of the day were given up, and the alarmed lovers, pressed by the thronging multitude, sought their safety in a hasty retreat. The students followed. The foremost of them, Alessandro Solaro, a Genoese, the ringleader of the school of medicine, walked close on their heels, muttering hard in the beauty's ears the odious bur- den of the popular song we have quoted, calling down the curse of Heaven " On her who dared on an Italian breast, To bless the Austrian brute." The young beauty heard, and writhed with anguish and spite under the arm of her protector. It was long before the young prince understood the import of those disloyal lines — longer still before his phlegmatic temper could be aroused. But finally, and just as, followed by that unwel- come retinue, he reached the town-gate, where a company of his Uhlans were stationed, he turned abruptly round, and pointing to his taunting pur- suer, he ordered him to be arrested. His commands were obeyed with such alacrity. 198 AURELIA. that the young transgressor was laid hold of, and secured within the gates, before his schoolfellows were well aware of the fact. ^* Holla ! — caps and gowns ! — our charter for ever ! Down with the Austrian peacocks !" shouted a hundred voices of thunder. " Brothers, forward for Solaro and the privileges of Alma Mater !" The soldiers barred the gates in hot haste. Re- inforcements were sent for from the citadel. The town was in an uproar. The violation of one of the ancient immunities of the university, grounded, to say truth, on rather questionable authority, by virtue of which none of its members could be arrested, except through the agency of the Censor and the mace-bearers under his orders, would, under any circumstances, have given rise to serious disturbances. But in the present instance, the resentment excited by so flagrant an abuse of power was further exasperated by the quality of the person on whom that unwarrantable deed of violence was perpetrated. AURELIA. 199 III. A RINGLEADER. Alessandro Solaro owed to his talents, and more to his venturous disposition, the popularity he enjoyed among his fellow-students. Placed under the guidance of instructors, more or less openly professing the doctrines, and living in the constant practice, of sheer epicurism, the under- graduates, especially those belonging to the school of medicine, were then at Pavia, and are still in almost every Lombard seminary, little better than a gang of daring free-thinkers and lawless rioters. Every evening, after leaving their dissecting rooms, where they had been employed in bootless efforts " to dig into the cellulce of the human brain in quest of that thinking principle, which evaded the minutest researches of their anatomical scalpel" — 200 AURELIA. every evening these pseudo-philosophers would repair to one of the lowest taverns of the town, and there, after warming themselves into a comfortable state of dreadnought froliesomeness, they issued forth into the deserted streets, bound on the per- petration of practical jokes, such as breaking win- dows and carrying off shutters, wrenching off knockers and twisting bell handles, sending a surgeon, &c., on a fooFs errand to a nunnery, ringing alarm bells, and occasionally upsetting a sentry box, under which a sleepy Croatian would remain entrapped, and, as it were, coffined; and ready to fight the night-watch if it ventured to run to his rescue. By a series of similar nocturnal exploits, had Alessandro Solaro made himself conspicuous at Pavia, during the earliest stages of his academical life. It is true that a remarkable change had of late become apparent in his manners and tone. He had taken, it was whispered, to sentiment and Jacopo Ortis. He suffered his hair to hang loose and untrimmed on his shoulders ; he wore a cravat AURELIA. 201 a la Childe Harold, and made daily pilgrimages to the Certosa. It was even rumoured that the soft strains of the flute, which were to be heard late after midnight under the balcony of Aurelia Malatesta, proceeded from the very instrument on which Solaro was known to be a matchless performer. It is not, therefore, altogether unlikely, that in his uncourteous behaviour towards the belle of Pavia, the Genoese student might be actuated by a little jealous pique, as much, at least, as by a sentiment of outiaged nationality. His com- panions, however, did not inquire into his mo- tives, or the propriety of his conduct. He was a classmate, and formerly a playmate; he was an open-hearted, open-handed fellow; he was never known to desert a friend, and his friends therefore would never forsake him ! With these arguments the unruly youths stormed round the closed barrier, aided and abetted in their mutiny by the assembled populace. In this emer- gency, the commander of the citadel, Count K 5 202 AURELIA, Polowsky, an old Polish veteran, appeared on his milk-white war-horse, waving his bare hand in sign of truce, and, as he bowed smilingly towards the incensed multitude, flourishing his queue in the air, — his queue, which, when Jacobinism involved the fate of that manly appendage in the general downfall of altar and throne, he alone, besides his imperial master, had vowed to wear, unshorn and untrimmed, to the grave, an emblem of his bound- less loyalty and devotion. " Ay, ay ! young gentlemen," shouted the com- mander, in his shrill northern tone; "ay, ornatis- simi adolescentes — ay, Nohilissimi Domini!''^ Such were the phrases by which members of the university were then addressed at Pavia. '^ Ay, to be sure, the rights and immunities of the most venerable academy ; the charter of the university !" Then turning to the captain of the guard, he con- cluded, " Release the prisoner !" Shouts of triumph. The prisoner is set at AURELIA. 203 liberty, and receives the accollade from a hun- dred pair of arms. " Viva Solaro ! Hurrah for old Polowsky ! Bravo, commander ! Bless your old pigtail !" The town sinks into its habitual repose. On the morrow two carriages are seen driving out into the country at daybreak. In one of them is Prince Lichtenstein and his aide-de-camp ; the other is driven by Colonel Ferrari, an old campaigner of Napoleon, now acting second to his young friend Solaro. The two rivals stand face to face. There were able swordsmen in Lombardy before Austria shut up all fencing-schools. After a short conflict, the Austrian's weapon is hurled from his hand. The seconds interfere ; but the disarmed prince, impelled by fate, insists, begs to be allowed to renew the chances of combat. Now the blood of the swordsmen is up. They rush inconsiderately upon each other. The gowns- man leaves the ground severely wounded. The red-coat is carried away — a corpse. 204 AURELIA. During three months, the fair source of that sudden calamity was missed among the gay circles of which she was the first ornament. Soon aftei* the catastrophe, she had requested and held a long private interview with the officer who had performed the last duties, and received the parting breath of her ill-fated Austrian admirer. The whole town gave her credit for the long season of sorrow and seclusion by which she mourned her severe loss. And yet ! — that inexplicable thing, a woman's heart ! AURELIA. 205 IV. REPARATION. TwAS evening — a fine summer evening at Mar- tigny. An exile from his native country, slowly recovering from the consequences of his wounds, Solaro basked in the setting sun, with all the luxury of a chilly convalescent, in the garden of the principal inn of that romantic Swiss village. A postchaise drives up to the gate. The banker, Malatesta, and his only daughter alight from the carriage. The belle of Pavia pining away in her sorrow after the appalling events of the 28th of February, had prevailed on her father to try the effects of a change of air on her shattered consti- tution. They had but recently set out on a tour through 206 AURELIA. Switzerland, and having crossed the Simplon, they arrived towards sunset at Martigny. The young lady alights, and leaving her father to deal with the bustling postilions and porters, after a short conversation with one of the waiting-maids, she walks deliberately to the garden. Under a dense arbour, covered with luxuriant shrubs, by the glowing light of a gorgeous Alpine sunset, these two ill-fated beings, who, utter stran- gers as they almost were, had, however, by mutual inconsiderateness, wrought each other's misery, were thus suddenly, if not on both sides quite undesignedly, brought face to face. The hand of sorrow and remorse had harshly dealt with Aurelia. Her travelling dress hung somewhat loosely on her wasted frame, and her countenance, though it would have been hard to conceive how even death itself could have power to mar the elegance and harmony of its faultless features, had, however, lost much of that joyous radiancy, of that blooming freshness which, with the happy and innocent, may oftentimes resist the AURELIA. 207 gradual inroads of age, but which the first blast of care never fails to blight and sear beyond hope of recovery. Alessandro Solaro was also an altered being. Every circumstance connected with that awful encounter, from which he had departed a murderer, dwelt with terrible distinctness on his distracted fancy. The early grave he had dug for his rival — the grave on the brink of which himself had so long lingered and tottered — the weary seclusion of a sick-chamber, and the vague sense of loneliness, helplessness, hopelessness by which it was haunted — the rapid change in all his habits of life — an honourable career suddenly interrupted, and a dreary prospect of endless exile, perhaps of penury, staring grimly at him — acted forcibly on a mind naturally not of the most buoyant and sanguine cast, and caused the latent sources of that melan- choly to which, with all the boisterousness of his college life, the young student was, perhaps, con- stitutionally predisposed — to gush forth with over- whelming vehemence. 208 AURELIA. Pale as death from the consequence of a copious loss of blood, and long cheerless days and sleepless nights, Solaro's countenance had assumed, together with an aspect of bodily suffering, that expression of deep pensiveness, of calm resignation, and manly sedateness, for which its severe cast of features seemed admirably calculated. By a prodigiously rapid transition, the heedless schoolboy had grown into a man, and if he, perhaps, too readily yielded to that morbid sense of despondency which inclined him to look upon life as a tissue of adversities, he also felt in his heart of hearts a tower of strength, sufficient not only to enable him to battle with evil, but even to derive from that \ery struggle the means of refining and ennobling his nature. He had grown into a man, and believed himself equal to the most arduous trials to which it may be a man's lot to be submitted on earth. In such mood did these two young persons stand in each other's presence, surveying each other in blank amazement for a few seconds, before they broke out into simultaneous exclamations : AURELIA. 209 '■'■ Aurelia Malatesta ! " *^ Alessandro Solaro ! " " Do I indeed behold you, lady — you, north of the Alps ? " " We meet, Solaro, and not by chance ; your present abode was no secret to me. So far have I travelled, only to seek you out, to ask for a minute's interview. — No misery can equal mine, if you refuse to hear me. " Solaro, we are hardly known to each other. The thought of me never crossed your mind ; you never noticed me, or it was only to despise me — only to join in the universal outcry against my levity and coquetry. Alas ! my coquetry and levity are no longer an object of contempt merely. They have wrought incalculable, incurable evil ; folly has led to crime. " Happy Solaro ! I have seen the two gentlemen who attended you and him on that fatal day. Both of them bear witness to the generous forbearance with which you behaved towards your ill-fated adversary, and to the headlong violence with 210 AURELIA. which he rushed to his doom. Hajipy Solaro ! In this land of exile, under the weight of adversity, on the brink of the grave, you can lift up your hands to heaven and say, ^ I am innocent of that man's blood ! ' " " But I, who in the wanton indulgence of womanish vanity trifled with the warmth of that man's affections — who in the gratification of false, unnatural pride, wounded the feelings of my trampled countrymen, till I provoked them to strife and bloodshed, — I feel it in the depth of my stricken conscience — that blood will rise in judgment against me ! But of this no more ; for that man's death I shall have to answer before another tribunal. But the results of my rashness will not all be buried with the remains of the dead. I look on you, Solaro, and behold all the extent of my guilt. Solaro, I have offended you, I have driven you from your country, made you houseless and friend- less, torn you from your fondest affections, blasted your dearest hopes. For all this misery which I have brought upon you, I have no atonement, but AURELIA. 211 only a short, barren, unmeaning word. But Heaven disposed that that simple word should cost our pride more than the costliest sacrifice — that it should humble us to the dust ; and yet it is with ineffable joy that I utter that word, and I could repeat it to my dying day, with ever increasing delight. Solaro, I have sinned against Heaven and against you — forgive me; as you hope for mercy and indulgence, Solaro, forgive me ! " In such words did that haughty woman, with a self-denial and contrition commensui*ate to the native pride and wilfulness of her lofty spirit, acknowledge her wrongs, and bow down before the man for whom she was supposed to entertain irreconcilable hatred. It is only from the high-minded and proud that we may look for such transcendent reactions of humiliation and penitence ; because, conscious of their innate dignity and superiority, they appre- hend no degradation from a line of conduct dictated by their sense of right and of wrong, and are not to be deterred from an act of expiation and justice by 212 AURELIA. any misconstruction that vulgar meanness may put on their voluntary self-abasement. From the moment the results of the mortal duel were made known to her, Aurelia's heart was interested less in the fate of her slain suitor than in the fortunes of his fugitive survivor. The thought of Solaro, now wandering in illness and destitution abroad, incessantly haunted her. His image rose giant-like before her mind's eye. A tumult of con- tradictory passions, vague, unacknowledged, unde- finable, swarmed within her startled fancy. Solaro had despised her ! What was the incense of her thousand adorers, by the side of that one man's contempt ? She fretted and smarted under it. She could not submit to it — she must see him ; they must become better acquainted — he must yet live to think better of her. Prompted thus by a noble desire to make ample reparation to him she had injured, no less than by a determination to re-establish herself in his good opinion (for his esteem had become actually neces- sary to her), she longed to meet him, and was AURELIA. 213 scarcely awaie of the real disposition of her mind towards him. She incessantly repeated to herself, that motives of implacable enmity existed between them ; but whatever hostile feelings she might deem herself bound to cherish against a man whom the world designated as her foe, she did not think it less incumbent upon her to act as a just and generous enemy ; she felt she had a sacred duty to perform towards him and would not suffer her illiberal prepossessions to interfere with the dis- charge of that duty ; never perceiving all the while how little that blended feeling of respect and sym- pathy which urged her to seek his presence, was akin to the resentment of genuine hostility. She seemed, above all things, fearful lest she might hate him too much, and never apprehended any danger from that sentiment of an opposite nature, which was so rapidly springing up in her bosom. Oh ! the unfathomable mystery of a woman's heart ! Aurelia's eyelids continued dry whilst she spoke ; for her habitual sternness of temper did not, even 214 AURELIA. in that emergency, allow her to betray her com- punction by the usual symptons of feminine weak- ness ; but her flushed complexion and faltering- voice bore ample testimony to the overpowering passions working within her breast; and as she uttered her last words, she threw herself on the ground, in a paroxysm of ungovernable emotion. It would be difficult to conceive Solaro's feelings during this extraordinary exhibition. By an almost mechanical impulse he had stepped forward to raise the frantic girl from that degrading position. But resisting all his etForts, all his entreaties, she con- tinued to writhe wretchedly on the dust. ^' Bid me not rise unforgiven. Cast me not from you, but hear me out. It is not merely a verbal assurance, but a substantial proof, of your pardon, that can reconcile me to myself. Show the world that you harbour no ill will. Let every one see how completely you can master your feelings. " Solaro, you are still suffering. You live here alone ; surrounded by strangers, waited on by hire- AURELIA. 215 lings ; you need the sympathy of friendship — the soothing cares of affection. Suffer me to be near you. Behold your handmaid ! Were my whole life to be spent in expiation of my unpardonable folly, it could hardly be sufficient to indemnify you for your irreparable losses. Be generous, Solaro ! for, unless you allow your heart to plead my cause, every word I utter, every offer I make, will sound like a new outrage in your ears. " Solaro, you are unfortunate ! Your father's commercial disasters have conspired to increase the hardship of your forlorn situation. You are poor — utterly destitute. Oh ! I might thank Heaven that it has brought this load of adversity upon you ! My father is at hand, Solaro — the owner of immeasurable wealth — and my most trifling wish, my wildest whim, is a law for the indulgent old man. Suffer me to lead you to him — to present you as another son — to ask him to bestow upon you part of that fatherly affection which was so undiscerningly lavished on his daughter." Solaro was bewildered. It would be impossible 216 AURELIA. to convey to our reader's mind the few incoherent phrases by which he attempted to reply. Aurelia was at his feet ! The peerless beauty who had been the object of his long timid worship — whose slumbers he hardly dared to disturb with his midnight serenades — Aurelia laid herself and her fortune at his feet ! The repentant girl only rose to be received in his arms. After a few moments of happy converse, the two bitterest enemies — now warmest friends — issued from the arbour, walking arm-in-arm, and proceeded to the inn-parlour, there to ask for the banker's blessings. On the morrow, Solaro set forth with father and daughter in the same postchaise, towards Paris. A fortnight later, the betrothed to the Austrian prince was led to the altar by Iier jjroscribed countryman. A few miles below Locarno, not far from the spot where the Maggia — a wild Alpine stream — pours its roaring billows into the placid bosom of the Lag^o Mag-i^iore, cased like a sreni in a dense AURELIA. 217 bower of deep-green cypresses, there lies a neat small villa, small and neat as an English love- cottage. Behind, in front, all round, frown the rugged cliffs, the soaring peaks of the Alps. Below, slumber the heaving waves, and smile the verdant shores of the sweetest of lakes. Those hills, and those banks, and those waters are still Italy; and it was providentially disposed that to the Italian wanderer, at war with the rulers of his country, this inviolate ground should remain, whence he might inhale still the balmy air, and * bathe in the sunbeams of his fatherland. Here, underneath the dense cypress-grove, the banker Malatesta built a home for his daughter and her exiled bridegroom ; here, in happy retire- ment, flowed their wedded life; and here, sur- rounded by a little host of mountain-bred children, the happy pair continue in uninterrupted content- ment. And many are the hapless fugitives, who, driven from their country by some of those periodical convulsions which have made Italy the Niobe of VOL. I. L 218 AURELIA. modern nations, have moored their tempest-tossed bark in this secure haven, and here lingered and clung to the hospitable dwelling, ere they tore themselves from this last hold on Italian ground, and were launched into the shoreless ocean of exile. EVIDENCE WOMAN'S LOVE. Parve puer, cui non risere parentes." The whole household was in a fidget. The fond old mother had, for weeks, busied herself about the widow's apartment. The good old Judge stood on the threshold, his long grey locks streaming in the wind, gazing wistfully on the bare bleak wilder- ness, down the Halifax road. The friends of the house dropped in, one by one, eager for news. Phimp Sally sat alone in a corner, affecting to pout and sulk at all the fuss about her. 220 woman's love. Night came, at length, and with it a tinkling of sleigh-bells, a panting and snorting of horses, a scuffling of feet, a thumping of lumbering trunks on the wooden floor of the hall. Presently a bundle of sables, of shawls, and cloaks darkened the door of the parlour, it bustled up to the old lady ; it folded her in its manifold wrappings ; it hurried her along with it, past the inner door, up the crazy staircase, into the ladies' chambers. We heard a faint, stifled sobbing. The old Judge sank in his arm-chair overpowered. There was a gush of tears from Plump Sally's eyes. One by one we got up; we squeezed the old gentleman's hand, and took our leave in silence. In this manner did the widow Sturgis come back to her father's home. Five years before, Lucy Elkins had been the belle of Halifax belles — the standing toast of every mess in the garrison. Five years before, on this very floor, she had knelt for her parents' blessing, as she prepared to turn her back on her Arcadian liome, to follow her husband to England. Her husband. Captain Sturgis, the handsomest, the woman's love. 221 wealthiest, the most gentlemanly officer in the Rifles. After three years of wedded bliss, the Captain had been shot through the heart in a duel; and his relict, with the main bulk of his fortune, and an only son, now on his eighteenth month, once more sought the refuge of her father's dwelling. Expectation was on the tip-toe in our little gos- siping village. Lucy Elkins had left admirers, and rivals, too, on her departure ; many an aching, many a sore heart among the friends of her girl- hood. A vast deal of curiosity, nay, of downright jealousy and malignity was blended with the interest awakened by the distressing tale of her tragedy. " And how would she play off her sorrows, the veteran flirt, and how would she become her weeds? — would she not astonish the natives with all the airs of the old country? — would she not And the old cottage all too narrow, and the old go-chaise all too mean for the like of her ? — Ah, well. Plump Sally Elkins, her sister, might indeed thank her stars that Tom Menard had made up his 222 woman's love. mind in good time — or father's home would soon prove much too hot for her comfort. — Poor Sally never throve under her termagant sister — once Sally packed off, the darling widow will find no one to lord it over, besides the doting old father, and the silly old mother. Will she not be a pet, now the Captain's dollars come back with her ? — and will there be lack of lean brothers and dry-as- dust cousins to lick the dust off her slippers ? — that poor out-at-elbows Marmaduke Elkins, who has just christened his fourteenth ! — that greedy sheriff, who is as poor as any church-rat ! ^^ And, mercy ! what a flutter and racket among her spoony old beaux! — that poor, twice-jilted Squire Lowman ! — that soft, snuffy Parson Stephens ! Alas and alas ! — what a falling off is here ! — to what base uses must we all return ! — fancy Widow Sturgis, the lady of spruce Captain Sturgis, flinging her cap at the despised provincials ! — a cap, too, lined with the dead man's bank-notes! " What ! not a chance, not another poor chance on the 'better side of the waters ! — she gave it a fair trial , woman's love. 223 though, it must be said! — for two eternalyears did she promenade her sorrows through every pump-room in Gloucestershire. But no, it would not do !— not a paltry German Baron, not a meagre Irish squireen, not a dog, to be had for love or money. No, no, the game is up in old England — M^ell, well, after all, there's no place like home ! " These charitable comments on the widow's return, increased, if possible, my anxiety to see her. At all times, and under all circumstances, a chival- rous champion of widows, I was disposed to take up the cudgels for one I heard so unmercifully abused. I knew too much of society in the Old World to give credit to the idle surmises about the unsuccessfulness of her matrimonial schemes at Cheltenham. I was well aware in what estimation buxom widows and fat jointures are held throughout Europe, and I honoured the piety which prompted this forsaken woman to repair for shelter and comfort to her parent's arms — notwithstanding the dullness and dreariness of provincial life. I felt great respect for the widow, and longed for her acquaintance. 224 woman's love. The rhapsodies I had heard on the subject of her transcendant beauty, could not, of course, fail to lead to a signal disappointment, but I could hardly be prepared for the sight that awaited me. Hardly jet on her twenty-fifth year, Lucy Sturgis had not one trace left of her youthful bloom. She had exquisitely regular features, a lofty brow, a deep- set, commanding lady-like mien: but the blood had utterly, hopelessly fled from her lips and cheeks. There was, in that stately countenance, a wanness and rigidness that chilled the beholders. And the strict mourning to which she still con- demned herself, set off in all its ghastliness the pale green of her earthly complexion. My attention was, however, soon diverted from the mother to the infant now slumbering in her arms. Lewis Sturgis was born six months after his father's tragical end : he was now, as I think I have stated, eighteen months old. He looked liealthy and stout, remarkably well-grown for his age. His pouting mouth and slightly contracted brow, gave the sleeping babe an expression of woman's love. 225 sternness and stubbornness, which involuntarily called up a smile to my lips. The mother's eye followed the direction of mine. She stooped her face on the child's forehead, and awakened him by her kisses. Little Lewis stared at the stranger with all the might of his large dark eyes. The cloud of displeasure seemed together deeper and deeper on his face. Presently, he threw his arms round his mother's neck, and buried his head in her bosom. '^ The picture of his father !" said the widow ; not a tear, not a sigh, real or affected, followed her remark. Her grief was now past all utterance, past all outward seeming ; she was too proud to sham. She referred to the past without any visible emotion. Her friends found her natural, affable, serene. She welcomed her oldest acquaint- ance, her former adorers, with an easy, unassumed matronly dignity. The old flirt had abdicated her pretensions, and held out the olive-branch. Her behaviour disarmed envy and malice, while it discountenanced hope. Lucy Sturgis was now a confirmed widow. L 5 226 WOMAN S LOVE. As a daily visitor at the Judge's, even before the widow's arrival, I soon found myself in terms of intimacy with her, and became familiar with her child. But my ambition aimed at something be- sides cool, passive endurance ; I set about, in right good earnest, paying my court to little Lewis. I borrowed the Judge's repeater, and held it ticking, wheezing, and tinklintr, in the boy's ears. I looked at him with my quizzing glass, I smirked, grinned, made all sorts of faces and grimaces at him. I took him in my arms, held him before a large mirror, brought him to the window, set a playful dog whining and gamboling before him. The child's eyes were upon me — fixed in mute wonderment upon me. They followed all my movements, gazed at every object submitted to his atten- tion ; they beamed with intelligence, they glowed with the earnest curiosity peculiar to that tender age. He was evidently interested, but not amused, with my various pranks and manifold exhibi- tions. " Your little boy has no partiality for me, that's woman's love. 227 clear," I observed to the widow, as I laid tlie child on her lap. Lucy looked down on her babe, with a deep- drawn sigh. *' He is rather shy of strangers," said she, affecting to smile ; and as if with a view to promote its hilarity, she raised the child on her knee, and began tossing him gently up and down, giving him what is called in nursery language, a ride. Little Lewis now turned upon her. His gaze was alive with that intense, mysterious fondness, that instinctive adhesiveness, that look of proud security, with which the helpless suckling cHngs to* its nurse ; but, alas ! we looked in vain for that ineffable, that seraphic smile, with which the mere animal enjoyment of existence lights up the features of innocence ; that paradisiacal expression with which the infant soul, fresh from the land of spirits, looks on the bright dawn of life ; that lusty, crowing, and chirruping, that fitful springing, and quivering, that swimming of the arms and kicking of the legs ; that mercurial buoyancy and elasticity, by which 228 woman's love. the human creature, in that early stage of life, evinces its delight in the exercise of its physical powers. " The boy is unwell !" said the Judge's lady, and at the mere intimation, the alarmed Lucy clasped the infant tighter in her arms, with all the energy of maternal anxiety ; while the violence of emotion called a flush of hectic colour on her bloodless cheeks. But no, the child was not ill. There was not n cry, not a twitch of pain in his mute sullenness. His leaden countenance seemed as dead to all utterance of suffering as it was to the expression of pleasure. It was not for an eighteen-months' infant to give so perfect an exhibition of unconquerable stoicism. There was no disease preying on him, or he would have given an unmistakeable intima- tion of it. '* The boy is a little idiot I" quoth the Judge, with a bluntness and bitterness which elicited a tear from the fond mother's eyes. And yet, no ; the boy was no idiot. His mother woman's love. '229 had no difficulty in training him to lisp out the names of persons and things. He read every mark of approbation or displeasure in her counte- nance with marvellous quickness of apprehension. There was no symptom of dullness or stolidity in his deep, wakeful eyes. Nay, there was something painfully mature and precocious : an appalling sedateness and apathy; but withal a brightness, a freshness, an earnestness which seemed anxious to lay hold of every new object within reach ; to examine, to digest, to add it to the store of his knowledge, with all the miraculous activity of that teeming age of intuitive apprenticeship. " The boy lacks the company of fitting play- mates," was Plump Sally^s suggestion ; and, forth- with, the house swarmed with a whole contempo- rary generation of cousins. Little Lucy and little Georgiana Elkins, two of the youngest scions of the prolific stock of Marmaduke j little Lou-lou, and little Bo-bo, two little mice out of the rat-hole of the sheriff, with sundry other red-haired, flax- haired, and sandy-haired whelps and kittens from 230 woman's love. the litters of accommodating neighbours, took the liospitable parlour by storm, threatening to tear the melancholy stranger to pieces. Plump Sally was soon amongst them, the noisiest, the happiest romp of them all. The old Judge was enraptured with all the roaring and bellowing, the squealing and squeaking about him. The Judge's wife held out buns and cakes to set the little rabble a scrambling and skirmishing ; but, alone, in the midst of this riotous scene, little Lewis Sturgis nestled himself in his mother's bosom, stoutly rejecting the ad- vances, and spurning the caresses of the most pert and affectionate of that little tempestuous fiy. The stubbornness of the little one now caused vexation to the mother. She pushed him from her, almost with a movement of impatience. " What ails thee ?" she exclaimed ; " you silly thhig, why cannot you be merry, like the rest?" " You trusted your child with a gloomy nurse," I said to the widow. " My child never had any nurse but his mother,'' was the answer. woman's love. 231 These words explained the mystery. The child had been born in sorrow — amidst the terrific trances of a sndden, irreparable disaster. The instinctive tenderness of a mother had empowered tlie lonely widow to bear up against the over- whelming stroke ; she had wrestled with her anguish during six months of laborious confine- ment. Her grief for the departed husband was absorbed in her solicitude for his posthumous son. She lived to give her husband an heir. And the son was born — sound, healthy, and vigorous, as if from the happiest of mothers. The scourge that had for ever blighted her beauty, had, at least, spared the burden in her bosom. God be praised ! Her offspring now bade her live ! Alas ! from morning to evening, and again from evening to morning, she watched over that idolized infant ! Her pale, marble face hovered over that unconscious creature, with a silent despair, which all the joys of maternity had no power to mitigate. Jn the all-engrossing selfishness of her sorrow, she had not one smile for her babe. The only pledge 232 woman's love. of her lamented consort, she cherished it with all the anxious, jealous, un discerning instinct of an irrational being. She hung over him without respite. She — the picture of consternation — the mourner that could not, would not be consoled, deemed herself a fit companion — the only com- panion — for a new-fledged soul, on its first start into life. But a child's countenance is the mirror of its nurse. It catches the trick of the features first offered to its view. An imitative instinct is the first symptom of its dawning intelligence. That sweet, unspeakable expression of gladness, which is so irresistible in childhood, is but the reflection of the look of maternal complacency. The babe learns, from her smile, to recognise its parent. Smiling forms a part of the infant's earliest school- ing. Laughter is not a native but an acquisitive emotion with us, whatever weeping may be. Woe to the child no mother smiles upon ! Woe to poor Lewis, more than to any motherless infant ! for the basest of mercenary nurses will have a look woman's love. 233 of kindness, however artificial, wherewith to gladden her innocent charge ; but poor Lewis Sturgis was reared in an unnatural school. His desolate mother consecrated all her cares, all her life to her only-born — and she had not a smile to vouch- safe him ! Her love had power to dry the tears in her eyes, to stifle the sobs in her bosom. By a prodigy of self-command, she stood over him without any outward sign of distress. But that speechless, smileless, unbending face haunted the boy in the first vague dreams of existence ; it scared his little soul from a life, the threshold of which was guarded by such dreary phantoms of terror. The fluttering spirit, used to the sunny atmosphere of Paradise, recoiled before that stern image, that shadowed forth, as it were, the darkness of this vale of tears. The very vigour and sound- ness of a lusty organization, fiercely contrasted with the gloom in which the infant was cradled, and gave the mood it then contracted all the strength of an indelible temper; sullen sadness became the child's second nature, and it was more 234 woman's love. than questionable whether the reaction of a whole after-life could efface the deep characters of that first fatal impression. Meanwhile, as every glance at that disconsolate infant-face, revealed a new page of the dolorous secret, I felt my veneration increase for the woman, whose love and truth to her husband were so miraculously borne out by the dumb testimony of her child. There are moments of sceptic misan- thi'opy, in which we disbelieve the genuineness of the holiest affections. Sorrow decks itself in its mourning trappings, it seeks the loneliness of its dark chamber ; it shrinks from the profane gaze of the crowd. Who shall lift the veil that hides its paroxysms ? Who shall question its poignancy ; probe its depth and soundness ; reveal and expose its hypocrisy ? " There is, in a woman's heart, no love ! none at least free from alloy — none proof against absence and time ! The widow's tears are Lethean waters ; her sighs, the smoke of an expiring fire ! There is coquetry and trickery in her mourning attire. She woman's love. 235 is acting and attitudinizing at the very funeral ceremony ! '* Such is the language of the world. But lo ! the truth will issue from the stillness of the chamber of death, it will speak through the rigid look of that guileless infant. The intenseness of the wife's anguish, the vastness and deepness, the strength of woman's love will leave profound, unmistakeable marks, eternally graven in those adamantine fea- tures. Count the hours of unremittent misery, un- assuaged by words or tears ; and all the more indomitable, because unshared, unspoken ! Sum up all the horrors of helpless solitude, of drooping despondency, of chilling desolation — the weariness of unrest — the loathing of life! — the throbbings of a heart startled from the ease and confi- dence of habitual happiness; roused, distracted, torn up from the roots by the announcement of sudden calamity ; and then hushed up, crushed, bidden to bear up, to devour itself in silence ; to lie down in its agony, lest its death-throes should dis- turb the repose of the embryo being teeming in her 236 woman's love. bosom ! — the pale resignation, the holy courage and Constance of the mother; hiding her sleepless care, hugging it to her heart, as it preyed on her very vitals, lest an ill-omened tear should tell her new- born infant, in what a world of trouble it was opening its eyes ! and lingering on the cradle with a hideous composure which she flattered herself conveyed an expression of cheerful serenity; but had, instead, all the calmness and coldness of deadly despair ! All this you can read in the saturnine gravity of that unchildish look. Sorrow is among the hereditary diseases immediately transmitted by a parent to her offspring ! Though I was, perhaps, the first to refer little Lewis's melancholy to its true original source, it was not long before; friends and neighbours unconsciously entered into my views. The tongue of malevolent gossips was silenced for ever. A feeling of the deepest regard welcomed the widow wherever she appeared. None of her discomfited admirers insulted her with unwelcome homage. Had any man been absurd enough to venture upon advances woman's love. 237 « of a tender nature, his answer was written on the brow of the poor boy, whom "melancholy had marked for her own" — " Wait till this darlintr gives you a smile of consent," the widow could say, " and you may reckon on mine ! " SAN NICOLO DE BARI; A LEGEND OF SOUTHERN ITALY. Not far from the heel of that worn-out boot, Which Austria strains with her clumsy foot ; Enshrined, like a slice of fairy land. In a grove of palms, on a level strand, Which vines and corn-fields vary ; But cursed with malaria from swamps and bogs, And like the whole country gone to the dogs — There lies the town of Bari. SAN NICOLO DE BARI. 239 Yet matters wore, on that desolate shore, A liveher aspect m days of yore, Before the ocean stranded the bay, Before thei-e was the devil to pay, With Lombards, Greeks, and Saracens. For fields were then to barrenness doomed, That never after smiled or bloomed, Never knew plough or harrow since. Then Bari throve with the Levant trade. And handsome fortunes were marred or made ; And the wharfs were swarming with Turks and Greeks, From gallant tartanas and trim caiques, Alighting to chatter and chaffer ; And the glittering sails did widely sweep, Along th' expanse of the azure deep, Like pearls in liquid sapphire. And the town was alive as a busy hive. And the anvil rang with a merry clang. And sturdy knocks were heard from the docks, With many a crash, and clash, and splash, 240 SAN NICOLO DE BARI. From the labouring craft and shipping. Whilst full as loud was the bustling crowd Of sparks and fops parading the shops, And grisettes lightly tripping. But when the twilight waned in the West, And the last peal tolled the weary to rest, Then broke through the soothing stillness of night, In lingering strains of thrilling delight. The hidden serenading. And from under the porch or from casement above. There (same the faltering whisper of love. Of the tender-hearted maiden. Thus the stolen pleasures of harmless intrigue, Made up for days of care and fatigue ; And the burgher forgot his daily task, In the noisy revels of rout and mask. With jigs and tarantellas. And strolling players for half the year. Would walk the stage with the gibe and jeer Of Zanys and Pulcinellas. SAN NICOLO DE BARI. '241 And carnival stretched from Christmas to Lent, When as many Madonnas as Popes could invent, With moveable and immoveable feasts, And fasts intended to fatten the priests, Enlivened the penance-season. Thus half their life was frolic and laugh, And laugh and frolic the other half. And mummeries at war with reason. Thus, heedless and listless, from day to day. Their Southern life they dreamed away ; Their land, their climate so much to their taste, That none of the sinners seemed in haste To change it all for Paradise. — But lo ! — midst joy a voice of wail ! Lo ! — sudden in clouds, in thunder, and hail. The sun set of their merry days ! " My child ! my child !" cries frantic and wild One mother — a hundred chime in, " My child !" The children vanish — not carried off By scarlet fever or hooping cough — VOL. I. M 242 SAN NICOLO DE BARI. By croop, by mumps, or measles ; And not some sickly starvelings, I ween, But the plumpest, the chubbiest that ever were seen Smiling on painters' easels. For the dreaded, unknown, invisible foes With fiendish discernment their victims chose. And they pounced on the darling sons and heirs, The only pledges of happy pairs, Where the dart would prove more deathful. And vain was the bolt and the patent latch. And vain the untiring, sleepless watch Of long-tried nurse and faithful. One by one and two by two The babies went, where, nobody knew ; The startled mothers, at dead of night. Would run to their cradles with boding fright, And find them empty and chilly ; And with hair dishevelled, and colourless cheeks, They'd rouse the house with rending shrieks — " My Ned ! my Tom ! my Billy ! " SAN NICOLO DE BARI. 243 But grief with men sought a different vent, Than powerless screams or vain lament ; One by one and two by two The bereaved fathers together drew; And one word was murmured — " Vengeance ! " And burgesses, traders, and artizans Snatched up their rapiers and partizans. And other murderous engines. Three miles from town, on a barren down. Some dusky gents had pitched their tents — A lazy set every where to be met. Under different name, pursuing the same Low kind of tinkering labours. From time immemorial tales were told Of Christian children stolen and sold By these uneasy neighbours. The men of Bari, their mouth all froth. Against these wretches first turned their wrath ; On mischief bent, to the camp they went. And all the down with the wreck was strown 244 SAN NICOLO DE BARI. Of the defenceless Gipsy. But, however they tore, however they swore, Not a frock could they, not a pinafore, Not a baby's cap or bib see. Next came the turn of the trembling Jews, Who by thousands in Bari dealt in old shoes ; For with them, 'twas said, ever since the flood, To imbrue their hands with innocent blood Was an old religious habit. They stormed the Jewry, they burned, they killed. And on the square the Rabbi they grilled, As though he'd been a rabbit. But scarce achieved was that deed of ill, The accursed embers were smouldering still — Still crowded those fiends round their awful mess — When hark ! the wonted sound of distress Their countenances suddenly blanches ! And down every street, their caps all awry, And like very bedlams in gesture and cry, Down come the housewives and wenches. SAN NICOLO DE BARI. 245 " The babes ! the babes ! " shouts the desolate band, " There's the Devil astir ! — there's a curse on the land ; The Lady Ginevra's dear little twins — The Lord have mercy upon our sins — They're gone along with the others ! Most wretched of widows ; how cruel her fate ! 'Tis but five months since she buried her mate — She is now most wretched of mothers !" And as these words were spoken, behold ! Through the thronging ranks from her castle-hold, Held back in vain by damsel and page, In alternate fits of anguish and rage, The pallid lady staggered : Alone, erect, and lofty she stood. In the midst of that gaping multitude, A lovely being, though haggard ! " Ye men of Bari !" she cried, " you know Your way to yon mansion in need or woe ; 'Tis not five months — for his countiy and God — Its youthful lord hath spilt his heart's blood, M 3 246 SAN NICOLO DE BART. Pierced by a Moorish javelin. Of him — of every joy bereft, His helpless widow lone was left, A weary world to travel in ! " Yet not quite alone, not wholly forlorn — The babies were left; — my own twilight and MORN ! With their cheeks so smooth and hair so crisp, With their guileless smile and pretty lisp — And lively manners and taking ! Alas ! that their screams should not break my rest ! — Now flown are the birds and cold is the nest — And their mother's heart is breaking. " Ye men of Bari, by night or day, To yonder mansion you know your way ; Full oft you have seen on the castle gate. With their winning smile and lisping prate, My rosy babes and curly : With their tiny hands, you need not be told, Full oft have they flung their father's gold, Midst your scramble and hurly-burly. SAN NICOLO DE BARI. 247 " And now gone ! both gone ! for ever gone ! And under your noses the deed is done ! And no more than distaffs and ladies' fans Are all your rapiers and partizans, And other murderous weapons ! To arms ! to arms ! take castle and lands, So you bring the villains alive in my hands, My sequins will flow like half-pence ! " And whilst thus storming, the Countess stood In the midst of the wildered multitude — Hark ! tumult and plaudit ! — " The Saint, ahoy ! " — What mean the unseemly sounds of joy, Down from the marine suburb ? Was there ever such cheering, such an uproar — Such clapping, and stamping, and tramping before ? Was there ever so awful a hubbub ? " The Saint ! the Saint ! the miraculous Saint ! The hermit from Egypt ! — 'Tis him ! — it 'aint ! — Bring forward the cripple — the dying — the dead — Their cure is sure — done sooner than said — 248 SAN NICOLO DE BARI. Ho, boys! — Here comes St. Nicholas! Here comes St. Nick, in more than one trick Long wonted to thwart and baffle old Nick — The strife 'tween them will tickle us I " And as they bawl, and as they shout, Behold ! broken down with palsy and gout, All tumbling and tottering on his crutch, The Saint creeps forward — who ever saw such A mummy — so shrivelled and shrunken : His sandals were wood, hair-cloth his chemise — His silver beard it reached his knees — His cheeks were hollow and sunken. They knelt all round as he walked among them, Of his loose garment they kissed the hem : They kissed the ground where his feet had trod ; Before the grizzly demi-god They fell down and worshipped in silence. And he raised his hand, and muttered his prayer, And cut such a monstrous cross in the air. It could reach many a mile hence. SAN NICOLO DE BARI. 249 From Egypt and Syria, o'er mountains and seas, The man of God had wandered to Greece ; The wonders wrought by his palsy-struck hand Astonished the natives of many a land, They called him Thaumaturgic ! For mental, no less than bodily ills His blessings were better than Morrison's pills, Or Brodie's skill chirurgic. Bestrayed, benighted, tempest-tossed, And all but wrecked upon the coast, His bark had moored on Bari's pier Just as, distraught with rage and fear, The town was waxing crazy. He had himself lowered upon the strand — He came hobbling, shambling, stumbling, on land — Lame, poor old fellow — not lazy ! And here at last, with a skip and a hop. In the midst of the square he came to a stop. The crowd gave way to the left and right. And straight before him — heart-rending sight ! — 250 SAN NICOLO DE BARI. There stood the Lady Ginevra ! " He could not," he said, " fetch back her twins ; But from wrath and revenge and all deadly sins He came at least to deliver her. " What good could come of striving with Heav'n ? God had taken what God had giv'n : To one alone all vengeance belongs — Let her offer up her sorrows, her wrongs — From Him comes retribution!'' — He said : and the Countess fell on the dust, And drowned in tears her murderous lust, And sued for absolution. And the Saint blessed her in the name of the Pope, And dried her eyes, and bade her hope : And sent her contrite and half consoled Back to her desolate castle-hold — And he went alone to the tavern. 'Twas the best, at the time, the town could boast. Yet a grim lurking-place, with a squinting host. It looked like a robbers' cavern. SAN NICOLO DE BARF. 251 Its swinging sign was a Sun in the East, With " Good Entertainment for Man and Beast." On its rabbit stewed and fricasseed lamb The good town's folk came daily to cram — The kitchen was reckoned dainty. So with all his scowl and all his squint, The landlord found in his house a mint — The custom was so plenty ! The Saint put on a rakish look, And lustily hailed the surly cook : " Come, friend ! " he cried, " your nicest ragout ! The captain and mate and all the crew I treat this night to dinner." The landlord cast him a glance askew, He looked as he meant to look him through — He was an ugly sinner ! " You're rated," continued the Saint, " quite a Ude For fricasseed lamb and rabbits stewed ; I'm myself a gourmand, though not very slick. And they tell me folk their fingers lick. 252 SAN NICOLO DE BARI. Your dishes are so dainty ! So rub me your largest casserole, Kill me two lambs and stew them whole, We dine here, seven and twenty." " But I see," quoth the Saint, with a waggish smirk, " You take me for worse than Pagan or Turk ; You fasten your eyes on my gabardine. On my tattered frock and hungry mien — You take me, friend, for a beggar — Here are two byzants, and I've a lump ; And you'll find in the end my pocket is plump, E'en though my face is meagre." The Host took the gold with a knowing wink And on his counter he made it chink ; He smoothed his wrinkles, and grinned, and said : " Your lambs, my lord, are killed and flayed; They are plumper than your pocket. And you shall drink from my best tap ; Such liquor as gives a good night-cap ; For Abbots and Bishops I lock it." SAN NICOLO DE BARI. 253 With this they parted. — At evening fall, The twenty-six guests came one and all : With fresh vine-leaves the board was spread, With dishes of cakes and snow-white bread, With nectarines and honey. But all on lamb had come to cram ; Untasted lay fruit, sausage, and ham, Untasted the maccaroni. All swimming in sauce, in its earthern pot, The lamb at last came steaming hot — Beneath its weight the landlord puffed ; And each of the guests the fragrance snuffed. With appetites keen as razors, — The parlour was on the lower floor — And in at the windows, in at the door. There peeped a throng of gazers. The Saint came last and took his post. He cast a stealthy glance at the Host ; He looked at the boobies outside, with a nod, As he found it pleasant rather than odd VOL. I N 254 SAN NICOLO DE BARI. To dine with such publicity. He took up the ladle, and meekly rose, And up to the ceiling lifting his nose, He recited his benedicite : '* My friends," he said, " I see that you Are all in a hurry to taste the ragout : It has a good look — a capital smell — 'Tis tender and juicy — it cannot well But have the nicest relish. But beware of the sauce, beware of the meat ! 'Tis Christian blood and flesh you eat! The Mess, my friends, is HELLISH !" And as he said, he shuddered and shook. With a sickening heart and a loathing look ; And to tremble with horror his hand was seen, As he signed a cross on that awful tureen. And muttered a Pater and Ave : " By the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Undone be the deed of this rascally Host : Arise the dead from their gravy ! " SAN NICOLO DE BARI. 255 Oh ! then, indeed, it was hideous to see The stir of that cannibal fricassee, The pangs and throes of that teeming pot, The seething, bubbling and hissing hot, Of that working devil's kitchen. It screeched and fizzed like witches' oil. When frogs and toads in their charm they boil. And henbane and hemlock they pitch in. The dark-brown sauce turned crimson, at last. And it cooled, and curdled, and clotted fast ; Whilst lump by lump, through thin and thick, The meat together began to stick, And to cluster in forms an(i features. Till the smoking- ceased and up with a bound. The twin-boys popped, both safe and sound, And they shouted " Ma ! " — the creatures ! And in at the windows, in at the door, The crowd did rush with a dismal uproar ; With panting impatience foremost and first, On her mince-meat babes the Countess burst, 256 SAN NICOLO DE BARI. Blind in her joy and frantic. And need we say further, and need we relate The Saint's ovation, the landlord's fate ? — 'Twere wearisome and pedantic. The Lady Ginevra got back her pair, The others their losses strove to repair ; For every brat that had been eat. There was at least thrice a christening fete — A blessing that never ended ; For ever after that wondrous increase, To Ladies that wish their Lord to please, The air is recommended. Ye travellers all, who seek relief, Against the dull sameness of honest roast beef, And sit with -the airs of connoisseurs, Admiring the skill of foreign traiteurs — The Freres, Vefour and Veri — Before you commend — before you fall to, Remember St. Nick and the babies-stew- Remember the Host of Bari. END OF VOL. I. BOUND BY ^