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Like a river, that gathers, that refines as it runs, like a spring that takes its course through some rich vein of mineral, we improve and imperceptibly nor in the head only, but in the heart. Our prejudices leave us, one by one. Seas and mountains are no longer our boundaries. We learn to love, and esteem, and admire beyond them. Our benevolence extends itself with our knowledge. And must we not return better citizens than we went? For, the more we become acquainted with the institutions of other countries, the more highly must we value our own.

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I threw down my pen in triumph. "The question," said I, "is set to rest forever. And yet "And yet I must still say.278 The WISEST OF MEN seldom went out of the walls of ATHENS; and for that worst of evils, that sickness of the soul, to which we are most liable when most at our ease, is there not, after all, a surer and yet pleasanter remedy, a remedy for which we have only to cross the threshold? A PIEDMONTESE nobleman, into whose company I fell at TURIN, had not long before experienced its efficacy; and his story he told me without

reserve.

"I was weary of life," said he, "and, after a day such as few have known and none would wish to remember, was hurrying along the street to the river, when I felt a sudden check. I turned and beheld a little boy, who had caught the skirt of my cloak in his anxiety to solicit my notice. His look and manner were irresistible. Not less so was the lesson he had learnt. 'There are six of us, and we are dying for want of food.'-'Why should I not,' said I to myself, 'relieve this wretched family? I have the means;

and it will not delay me many minutes. But what if it does ?' The scene of misery he conducted me to I cannot describe. I threw them my purse; and their burst of gratitude overcame me. It filled my eyes. . it went as a cordial to my heart. I will call again to-morrow,' I cried. 'Fool that I was, to think of leaving a world, where such pleasure was to be had, and so cheaply !'”

THE FOUNTAIN.

It was a well

Of whitest marble, white as from the quarry;
And richly wrought with many a high relief,
Greek sculpture in some earlier day perhaps
A tomb, and honored with a hero's ashes.
The water from the rock filled and o'erflowed;
Then dashed away, playing the prodigal,

And soon was lost — stealing unseen, unheard,
Through the long grass, and round the twisted roots
Of aged trees; discovering where it ran
By the fresh verdure. Overcome with heat,
I threw me down; admiring, as I lay,
That shady nook, a singing place for birds,
That grove so intricate, so full of flowers,
More than enough to please a child a-Maying.
The sun had set, a distant convent-bell
Ringing the Angelus; and now approached
The hour for stir and village-gossip there,
The hour REBEKAH came, when from the well
She drew with such alacrity to serve
The stranger and his camels. Soon I heard

Footsteps; and, lo! descending by a path
Trodden for ages, many a nymph appeared,
Appeared and vanished, bearing on her head
Her earthen pitcher. It called up
the day
ULYSSES landed there; and long I gazed,
Like one awaking in a distant time.279

At length there came the loveliest of them all, Her little brother dancing down before her; And ever as he spoke, which he did ever, Turning and looking up in warmth of heart And brotherly affection. Stopping there, She joined her rosy hands, and, filling them With the pure element, gave him to drink; And, while he quenched his thirst, standing on tiptoė, Looked down upon him with a sister's smile, Nor stirred till he had done, fixed as a statue.

Then hadst thou seen them as they stood, CANOVA, Thou hadst endowed them with immortal youth; And they had evermore lived undivided, Winning all hearts — of all thy works the fairest.

BANDITTI.

"T IS a wild life, fearful and full of change,
The mountain-robber's. On the watch he lies,
Levelling his carbine at the passenger;

And, when his work is done, he dares not sleep.
Time was, the trade was nobler, if not honest;
When they that robbed were men of better faith 280
Than kings or pontiffs; when, such reverence
The poet drew among the woods and wilds,

A voice was heard, that never bade to spare,
Crying aloud, "Hence to the distant hills!
TASSO approaches; he, whose song beguiles.
The day of half its hours; whose sorcery
Dazzles the sense, turning our forest-glades
To lists that blaze with gorgeous armory,
Our mountain-caves to regal palaces.

281

Hence, nor descend till he and his are gone.
Let him fear nothing." When along the shore,
And by the path that, wandering on its way,
Leads through the fatal grove where TULLY fell
(Gray and o'ergrown, an ancient tomb is there),
He came and they withdrew, they were a race
Careless of life in others and themselves,
For they had learnt their lesson in a camp;
But not ungenerous. T is no longer so.
Now crafty, cruel, torturing ere they slay
The unhappy captive, and with bitter jests
Mocking misfortune; vain, fantastical,
Wearing whatever glitters in the spoil;

And most devout, though, when they kneel and pray,
With every bead they could recount a murder;

As by a spell they start up in array,"

282

As by a spell they vanish theirs a band,
Not as elsewhere of outlaws, but of such
As sow and reap, and at the cottage-door
Sit to receive, return the traveller's greeting;
Now in the garb of peace, now silently
Arming and issuing forth, led on by men
Whose names on innocent lips are words of fear,
Whose lives have long been forfeit. Some there are

That, ere they rise to this bad eminence,

Lurk, night and day, the plague-spot visible,

The guilt that says, Beware; and mark we now
Him, where he lies, who couches for his prey
At the bridge-foot in some dark cavity
Scooped by the waters, or some gaping tomb,
Nameless and tenantless, whence the red fox
Slunk as he entered.

There he broods, in spleen Gnawing his beard; his rough and sinewy frame O'erwritten with the story of his life:

On his wan cheek a sabre-cut, well earned
In foreign warfare; on his breast the brand
Indelible, burnt in when to the port

He clanked his chain, among a hundred more
Dragged ignominiously; on every limb
Memorials of his glory and his shame,

Stripes of the lash and honorable scars,

And channels here and there worn to the bone
By galling fetters.

He comes slowly forth,

Unkennelling, and up that savage dell
Anxiously looks; his cruise, an ample gourd
(Duly replenished from the vintner's cask),
Slung from his shoulder; in his breadth of belt
Two pistols and a dagger yet uncleansed,
A parchment scrawled with uncouth characters,
And a small vial, his last remedy,

His cure, when all things fail.

No noise is heard,

Save when the rugged bear and the gaunt wolf
Howl in the upper region, or a fish

Leaps in the gulf beneath. But now he kneels ;
And (like a scout, when listening to the tramp

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