6

MARCOLINI.

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It was midnight; the great clock had struck, and was still echoing through every porch and gallery in the quarter of ST. MARK, when a young Citizen, wrapped in his cloak, was hastening home under it. from an interview with his Mistress. His step was light, for his heart was so. Her parents had just consented to their marriage; and the very day was named. Lovely GIULIETTA!' he cried, ' And shall I then call thee mine at last? Who was ever so blest as thy MARCOLINI?' But as he spoke, he stopped; for something glittered on the pavement before him. It was a scabbard of rich workmanship; and the discovery, what was it but an earnest of good fortune? Rest thou there!' he cried, thrusting it gaily into his belt. If another claims thee not, thou hast changed masters!' and on he went as before, humming the burden of a song which he and his GIULIETTA had been singing together. But how

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little do we know what the next minute will bring forth! He turned by the Church of ST. GEMINIANO, and in three steps he met the Watch. A murder had just been committed. The Senator RENALDI had been found dead at his door, the dagger left in his heart; and the unfortunate MARCOLINI was dragged away for examination. The place, the time, every thing served to excite, to justify suspicion; and no sooner had he entered the guardhouse than a damning witness appeared against him. The Bravo in his flight had thrown away his scabbard; and, smeared with blood, with blood not yet dry, it was now in the belt of MARCOLINI. Its patrician ornaments struck every eye; and, when the fatal dagger was produced and compared with it, not a doubt of his guilt remained. Still there is in the innocent an energy and a composure, an energy when they speak and a composure when they are silent, to which none can be altogether insensible; and the Judge delayed for some time to pronounce the sentence, though he was a near relation of the dead. At length, however, it came; and MARCOLINI lost his life, GIULIETTA her reason.

Not many years afterwards the truth revealed itself, the real criminal in his last moments confessing the crime: and hence the custom in VENICE, a custom that long prevailed, for a cryer to cry out

in the Court before a sentence was passed, 'Ricordatevi del povero MARCOLINI!**

Great indeed was the lamentation throughout the City; and the Judge, dying, directed that thenceforth and for ever a Mass should be sung every night in a chapel of the Ducal Church for his own soul and the soul of MARCOLINI and the souls of all who had suffered by an unjust judgment. Some land on the BRENTA was left by him for the purpose : and still is the Mass sung in the chapel; still every night, when the great square is illuminating and the casinos are filling fast with the gay and the dissipated, a bell is rung as for a service, and a ray of light seen to issue from a small gothic window that looks towards the place of execution, the place where on a scaffold MARCOLINI breathed his last.

* Remember the poor MARCOLINI !

THREE leagues from PADUA stands, and long has stood
(The Paduan student knows it, honours it)
A lonely tomb beside a mountain-church;
And I arrived there as the sun declined

Low in the west. The gentle airs, that breathe
Fragrance at eve, were rising, and the birds
Singing their farewell-song-the very song
They sung the night that tomb received a tenant;
When, as alive, clothed in his Canon's stole,
And slowly winding down the narrow path,
He came to rest there. Nobles of the land,
Princes and prelates mingled in his train,
Anxious by any act, while yet they could,
To catch a ray of glory by reflection;

And from that hour have kindred spirits flocked
From distant countries, from the north, the south,
To see where he is laid.

Twelve years ago,

When I descended the impetuous RHONE,
Its vineyards of such great and old renown,*
Its castles, each with some romantic tale,
Vanishing fast-the pilot at the stern,

He who had steered so long, standing aloft,
His eyes on the white breakers, and his hands
On what was now his rudder, now his oar,
A huge misshapen plank--the bark itself
Frail and uncouth, launched to return no more,
Such as a shipwrecked man might hope to build,
Urged by the love of home-Twelve years ago,
When like an arrow from the cord we flew,

*The Côte Rotie, the Hermitage, &c.