Crossing the rough Benacus.'-May they live
Blameless and happy-rich they cannot be,
Like him who, in the days of Minstrelsy,2
Came in a beggar's weeds to Petrarch's door,
Asking, beseeching for a lay to sing,

And soon in silk (such then the power of song)
Returned to thank him; or like that old man,
Old, not in heart, who by the torrent-side
Descending from the Tyrol, as Night fell,
Knocked at a City-gate near the hill-foot,
The gate that bore so long, sculptured in stone,
An eagle on a ladder, and at once

Found welcome-nightly in the bannered hall
Tuning his harp to tales of Chivalry –
Before the great Mastino, and his guests,3
The three-and-twenty kings, by adverse fate,
By war or treason or domestic strife,

Reft of their kingdoms, friendless, shelterless,
And living on his bounty.

The lake of Catullus; and now called Il lago di Garda. Its waves, in the north, lash the mountains of the Tyrol; and it was there, at the little village of Limone, that Hofer embarked, when in the hands of the enemy and on his way to Mantua, where, in the court-yard of the citadel, he was shot as a traitor. Less fortunate than Tell, yet not less illustrious, he was watched by many a mournful eye as he came down the lake; and his name will live long in the heroic songs of his country.

He lies buried at Innspruck in the church of the Holy Cross; and the statue on his tomb represents him in his habit as he lived and as

he died.

2 Petrarch, Epist. Rer. Sen. 1. v. ep. 3.

3 Mastino de la Scala, the Lord of Verona. Cortusio, the embassador and historian, saw him so surrounded.

This house had been always open to the unfortunate. In the days of Can Grande all were welcome; Poets, Philosophers, Artists, Warriors. Each had his apartment, each a separate table; and at the hour of dinner musicians and jesters went from room to room. Dante, as we learn from himself, found an asylum there.

"Lo primo tuo rifugio, e'l primo ostello
Sarà la cortesia del gran Lombardo,

Che'n su la scala porta il santo uccello."

Their tombs in the public street carry us back into the times of barbarous virtue; nor less so do those of the Carrara Princes at Padua, though less singular and striking in themselves. Francis Carrara, the Elder, used often to visit Petrarch in his small house at Arquà, and followed him on foot to his grave.

But who comes,

Brushing the floor with what was once, methinks, A hat of ceremony? On he glides,

Slip-shod, ungartered; his long suit of black Dingy, thread-bare, tho', patch by patch, renewed Till it has almost ceased to be the same.

At length arrived, and with a shrug that pleads
"'Tis my necessity!" he stops and speaks,
Screwing a smile into his dinnerless face.
“Blame not a Poet, Signor, for his zeal—
When all are on the wing, who would be last?
The splendour of thy name has gone before thee;
And Italy from sea to sea exults,

As well indeed she may! But I transgress.'
He, who has known the weight of Praise himself,
Should spare another." Saying so, he laid
His sonnet, an impromptu, at my feet,

(If his, then Petrarch must have stolen it from him)

And bowed and left me; in his hollow hand
Receiving my small tribute, a zecchine,
Unconsciously, as doctors do their fees.
My omelet, and a flagon of hill-wine,
Pure as the virgin-spring, had happily
Fled from all eyes; or, in a waking dream,
I might have sat as many a great man has,
And many a small, like him of Santillane,
Bartering my bread and salt for empty praise.2

1 See the Heraclide of Euripides, v. 203, &c.

2 Hist. de Gil Blas, 1. i.

ITALY.

M I in Italy?

Is this the Mincius ?

Are those the distant turrets of Verona?

And shall I sup where Juliet at the

Masque

Saw her loved Montague, and now sleeps by him?
Such questions hourly do I ask myself;
And not a stone, in a cross-way, inscribed
"To Mantua "-

།

To Ferrara "—but excites
Surprise, and doubt, and self-congratulation.
O Italy, how beautiful thou art!

Yet I could weep-for thou art lying, alas,
Low in the dust; and we admire thee now
As we admire the beautiful in death.

Thine was a dangerous gift, when thou wert born,
The gift of Beauty. Would thou hadst it not;
Or wert as once, awing the caitiffs vile

That now beset thee, making thee their slave !
Would they had loved thee less, or feared thee

more!

-But why despair?
already;

Twice hast thou lived

Twice shone among the nations of the world,
As the sun shines among the lesser lights
Of heaven; and shalt again. The hour shall come,
When they who think to bind the ethereal spirit,
Who, like the eagle cowering o'er his prey,
Watch with quick eye, and strike and strike again
If but a sinew vibrate, shall confess

Their wisdom folly. Even now the flame
Bursts forth where once it burnt so gloriously,
And, dying, left a splendour like the day,
That like the day diffused itself, and still

Blesses the earth-the light of genius, virtue, Greatness in thought and act, contempt of death, God-like example. Echoes that have slept Since Athens, Lacedæmon, were Themselves, Since men invoked "By those in Marathon!" Awake along the Ægean; and the dead,

They of that sacred shore, have heard the call, And thro' the ranks, from wing to wing, are seen Moving as once they were-instead of rage Breathing deliberate valour.

COLL'ALTO.

N this neglected mirror (the broad
frame

Of massy silver serves to testify
That many a noble matron of the
house

Has sat before it) once, alas, was seen
What led to many sorrows. From that time
The bat came hither for a sleeping place;
And he, who cursed another in his heart,
Said, 'Be thy dwelling, thro' the day and night,
Shunned like Coll'alto. "'Twas in that old Pile,
Which flanks the cliff with its grey battlements
Flung here and there, and, like an eagle's nest,
Hangs in the Trevisan, that thus the Steward,
Shaking his locks, the few that Time had left,
Addressed me, as we entered what was called
My Lady's Chamber." On the walls, the chairs,
Much yet remained of the rich tapestry;
Much of the adventures of Sir Lancelot
In the green glades of some enchanted wood.
The toilet-table was of silver wrought,
Florentine Art, when Florence was renowned;

66

A gay confusion of the elements,

Dolphins and boys, and shells and fruits and flowers:

And from the ceiling, in his gilded cage,
Hung a small bird of curious workmanship,
That, when his Mistress bade him, would unfold
(So says the babbling Dame, Tradition, there)
His emerald-wings, and sing and sing again
The song that pleased her. While I stood and

looked,

A gleam of day yet lingering in the West,

The Steward went on.

since)

66

She had ('tis now long

A gentle serving-maid, the fair Cristine,
Fair as a lily, and as spotless too;

None so admired, beloved. They had grown up
As play-fellows; and some there were, that said,
Some that knew much, discoursing of Cristine,
'She is not what she seems.' When unrequired,
She would steal forth; her custom, her delight,
To wander thro' and thro' an ancient grove
Self-planted half-way down, losing herself
Like one in love with sadness; and her veil
And vesture white, seen ever in that place,
Ever as surely as the hours came round,
Among those reverend trees, gave her below
The name of The White Lady. But the day
Is gone, and I delay thee.

In that chair

The Countess, as it might be now, was sitting, Her gentle serving-maid, the fair Cristine, Combing her golden hair; and thro' this door The Count, her lord, was hastening, called away By letters of great urgency to Venice;

When in the glass she saw, as she believed, (Twas an illusion of the Evil One

Some

say he came and crossed it at the time)