But here the mighty Monarch underneath, A dazzling splendour. Here unseen, unheard, His gifts he scatters; save, when issuing forth Let us go round; Built in the sea; and now the boatman steers What the mountainous Isle1 Seen in the South? 'Tis where a Monster dwelt, Hurling his victims from the topmost cliff; 1 Then and then only merciful, so slow, And for the loss incur the penalty, Let us turn the prow, And, in the track of him who went to die,2 Two thousand years roll backward, and we stand, Once did I linger there alone till day Closed, and at length the calm of twilight came, So grateful yet so solemn! At the fount, Just where the three ways meet, I stood and looked, That followed, when the shower of ashes fell, "How often, to demonstrate His power, does He employ the meanest of His instruments; as in Egypt, when He called forth-not the serpents and the monsters of Africa--but vermin from the very dust!" 2 The elder Pliny. See the letter in which his nephew relates to Tacitus the circumstances of his death.-In the morning of that day Vesuvius was covered with the most luxuriant vegetation (Martial, iv. 44) ; every elm had its vine, every vine (for it was in the month of August) its clusters; nor in the cities below was there a thought of danger, though their interment was so soon to take place. In Pompeii, if we may believe Dion Cassius, the people were sitting in the theatre when the work of destruction began. 3 Pompeii. When they that sought POMPEII, sought in vain; Bright and yet brighter, on the pavement glanced, Mark, where within, as though the embers lived, But lo, engraven on a threshold-stone, That word of courtesy so sacred once, And lo, a fairy palace! everywhere, As through the courts and chambers we advance, And columns clustering in patrician splendour. THE BAG OF GOLD. I DINE very often with the good old Cardinal * * * and, I should add, with his cats; for they always sit at his table, and are much the gravest of the company. His beaming countenance makes us forget his age;1 nor did I ever see it clouded till yesterday, when, as we were contemplating the sunset from his terrace, he happened, in the course of our conversation, to allude to an affecting circumstance in his early life. He had just left the University of PALERMO and was entering the army, when he became acquainted with a young lady of great beauty and merit, a Sicilian, of a family as illustrious as his own. Living near each other, they were often together; and at an age like theirs friendship soon turns to love. But his father, for what reason I forget, refused his consent to their union; till, alarmed at the declining health of his son, he promised to oppose it no longer, if, after a separation of three years, they continued as much in love as ever. "Relying on that promise," he said, "I set out on a long journey; but in my absence the usual arts were resorted to. Our letters were intercepted; and false rumours were spread-first of my indifference, then of my inconstancy, then of my marriage with a rich heiress of SIENNA; and when at length I returned to make her my own, I found her in a convent of Ursuline nuns. She had taken the veil; and I," said he with a sigh, "what else remained for me? I went into the Church. "Yet many," he continued, as if to turn the conversation, “very many have been happy, though we were not; and, if I am not abusing an old man's privilege, let me tell you a story with a better catastrophe. It was told to me when a boy; and you may 1 In a time of revolution he could not escape unhurt; but to the last he preserved his gaiety of mind through every change of fortune; living right hospitably when he had the means to do so, and, when he could not entertain, dining with his velvet friends-en famille. |