Y.

ce, but to the last

all embossed d by the rings nd festival-time

cal was the day

at the ninth hour,

widowhood,

ceress, flung is, and rich, light, ll she knew

I watched;

in her breast assed by,

bili di Loggia."

Clad for the nuptial rite, she smiled and said,
Lifting a corner of the maiden's veil,

"This had I treasured up in secret for thee :
This hast thou lost!" He gazed, and was undor
Forgetting-not forgot-he broke the bond,
And paid the penalty, losing his life

At the bridge-foot; and hence a world of woe!
Vengeance for vengeance crying, blood for blood
No intermission! Law, that slumbers not,
And, like the Angel with the flaming sword,
Sits over all, at once chastising, healing,
Himself the Avenger, went; and every street
Ran red with mutual slaughter: though sometime
The young forgot the lesson they had learnt,
And loved when they should hate-like thee, IM
Thee and thy PAOLO. When last ye met
In that still hour (the heat, the glare was gone,
Not so the splendour-through the cedar-grove
A radiance streamed like a consuming fire,
As though the glorious orb, in its descent,
Had come and rested there) when last ye met,
And thy relentless brothers dragged him forth,
It had been well, hadst thou slept on, IMELDA,2

1 Giovanni Buondelmonte was on the point of marrying an A widow of the Donati family made him break his engagement in the described. The Amidei washed away the affront with his blood, attac G. Villani, at the foot of the Ponte Vecchio, as he was coming leisur white mantle on his white palfrey; and hence many years of slaugh "O Buondelmonte, quanto mal fuggisti

Le nozze sue, per gli altrui conforti."-DANTE.

2 The story is Bolognese, and is told by Cherubino Ghiradacci in Bologna. Her lover was of the Guelphic party, her brothers of t and no sooner was this act of violence made known than an enmit half suppressed, broke out into open war. The Great Place was a and bloodshed for forty successive days; nor was a reconciliation till six years afterwards, when the families and their adherents again, and exchanged the kiss of peace before the Cardinal Legat families of Florence had already done in the Place of S. Maria N house on the occasion was hung with tapestry and garlands of flow

Nor from thy trance of fear awaked, as night
Fell on that fatal spot, to wish thee dead,
To track him by his blood, to search, to find,
Then fling thee down to catch a word, a look,
A sigh, if yet thou couldst (alas! thou couldst not),
And die, unseen, unthought of-from the wound
Sucking the poison.1

Yet, when Slavery came,

Worse followed. Genius, Valour left the land,
Indignant-all that had from age to age
Adorned, ennobled; and headlong they fell,
Tyrant and slave. For deeds of violence,

Done in broad day and more than half redeemed

By many a great and generous sacrifice

Of self to others, came the unpledged bowl,

The stab of the stiletto. Gliding by
Unnoticed, in slouched hat and muffling cloak,
That just discovered, Caravaggio-like,

A swarthy cheek, black brow, and eye of flame,
The Bravo stole, and o'er the shoulder plunged
To the heart's core, or from beneath the ribs
Slanting (a surer path, as some averred)
Struck upward-then slunk off, or, if pursued,
Made for the Sanctuary, and there along
The glimmering aisle among the worshippers
Wandered with restless step and jealous look,
Dropping thick blood.-Misnamed to lull alarm,
In every Palace was the Laboratory,2

Where he within brewed poisons swift and slow,
That scattered terror till all things seemed poisonous,
And brave men trembled if a hand held out

A nosegay or a letter; while the Great

Drank only from the Venice-glass, that broke,
That shivered, scattering round it as in scorn,

1 The Saracens had introduced among them the practice of poison daggers.

As in those of Cosmo I. and his son, Francis.-SISMONDI, xvi. 205.

!

Died of a posset drugged by him who sate
And saw them suffer, flinging back the charge;
The murderer on the murdered.-Sobs of grief,
Sounds inarticulate . . . suddenly stopt,
And followed by a struggle and a gasp,

A gasp in death, are heard yet in Cerreto,
Along the marble halls and staircases,
Nightly at twelve; and, at the self-same hour,
Shrieks, such as penetrate the inmost soul,
Such as awake the innocent babe to long,
Long wailing, echo through the emptiness
Of that old den far up among the hills,'
Frowning on him who comes from Pietra Mala:
In them, alas! within five days and less,
Two unsuspecting victims, passing fair,
Welcomed with kisses, and slain cruelly,
One with the knife, one with the fatal noose.
But lo, the Sun is setting; earth and sky
One blaze of glory-what we saw but now,
As though it were not, though it had not been !

:

1 Caffaggiolo, the favourite retreat of Cosmo, "the father of his cour Eleonora di Toledo was stabbed there on the 11th of July, 1576, by her hus Pietro de' Medici; and only five days afterwards, on the 16th of the same m Isabella de' Medici was strangled by hers, Paolo Giordano Orsini, at his vi Cerreto. They were at Florence, when they were sent for, each in her Isabella under the pretext of a hunting party; and each in her turn went to Isabella was one of the most beautiful and accomplished women of the In the Latin, French, and Spanish languages she spoke not only with fluenc elegance and in her own she excelled as an Improvisatrice, accompanying 1 on the lute. On her arrival at dusk, Paolo presented her with two bea greyhounds, that she might make a trial of their speed in the morning; a supper he was gay beyond measure. When he retired, he sent for her in apartment; and, pressing her tenderly to his bosom, slipped a cord roun neck. She was buried in Florence with great pomp; but at her burial Varchi, the crime divulged itself. Her face was black on the bier. Eleonora appears to have had a presentiment of her fate. She went required; but, before she set out, took leave of her son, then a child; we long and bitterly over him.

2 I have here endeavoured to describe an Italian sunset as I have often se The conclusion is borrowed from that celebrated passage in Dante, "Er l'ora," &c.