Clasping his aged hands in earnest prayer; And there he died. It rang his knell. Ere half its task was done, But whence the deadly hate That caused all this-the hate of LOREDANO? It was a legacy his Father left, Who, but for FOSCARI, had reigned in Venice, And, like the venom in the serpent's bag, Gathered and grew! Nothing but turned to hate! He changed not, with a dreadful piety Who talked of vengeance; grasping by the hand They whispered, ""Twas by poison!' and the words * "Veneno sublatus." The tomb is in the Church of St. Elena. † A remarkable instance, among others in the annals of Venice, that her princes were merchants; her merchants princes. Inscribing, 'He has paid me.' Ye who sit Brooding from day to day, from day to day MARCOLINI. Ir 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 Her parents had just light, for his heart was so. 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, * Count UGOLINO.-Inferno, 32. humming the burden of a song which he and his GIULIETTA had been singing together. But how 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 !' * * Remember the poor 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 toward the place of execution, the place where on a scaffold MARCOLINI breathed his last. ARQUÀ. THREE leagues from PADUA stands and long has stood (The Paduan student knows it, honours it) Low in the west. The gentle airs, that breathe Anxious by any act, while yet they could, And from that hour have kindred spirits flocked * Twelve years ago, When I descended the impetuous RHONE, * 'I visited once more,' says Alfieri, 'the tomb of our master in love, the divine Petrarch; and there, as at Ravenna, consecrated a day to meditation and verse.' He visited also the house; and in the Album there wrote a sonnet worthy of Petrarch himself. "O Cameretta, che già in te chiudesti Quel Grande alla cui fama è angusto il mondo," &c. Alfieri took great pleasure in what he called his poetical pilgrimages. At the birth-place and the grave of Tasso he was often to be found; and in the library at Ferrara he has left this memorial of himself on a blank leaf of the Orlando Furioso: VITTORIO ALFIERI vide e venerò. 18 giugno, 1783.' †The Côte Rotie, the Hermitage, &c. |