Who little thought of what was yet to come, And closely questioned him. No change betrayed The bloody sheet. 'Look there! Look there!' he cried. What!' he exclaimed, when, shuddering at the sight, some consolation to reflect that their Country did not go unrevenged for the calamities which they had brought upon her. How many of them died by the hands of each other! See p. 149. K And, kneeling on the ground, Great God!' he cried, 'Grant me the strength to do an act of Justice. Grant me the strength, the will-and oh forgive 'Tis a most wretched father who implores it.' Well might a Youth,* Studious of men, anxious to learn and know, He came, a visitant, to Cosmo's court, Think on the past; and, as he wandered through The ample spaces of an ancient house,t Silent, deserted-stop awhile to dwell Upon two portraits there, drawn on the wall *DE THOU, + The Palazzo Vecchio. Cosмo had left it several years before. By Vasari, who attended him on this occasion.—Thuanus, de Vitâ suâ, i. Together, as of Two in bonds of love, Those of the unhappy brothers, and conclude The terrible truth.*-Well might he heave a sigh That very COSMO shaking o'er his fire, Wrapt in his night-gown, o'er a sick man's mess, At once his nurse and his interpreter. * It was given out that they had died of a contagious fever: and funeral orations were publicly pronounced in their honour. Alfieri has written a tragedy on the subject; if it may be said so, when he has altered so entirely the story and the characters. THE CAMPAGNA OF FLORENCE. 'Tis morning. Let us wander through the fields, Tracing his idle fancies on the ground; * He was the father of modern painting, and the master of Giotto, whose talent he discovered in the way here alluded to. "Cimabue stood still, and, having considered the boy and his work, he asked him, if he would go and live with him at Florence? To which the boy answered that, if his father was willing, he would go with all his heart."-VASARI. Of Cimabue little now remains at Florence, except his celebrated Madonna, larger than the life, in Santa Maria Novella. It was painted, according to Vasari, in a garden near Porta S. Piero, and, when finished, was carried to the church in solemn procession with trumpets before it. The garden lay without the walls; and such was the rejoicing there on the occasion, such the feasting, that the suburb received the name of Borgo Allegri, a name it still bears, though now a part of the city. On ARNO'S vale, where the dove-coloured steer From that small spire, just caught But the cicala's voice among the olives, * Santa Maria Novella. For its grace and beauty it was called by Michael Angelo La Sposa.' In the year of the Great Plague. See the Decameron. |