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VIII.

CAIUS CESTIUS.

That she might fling them from her, saying, "Thus,
Thus I renounce the world and worldly things!"
When, as she stood, her bridal ornaments

WHEN I am inclined to be serious, I love to wan-Were, one by one, removed, e'en to the last,
der up and down before the tomb of Caius Cestius.
The Protestant burial-ground is there; and most of
the little monuments are erected to the young:
young men of promise, cut off when on their travels,
full of enthusiasm, full of enjoyment; brides, in the
bloom of their beauty, on their first journey; or
children, borne from home in search of health.
This stone was placed by his fellow travellers,
young as himself, who will return to the house of
his parents without him; that, by a husband or a
father, now in his native country. His heart is
buried in that grave.

It is a quiet and sheltered nook, covered in the winter with violets; and the pyramid, that overshadows it, gives it a classical and singularly solemn air. You feel an interest there, a sympathy you were not prepared for. You are yourself in a foreign land, and they are for the most part your countrymen. They call upon you in your mother tonguein English—in words unknown to a native, known only to yourselves: and the tomb of Cestius, that old majestic pile, has this also in common with them. It is itself a stranger, among strangers. It has stood there till the language spoken round about it has changed; and the shepherd, born at the foot, can read its inscription no longer.

IX.

THE NUN.

'Tis over; and her lovely cheek is now
On her hard pillow-there, alas! to be
Nightly, through many and many a dreary hour,
Wan, often wet with tears, and (ere at length
Her place is empty, and another comes)
In anguish, in the ghastliness of death;
Hers never more to leave those mournful walls,
Even on her bier.

'Tis over; and the rite,
With all its pomp and harmony, is now
Floating before her. She arose at home,
To be the show, the idol of the day;
Her vesture gorgeous, and her starry head-
No rocket, bursting in the midnight sky,
So dazzling. When to-morrow she awakes,
She will awake as though she still was there,
Still in her father's house; and lo, a cell
Narrow and dark, naught through the gloom dis-
cern'd,
Naught save the crucif
And the gray habit
Her beauty and gre

the rosary, by to shroud

When on her knees she fell,
Entering the solemn place of consecration,
And from the latticed gallery came a chant
Of psalms, most saint-like, most angelical,
Verse after verse sung out, how holily!
The strain returning, and still, still returning,
Methought it acted like a spell upon her,
And she was casting off her earthly dross;
Yet was it sad as sweet, and, ere it closed,
Came like a dirge. When her fair head was shorn,
And the long tresses in her hands were laid,

That she might say, flinging them from her, “Thus,
Thus I renounce the world!" when all was changed,
And, as a nun, in homeliest guise she knelt,
Veil'd in her veil, crown'd with her silver crown,
Her crown of lilies as the spouse of Christ,
Well might her strength forsake her, and her knees
Fail in that hour! Well might the holy man,
He at whose feet she knelt, give as by stealth
("Twas in her utmost need; nor, while she lives,
Will it go from her, fleeting as it was)
That faint but fatherly smile, that smile of love
And pity!
Like a dream the whole is fled;
And they that came in idleness to gaze
Upon the victim dress'd for sacrifice,
Are mingling in the world; thou in thy cell
Forgot, Teresa. Yet, among them all,
None were so form'd to love and to be loved,
None to delight, adorn; and on thee now
A curtain, blacker than the night, is dropp'd
For ever! In thy gentle bosom sleep
Feelings, affections, destined now to die,
To wither like the blossom in the bud,
Those of a wife, a mother; leaving there
A cheerless void, a chill as of the grave,
A languor and a lethargy of soul,
Death-like, and gathering more and more, till death
Comes to release thee. Ah, what now to thee,
What now to thee the treasure of thy youth?
As nothing!

But thou canst not yet reflect
Calmly; so many things, strange and perverse,
That meet, recoil, and go but to return,
The monstrous birth of one eventful day,
Troubling thy spirit-from the first, at dawn,
The rich arraying for the nuptial feast,
To the black pall, the requiem.

All in turn

Revisit thee, and round thy lowly bed
Hover, uncall'd. The young and innocent heart,
How is it beating? Has it no regrets?
Discoverest thou no weakness lurking there?
But thine exhausted frame has sunk to rest.
Peace to thy slumbers!

X.

THE FIRE-FLY.

THERE is an insect, that, when evening comes,
Small though he be and scarce distinguishable,
Like evening clad in soberest livery,
Unsheaths his wings, and through the woods and
glades

Scatters a marvellous splendour. On he wheels,
Blazing by fits as from excess of joy,
Each gush of light a gush of ecstasy;
Nor unaccompanied; thousands that fling
A radiance all their own, not of the day,
Thousands as bright as he, from dusk till dawn,
Soaring, descending.

In the mother's lap
Well may the child put forth his little hands,
Singing the nursery-song he learnt so soon

And the young nymph, preparing for the dance.
By brook or fountain side, in many a braid,
Wreathing her golden hair, well may she cry,
"Come hither; and the shepherds gathering round,
Shall say, Floretta emulates the night,
Spangling her head with stars."

Oft have I met
This shining race, when in the Tusculan groves
My path no longer glimmer'd; oft among
Those trees, religious once and always green,
That yet dream out their stories of old Rome
Over the Alban lake; oft met and hail'd,
Where the precipitate Anio thunders down,
And through the surging mist a poet's house
(So some aver, and who would not believe?)
Reveals itself.

Yet cannot I forget

Him, who rejoiced me in those walks at eve,
My earliest, pleasantest; who dwells unseen,
And in our northern clime, when all is still,
Nightly keeps watch, nightly in bush or brake
His lonely lamp rekindling.* Unlike theirs,
His, if less dazzling, through the darkness knows
No intermission; sending forth its ray
Through the green leaves, a ray serene and clear
As virtue's own.

XI.

FOREIGN TRAVEL.

said I," as a remedy in some future fit of the spleen."

Ours is a nation of travellers; and no wonder, when the elements, air, water, fire, attend at our bidding, to transport us from shore to shore; when the ship rushes into the deep, her track the foam as of some mighty torrent; and, in three hours or less, we stand gazing and gazed at among a foreign people. None want an excuse. If rich, they go to enjoy; if poor, to retrench; if sick, to recover; if studious, to learn; if learned, to relax from their studies. But whatever they may say, whatever they may believe, they go for the most part on the same errand; nor will those who reflect, think that errand an idle one.

Almost all men are over anxious. No sooner do they enter the world, than they lose that taste for natural and simple pleasures, so remarkable in early life. Every hour do they ask themselves what progress they have made in the pursuit of wealth or honour; and on they go as their fathers went before them, till, weary and sick at heart, they look back with a sigh of regret to the golden time of their childhood.

All

Now travel, and foreign travel more particularly, restores to us in a great degree what we have lost. When the anchor is heaved, we double down the leaf; and for a while at least all effort is over. The old cares are left clustering round the old objects; and at every step, as we proceed, the slightest circumstance amuses and interests. is new and strange. We surrender ourselves, and feel once again as children. Like them, we enjoy eagerly; like them, when we fret, we fret only for the moment; and here indeed the resemblance is very remarkable, for if a journey has its pains as well as its pleasures, (and there is nothing unmixed in this world,) the pains are no sooner over than they are forgotten, while the pleasures live long in the memory.

Ir was in a splenetic humour that I sate me down to my scanty fare at Terracina; and how long I should have contemplated the lean thrushes in array before me, I cannot say, if a cloud of smoke, that drew the tears into my eyes, had not burst from the green and leafy boughs on the hearth-stone. "Why," I exclaimed, starting up from the table, "why did I leave my own chimney-corner ?-But am I not on the road to Brundusium? And are not these the very calamities that befell Horace and Virgil, and Maæcenas, and Plotius, and Varius? Horace laughed at them then why should not I? Horace resolved to turn them to account; and Virgil-cannot we hear him observing, that to remember them will, by-and-by, be a pleasure?" My soliloquy reconciled me at once to my fate; and when, for the twentieth time, I had looked through the window on a sea sparkling with innumerable brilliants, a sea on which the heroes of the Odyssey and the Eneid had sailed, I sat down as to a splendid ban-mitted! Men rush on danger, and even on death. quet. My thrushes had the flavour of ortolans; and I ate with an appetite I had not known before.

"Who," I cried, as I poured out my last glass of Falernian,t (for Falernian it was said to be, and in my eyes it ran bright and clear as a topaz stone) -"who would remain at home, could he do otherwise? Who would submit to tread that dull, but daily round; his hours forgotten as soon as spent?" and, opening my journal-book and dipping my pen into my ink-horn, I determined, as far as I could, to justify myself and my countryman in wandering over the face of the earth. "It may serve me,"

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Nor is it surely without another advantage. If life be short, not so to many of us are its days and its hours. When the blood slumbers in the veins, how often do we wish that the earth would turn faster on its axis, that the sun would rise and set before it does, and, to escape from the weight of time, how many follies, how many crimes are com

Intrigue, play, foreign and domestic broil, such are their resources; and, when these things fail, they destroy themselves.

Now in travelling we multiply events, and innocently. We set out, as it were, on our adventures; and many are those that occur to us, morning, noon, and night. The day we come to a place which we have long heard and read of, and in Italy we do so continually, it is an era in our lives; and from that

* As indeed it always was, contributing those of every degree, from a milors with his suite to him whose only attendant is his shadow. Coryate in 1608 performed his journey on foot; and, returning, hung up his shoes in his village church as an ex-voto. Goldsmith, a century and a half afterwards, followed in nearly the same path; playing a tune on his flute to procure admittance, whenever he approached a cottage at nightfall.

moment the very name calls up a picture. How delightfully too does the knowledge flow in upon us, and how fast!* Would he who sat, in a corner of his library, poring over books and maps, learn more or so much in the time, as he who, with his eyes and his heart open, is receiving impressions, all day long, from the things themselves? How accurately do they arrange themselves in our memory, towns, rivers, mountains; and in what living colours do we recall the dresses, manners, and customs of the people! Our sight is the noblest of all our senses. "It fills the mind with most ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues longest in action without being tired." Our sight is on the alert when we travel; and its exercise is then so delightful, that we forget the profit in the pleasure.

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Of whitest marble, white as from the quarry;
And richly wrought with many a high relief,
Greek sculpture-in some earlier day perhaps
A tomb, and honour'd with a hero's ashes.
The water from the rock fill'd, overflow'd it;
Then dash'd away, playing the prodigal,
And soon was lost-stealing unseen, unheard,
Through the long grass, and round the twisted roots
Of aged trees; discovering where it ran
By the fresh verdure. Overcome with heat,
I threw me down; admiring, as I lay,
That shady nook, a singing place for birds,

More than enough to please a child a-Maying.

Like a river that gathers, that refines as it runs, like a spring that takes its course through some rich vein of mineral, we improve and imperceptibly-That grove so intricate, so full of flowers, nor in the head only, but in the heart. Our prejudices leave us, one by one. Seas and mountains are no longer our boundaries. We learn to love, and esteem, and admire beyond them. Our benevolence extends itself with our knowledge. And must we not return better citizens than we went? For the more we become acquainted with the institutions of other countries, the more highly must we value

our own.

66

I threw down my pen in triumph "The question," said I," is set to rest for ever. And yet-" And yet-" I must still say. The wisest of men seldom went out of the walls of Athens; and for that worst of evils, that sickness of the soul, to which we are most liable when most at our ease, is there not after all a surer and yet pleasanter remedy, a remedy for which we have only to cross the threshold? A Piedmontese nobleman, into whose company I fell at Turin, had not long before experienced its efficacy and his story, which he told me without reserve, was as follows.

"I was weary of life, and, after a day, such as few have known and none would wish to remember, was hurrying along the street to the river, when I feit a sudden check. I turned and beheld a little boy, who had caught the skirt of my cloak in his anxiety to solicit my notice. His look and manner were irresistible. Not less so was the lesson he had learnt.

"There are six of us; and we are dying for want of food.'- Why should I not,' said I to myself, 'relieve this wretched family? I have the means and it will not delay me many minutes. But what, if it does" The scene of misery he conducted me to I cannot describe. I threw them my purse; and their burst of gratitude overcame me. It filled my eyes-it went as a cordial to my heart. I will call

To judge at once of a nation, we have only to throw our eyes on the markets and the fields. If the markets are well supplied, the fields well cultivated, all is right. If otherwise, we may say, and say truly, these people are barbarous or oppressed.

† Assuredly nt, if the last has laid a proper foundation, Knowledge makes knowledge as money makes money, nor ever perhaps so fast as on a journey.

The sun was down, a distant convent-bell
Ringing the Angelus; and now approach'd
The hour for stir and village gossip there,
The hour Rebekah came, when from the well
She drew with such alacrity to serve
The stranger and his camels. Soon I heard
Footsteps; and lo, descending by a path
Trodden for ages, many a nymph appear'd,
Appear'd and vanish'd, bearing on her head
Her earthen pitcher. It call'd up the day
Ulysses landed there; and long I gazed,
Like one awaking in a distant time.

At length there came the loveliest of them all,
Her little brother dancing down before her;
And ever as he spoke, which he did ever,
Turning and looking up in warmth of heart
And brotherly affection. Stopping there,
She join'd her rosy hands, and, filling them
With the pure element, gave him to drink ;
And, while he quench'd his thirst, standing on
tiptoe,

Look'd down upon him with a sister's smile,
Nor stirr'd till he had done, fix'd as a statue.

Then hadst thou seen them as they stood, Canova,
Thou hadst endow'd them with immortal youth;
And they had evermore lived undivided,
Winning all hearts-of all thy works the fairest.

XIII. BANDITTI.

"TIs a wild life, fearful and full of change, The mountain robber's. On the watch he lies, Levelling his carbine at the passenger; And, when his work is done, he dares not sleep.

Time was, the trade was nobler, if not honest; When they that robb'd were men of better faith Than kings or pontiffs, when, such reverence The poet drew among the woods and wilds, A voice was heard, that never bade to spare, Crying aloud, "Hence to the distant hills! Tasso approaches; he, whose song beguiles The day of half its hours; whose sorcery Dazzles the sense, turning our forest glades To lists that blaze with gorgeous armory, Our mountain caves to regal palaces.

Hence, nor descend till he and his are gone. Let him fear nothing."

When along the shore, And by the path that, wandering on its way, Leads through the fatal grove where Tully fell, (Gray and o'ergrown, an ancient tomb is there,) He came and they withdrew: they were a race Careless of life in others and themselves, For they had learnt their lesson in a camp; But not ungenerous. 'Tis no longer so. Now crafty, cruel, torturing ere they slay Th' unhappy captive, and with bitter jests Mocking misfortune; vain, fantastical, Wearing whatever glitters in the spoil;

The grave of one that from the precipice
Fell in an evil hour. Their bridle bells
Ring merrily; and many a loud, long laugh
Re-echoes; but at once the sounds are lost.
Unconscious of the good in store below,
The holy fathers have turn'd off, and now
Cross the brown heath, ere long to wag their beards
Before my lady abbess, and discuss

Things only known to the devout and pure

O'er her spiced bowl-then shrive the sisterhood, Sitting by turns with an inclining ear

In the confessional.

He moves his lips

As with a curse-then paces up and down,

And most devout, though when they kneel and Now fast, now slow, brooding and muttering on;

pray,

With every bead they could recount a murder.
As by a spell they start up in array,

As by a spell they vanish-theirs a band,
Not as elsewhere of outlaws, but of such
As sow and reap, and at the cottage door
Sit to receive, return the traveller's greeting;
Now in the garb of peace, now silently
Arming and issuing forth, led on by men
Whose names on innocent lips are words of fear,
Whose lives have long been forfeit.

Gloomy alike to him the past, the future.

But hark, the nimble tread of numerous feet!
-'Tis but a dappled herd come down to slake
Their thirst in the cool wave. He turns and aims-
Then checks himself, unwilling to disturb
The sleeping echoes.

Once again he earths;
Slipping away to house with them beneath,
His old companions in that hiding place,
The bat, the toad, the blind-worm, and the newt;
And hark, a footstep, firm and confident,
Some there are As of a man in haste. Nearer it draws ;
And now is at the entrance of the den.
Ha! 'tis a comrade, sent to gather in
The band for some great enterprise.

That, ere they rise to this bad eminence,
Lurk, night and day, the plague spot visible,
The guilt that says, Beware; and mark we now
Him, where he lies, who couches for his prey
At the bridge foot, in some dark cavity
Scoop'd by the waters, or some gaping tomb,
Nameless and tenantless, whence the red fox
Slunk as he enter'd. There he broods, in spleen
Gnawing his beard; his rough and sinewy frame
O'erwritten with the story of his life:
On his wan cheek a sabre cut, well earn'd
In foreign warfare; on his breast the brand
Indelible, burnt in when to the port

He clank'd his chain, among a hundred more
Dragg'd ignominiously; on every limb
Memorials of his glory and his shame,
Stripes of the lash and honourable scars,
And channels here and there worn to the bone
By galling fetters.

He comes slowly forth Unkennelling, and up that savage dell Anxiously looks; his cruse, an ample gourd, (Duly replenish'd from the vintner's cask,) Slung from his shoulder; in his breadth of belt Two pistols and a dagger yet uncleansed, A parchment scrawl'd with uncouth characters, And a small vial, his last remedy,

His cure when all things fail. No noise is heard,
Save when the rugged bear and the gaunt wolf
Howl in the upper region, or a fish

Leaps in the gulf beneath :-But now he kneels
And (like a scout when listening to the tramp
Of horse or foot) lays his experienced ear
Close to the ground, then rises and explores,
Then kneels again, and, his short rifle gun
Against his cheek, waits patiently.

Two monks,

Portly, gray-headed, on their gallant steeds, Descend where yet a mouldering cross o'erhangs

Who wants

A sequel, may read on. Th' unvarnish❜d tale,
That follows, will supply the place of one.
'Twas told me by the Marquis of Ravina,
When in a blustering night he shelter'd me,
In that brave castle of his ancestors
O'er Garigliano, and is such, indeed,
As every day brings with it-in a land
Where laws are trampled on, and lawless men
Walk in the sun; but it should not be lost,
For it may serve to bind us to our country.

XIV,

AN ADVENTURE.

THREE days they lay in ambush at my gate, Then sprung and led me captive. Many a wild We traversed; but Rusconi, 'twas no less, March'd by my side, and, when I thirsted, climb'd The cliffs for water; though whene'er he spoke, "Twas briefly, sullenly; and on he led, Distinguish'd only by an amulet,

That in a golden chain hung from his neck,
A crystal of rare virtue. Night fell fast,
When on a heath, black and immeasurable,
He turn'd and bade them halt. "Twas where the
earth

Heaves o'er the dead-where erst some Alaric
Fought his last fight, and every warrior threw
A stone to tell for ages where he lay.

Then all advanced, and, ranging in a square,
Stretch'd forth their arms as on the holy cross,
From each to each their sable cloaks extending,
That, like the solemn hangings of a tent,
Cover'd us round; and in the midst I stood,
Weary and faint, and face to face with one
Whose voice, whose look dispenses life and death,

Whose heart knows no relentings.

Instantly

A light was kindled, and the bandit spoke.
"I know thee. Thou hast sought us, for the sport
Slipping thy blood-hounds with a hunter's cry;
And thou hast found at last. Were I as thou,
I in thy grasp as thou art now in ours,
Soon should I make a midnight spectacle,
Soon, limb by limb, be mangled on a wheel,
Then gibbeted to blacken for the vultures.
But I would teach thee better-how to spare.
Write as I dictate. If thy ransom comes,
Thou livest. If not-but answer not, I pray,
Lest thou provoke me. I may strike thee dead;
And know, young man, it is an easier thing
To do it than to say it. Write, and thus."-

I wrote. ""Tis well," he cried. "A peasant boy,
Trusty and swift of foot, shall bear it hence.
Meanwhile lie down and rest. This cloak of mine
Will serve thee; it has weather'd many a storm."
The watch was set; and twice it had been changed,
When morning broke, and a wild bird, a hawk,
Flew in a circle, screaming. I look'd up,

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To pluck a grape in very wantonness.
Her look, her mien, and maiden ornaments,
Show'd gentle birth; and, step by step, she came
Nearer and nearer to the dreadful snare.
None else were by; and, as I gazed unseen,
Her youth, her innocence and gayety

Went to my heart; and, starting up, I cried,
Fly-for your life!" Alas, she shriek'd, she fell;
And, as I caught her falling, all rush'd forth.
A wood nymph!' said Rusconi. By the light,
Lovely as Hebe. Lay her in the shade.'

I heard him not. I stood as in a trance.
'What,' he exclaim'd, with a malicious smile,
Wouldst thou rebel?' I did as he required.
Now bear her hence to the well-head below
A few cold drops will animate this marble.
Go! "Tis an office all will envy thee;
But thou hast earn'd it.'

As I stagger'd down,
Unwilling to surrender her sweet body;
Her golden hair dishevell'd on a neck
Of snow, and her fair eyes closed as in sleep,
Frantic with love, with hate, Great God !' I cried,
(I had almost forgotten how to pray,)
'Why may I not, while yet—while yet I can,

And all were gone, save him who now kept guard,
And on his arms lay musing. Young he seem'd,
And sad, as though he could indulge at will
Some secret sorrow. "Thou shrink'st back," he Release her from a thraldom worse than death?'

said.

"Well mayst thou, lying, as thou dost, so near
A ruffian, one for ever link'd and bound
To guilt and infamy. There was a time
When he had not perhaps been deem'd unworthy,
When he had watch'd that planet to its setting,
And dwelt with pleasure on the meanest thing
That nature has given birth to. Now 'tis past.
"Wouldst thou know more? My story is an
old one.

I loved, was scorn'd; I trusted, was betray'd;
And in my anguish, my necessity,

Met with the fiend, the tempter-in Rusconi.
Why thus he cried. Thou wouldst be free,
and darest not.

Come and assert thy birthright while thou canst.
A robber's cave is better than a dungeon;

And death itself, what is it at the worst,
What, but a harlequin's leap?' Him I had known,
Had served with, suffer'd with; and on the walls
Of Capua, while the moon went down, I swore
Allegiance on his dagger.

Dost thou ask
How I have kept my oath? Thou shalt be told,
Cost what it may.-But grant me, I implore,
Grant me a passport to some distant land,
That I may never, never more be named.
Thou wilt, I know thou wilt.

Two months ago,
When on a vineyard hill we lay conceal'd,
And scatter'd up and down as we were wont,
I heard a damsel singing to herself,
And soon espied her, coming all alone,
In her first beauty. Up a path she came,
Leafy and intricate, singing her song,
A song of love, by snatches; breaking off
If but a flower, an insect in the sun
Pleased for an instant; then as carelessly
The strain resuming, and, where'er she stopt,
Rising on tiptoe underneath the boughs

'Twas done as soon as said. I kiss'd her brow,
And smote her with my dagger. A short cry
She utter'd, but she stirr'd not; and to heaven
Her gentle spirit fled. 'Twas where the path
In its descent turn'd suddenly. No eye
Observed me, though their steps were following fast.
But soon a yell broke forth, and all at once
Levell❜d their deadly aim. Then I had ceased
To trouble or be troubled, and had now
(Would I were there!) been slumbering in my
grave,

Had not Rusconi with a terrible shout
Thrown himself in between us, and exclaim'd,
Grasping my arm, 'Tis bravely, nobly done!
Is it for deeds like these thou wear'st a sword?
Was this the business that thou camest upon ?
-But 'tis his first offence, and let it pass.
Like the young tiger he has tasted blood,
And may do much hereafter. He can strike
Home to the hilt.' Then in an under tone,
Thus wouldst thou justify the pledge I gave,
When in the eyes of all I read distrust?
For once,' and on his cheek, methought, I saw
The blush of virtue, I will save thee, Albert;
Again, I cannot.'"

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Ere his tale was told,

As on the heath we lay, my ransom came;
And in six days, with no ungrateful mind,
Albert was sailing on a quiet sea.

-But the night wears, and thou art much in need
Of rest. The young Antonio, with his torch,
Is waiting to conduct thee to thy chamber.

XV.
NAPLES.

THIS region, surely, is not of the earth.* Was it not dropt from heaven? Not a grove, Citron, or pine, or cedar, not a grot,

* Un pezzo di cielo caduto in terro.-Sannazaro.

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