“This knight I cannot, and I will not see. Go to him, Margaret; say that I am sickthat I am dying. The blessed saints can bear witness that thou wilt say but the truth in so I telling him. Sick at heart am I, sick to the death! Oh that I had died before this wretched hour!" And poor Edith burst into an agony of tears, that shook her very frame.

Why goest thou not, Margaret?" inquired she, a few moments after, when, exhausted by its own violence, her grief had become more tranquil. "Why dost thou not carry my mes sage to the Lord Howard? Why dally thus, jold dame? Mabel, go thou! They stand about me as though I were an ignorant child, that knew not what she said! Do my bidding on the instant, Mabel: thou wert best!" | Nay, good my lady, but our gracious lord the king-"

"Tell me not of kings, maiden! I'll to ¡ sanctuary. I'll fly this very night to my aunt, the prioress of St. Mary's. The church knoweth well how to protect her votaries. Woe is me! that, for being born a rich heir, I must be shut from the free breath of heaven, the living waters, and the flowery vales, in the dark and gloomy cloister! To change the locks that float upon the breeze for the dismal veil! To waste my youth in the cold and narrow convent cell-a living tomb! Oh! it is a sad and a weary lot. But better so, than to plight my troth to one whom I have never seen, and can never love! to give my hand to one man, whilst my heart abideth with another."

"Lady!" cried Margaret; "do my senses play me false! Or is it Edith Clifford that speaketh thus of a low-born churl?"

And the little page ran rapidly over the notes, and then accompanied the conte's rich,

*The editor is indebted for this Anacreontic-almost an impromptu-to the kind friend, Mr. Kenyon (she is proud to name him,) to whom she also owes the

A cry of joy burst from the astonished wait-stanzas entitled "Shrine of the Virgin."

mellow, baritone voice, in a melody as rich, well as in the estimate of his fond sister, reckand flowing as the verses. Both the singing oned amongst the most accomplished cavaliers and the playing were full of right Italian taste; of Florence; and a very short space of time and the fair Florentine, charmed with both the found him passing through the Lung 'Arno, words and the air, was evidently not a little on his way to his splendid home in the Piazza proud of her gay and gallant brother, whose del Granduca, regarding with the indifference talent as a poet she had never even suspected. of an accustomed eye and a pre-occupied mind, "Well," said Giovanni, when he had con- the spacious, yet tranquil town, whose size, cluded, "will this do, Beatrice? Will that compared with its population, and whose forAnacreontic win me the laurel wreath to-night tified palaces are so striking to strangers; as at the Palazzo Riccardi, think you?" well as the magnificent groups in bronze and marble, mere copies of which enrich the museums of other nations, whilst the originals are the familiar and out-door treasures of the city of the Medici.

Beatrice started from her seat in astonish

ment.

"You go to the Palazzo Riccardi! You contend for the laurel crown! You, Giovanni Alberti, who, since you were the height of Antonio there, have done nothing but laugh at the old précieuse, the marchesa, with her pedants and her poets, and all the trumpery of all the Della Cruscans transported into a lady's saloon! You are making a fool of me, brother! You never can mean it!"

"I am perfectly in earnest, I assure you," replied the conti, looking, or rather trying to look, as grave as an habitually joyous and hilarious temperament would permit. "I have repented of my sins of scoffing and mockery, and mean to make that venerable priestess of the muses all possible amends by enacting the part of her Monsieur Trissotin, her homme d'esprit."

With this great lawsuit pending, too! A suit which, if you gain it, will leave that sweetlooking creature, her daughter (every one speaks so well of that pretty, gentle Bianci), little better than a beggar! Why, it would be like the story of one of the Montechi, in the house of the Capuletti, in times of old. Think of that dismal tragedy! And, then, our uncle, the cardinal, what would he say? Think of him."

Little thought our friend Giovanni, passing them at full speed on his full-blooded barb, of palace or of statue; and as little, some few hours after, when pacing in the twilight the church of Santa Croce, did he heed, even while looking them in the face, the monuments of Galileo, of Machiavelli, or of him who wore so nobly the triple crown of Art-the sculptor, painter, architect, Michael Angelo Buonarotti. His thoughts were on other matters.

66

Ay, there is the good father safe enough until he be wanted, I warrant him," cried he, gazing complacently upon a round, rosy, goodhumoured brother of the order of St. Francis, drowsily ensconced beside a dimly-lighted shrine. "Per Bacco! the Monte Pulciano hath done its good office. Look, if he have not fallen asleep over his beads! And a comfortable nap to thee, Father Paolo! Stay there till I come to rouse thee!" And off danced the mercurial conte, murmuring his old burden, "Floating away, floating away, floating away on wine!"

A blue-stocking party loses none of its proverbial dulness in the marble halls of Italy; and the assembly gathered together in the marchesa's magnificent saloon-that is to say, that very important part of such an assembly, the listeners, were roused from a state of drowsihood, scarcely inferior to that of Father Paolo, by the unexpected entrance of the young heir of the Alberti in the palace of the Riccardi.

"There are no tragedies now-a-days, Beatrice at least none of the Romeo and Giulietta description; they have left off happening and as to our dearly beloved uncle, he is a man of peace, and also with reverence be it spoken-a man of contrivance. Leave his eminence to me. Go I shall; and I'll wager the antique gem that you were wishing for the other day, do you remember?-the Psyche- It was a most animating sensation. The against your doves, that I bring home the appearance of a Montagu amongst the festiviprize. I see," continued he gaily, "that you ties of the Capulets, was nothing to it. The think my verses too good to please that fantas-commerce of flattery (for the important busitical assembly; and, perhaps, you are right. But good or bad, they will answer my purpose; and you shall confess yourself that my wager is won." So saying, the light-hearted | cavalier nodded to his sister, and departed, carolling as he went, the refrain of his own song, "Floating away on wine."

Five minutes saw him prancing on his mettled barb, a fiery roan, whose gay curvets and sudden bounds showed to great advantage his noble owner's horsemanship; for the young Conte Alberti was, by common reputation, as

ness of the evening had not yet begun) suddenly ceased; and the foundress of these classical amusements, a fade and faded lady, emulous of her of the golden violet, who sat on a fauteuil, slightly elevated, with the laurelwreath on its crimson velvet cushion, laid upon a small table of rich mosaic, before her, and two starched and withered dames of the noble houses of Mozzi and Gerini at her side, stopped short in the midst of a compliment, with which, as in duty bound, she was repaying the adulation of one of the competitors

for the prize, and started between horror and astonishment, as if she had been confronted by an apparition.

sure.

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Really a poet?" asked the lady.

Why, that is putting my modesty to a very severe test," said the gentleman. Really

Our modern Romeo, however, was not a a poet! Who may dare answer that question. man to be dumfounded by the amazement of in the affirmative? Judge for yourself. Come a great lady, or awe-stricken by her displea-out into the porch, and Antonio shall bring his He advanced with a mixture of gaiety guitar, and I'll sing the words to his accomand gallantry, an assured yet winning grace, paniment. You have heard such a serenade which, for the moment, at least, the stately before. Don't you remember our old signal? marchesa found irresistible, and professing The moon is abroad in her glory to-night, himself an humble aspirant at the court of the Muses, come to do homage to their fair representative, took his station at the back of her chair, and listened with smiling attention to the competitors for the wreath.

Mid the deep blue sky and the cloudlets white;
Gaily her beams pierce the vine's trellised shade;
Softly they sleep on the long colonnade;

Calm her path in the heavens, though the bright orb
below

Still trembles and heaves to the dark river's flow.

All lovely things are around us to-night;

The rose with her perfume, the moon with her light;"

It was, perhaps, the very worst period of Italian literature; before Alfieri had come in his might to renew the old strength and power of the sweetest of modern languages; and and so forth. This song is worth a thousand when the versifiers of the day, "the word-of that. To be sure," added he, laughing, catchers, who lived on syllables," confined" that is not saying much for it. But these themselves to mere verbal quiddities, and the stanzas are really good. Only come and most feeble and trivial imitations of the worst parts- the only parts that such mimics can hope to catch-of the great poets of a preceding age.

Signor Ricci, a lean, yellow, shrivelled anatomy, began the recitations with squeaking forth a canzone to Angiolina, all bristling with concetti, after the manner, as he was pleased to say, of Petrarch; and was followed by a wild, sallow, pseudo-enthusiast, who declaimed, with astounding vociferation and gesticulation, an unfinished and seemingly interminable dream, in the involved and difficult triple rhyme which, beauty and sublimity apart, was, in the matter of obscurity, pretty truly what it professed to be- a fragment in imitation of Dante.

For "flickering lights, to no one focus brought,
And mirage mists still baffled thirsty thought,
And night-mare phantasies from drowsy grot,
And far similitudes that liken not."

Rhymed Plea for Tolerance.

Signor Puzzi beat Signor Ricci all to nothing. And accordingly he gratified to the highest point the bad taste of this coterie of Italian précieuses; and in the midst of tapping of fans and murmurs of admiration of this grand effort of their chosen bard, the Monsieur Trissotin of Florence, our friend Giovanni gently stole off to a quiet corner near the door, where sat a very sweet-looking little maiden, whose black eyes sparkled with innocent pleasure, and whose rosy lips curled into irrepressible smiles at his approach. She made room for him beside her, with a natural symplicity and artlessness that formed a strange contrast with the affectation and minauderie of the rest of the assembly.

"So you are a poet, Conte Alberti ?" said she, in a low voice.

hear."

"You'll win the prize, then?"

"I have laid a wager with Beatrice that I carry the prize home to her, in spite of them all; and it will be your fault if I lose it. Only come out into the porch; I can't sing here. Besides, I have something important to say to you. I want you to help me to get rid of our weary lawsuit. Would you not like to put an end to this unnatural strife, and live with Be trice as a sister and friend?"

"Ay, from the bottom of my heart, would I, Conte Alberti!" said Bianca, clasping her hands fervently. "From the very bottom of my heart! And with you, too," she added, with great simplicity.

"Come with me now, then, and I will show you how it may be managed. I beseech you, come."

"Oh, Giovanni, I cannot; I must not! We' shall be missed. See, Signor Puzzi has finished, and they are going to call for your poer."

"Heaven forefend!" cried Giovanni. “No! the danger's past. Young Caroli is going to declaim a drama à l'improvrista. What sub ject do they give him? The Judgment of Solomon, by Jove! The Judgment of Sulomon!!! Now, will he turn the marchesa into the Queen of Sheba, and go flattering on fr two good hours, at the very least. They are safe enough now. Come, fairest Bianca!-, Dearest Bianca, come!"

"Well, Beatrice," said Giovanni, as he led his pretty wife to his delighted sister, is not my wager fairly won? The cardinal suggest ed this catastrophe to our story; not indeed the means, per Bacco! they would never have entered his eminence's brains; but he said, a year or two ago that is to say, be in timated-that if the heir male on one side married the heiress on the other, he, the aforesaid.

heir male, would have nobody to go to law, with but himself. I had not then seen my little Bianca, and, therefore, I turned a deaf ear to his hints. But after I had seen her, Fede di Dio! if it had been necessary, to gain admittance, that I should have constructed as vile a canzone as Signor Ricci, -and have dreamed as detestable a dream as Signor Puzzi,―and dramatised the Judgment of Solomon into the bargain, I'd have done it. We have sent a dutiful billet to the marchesa, and I have no doubt but, for joy at getting rid of the lawsuit, and out of compliment to my poetical genius, she will behave like a reasonable woman-the more especially as what is done cannot be undone, and all the anger in the world will not mend it. So now, my fairest Beatrice, you have nothing to do but to set her the good example of bearing misfortune with philosophy, and pay me my wager. The doves! Signora, the doves!”