som not altogether heartless, but as bad, or worse, intensely selfish, from which they come not of themselves in a flow of sorrow, cast up from the troubled depths-but all is shallow and superficial; and we "pity neither him nor his grief." In the other, we hear a wounded spirit holding communion with nature, and momentarily partaking of her peace-momentarily, and no more for the hours of his anguish will, we feel, never make up to him another year.

"Thou and I

Are thus unhoused alike, and in no home. The wide earth holds us both."

Dismal bewilderment of the widowed soul in the disappearance called death!

Then the behaviour of the men in

the sudden presence of the appari

tion! Little or no love for her had there ever been in Agolanti's heart; for if there had, it would have ming.

led with his fear, and there would have been no horror of such voice calling on him in such words

"Francesco Agolanti! husband!"

After the first affright-he would have known in his heart that her ghost-if ghost it were" that something there, standing in the moonlight"-came not to harm-not even to upbraid but to forgive and to bless. He could never have known what pity was, who recognised not the prayer of one yet mortal

And to whose door first went Ginevra on her leaving the vault? She says to Antonio"Even my mother is frighten'd at my voice, And I have wander'd to thy gentle doors."

No mention of her husband. It is not till Antonio says to her"Myself will bear thee to thy house, thy husband,

Laying a heaven on his repentant heart;" that she tells he had driven her from his "shrieking doors." But she sought not refuge with Antonio's mother, till her own had been frightened at her voice-and as "none would let her in," she came last of all to her lover's house. That is purest nature.

Ginevra exercises the most diffi

cult, the most comprehensive, and

the most efficacious of all the virtuespatience; which, for ever inwardly blessing the heart wherein it broods, for ever keeps effusing outwardly a celestial calm, of which at times troubled natures are made to partake whether they will or no, while the war of passion is subdued into noiseless peace. Did we say for ever? Nay, there is no perfection beneath sun, moon, and stars, nor yet among them; and even Ginevra's sweet, sad, submissive, and resigned selfa Christian lady indeed an Italian Roman Catholic Christian lady-hath not perfect patience; and even in her blood, the same being purely human, we have seen nor therefore loved

me in!"

And materialist as he is, though he knows it not, he believes that he can, by bolts and bars between it and his soul, shut out an immortal spirit.

"Love casteth out fear;" and so it was with Antonio. He had been meditating on the mystery of death-and had his own vision of Ginevra, disembodied, but yet visible; and he hears her voice syllable his name as it used once to do on earth-when they were happy long ago. Whatever it is, it is something blessed-something sent from heaven. Too beautiful to be any other being but Ginevra-her mortal or her immortal self!

per could quicken the pulse, till her pale face for a moment flushed-halfanger, half-shame, yet not even for that moment without the look of sorrow-and then fixed again into its colourless beauty, betokening, though none are to be seen there now, that few so young had shed such multitudes of unpitied tears.

The law of divorce is different in different countries; but for eighteen hundred and forty years marriage has been a holy thing in Christendom, and those whom God hath put together let no power on earth put asunder-save under sanction of concience, the controller and the legislator whom all the peoples of the earth must obey-in order that they may not perish but have everlasting life. The grave, where husband and wife who lived in love come to lie at last,

is their marriage-bed, and its curtains will be drawn to let in the day. Them death divorces not though for a little while there is a survivor among these our shades, waiting for the reuniting night. Burial without death, relieved not this Ginevra from bonds her husband had unhallowed; she brought them back with her from the vault

the wife walked in her grave-clothes to her husband's house, beseeching to be let in; and had not the fear that is in wickedness then dimmed Agolanti's eyes, he had seen it was a spirit yet in the flesh; and had he taken her to his bed, that bed might never again have been so unhappy-it might have been peaceful-in' an awful gratitude, even blest. "Begone, thou horrid mockery!"-and Ginevra was his wife no

more.

At the opening of Act Fifth, Ginevra has been five days in the care of

Antonio's mother.

Rond. Five blessed days, and not a soul but we

Knows what this house in its rich bosom holds.

The man whom dear Diana bribed to secresy
For our sakes, is now secret for his own;
And here, our guest is taken for a kinswo-
man,

Fled from a wealthy but a hated suitor,
Out of no hatred, haply, to myself;

she go with him after what she said to Antonio?

"Never. The grave itself has been between us."

Then ensues an interview in Antonio's house, between him and Agolanti; and of the husband it cannot be said that

"Consideration like an angel came, And whipt th' offending Adam out of him;"

for he is, without change of an atom,

the old man. Remorse he must have felt, but he was incapable of penitence. He is as much the prey as ever of all manner of mean suspicions, nor does a single syllable of tenderness for Ginevra escape his lips. He had adorned, indeed, the shrine "with glorious beams of painting and of gold;" but no gratitude is in his heart now to the God of mercy and of judgment. He is not ashamed to declare, that he believes Antonio has dishonoured his wife, even in her grave-clothes!

Rond. 'Tis false. - Be calm. Let both be calm, nor startle

Feminine ears with words. Wait in this room,

Here, on the left, awhile; I'll bring her

self

To look upon thy speech, if so it please her;

For which, as well as for her own sweet sake,

If not, my mother, sir,-you have heard of her,

The servants love her, and will keep her

close.

From whom, so help me God, I never yet Beheld her separate.

I'll write that last and noblest admonition

Within the strongest memory of my soul,

For all our sakes. The way to him.

One word.

My mother-she-will see you again some

parting ?

Gin. Antonio! - may your noble heart be

happy.

[She clasps her hands, and speaks with constant vehemence, looking towards the audience.

Ron.

him,

Nor mother neither; and my severe husband

If she come not.

Col. (going to d' aw his sword.) Blush in thy grave to say so.

Enter RONDINELLI with GINEVRA, followed by his Mother, OLYMPIA, DIANA, GIULIO, FIORDILISA, and Servants.

Ron. Forbear! an angel comes. Take her, and pray

Just Heaven to make her happy as thyself. Col. Antonio, thou art damn'd to think it. See

Da Riva. He shrinks from her again in very fear,

Which in his rage of vanity he'll avenge. Ago. I hear not what they say, my poor Ginevra,

Thinking of thee alone. - Come, bear thee up,

And bravely, as thou dost. We'll leave this placeThis way-So-so

Da Riva.

Antonio, will you let him? Think of herself.-'Tis none of yours this

Hush!

Nor prudent friendStill, coward!

Ago. Nor talk of law, nor threats of church itself,

discord,

Shall move my foot one jot from where I stand,

Till she whom law, church, heaven and earth join'd to me,

Loveless, remorseless, never to be taught.
I came to meet with pity, and find shame;
Tears, and find triumph; peace, and a loud

sword.

Shall join me again, and quit this infamous house.

The convent walls-Bear me to those-In

secret,

Da Riva. To be twice slain in thine?

If it may be; if not, as loudly as strife,

I'll hide, and pray for ever, to my grave.Come you, and you, and you, and help me

walk.

Ago. Let her not stir. Nor dare to stir one soul,

Lest in the madness of my wrongs I smite ye.

Gin. (to AGOLANTI.) Look at me and

remember. Think how oft

I've seen as sharp a point turn'd on thyself To fright me; how, upon a weaker breast; And what a world of shames unmasculine These woman's cheeks would have to burn in telling.

The white wrath festers in his face, and then

He's devilish.

Ron. Will you let her fall? She swoons. [He catches her in his arms. Ago. (turning to kill him.) Where'er she goes, she shall not go there. Col. (intercepting him with his own sword.) Dastard! Strike at a man so pinion'd?

Ago. Die then for him! (Strikes at COLONNA,)

Diana and Olym. Help! Help!

[The doors fly open, enter GIULIO followed by Officer and Guard. Giu. 'Tis here! Part them for mercy's

sake.

And are we satisfied with the catastrophe? Yes. Agolanti, it is manifest, would have murdered her over again in a few months. There was madness in the family-we happen to know there was though Mr Hunt does not seem to have heard it during his stay in Florence. The greater glory to his genius for letting many an outbreak of the old hereditary taint appear in conduct attributed by him to mere perversity-but mad he was, and had he not been tickled in the midriff by Colonna, he would have ended his days in a lunatic asylum; and, in that case, Ginevra must have gone into a convent, and Antonio to the wars.

If ever woman deserved to be happy as a wife, Ginevra did; and all Italy could not have furnished a better husband than her own Antonio. And happy they were-for a few yearsexpiring not on the same day, but in the same week, - Antonio being of a shortlived race, and Ginevra, no wonder, having been all along in a rather delicate state of health, till one night, as her dying husband looked on her face by the moonlight, he found she was lying without breath in his bosom.