was to be aided, to feel moved by it to any thing else than that easy, good-humored acquiescence which was natural to him.

"I shall be proud and happy," he said, in answer to Bardo's last words, "if my services can be held a meet offering to the matured scholarship of Messere. But doubtless"--here he looked toward Romola-"the lovely damigella, your daughter, makes all other aid superfluous; for I have learned from Nello that she has been nourished on the highest studies from her earliest years."

"You are mistaken," said Romola; "I am by no means sufficient to my father: I have not the gifts that are necessary for scholarship."

Romola did not make this self-depreciatory statement in a tone of anxious humility, but with a proud gravity.

But Romola no sooner saw the movement than she looked at him with significant gravity, and placed her finger on her lips,

"Con viso che tacendo dicea, Taci." If Bardo were made aware that the gems were within reach, she knew well he would want a minute description of them, and it would become pain to him that they should go away from him, even if he did not insist on some device for purchasing them in spite of poverty. But she had no sooner made this sign than she felt rather guilty and ashamed at having virtually confessed a weakness of her father's to a stranger. It seemed that she was destined to a sudden confidence and familiarity with this young Greek, strangely at variance with her deeplyseated pride and reserve; and this consciousness again brought the unwonted color to her

Tito understood her look and sign, and immediately withdrew his hand from the case, saying, in a careless tone, so as to make it appear that he was merely following up his last words,

"Nay, my Romola," said her father, not will-cheeks. ing that the stranger should have too low a conception of his daughter's powers; "thou art not destitute of gifts; rather, thou art endowed beyond the measure of women; but thou hast withal the woman's delicate frame, which ever“But they are usually in the keeping of Messer craves repose and variety, and so begets a wandering imagination. My daughter"-turning to Tito-" has been very precious to me, filling up to the best of her power the place of a son. For I had once a son......

Bardo checked himself: he did not wish to assume an attitude of complaint in the presence of a stranger, and he remembered that this young man, in whom he had unexpectedly become so much interested, was still a stranger, toward whom it became him rather to keep the position of a patron. His pride was roused to double activity by the fear that he had forgotten his dignity.

"But," he resumed, in his original tone of condescension, we are departing from what I believe is to you the most important business. Nello informed me that you had certain gems which you would fain dispose of, and that you desired a passport to some man of wealth and taste who would be likely to become a purchaser." “It is true; for, though I have obtained employment as a corrector with the Cennini, my payment leaves little margin beyond the provision of necessaries, and would leave less but that my good friend Nello insists on my hiring a lodging from him, and saying nothing about the rent till better days."

Domenico Cennini, who has strong and safe places for these things. He estimates them as worth at least five hundred ducats."

"Ah, then, they are fine intagli," said Bardo. "Five hundred ducats! Ah, more than a man's ransom!"

Tito gave a slight, almost imperceptible start, and opened his long dark eyes with questioning surprise at Bardo's blind face, as if his wordsa mere phrase of common parlance, at a time when men were often being ransomed from slavery or imprisonment—had had some special meaning for him. But the next moment he looked toward Romola, as if her eyes must be her father's interpreters. She, intensely preoccupied with what related to her father, imagined that Tito was looking to her again for some guidance, and immediately spoke.

"Alessandra Scala delights in gems, you know, father; she calls them her winter flowers; and the Segretario would be almost sure to buy some of Messere's gems if she wished it. Besides, he himself sets great store by rings and sigils, which he wears as a defense against pains in the joints."

"It is true," said Bardo. "Bartolommeo has overmuch confidence in the efficacy of gems -a confidence wider than is sanctioned by Pliny, who clearly shows that he regards many beliefs of that sort as idle superstitions; though not to the utter denial of medicinal virtues in gems. Wherefore, I myself, as you observe, young man, wear certain rings, which the discreet Camillo Leonardi prescribed to me by letter when two years ago I had a certain infirmity of sudden numbness. But thou hast spoken well, Romola. I will dictate a letter to Bartolommeo, which Maso shall carry. But it were well that Messere should notify to thee what the "I have one or two intagli of much beauty," gems are, together with the intagli they bear, as said Tito, proceeding to draw from his wallet a | a warrant to Bartolommeo that they will be small case.

"Nello is a good-hearted prodigal," said Bardo; "and though, with that ready ear and ready tongue of his, he is too much like the illfamed Margites-knowing many things and knowing them all badly, as I hinted to him but now-he is nevertheless' abnormis sapiens,' after the manner of our born Florentines. But have you the gems with you? I would willingly know what they are yet it is useless: no, it might only deepen regret. I can not add to my store."

worthy of his attention."

"Nay, father," said Romola, whose dread | face and rested on the young man's shoulder. lest a paroxysm of the collector's mania should "He must be very unlike thy brother, Romola: seize her father, gave her the courage to resist and it is the better. You see no visions, I trust, his proposal. "Your word will be sufficient my young friend?" that Messere is a scholar and has traveled much. The Segretario will need no further inducement to receive him."

"True, child," said Bardo, touched on a chord that was sure to respond. "I have no need to add proofs and arguments in confirmation of my word to Bartolommeo. And I doubt not that this young man's presence is in accord with the tones of his voice, so that, the door being once opened, he will be his own best advocate."

Bardo paused a few moments, but his silence was evidently charged with some idea that he was hesitating to express, for he once leaned forward a little as if he were going to speak, then turned his head aside toward Romola and sank backward again. At last, as if he had made up his mind, he said in a tone which might have become a prince giving the courteous signal of dismissal:

At this moment the door opened, and there entered, unannounced, a tall elderly man in a handsome black silk lucco, who, unwinding his becchetto from his neck and taking off his cap, disclosed a head as white as Bardo's. He cast a keen glance of surprise at the group before him-the young stranger leaning in that filial attitude, while Bardo's hand rested on his shoulder, and Romola sitting near with eyes dilated by anxiety and agitation. But there was an instantaneous change: Bardo let fall his hand, Tito raised himself from his stooping posture, and Romola rose to meet the visitor with an alacrity which implied all the greater intimacy, because it was unaccompanied by any smile.

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Ebbene, figlioccina," said the stately man, as he touched Romola's shoulder; "Maso said you had a visitor, but I came in nevertheless." "It is thou, Bernardo," said Bardo. "Thou art come at a fortunate moment. This, young man," he continued, while Tito rose and bowed,

"I am somewhat fatigued this morning, and shall prefer seeing you again to-morrow, when I" is one of the chief citizens of Florence, Messer shall be able to give you the secretary's answer, authorizing you to present yourself to him at some given time. But before you go"-here the old man, in spite of himself, fell into a more faltering tone-" you will perhaps permit me to touch your hand? It is long since I touched the hand of a young man."

Bardo had stretched out his aged white hand, and Tito immediately placed his dark but delicate and supple fingers within it. Bardo's cramped fingers closed over them, and he held them for a few minutes in silence. Then he said:

"Romola, has this young man the same complexion as thy brother—fair and pale?"

Bernardo del Nero, my oldest, I had almost said my only friend-whose good opinion, if you can win it, may carry you far. He is but three-andtwenty, Bernardo, yet he can doubtless tell thee much which thou wilt care to hear; for though a scholar, he has already traveled far, and looked on other things besides the manuscripts for which thou hast too light an esteem."

"Ah, a Greek, as I augur," said Bernardo, returning Tito's reverence but slightly, and surveying him with that sort of glance which seems almost to cut like fine steel. 66 'Newly arrived in Florence, it appears. The name of Messere -or part of it, for it is doubtless a long one ?"

"On the contrary," said Tito, with perfect good-humor, "it is most modestly free from polysyllabic pomp. My name is Tito Melema.'

"No, father," Romola answered, with determined composure, though her heart began to beat violently with mingled emotions. "The hair of Messere is dark—his complexion is dark." Inwardly she said, “Will he mind it? will it be disagreeable? No, he looks so gentle and good-river, a province, and an empire all put together. natured." Then aloud again:

"Would Messere permit my father to touch his hair and face?"

"Davvero? (Indeed?)" said Bernardo, rather scornfully, as he took a seat, “I had expected it to be at least as long as the names of a city, a

We Florentines mostly use names as we do prawns, and strip them of all flourishes before we trust them to our throats."

"Well, Bardo," he continued, as if the stran ger were not worth further notice, and changing his tone of sarcastic suspicion for one of sadness, we have buried him!"

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Her eyes inevitably made a timid entreating appeal while she asked this, and Tito's met them with soft brightness as he said, "Assuredly;" and, leaning forward, raised Bardo's hand to his curls, with a readiness of assent which was the greater relief to her because it was unaccom-ness, "and a new epoch has come for Florence panied by any sign of embarrassment.

"Ah!" replied Bardo, with corresponding sad

-a dark one, I fear. Lorenzo has left behind him an inheritance that but like the alchemist's laboratory when the wisdom of the alchemist is gone.'

"Not altogether so," said Bernardo. "Piero de' Medici has abundant intelligence; his faults are only the faults of hot blood. I love the lad —lad he will always be to me, as I have always been padricciuolo (little father) to him."

"Yet all who want a new order of things are

likely to conceive new hopes," said Bardo. "We trance-told all comers that the miller's son shall have the old strife of parties, I fear."

"He is a scholar who has been shipwrecked and has saved a few gems, for which he wants to find a purchaser. I am going to send him to Bartolommeo Scala, for thou knowest it were more prudent in me to abstain from further pur-ma. chases."

Here was a great opportunity

then-O beautiful balance of things!-he had an | out the sense of the epigram so graciously sent itch for authorship, and was a bad writer-one him, to say nothing of tasting its elegances; but of those excellent people who, sitting in gouty the epigram was Politian's: what more need be slippers, "penned poetical trifles" entirely for said? Still, by way of postscript, he feared that their own amusement, without any view to an his incomparable friend's comparison of the flea audience, and, consequently, sent them to their to Venus, on account of its origin from the wafriends in letters, which were the literary peri- ters, was in many ways ticklish. Venus might odicals of the fifteenth century. Now Scala had be offended, and that cold and damp origin abundance of friends who were ready to praise seemed doubtful in the case of a creature so fond his writings: friends like Ficino and Landino- of warmth: a fish were perhaps the better comamiable browsers in the Medicean park along parison, or, when the power of flying was in with himself who found his Latin prose style question, an eagle, or, indeed, when the darkelegant and masculine; and the terrible Joseph ness was taken into consideration, a bat or an Scaliger, who was to pronounce him totally igno- owl were a less obscure and more apposite parrant of Latinity, was at a comfortable distance allel, etc., etc. in the next century. But when was the fatal for Politian. He was not aware, he wrote, that coquetry inherent in superfluous authorship ever when he had Scala's verses placed before him, quite contented with the ready praise of friends? there was any question of sturgeon, but rather That critical, supercilious Politian-a fellow- of frogs and gudgeons: made short work with browser, who was far from amiable-must be Scala's defense of his own Latin, and mangled made aware that the solid secretary showed, in him terribly on the score of the stupid criticisms his leisure hours, a pleasant fertility in verses, he had ventured on the Greek epigram kindly that indicated pretty clearly how much he might forwarded to him as a model. Wretched cavils, do in that way if he were not a man of affairs. indeed! for as to the damp origin of the flea, Ineffable moment! when the man you secretly there was the authority of Virgil himself, who hate sends you a Latin epigram with a false gen- had called it the "alumnus of the waters;" and der-hendecasyllables with a questionable eli- as to what his dear dull friend had to say about sion, at least a toe too much-attempts at po- the fish, the eagle, and the rest, it was "nihil ad etic figures which are manifest solecisms. That rem;" for, because the eagle could fly, it by no moment had come to Politian: the secretary had means followed that the flea could not fly, etc., put forth his soft head from the official shell, etc. He was ashamed, however, to dwell on and the terrible lurking crab was down upon such trivialities, and thus to swell a flea into an him. Politian had used the freedom of a friend, elephant; but, for his own part, would only add and pleasantly, in the form of a Latin epigram, that he had nothing deceitful and double about corrected the mistake of Scala in making the culex him, neither was he to be caught when present (an insect well known at the revival of learn- by the false blandishments of those who slaning) of the inferior or feminine gender. Scala dered him in his absence, agreeing rather with replied by a bad joke, in suitable Latin verses, a Homeric sentiment on that head-which furreferring to Politian's unsuccessful suit. Better nished a Greek quotation to serve as powder to and better. Politian found the verses very pretty his bullet. and highly facetious: the more was the pity that they were seriously incorrect, and inasmuch as Scala had alleged that he had written them in imitation of a certain Greek epigram, Politian, being on such friendly terms, would inclose a had been generously willing to hold up a Greek epigram of his own, on the same interest-mirror, by which the too-inflated secretary, being insect-not, we may presume, out of any holding his own likeness, might be induced to wish to humble Scala, but rather to instruct cease setting up his ignorant defenses of bad him; said epigram containing a lively conceit Latin against ancient authorities whom the conabout Venus, Cupid, and the culex, of a kind sent of centuries had placed beyond question— much tasted at that period, but unhappily found- unless, indeed, he had designed to sink in litered partly on the zoological mistake that the flea, ature in proportion as he rose in honors, that by like the gnat, was born from the waters. Scala, a sort of compensation men of letters might feel in reply, begged to say that his verses were never themselves his equals. In return, Politian was intended for a scholar with such delicate olfac- begged to examine Scala's writings: nowhere tories as Politian, nearest of all living men to the would he find a more devout admiration of anperfection of the ancients, and of a taste so fas-tiquity. The secretary was ashamed of the age tidious that sturgeon itself must seem insipid to him; defended his own verses, nevertheless, though indeed they were written hastily, without correction, and intended as an agreeable distraction during the summer heat to himself and such friends as were satisfied with mediocrity, he, Scala, not being like some other people, who courted publicity through the booksellers. For the rest, he had barely enough Greek to make

The quarrel could not end there. The logic could hardly get worse, but the secretary got more pompously self-asserting, and the scholarly poet's temper more and more venomous. Politi

in which he lived, and blushed for it. Some, indeed, there were who wanted to have their own works praised and exalted to a level with the divine monuments of antiquity; but he, Scala, could not oblige them. And as to the honors which were offensive to the envious, they had been well earned: witness his whole life since he came in penury to Florence. The elegant scholar, in reply, was not surprised that Scala

found the Age distasteful to him, since he himself was so distasteful to the Age; nay, it was with perfect accuracy that he, the elegant scholar, had called Scala a branny monster, inasmuch as he was formed from the offscourings of monsters, born amidst the refuse of a mill, and eminently worthy the long-eared office of turning the paternal millstones (in pistrini sordibus natus et quidem pistrino dignissimus)!

Enough: Tito took his leave under an urgent invitation to come again. His gems were interesting; especially the agate, with the lusus naturæ in it—a most wonderful semblance of Cupid riding on the lion; and the "Jew's stone," with the lion-headed serpent enchased in it; both of which the secretary agreed to buy-the latter as a reinforcement of his preventives against the gout, which gave him such severe twinges that it was plain enough how intolerable it would be if he were not well supplied with rings of rare virtue, and with an amulet worn close under the right breast. But Tito was assured that he himself was more interesting than his gems. He had won his way to the Scala Palace by the recommendation of Bardo de' Bardi, who, to be sure, was Scala's old acquaintance and a worthy scholar, in spite of his overvaluing himself a little (a frequent foible in the secretary's friends); but he must come again on the ground of his own manifest accomplishments.

The interview could hardly have ended more auspiciously for Tito, and as he walked out at the Porta a Pinti that he might laugh a little at his ease at the affair of the culex, he felt that Fortune could hardly mean to turn her back on him again at present, since she had taken him by the hand in this decided way.

It was not without reference to Tito's appointed visit that the papers containing this correspondence were brought out to-day. Here was a new Greek scholar whose accomplishments were to be tested; and on nothing did Scala more desire a dispassionate opinion from persons of superior knowledge than that Greek epigram of Politian's. After sufficient introductory talk concerning Tito's travels, after a survey and discussion of the gems, and an easy passage from the mention of the lamented Lorenzo's eagerness in collecting such specimens of ancient art to the subject of classical tastes and studies in general, and their present condition in Florence, it was inevitable to mention Politian, a man of eminent ability, indeed, but a little too arrogant-assuming to be a Hercules, whose office it was to destroy all the literary monstrosities of the age, and writing letters to his elders without signing them, as if they were miraculous revelations that could only have one source. And after all, were not his own criticisms often questionable and his tastes perverse? He was fond of saying pungent things about the men who thought they wrote like Cicero because they ended every sentence with "esse videtur:" but while he was boasting of his freedom from servile imitation, did he not fall into the other extreme, running after strange words and affected phrases? Even in his much-belauded Miscellanea, was every point tenable? And Tito, who had just been looking into the Miscellanea, found so much to say that was agreeable to the secretary-he would have done so from the mere disposition to please, without further motive that he showed himself quite worthy to be made a judge in the notable correspondence concern-in it; the ringing of the bells was articulate, ing the culex. Here was the Greek epigram which Politian had doubtless thought the finest in the world, though he had pretended to believe that the "transmarini," the Greeks themselves, would make light of it: had he not been unintentionally speaking the truth in his false modesty ?

Tito was ready, and scarified the epigram to Scala's content. O wise young judge! He could doubtless appreciate satire even in the vulgar tongue, and Scala-who, excellent man, not seeking publicity through the booksellers, was never unprovided with "hasty uncorrected trifles," as a sort of sherbet for a visitor on a hot day, or, if the weather were cold, why then as a cordial-had a few little matters in the shape of Sonnets, turning on well-known foibles of Politian's, which he would not like to go any farther, but which would, perhaps, amuse the com

pany.

CHAPTER VIII.

A FACE IN THE CROWD.

Ir is easy to northern people to rise early on Mid-summer morning to see the dew on the grassy edge of the dusty pathway, to notice the fresh shoots among the darker green of the oak. and fir in the coppice, and to look over the gate at the shorn meadow, without recollecting that it is the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist.

Not so to the Florentine-still less to the Florentine of the fifteenth century: to him on that particular morning the brightness of the eastern sun on the Arno had something special

and declared it to be the great summer festival of Florence, the day of San Giovanni.

San Giovanni had been the patron saint of Florence for at least eight hundred years-ever since the time when the Lombard Queen Theodolinda had commanded her subjects to do him peculiar honor; nay, says old Villani, to the best of his knowledge, ever since the days of Constantine the Great and Pope Sylvester, when the Florentines deposed their idol Mars, whom they were nevertheless careful not to treat with contumely; for while they consecrated their beautiful and noble temple to the honor of God and of the "Beato Messere Santo Giovanni," they placed old Mars respectfully on a high tower near the River Arno, finding in certain ancient memorials that he had been elected as their tutelar deity under such astral influences that if he were broken, or otherwise treated with indignity, the city would suffer great damage

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