In part. I would not have his bulls abolish'd-
Twere worth one half our empire: his indulgences
Demand some in return,-no, no, he must not
Fall-and, besides, his now escape may furnish
A future miracle, in future proof
Of his infallibility.

[To the Spanish Soldiery. Well, cut-throats!

What do you pause for? If you make not haste,
There will not be a link of pious gold left.
And you, too, catholics! Would ye return
From such a pilgrimage without a relic?
The very Lutherans have more true devotion:
See how they strip the shrines!
Soldiers.
By holy Peter!
He speaks the truth; the heretics will bear
The best away.
Cæs.

And that were shame! Go to!

Assist in their conversion. [The Soldiers disperse ; many quit the Church, others enter.

Lie there, more like a worm than man; she cast it Upon his head.

Arn. Even so; there is a woman Worthy a brave man's liking. Were ye such, Ye would have honour'd her. But get ye hence, And thank your meanness, other God you have none, For your existence. Had you touch'd a hair Of those dishevell'd locks, I would have thinn'd Your ranks more than the enemy. Away! Ye jackals! gnaw the bones the lion leaves, But not even these till he permits. A Sold. (murmuring). Might conquer for himself then.

Arn. (cuts him down).

The lion

Mutineer!

Rebel in hell-you shall obey on earth!

[The Soldiers assault ARNO1.D. Arn. Come on! I'm glad on 't! I will show you,

slaves,

How you should be commanded, and who led you
First o'er the wall you were so shy to scale,
Until I waved my banners from its height,
As you are bold within it.

[ARNOLD mows down the foremost; the rest throw
down their arms.

Soldiers.

Arn. Then learn to grant it. Led you o'er Rome's eternal battlements? Soldiers. We saw it, and we know it; yet forgive A moment's error in the heat of conquestThe conquest which you led to.

Arn.

Get you hence! Hence to your quarters! you will find them fix'd In the Colonna palace. Olimp. (aside).

House!

In my father's

Arn. (to the Soldiers). Leave your arms; ye have no further need

Of such the city 's render'd. And mark well
You keep your hands clean, or I'll find out a stream
As red as Tiber now runs, for your baptism.
Soldiers (deposing their arms and departing). We
Arn. (to OLIMPIA). Lady, you are safe. [obey!
Olimp.

I should be so, Had I a knife even; but it matters notDeath hath a thousand gates; and on the marble,

Even at the altar foot, whence I look down
Upon destruction, shall my head be dash'd,
Ere thou ascend it. God forgive thee, man!
Arn. I wish to merit his forgiveness, and
Thine own, although I have not injured thee.

Olimp. No! Thou hast only sack'd my native
No injury-and made my father's house [land,-
A den of thieves! No injury !-this temple-
Slippery with Roman and with holy gore!
No injury! And now thou wouldst preserve me,
To be--but that shall never be !

[She raises her eyes to heaven, folds her robe round her, and prepares to dash herself down on the side of the Altar opposite to that where ARNOLD stands.

Arn.

I swear.

Arn. Cas.

Then she is dead!

Olimp. Spare thine already forfeit soul

A perjury for which even hell would loathe thee. I know thee.

Arn.

No, thou know'st me not; I am not Of these men, though-Olimp.

It is for God to judge thee as thou art.
I see thee purple with the blood of Rome;
Take mine, 't is all thou e'er shalt have of me,
And here, upon the marble of this temple,
Where the baptismal font baptized me God's,
I offer him a blood less holy

But not less pure (pure as it left me then,
A redeem'd infant) than the holy water
The saints have sanctified!

[OLIMPIA waves her hand to ARNOLD with dis-
dain, and dashes herself on the pavement from
the Altar.

We will

Come then! raise her up!

But, if you rue it after, blame not me.
Arn. Let her but live!
Cæs.

The spirit of her life
Is yet within her breast, and may revive.
Count! count! I am your servant in all things,
And this is a new office:-'t is not oft
I am employ'd in such; but you perceive
How stanch a friend is what you call a fiend.
On earth you have often only fiends for friends;
Now I desert not mine. Soft! bear her hence,
The beautiful half-clay, and nearly spirit!
I am almost enamour'd of her, as

Of old the angels of her earliest sex.
Arn. Thou!

Cæs. I! But fear not. I'll not be your
Arn. Rival!

Cæs.

rival.

I could be one right formidable; But since I slew the seven husbands of Tobias' future bride (and after all Was smoked out by some incense), I have laid Aside intrigue 't is rarely worth the trouble Of gaining, or-what is more difficultGetting rid of your prize again; for there's The rub! at least to mortals. Arn.

Prithee, peace! Softly methinks her lips move, her eyes open! Cas. Like stars, no doubt; for that's a metaphor For Lucifer and Venus.

PART ΠΙ.

SCENE I-A Castle in the Apennines, surrounded by a wild but smiling Country. Chorus of Peasants singing before the Gates.

Chorus.

I.

The wars are over,

The spring is come;
The bride and her lover

Have sought their home:

They are happy, we rejoice;

Let their hearts have an echo in every voice!

II.

The spring is come; the violet's gone,
The first-born child of the early sun:
With us she is but a winter's flower,

The snow on the hills cannot blast her bower,
And she lifts up her dewy eye of blue
To the youngest sky of the self-same hue.

III.

And when the spring comes with her host Of flowers, that flower beloved the most Shrinks from the crowd that may confuse Her heavenly odour and virgin hues.

IV.

Pluck the others, but still remember
Their herald out of dim December-
The morning star of all the flowers,

The pledge of daylight's lengthen'd hours,
Nor, midst the roses, c'er forget
The virgin, virgin violet.

Enter CESAR.

Cas. (singing). The wars are all over,

Our swords are all idle,
The steed bites the bridle.

The casque 's on the wall.
There 's rest for the rover;

But his armour is rusty,

And the veteran grows crusty,

As he yawns in the hall.

He drinks-but what 's drinking?

A mere pause from thinking!

No bugle awakes him with life-and-death call.

Chorus.

But the hound bayeth loudly,
The boar 's in the wood,
And the falcon longs proudly

To spring from her hood:
On the wrist of the noble
She sits like a crest,
And the air is in trouble
With birds from their nest.

Cæs. Oh! shadow of glory!

Dim image of war!
But the chase hath no story,
Her hero no star,
Since Nimrod, the founder
Of empire and chase,
Who made the woods wonder

And quake for their race.
When the lion was young,

In the pride of his might,
Then 't was sport for the strong
To embrace him in fight;
To go forth, with a pine

For a spear, 'gainst the mammoth,
Or strike through the ravine

At the foaming behemoth;
While man was in stature

As towers in our time,
The first-born of Nature,
And, like her, sublime!

Chorus.

But the wars are over,

The spring is come;
The bride and her lover

Have sought their home;

They are happy, and we rejoice;

Let their hearts have an echo from every voice! [Exeunt the Peasantry, singing.

XI.

They 've pretty faces yet, those same Venetians,
Black eyes, arch'd brows, and sweet expressions
Such as of old were copied from the Grecians, [still;
In ancient arts by moderns mimick'd ill;
And like so many Venuses of Titian's

(The best 's at Florence-see it, if ye will), They look when leaning over the balcony, Or stepp'd from out a picture by Giorgione,

XII.

Whose tints are truth and beauty at their best;
And when you to Manfrini's palace go,
That picture (howsoever fine the rest)

Is loveliest to my mind of all the show;
It may perhaps be also to your zest,

And that's the cause I rhyme upon it so: 'Tis but a portrait of his son, and wife, And self; but such a woman! love in life!

XIII.

Love in full life and length, not love ideal,
No, nor ideal beauty, that fine name,
But something better still, so very real,

That the sweet model must have been the same;
A thing that you would purchase, beg, or steal,
Were 't not impossible, besides a shame:
The face recalls some face, as 't were with pain,
You once have seen, but ne'er will see again.

XIV.

One of those forms which flit by us, when we
Are young, and fix our eyes on every face;
And, oh the loveliness at times we see
In momentary gliding, the soft grace,
The youth, the bloom, the beauty which agree,
In many a nameless being we retrace, [know,
Whose course and home we knew not, nor shall
Like the lost Pleiad seen no more below.
XV.

I said that like a picture by Giorgione
Venetian women were, and so they are,
Particularly seen from a balcony

(For beauty 's sometimes best set off afar),
And there, just like a heroine of Goldoni,
They peep from out the blind, or o'er the bar;
And truth to say, they 're mostly very pretty,
And rather like to show it, more's the pity!

XVI.

For glances beget ogles, ogles sighs,

Sighs wishes, wishes words, and words a letter, Which flies on wings of light-heel'd Mercuries,

Who do such things because they know no better; And then, God knows what mischief may arise, When love links two young people in one fetter, Vile assignations, and adulterous beds, Elopements, broken vows, and hearts, and heads.

XVII.

Shakspeare described the sex in Desdemona
As very fair, but yet suspect in fame,
And to this day from Venice to Verona

Such matters may be probably the same,
Except that since those times was never known a
Husband whom mere suspicion could inflame
To suffocate a wife no more than twenty,
Because she had a "cavalier servente."

XVIII.

Their jealousy (if they are ever jealous)
Is of a fair complexion altogether,
Not like that sooty devil of Othello's,

Which smothers women in a bed of feather,
But worthier of these much more jolly fellows,
When weary of the matrimonial tether
His head for such a wife no mortal bothers,
But takes at once another, or another's.

ΧΙΧ.

Didst ever sce a Gondola? For fear

You should not, I'll describe it you exactly: 'T is a long cover'd boat that 's common here, Carved at the prow, built lightly, but compactly, Row'd by two rowers, each call'd "Gondolier," It glides along the water looking blackly, Just like a coffin clapt in a canoe,

Where none can make out what you say or do.

XX.

And up and down the long canals they go,
And under the Rialto shoot along,

By night and day, all paces, swift or slow,
And round the theatres, a sable throng,
They wait in their dusk livery of woe,-

But not to them do woeful things belong,
For sometimes they contain a deal of fun,
Like mourning coaches when the funeral 's done.

ΧΧΙ.

But to my story.-"T was some years ago, It may be thirty, forty, more or less, The Carnival was at its height, and so Were all kinds of buffoonery and dress; A certain lady went to see the show,

Her real name I know not, nor can guess, And so we'll call her Laura, if you please, Because it slips into my verse with ease.

XXII.

She was not old, nor young, nor at the years
Which certain people call a “certain age,"
Which yet the most uncertain age appears,
Because I never heard, nor could engage
A person yet by prayers, or bribes, or tears,

To name, define by speech, or write on page, The period meant precisely by that word,Which surely is exceedingly absurd.

XXIII.

Laura was blooming still, had made the best
Of time, and time return'd the compliment,
And treated her genteelly, so that, dress'd,

She look'd extremely well where'er she went; A pretty woman is a welcome guest,

And Laura's brow a frown had rarely bent; Indeed, she shone all smiles, and seem'd to flatter Mankind with her black eyes for looking at her.

XXIV.

She was a married woman; 'tis convenient,
Because in Christian countries 't is a rule
To view their little slips with eyes more lenient;
Whereas if single ladies play the fool

(Unless within the period intervenient

A well-timed wedding makes the scandal cool), I don't know how they ever can get over it, Except they manage never to discover it.