% <: V/,/^X/ /a^l^- '^^^^''^^ ^ esiguei a^Dxaira. on Stoiie_T:y TDxglton . NATIONAL TALES. BY THOMAS HOOD, AUTHOR OF " WHIMS AND ODDITIES. 1 am to speak of universal occurrences, with some misfortunes in part, and partly leaning to matters of love. Philostratus. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : WILLIAM H. AINSWORTH, OLD BOND STREET. MDCCCXXVII. LONDON : PAINTED BY S. AND R. BENTLEY, DOESE37 STREET. 'Gel 6 ^4 CONTENTS. ^ r- THE SPANISH TRAGEDY . • .1 THE MIRACLE OF THE HOLY HERMIT . 75 THE WIDOW OF GALICIA . . .91 THE GOLDEX CUP AND THE DISH OF SILVER 101 THE TRAGEDY OF SEVILLE . . . 113 THE LADY IN LOVE WITH ROMANCE . 127 THE EIGHTH SLEEPER OF EPHESUS . . 141 MADELINE ... . 149 MASETTO AND HIS MARE . . o 167 THE STORY OF MICHEL ARGENTI . 181 THE THREE JEWELS . . . 193 GERONIMO AND GHISOLA . . 207 THE FALL OF THE LEAF . . 219 BARAKGA ... . 233 PREFACE. It has been decided, by the learned Malthu- sians of our century, that there is too great an influx of new books into this reading world. An apology seems therefore to be required of me, for increasing my family in this kind ; and by twin volumes, instead of the single octavos which have hitherto been my issue. But I concede not to that modern doctrine, which supposes a world on short allowance, or a generation witliout a ration. There is no mentionable overgrowth likely to happen in life or literature. Wholesome checks are ap- Vl PREFACE. pointed against overfecundity in any species. Thus the whale thins the myriads of herrings, the teeming rabbit makes Thyestean family dinners on her own offspring, and the hyenas devour themselves. Death is never backward when the human race wants hoeing ; nor the Critic to thin the propagation of the press. The surplus children, that would encumber the earth, are thrown back in the grave — the superfluous works, into the coffins prepared for them by the trunk-maker. Nature provides thus equally against scarcity or repletion. There are a thousand blossoms for the one fruit that ripens, and numberless buds for every prosperous flower. Those for which there is no space or sustenance drop early from the bough ; and even so these leaves of mine will pass away, if there be not patronage extant, and to spare, that may endow them with a longer date. I make, therefore, no excuses for this pro- duction, since it is a venture at my own peril. The serious character of the generality of the PREFACE . VH stories, is a deviation from my former attempts, and I have received advice enough, on that account, to make me present them with some misgiving. But because I have jested else- where, it does not follow that I am incompetent for gravity, of which any owl is capable; or proof against melancholy, which besets even the ass. Those who can be touched by neither of these moods, rank lower indeed than both of these creatures. It is from none of the player's ambition, which has led the buffoon by a rash step into the tragic buskin, that I assume the sadder humour, but because I know from certain passages that such affec- tions are not foreign to my nature. During my short lifetime, I have often been as " sad as night," and not like the young gentlemen of France, merely from wantonness. It is the contrast of such leaden and golden fits that lends a double relish to our days. A life of mere laughter is like music without its bass; or a picture (conceive it) of vague Vlll PREFACE. unmitigated light ; whereas the occasional me- lancholy, like those grand rich glooms of old Rembrandt, produces an incomparable effect and a very grateful relief. It will flatter me, to 'find that these my Tales can give a hint to the dramatist — or a few hours' entertainment to any one. I confess, I have thought well enough of them to make me compose some others, which I keep at home, like the younger Benjamin, till I know the treatment of their eider brethren, whom I have sent forth (to buy corn for me) into Egypt. " To be too confident is as unjust In any work, as too much to distrust ; Who, from the rules of study have not swerv'd, Know begg'd applauses never were deserv'd. We must submit to censure, so doth he Whose hours begot this issue ; yet, being free, For his part, if he have not pleased you, then, In this kind he '11 not trouble you again.'* THE SPANISH TRAGEDY -' Let the clouds scowl, make the moon dark, the stars extinct, the winds blowing, the bells tolling, the owls shriek- ing, the toads croaking, the minutes jarring, and the clock striking twelve." — Old Play, VOL. I. THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. Instead of speaking of occurrences which accidentally came under my observation, or were related to me by others, I purpose to speak of certain tragical adventures which per- sonally concerned me ; and to judge from the agitation and horror which the remembrance, at this distance of time, excites in me, the nar- rative shall not concede in interest to any creation of fiction and romance. My hair has changed from black to grey since those events occurred : — strange, and wild, and terrible enough for a dream, I wish I could beheve B 2 4 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. that they had passed only on my pillow ; but when I look around me, too many sad tokens are present to convince me that they were real, — for I still beliold the ruins of an old calamity ! To commence, 1 must refer back to my youth, when, having no brothers, it was my happy for- tune to meet with one who, by his rare qualities and surpassing affection, made amends to me for that denial of nature. Antonio de Linares was, like myself, an orphan, and that circumstance contributed to endear him to my heart ; we were both born, too, on the same day ; and it was one of our childish superstitions to believe, that thereby our fates were so intimately blended that on the same day also we should each de- scend to the grave. He was my schoolmate, my playfellow, my partner in all my little pos- sessions; and as we grew up, he became my counsellor, my bosom friend, and adopted bro- ther. I gave to his keeping the very keys of my heart, and with a like sweet confidence he THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. O entrusted me even with his ardent passion for my beautiful and accomphshed cousin, Isabelle de **** ; and many earnest deliberations we held over the certain opposition to be dreaded from her father, wlio was one of the proudest, as well as poorest nobles of Andalusia. Anto- nio had embraced the profession of arms, and his whole fortune lay at the point of his sword ; yet with that he hoped to clear himself a path to glory, to wealth, and to Isabelle. The an- cestors of the Conde himself had been originally ennobled and enriched by the gratitude of their sovereign, for their signal services in the field ; and when I considered the splendid and warlike talents which had been evinced by my friend, I did not think that his aspirations were too lofty or too sanguine. He seemed made for war ; his chief delight was to read of the ex- ploits of our old Spanish chivalry against the Moors ; and he lamented bitterly that an inter- val of profound peace allowed him no oppor^ tunity of signalizing his prowess and his valour 6 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. against the infidels and enemies of Spain. All his exercised were martial ; the chase and the bull-fight were his amusement, and more than once he engaged as a volunteer in expeditions against the mountain banditti, a race of men dangerous and destructive to our enemies in war, but the scourge and terror of their own country in times of peace. Often his bold and adven- turous spirit led him into imminent jeopardy ; but the same contempt of danger, united with his generous and humane nature, made him as often the instrument of safety to others. An occasion upon which he rescued me from drown- ing, confirmed in us both the opinion that our lives were mu'tualiy dependant, and at the same time put a stop to the frequent railleries I used to address to him on his wanton and unfair ex- posures of our joint existences. This service procured him a gracious introduction and recep- tion at my uncle's, and gave him opportunities of enjoying the society of his beloved Isabelle ; but th« stern disposition of the Conde was too THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. < well known on both sides to allow of any more than the secret avowal of their passion for each other. Many tears were secretly shed by my excellent cousin over this cruel consideration, which deterred her from sharing her confidence with her parent ; but at length, on his preparing for a journey to Madrid, in those days an un- dertaking of some peril, she resolved, by the assistance of filial duty, to overcome this fear, and to open her bosom to her father, before he departed from her, perhaps for ever. I was present at the parting of the Conde with his daughter, which the subsequent event impressed too strongly on my memory to be ever forgotten. It has been much disputed whether persons have those special warnings, by dreams or omens, which some affirm they have experienced before sudden or great cala- mity ; but it is certain that before the departure of my uncle, he was oppressed with the most gloomy forebodings. These depressions he attri- buted to the difficulties of the momentous law- 8 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. suit which called him to Madrid, and which, in fact, involved his title to the whole possessions of his ancestors ; but Isabelle's mind interpreted this despondence as the whisper of some guar- dian spirit or angel ; and this belief, united with the difficulty she found in making the confes- sion that lay at her heart, made her earnestly convert these glooms into an argument against his journey. " Surely," she said, " this melancholy which besets you is some warning from above, which it would be impious to despise ; and therefore. Sir, let me entreat you to remain here, lest )'ou sin by tempting your own fate, and make me wretched for ever." " Nay, Isabelle," he replied gravely, " I should rather sin by mistrusting the good pro. vidence of God, which is with us in all places ; with the traveller in the desert, as with the mariner on the wild ocean; notwithstanding, let me embrace you, my dear child, as though we never should meet again f and he held her THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. U for some minutes closely pressed against his bosom. I saw that Isabelle's heart was vainly swelling with the secret it had to deliver, and would fain have spoken for her ; but she had strictly for- bidden me or Antonio to utter a word on the subject, from a feeling that such an avowal should only come from her own lips. Twice, as her father prepared to mount hishorse, she caught the skirts of his mantle and drew him back to the threshold ; but as often as she attempted to speak, the blood overflooded her pale cheeks and bosom, her throat choked, and at last she turned away with a despairing gesture, which was meant to say, that the avowal was impos- sible. The Conde was not unmoved, but he mistook the cause of her agitation, and referred it to a vague presentiment of evil, by which he was not uninfluenced himself. Twice, after so- lemnly blessing his daughter, he turned back ; once, indeed, to repeat some trifling direction, but the second time he lingered, abstracted and B 5 10 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. thoughtful, as if internally taking a last farewell of his house and child. I had before earnestly entreated to be allowed to accompany him, and now renewed my request ; but the proposal seemed only to offend him, as an imputation on the courage of an old soldier, and he deigned no other reply than by immediately setting spurs to his horse. I then turned to Isabelle ; she was deadly pale, and with clasped hands and stream- ing eyes was leaning against the pillars of the porch for support. Neither of us spoke ; but we kept our eyes earnestly fixed on the lessening figure, that with a slackened pace was now ascending the opposite hill. The road was winding, and sometimes hid and sometimes gave him back to our gaze, till at last he attained a point near the summit, where we knew a sudden turn of the road would soon cover him entirely from our sight. My cousin, I saw, was over- whelmed with fear and self-reproach, and point- ing to the figure, now no bigger than a raven, I said I would still overtake him, and if she THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. II pleased, induce him to return ; but she would not listen to the suggestion. Her avowal, she said, should never come to her father from any lips but her own ; but she still hoped, she added with a faint smile, that he w^ould return safely from Madrid ; and then, if the law-suit should be won, he would be in such a mood, that she should not be afraid to unlock her heart to him. This answer satisfied me. The Conde was now passing behind the extreme point of the road, and it was destined to be the last glimpse we should ever have of him. The old man never returned. As soon as a considerable time had elapsed more than was necessary to inform us of his arrival in the capital, we began to grow very anxious, and a letter was despatched to his Advocate with the necessary inquiries. The answer brought affliction and dismay. The Conde had never made his appearance, and the greatest anxiety prevailed amongst the law- yers, engaged on his behalf, for the success 12 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. of their cause. Isabelle was in despair : all her tears and self reproaches were renewed with increased bitterness, and the tenderest arguments of Antonio and myself were insuffi- cient to subdue her alarm, or console her for what was now aggravated in her eyes to a most heinous breach of fihal piety and affection. She was naturally of a religious turn, and the reproofs of her confessor not only tended to increase her despondency, but induced her to impose upon herself a voluntary and rash act of penance, that caused us tlie greatest afflic- tion. It had been concerted between Anto- nio and myself, that we should immediately proceed by different routes in search of my uncle ; and at day-break, after the receipt of the Advocate's letter, we were mounted and armed, and ready to set forth upon our anxious expedition. It only remained for us to take leave of my cousin ; and as we were conscious that some considerable degree of peril was at- tached to our pursuit, it was on mine, and THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 13 must have been to Antomo'*s feeling, a parting of anxious interest and importance. But the farewell was forbidden — the confessor himself informed us of a resolution which he strenu- ously commended, but which to us, for this once, seemed to rob his words of either reve- rence or authorit3^ Isabelle, to mark her peni- tence for her imaginary sin, had abjured the company, and even the sight of her lover, until her father'^s return and she should have reposed in his bosom that filial confidence, which, she conceived, had been so sinfully omit- ted. This rash determination was confirmed by a sacred vow ; and in a momentary fit of disappointment and disapprobation, which with pain I now confess, I refused to avail myself of the exception that was allowed in my favour, to receive her farewell. Antonio was loud in his murmurings ; but the case admitted of no alternative, and we set forward with sad and heavy hearts, which were not at all lightened as we appn^ached the appointed spot, where 14? THE SPANISH TRAGEDr. we were to diverge from each other. I was accompanied by my man-servant Juan ; but Antonio had resolutely persisted in his inten- tion of traveUing alone : the general rapidity and adventurous course of his proceedings, indeed, would have made a companion an in- cumbrance ; and he insisted that the impene- trability and consequent success of his plans, had been always most insured by his being single in their execution. There was some reason in this argument. Antonio's spirits seemed to rally as he advanced to the threshold of the dangers and difficulties he was going probably to encounter; and after ardently wringing my hand, and half jestingly remind- ing me of the co-dependence of our lives, he dashed the spurs into his horse, and speedily galloped out of sight. The road assigned to myself was the least arduous, but the one I thought it most likely my uncle would have taken on account of the neighbourhood of some family connexions, THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 15 whither his business would most probably carry him ; but only at the first of these man- sions could I obtain any intelligence of his arrival. He had called there to obtain some necessary signatures, and had proceeded with- out any expressed intention of the route in which he was next to travel. It was conjec- tured, however, that he would proceed to the Chateau of * * * * another branch of the family, and to that point I directed my course. But here all clue was lost ; and no alternative was left me, but to return to the line of the high road to Madrid. I must here pass over a part of my progress, which would consist only of tedious repetitions. Traces, imagined to be discovered, but ending in constant dis- appointment — hopes and fears — exertion and fatigue, make up all the history of the second day, till finally a mistaken and unknown road brought us in time to take refuge from a tem- pestuous night at a lonely inn on the moun- tains. I have called it an inn, but the portion 16 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. thus occupied was only a fraction of an old deserted mansion, one wing of which had been rudely repaired and made habitable, whilst the greater part was left untenanted to its slow and picturesque decay. The contrast was striking : whilst in the windows of one end, the lights moving to and fro, the passing and re- passing of shadows, and various intermitting noises and voices, denoted the occupancy; in the centre and the other extreme of the pile, silence and darkness held their desolate and absolute reign. I thought I recognized in this building the description of an ancient re- sidence of my uncle's ancestry, but long since alienated and surrendered to the wardenship of Time. It frowned, methought, with the gloomy pride and defiance which had been re- corded as the hereditary characteristics of its founders ; and, but for the timely shelter it afforded, I should perhaps have bitterly de- nounced the appropriation of the innkeeper, which interfered so injuriously with these hal- THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 17 lowed associations. At present, when the sky lowered, and large falling raindrops he- ralded a tempest, I turned without reluctance from the old quaintly- wrought portal, to the more humble porch, which held out its invita- tion of comfort and hospitality. My knocking brought the host himself to the door, and he speedily introduced me to an inner room, for the smallness of which he apo- logized, adding, that I should find however that it was the better for being somewhat dis- tant from the noisy carousal of his other guests. This man was a striking example of the strange marriage of inconsistencies with which Nature seems sometimes to amuse herself. My arms were instinctively surrendered to the offer of his care ; and, till I looked again on his face, I did not think they had been so imprudently given up. His countenance enveloped — almost hidden, in black shaggy hair — had in it a savage, animal expression, that excited at once my fear and disgust. It was wolf-like ; and as I 18 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. have heard of brutes, that they are unable to endure the steady gaze of man, so his eyes were continually shifting; ever restless, yet ever watchful, though only by short and sidelong glances. They seemed to penetrate and sur- prise by startling and hasty snatches, the de- signs and emotions you might have kept veiled from a more stedfast and determined inqui- sition. I am certain, I would rather have met the most fixed and unremitting gaze than his. His frame was appropriately large, yet propor- tioned and muscular; it seemed adapted at once for strength and activity, — to spring, to wind, to crouch, or, at need, to stiffen itself into an attitude of staunch and inflexible resistance. How came such a figure to be the habitation of such a voice ? This was low, mellow, full of soft and musical inflexions, which insinuated his courtesies with a charm it was impossible to repel. If the utterance be tuned by the heart, as some have affirmed, and the characteristics of passion denote themselves in the lines of the THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 19 countenance, what an irreconcileable contradic- tion was involved in this man ! His face was infernal, demoniac — his utterance divine ! I know not if he observed the eager scrutiny with which I dwelt on these peculiarities ; he 'hastily left me just as I had commenced those enquiries concerning my uncle, which my cu- riosity had in the first instance delayed. Per- haps he could not, or would not, reply to my questions ; but they seemed to precipitate his retreat. Was it possible that he possessed any secret knowledge of the fate of the Conde ? His absence had been succeeded by a momen- tary silence amongst the revellers without, as if he were relating to them the particulars of my inquiries. A slight glance at that boisterous company during my hasty passage through their banquet-room, had given me no very favourable opinion of their habits or character ; and it was possible that the warlike defences and fastenings which I observed every where about me, might be as much intended for the home security of a 20 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. banditti, as for a precaution against their pro- bable vicinity. It was now too late for me to retrace my steps. Flight was impracticable, the same precautions which were used against any hostile entrance, were equally opposed to my egress ; unless, indeed, I had recourse to the way by which I had entered, and which led through the common room immediately occu- pied by the objects of my suspicion : this would have been to draw upon myself the very consequence I dreaded. My safety for the present seemed to be most assured by a careful suppression of all tokens of distrust, till these suspicions should be more explicitly confirmed ; and I should not readily forgive myself if, after incurring all the dangers of darkness and tem- pest and an unknown country, it should prove that my apprehensions had been acted upon without any just foundation. These thoughts, however, were soon diverted by a new object. The innkeeper'*s daughter entered with refreshments, — bread merely, with THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 21 a few olives ; and I could not restrain Juan from addressing to her some familiarities, which were so strangely and incoherently answered, as quickly to bespeak my whole attention. It was then impossible to look away from her. From her features she had evidently been very handsome, with a good figure ; but now she stooped in her shoulders, and had that peculiar crouching and humbled demeanour, which I have often observed in the insane. Indeed, she had altogether the manner and appearance of one under the influence of me- lancholy derangement. She looked, moved, spoke, like a being but half recovered from death and the grave ; as if the body, indeed, was released from its cerements, but the mind had not yet escaped from its mortal thraldom. I never saw an eye so dark and so dull in woman ! — it had not the least lustre or intel- ligence, but seemed glazed, and moved with a heaviness and languor just short of death ! Her cheeks were as pale as marble, but of %"& THE SPANISH TEAGEDY. a cold unhealthy ashen white; and my heart ached to think that they had been bleached, most probably, by bitter and continual tears. On her neck she wore a small black crucifix, which she sometimes kissed, as if mechanically, and with a very faint semblance of devotion ; and her hands were adorned with several most costly and beautiful rings ; far foreign, indeed, to her station ; but borne, it seemed, without any feeling of personal vanity, or even of consciousness. The world seemed to contain for her no stirring interest; her mind had stagnated like a dark pool, or had rather frozen, till it took no impression from any external object. Where she acted, it was only from the influence of habit; and when the task was done, she relapsed again into the same cold and calm indifference. Judge, then, of my astonishment, — I might say, terror, when this mysterious being, so insensible, so apparently abstracted from all earthly con- templations, began to rivet her black eyes THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 23 upon mine, and to lose her accustomed apa- thy in an expression of some wild and incon- ceivable interest ! What was there in me to arouse her from that mental trance in which she had been absorbed ? I wished, with the most intense anxiety, to gain some information from her looks ; and, yet at the same time, I could not confront her gaze even for an instant. Her father, who had entered, sur- prised at so extraordinary an emotion, hasten- ed abruptly out ; and the immediate entrance of the mother, evidently upon some feigned pretext of business, only tended to increase my inquietude. How had I become an object of interest to these people, whom till that hour I had never seen ; and with whose affairs, by any possibility, I could not have the most remote connexion, unless by their implication in the fate of my uncle .? This conjecture filled me with an alarm and agitation I could ill have concealed, if my remorseless observer had not been too much ab- 24 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. sorbed in her own undivined emotions, to take any notice of mine. A sensation of shame flushed over me, at being thus quelled and daunted by the mere gaze of a woman ; but then it was such a look and from such a being as I can never behold again ! It seemed to realize all that I had read of Circean enchantment, or of the snake-like gaze, neither to be endured nor shun- ned ; and under this dismal spell I remained till the timely entrance of Juan. The charm, what- ever it might be, was then broken ; with a long shuddering sigh she turned away her eyes from me, and then left the room. What a load, at that moment, seemed removed from my heart ! Her presence had oppressed me, like that of one of the mortal Fates ; but now, at her going, my ebbing breath returned again, and the blood thrilled joyfully through my veins. Juan crossed himself in amaze ! he had no- ticed me shrinking and shuddering beneath her glance, and doubtless framed the most horrible notions of an influence which could work upon THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 25 me SO potently. He, too, had met with his own terrors, in a whispering dialogue he had parti- ally overheard during his employment in the stable, and which served to unravel the fearful mystery that hung like a cloud over all the seeming and doings of that bewildered creature. She had loved ; and it was but too plain, from the allusions of the dialogue, that the object of her affection had been a robber ! He had suf- fered for his crimes a cruel and lingering death, of which she had been a constrained spectator, and she had maddened over the remembrance of his agonies. It required but little conjecture to fill up the blanks of the narrative ; her manners, her apathy, the possession of those costly ornaments, were easily accounted for ; and it only remained to find a solution for the wild and intense interest with which she had regarded me. This would have a natural explanation by supposing in my- self some accidental resemblance to the features of her lover ; and the after-course of events VOL. I. c 96 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. proved that this conjecture was well founded. There were sufficient grounds in these particu- lars for inquietude and alarm. From the nature of her attachment, the avocations and connec- tions of the family must be of a very dubious character. What if my host himself should be secretly associated with some neighbouring horde of banditti, and under his ostensible oc- cupation of innkeeper, abetted their savage and blood-thirsty designs upon the unwary traveller! Might not his very house be their lurking-place or rendezvous ? nay, might it not be provided with cellars and traps, and secret vaults, and all those atrocious contrivances which we have heard of as expressly prepared for the perpe- tration of outrage and murder ? There was a marked wariness and reserve about the master, a mixture of fox-like caution, with the ferocity of the wolf, that confirmed, rather than alJayed such suspicions ; and why had my arms been so officiously conveyed away, under a pretence of care and attention, but in reality to deprive THE SPANISH TRAGEDY- 2*7 me of even the chances of defence ? All these considerations shaped themselves so reasonably, and agreed together so naturally, as to induce conviction ; and looking upon myself as a victim already marked for destruction, it only remain- ed for me to exercise all my sagacity and men- tal energy, to extricate myself from the toils. Flight, 1 had resolved, was impracticable, — and if I should demand my arms, the result of such an application was obviously certain ; I dared not even hint a suspicion : but why do I speak of suspicions, they were immediately to be ri- pened into an appalling certainty. I had not communicated my thoughts to Juan, knowing too well his impetuous and in- discreet character ; but in the meantime his own fears had been busy with him, and his de- pression was aggravated by the circumstance that he had not been able to procure any wine from the Innkeeper, who swore that he had not so much as a flask left in his house. It would have been difficult to believe that one of his c 3 28 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. profession should be so indifferently provided ; but this assertion, made in the face of all the flasks and flaggons of his revellers, convinced me that he felt his own mastery over us, and was resolved to let us cost him as little as possible. Juan was in despair ; his courage was always proportioned to the wine he had taken, and feehng at this moment an urgent necessity for its assistance, he resolved to supply himself by a stolen visit to the cellar. He had shrewdly taken note of its situation during a temporary assistance rendered to the Innkeeper, and made sure that by watching his opportunity he could • reach it unperceived. It seemed to require no small degree of courage to venture in the dark upon such a course ; but the excitement was stronger than fear could overbalance ; and pluck- ing off his boots, to prevent any noise, he set forth on his expedition. No sooner was he gone, than I began to perceive the danger to which such an imprudent step might subject us, but it was too late to be recalled, and I was obliged THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 29 to wait in no very enviable anxiety for his return. The interval was tediously long, or seemed so, before he made his appearance. He bore a small cann : and, from his looks, had met with no serious obstacle, but whether the theft had been observed, or it happened simply by chance, the Innkeeper entered close upon his heels. There is sometimes an instinctive presence of mind inspired by the aspect of danger; and guided by this impulse, in an instant I extin- guished the light as if by accident. For a time, at least, we were sheltered from discovery. The Innkeeper turned back — it was a critical moment for us, — but even in that moment the unruly spirit of drink prompted my unlucky servant to take a draught of his stolen beverage, and immediately afterwards I heard him spitting it forth again, in evident disgust with its flavour. In a few moments the Innkeeper returned with a lamp, and as soon as he was gone the liquor was eagerly inspected, and to our unspeakable 30 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. horror, it had every appearance of blood ! It was impossible to suppress the effect of the natural disgust which affected Juan at this loath- some discovery — he groaned aloud, he vomited violently, the Innkeeper again came in upon us, and though I attributed the illness of my servant to an internal rupture which occasioned him at times to spit up blood, it was evident that he gave no credit to the explanation. He seemed to comprehend the whole scene at a glance. In fact, the vessel, with its horrid contents, stood there to confront me, and 1 gave up my vain attempt in silent and absolute despair. If we were not before devoted to death, this deadly circumstance had decided our fate. His own safety, indeed, would enforce upon the Inn- keeper the necessity of our being sacrificed. The fellow, meanwhile, departed without ut- tering a syllable: but I saw in his look that his determination was sealed, and that my own must be as promptly resolved. I had before thought of one measure as a last desperate THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 31 resource. This was to avail myself of the fa- vourable interest I had excited in the daugh- ter — to appeal to her pity — to awaken her, if possible, to a sympathy with my danger, and invoke her interference to assist my escape. Yet how could I obtain even an interview for my purpose ? Strange that I should now wish so ardently for that very being whose presence had so lately seemed to me a curse. Now I listened for her voice, her step, with an impa^ tience never equalled, perhaps, but by him for whom she had crazed. My whole hope rested on that resemblance which might attract her again to gaze on a shadow, as it were, of his image, and I was not deceived. She came again, and quietly seating herself before me, began to watch me with the same earnestness. Poor wretch ! now that I knew her history, I regarded her with nothing but tenderness and pity. Her love might have burned as bright and pure as ever was kindled in a maiden's bosom ; and was she necessarily aware of the ?>% THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. unhallowed profession of its object? He might have been brave, generous — in love, at least, honoured and honourable, and compared with the wretches with whom her home associated her, even as an angel of light. Would his fate else have crushed her with that eternal sorrow ? Such were my reflections on the melancholy ruin of woman before me; and if my pity could obtain its recompense in hers, I was saved ! Hope catches at straws. I saw, or fancied in her looks, an affectionate expression of sympa- thy and anxiety, that I eagerly interpreted in my own behalf ; but the result belied this an- ticipation. It was evident that my most im- passioned words produced no corresponding im- pression on her mind. My voice even seemed to dispel the illusion that was raised by my features, and rising up, she was going to with- draw, but that I detained her by seizing her hand. " No, no !" she said, and made a slight effort to free herself; "you are not Andreas." THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. OO " No, my poor maiden,'' I said, " I am not Andreas ; but am I not his image ? Do I not remind you of his look, of his features?*" " Yes, yes," she rephed quickly, " you are like my Andreas — you are like him here,"' and she stroked back the hair from my forehead ; " but his hair was darker than this," and the mournful remembrance for the first time filled her dull eyes with tears. This was an auspicious omen. Whilst I saw only her hot glazed eyes, as if the fever within had parched up every tear, I despaired of exciting her sympathy with an external interest ; but now that her grief and her ma- lady even seemed to relent in this effusion, it was a favourable moment for renewing my appeal. I addressed her in the most touching voice I could assume. " You loved Andreas, and you say I re- semble him ; for his sake, will you not save me from perishing ?" c 5 34 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. Her only answer was an unconscious and wondering look. " I know too well/' I continued, " that I am to perish, and you know it likewise. Am I not to be murdered this very night ?" She made no reply ; but it seemed as if she had comprehended my words. Could it be, that with that strange cunning not uncommon to insanity, she thus dissembled, in order to cover her own knowledge of the murderous designs of her father? I resolved, at least, to proceed on this supposition, and repeated my words in a tone of certainty. This decision had its effect ; or else, her reason had before been incompetent to my question. " Yes ! yes ! yes !'' she said, in a low hurried tone, and with a suspicious glance at the door, "it is so; he will come to you about midnight. You are the son of the old man we strangled."*' Conceive how I started at these words ! They literally stung my ears. It was not THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 35 merely that my worst fears were verified, as regarded the fate of my uncle ; for, doubtless, he was the victim — or, that I was looked upon and devoted to a bloody death as his avenger ; for these announcements I was already pre- pared ; but there was yet another and a deeper cause of horror : — " The old man that we strangled !" Had that wild maniac then lent her own hands to the horrid deed, had she, perhaps, helped to bind, — to pluck down and hold the struggling victim, — to stifle his feeble cries, — nay, joined her strength even to tighten the fatal cord ; or was it that she only im- plicated herself in the act, by the use of an equivocal expression ? It might merely signify, that it was the act of some of those of the house ; with whom, by habit, she included herself as a part. At the same time, I could not but remember, that even the female heart has been known to become so hardened by desperation and habitudes of crime, as to be capable of the most ferocious and remorseless 36 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. cruelties. She had too, those same black eyes and locks, which I have always been accus- tomed to tliink of in connexion with Jael and Judith, and all those stern-hearted women, who dipped their unfaltering hands in blood. Her brain was dizzy, her bosom was chilled, her sympathies were dead and torpid, and she might gaze on murder and all its horrors, with her wonted apathy and indifference. To what a being then was I going to commit my safety ! To one, who from the cradle had been nur- sed amidst scenes of bloodshed and violence ; whose associates had ever been the fierce and the lawless; whose lover even had been a leader of banditti ; and by his influence and example, might make even murder and cruelty lose some portion of their natural blackness and horror. It might happen, that in these thoughts I wronged that unhappy creature ; but my dismal situation, predisposed me to regard every thing in the most unfavourable light. I had cause THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 37 for apprehension in every sound that was raised, — in every foot that stirred, — in what- ever face I met, — that belonged to that horrible place. Still, my present experiment was the last, short of mere force, which I could hope would avail me; and I resumed the attempt. It seemed prudent, in order to quiet the sus- picion I had excited, that I should first dis- claim all connexion or interest in the unfor- tunate victim ; and I thought it not criminal, in such an extremity, to have recourse to a falsehood. '* What you say,"" I replied to her, " of an old man being murdered, is to me a mystery. If such an occurrence has happened, it is no doubt lamentable to some one ; but as for my father, I trust, that for these many years he has been with the blessed in the presence of God. For myself, I am a traveller, and the purposes of my journey are purely mercantile. My birth-place is England, — but, alas! I shall never see it again ! You tell me I am to die 38 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. to-night, — that I am to perish by violence; — and have you the heart to resign me to such a horrible fate ? You have power or interest to save me; let me not perish by I know not what cruelties. I have a home far away — kt it not be made desolate. Let me return to my wife, and to my young children, and they shall daily bless thee at the foot of our altars !" I believe the necessity of the occasion in- spired me with a suitable eloquence of voice and manner; for these words, untrue as they were, made a visible impression on the wild being to whom they were addressed. As I spoke of violence and cruelty she shuddered, as if moved by her own terrible associations with those words ; but when I came to the mention of my wife and children, it evidently awakened her compassion ; and all at once, her womanly nature burst through the sullen clouds that had held it in eclipse. " Oh, no — no — no !'' she replied, hurriedly ; THE SPANISH TEAGEDY. 39 " You must not die — your babes will weep else, and your wife will craze. Andreas would have said thus too, but he met with no pity for all the eyes that wept for him." She clasped her forehead for a moment with her hands, and continued : — " But I must find a way to save you. I thought, when he died, I could never pity any one again ; but he will be glad in Heaven, that I have spared one for his sake. A momentary pang shot through me at these touching words, when I remembered how much I had wronged her by my injurious suspicions: but the consideration of my personal safety quickly engrossed my thoughts, and I demanded eagerly to know by what means she proposed to effect my escape. She soon satisfied me that it would be a trial of my utmost fortitude. There was a secret door in the paneling of my allotted bed-chamber, which communicated with her own, and by this, an hour before midnight, she would guide me and provide for my egress 40 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. from the house : but she could neither promise to procure me my horse, nor to provide for the safety of the unlucky Juan, who was destined to be lodged in a loft far distant from my apart- ment. It may be imagined that I listened with a very unwilling ear to this arrangement ; by which, alone, unarmed, I was to await the un- certain coming of my preserver. What if by any accident it should be preceded by that of the assassin ? — but it was idle to indulge in these doubts. There was but one chance of escape open to me ; and it was for me to embrace it upon whatever terms it was offered. Accord- ingly, I promised to conform explicitly to the maiden's instructions, to offer no opposition to any arrangements which should be made, to stifle carefully the slightest indications of mis- trust, to seal up my lips for ever in silence on these events, and above all, to avoid any expres- sion or movement which might give umbrage to her father ; with these cautions, and kissing THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 41 her crucifix in token of her sincerity, she left me. I was alone ; Juan, on some occasion had withdrawn, and I was left to the companionship of reflections, which in such a feverish interval could not be anything but disgusting. At one time, I calculated the many chances there were against the continuance of this rational interval in the mind of a maniac : then I doubted her power of saving me, and whether the means she had. proposed as existing in reality, might not be her own delusion, as well as mine. I even debated with myself, whether it was not an act of moral tuipitude that I should accept of de- liverance without stipulating for the safety of my poor servant. These thoughts utterly unnerved me. The ticking of the clock grew into a sensation of real and exquisite pain, as indicating the continual advances of time towards a certain crisis, with its yet uncertain catastrophe. The hour-hand ^ THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. * was already within a few digits of ten, and kept travelling onward with my thoughts, to a point that might verge with me on eternity. The lamp was every moment consuming its little remainder of oil, to supply me, it might be, with my last of light. My days were perhaps num- bered ; and the blood taking its last course through my veins ! One of these subjects of my anxiety I might have spared myself. The Innkeeper abruptly entered, and with a look and tone of seeming dissatisfaction, informed me that Juan had de- camped, taking with him my arms, and what- ever of my portable property he had been able to lay his hands upon. So far then, if the tale was true, he was safe : but it seemed wonder- ful by what means he could have eluded a vi- gilance which, doubtless, included him in its keeping ; and still more, that at such a moment he should have chosen to rob me. A minute ago I would have staked my fortune on his honesty, and my life on his fidelity. The THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 43 story was too improbable: but on the other hand it was but too likely that he had either been actually despatched, or else in some way removed from me, that I might not claim his company or assistance in my chamber. There was only one person who was likely to solve these doubts, and she was absent ; and I began to consider that in order to give time and scope for her promised assistance, it was necessary that I should retire. To ask in a few words to be shown to my room seemed an easy task : but when I glanced on the dark scowling features of my chamberlain, harshly and vividly marked by the strong light and shade, as he bent over the lamp, even those few words were beyond my utterance. To meet such a visage, in the dead of night, thrusting apart one's curtains, would be a sufficient warning for death ! The ruffian seemed to understand and anticipate my unexpressed desire, and taking up the lamp, proposed to conduct me to my cham- ber, I nodded assent, and he began to lead 44 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. the way in the same deep silence. A mutual and conscious antipathy seemed to keep us from speaking. Our way led through several dark, narrow passages, and through one or two small rooms, which I lost no time in reconnoitring. The accumulated cobw^ebs which hung from all the angles of the ceilings, the old dingy furnitures, and the visible neglect of cleanliness, gave them an aspect of dreariness that chilled me to the very soul. As I passed through them, I fancied that on the dusty floors I could trace the stains of blood; the walls seemed spotted and splashed with the same hue ; the rude hands of my host- guide even seemed tinged with it. As though I had gazed on the sun, a crimson blot hovered before me wherever I looked, and imbued all objects with this horrible colour. Every moving shadow, projected by the lamp on the walls, seemed to be the passing spectre of some one who had here been murdered, sometimes con- fronting me at a door, sometimes looking down THE SPANISH TRAGKDY. 45 upon me from the ceiling, or echoing me, step by step, up the old, crazy stairs ; still following me indeed, whithersoever I went, as if conscious of our approaching fellow shiyj ! At last I was informed that I stood in my allotted chamber. I instantly and mechanically cast my eyes towards the window, and a mo- ment's glance sufficed to show me that it was strongly grated. This movement did not escape the vigilant eye of my companion. " Well, Senor,'' he said, " what dost think, have I not bravely barricaded my chateau ?'' I could make no answer. There was a look and tone of triumph and malicious irony, ac- companying the question, that would not have suffered me to speak calmly. The ruffian had secured his victim, and looked upon me, no doubt, as a spider does upon its prey, which it has immeshed, and leaves to be destroyed at its leisure. Fortunately, I recollected his daugh- ter's caution, and subdued my emotion in his presence ; but my heart sank within me at his 46 THE SPANISH TEAGEDY. exit, as I heard the door locked behind him, and felt myself his prisoner. All the horribfe narratives I had read, or heard related of mid- night assassinations, of travellers murdered in such very abodes as this, thronged into my me- mory with a vivid and hideous fidelity to their wild and horrible details. A fearful curiosity led me towards the bed ; a presentiment that it would afford me some unequivocal confirmation of these fears; and I turned over the pillow, with a shuddering conviction that on the under side I should be startled with stains of blood. It was, however, fair, snow-white indeed ; and the sheets and coverlet were of the same inno- cent colour. I then recollected the secret panel. It was natural that I should be eager to verify its existence, but with the strictest inspection I could make, I was unable to discover any trace of it. Panels indeed opened upon me from every side ; but it was only to usher forth hideous phantoms of armed ruffians, with THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 47 brandished daggers, that vanished again on a moment''s scrutiny: and as these panels were only creations of my imagination, so that one for which I sought had no existence, I doubted not, but in the bewildered brain of a maniac. Thus then, my last avenue to escape was utterly annihilated, and I had no hope left but in such a despairing resistance as I might make by help of the mere bones and sinews with which God had provided me. The whole fur- niture of the chamber would not afford me an effective weapon, and a thousand times I cursed myself that T had not sooner adopted this desperate resolution, while such rude arms as a fire-place could supply me with were within my reach. There was now nothing left for me but to die; and Antonio would have another victim to avenge. Alas ! would he ever know how or where I had perished ; or that I had even passed the boundaries of death ! I should fall unheard, unseen, unwept, and my un soothed spirit would walk unavenged, with those sha- 48 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. dovv's I had fancied wandering. The reflection maddened me. My brain whirled dizzily round ; my brow seemed parched by the fever of my thoughts, and hastening to the window, I threw open a little wicket for air : a grateful gush of wind immediately entered ; but the lamp with which I had been making my fruit- less search, was still in my hand, and that gust extinguished it. Darkness was now added to all my other t;vils. There was no moon nor a single star ; the night was intensely obscure, and groping my way back to the bed, I cast myself upon it in an agony of despair. I cannot describe the dreadful storm of passions that shook me : fear, anguish, horror, self-reproach, made up the terrible chaos; and then came rage, and I vowed, if ever I survived, to visit my tormentors with a bloody and fierce retribution. I have said that the room was utterly dark, but imagi- nation peopled it with terrific images ; and kept my eyes straining upon the gloom, with THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 49 an attention painfully intense. Shadows blacker even than the night, seemed to pass and repass before me ; the curtains were grasped and with- drawn ; visionary arms, furnished with glancing steel, were uplifted and descended again into obscurity. Every sense was assailed ; the silence was interrupted by audible breathings — slow cautious footsteps stirred across the floor — ima- gined hands travelled stealthily over the bed- clothes, as if in feeling for my face. Then I heard distant shrieks, and recognized the voice of Juan in piteous and gradually stifled inter- cession ; sometimes the bed seemed descending under me, as if into some yawning vault or cellar, and at others, faint fumes of sulphur would seem to issue from the floor, as if designed to suffocate me, without affording me even the poor chance of resistance. At length a sound came, which my ear readily distinguished, by its distinctness, from the mere suggestions of fear : it was the cau- tious unlocking and opening of the door. My VOL. I. D 50 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. eyes turning instantly in that direction, were eagerly distended, but there was not a glimmer of light even accompanied the entrance of my unknown visitor : but it was a man's foot. A lioiling noise rushed through my ears, and my tongue and throat were parched with a sudden and stifling thirst. The power of utterance and of motion seemed at once to desert me ; my heart panted as though it were grown too large for my body, and the weight of twenty mountains lay piled upon my breast. To he still, however, was to be lost. By a violent exertion of the will, I flimg myself out of the bed, furthest from the door ; and scarcely had I set foot upon the ground, when I heard something strike against the opposite side. Immediately afterwards a heavy blow was given — a second — a third ; the stabs them- selves, as well as the sound, seemed to fall upon my very heart. A cold sweat rushed out upon my forehead. T felt sick, my limbs bowed, and I could barely keep myself from THE SPANISH TEAGEDY. 51 falling. It was certain that my absence would be promptly discovered : that a search would instantly cqmmence, and my only chance was, by listening intensely for his footsteps, to dis- cern the course and elude the approaches of my foe. I could hear him grasp the pillows, and the rustling of the bed-clothes as he turned them over in his search. For a minute all was then deeply, painfully silent. I could fancy him stealing towards me, and almost supposed the warmth of his breath against my face. 1 ex- pected every instant to feel myself seized, I knew not where, in his grasp, and my flesh was ready to shrink all over from his touch. Such an interval had now elapsed as I judged would suffice for him to traverse the bed ; and in fact the next moment his foot struck against the wainscot close beside me, followed by a long hasty sweep of his arm along the wall — it seemed to pass over my head. Then all was still again, as if he paused to listen ; mean- D 2 SI .DFlLUUaJ 52 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. while I strode away, silently as death, in the direction of the opposite side of the chamber. Then I paused: but I had suppressed my breath so long, that involuntarily it escaped from me in a long deep sigh, and I was forced again to change my station. There was not a particle of light ; but in shifting cautiously round, I espied a bright spot or crevice in the wall : upon this spot I resolved to keep my eyes steadily fixed, judging that by this means I should be warned of the approach of any opaque body, by its intercepting the light. On a sudden, it was obscured ; but I have reason to believe it was by some unconscious movement of my own, for just as I retired backwards, from the approach, as I conceived, of my enemy, I was suddenly seized from be- hind. The crisis was come, and all my fears were consummated : I was in the arms of the assassin ! A fierce and desperate struggle instantly commenced, which, from its nature, could be THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 53 but of short duration. I was defenceless, but my adversary was armed ; and, wherever he might aim his dagger, I was disabled, by the utter darkness, from warding off the blow. The salvation of my life depended only on the strength and presence of mind I might bring to the conflict. A momentary relaxation of his hold indicated that my foe was about to make use of his weapon ; and my immediate impulse was to grasp him so closely round the body, as to deprive him of the advantage. My antago- nist was fearfully powerful, and struggled vio- lently to free himself from my arms; but an acquaintance with wrestling and athletic sports, acquired in my youth, and still more the strong love of life, enabled me to grapple with him and maintain my hold. I was safe, indeed, only so long as I could restrain him from the use of his steel. Our arms were firmly locked in each other, our chests closely pressed to- gether, and it seemed that strength at least was fairly matched with strength. 54 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. From a dogged shame, perhaps, or whatever cause, the ruffian did not deign to summon any other to his aid, but endeavoured, singly and silently, to accomplish his bloody task. Not a word, in fact, was uttered on either part— not a breathing space even was allowed by our brief and desperate struggle. Many violent efforts were made by the wretch to disengage himself, in the course of which we were often forced against the wall, or hung balanced on straining sinews, ready to fall headlong on the floor. At last, by one of these furious exertions, we were dashed against the wall, and the panelling giving way to our weight, we were precipitated with a fearful crash, but still clinging to each other, down a considerable descent. On touch- ing the ground, however, the violence of the shock separated us. The ruffian, fortunately, had fallen undermost, which stunned him, and gave me time to spring upon my feet. A moment's glance round told me that we had fallen through the secret panel, spoken of THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 55 by the maniac, into her own chamber ; but my eyes were too soon riveted by one object, to take any further note of the place. It was her — that wild, strange being herself, just risen from her chair at this thundering intrusion, drowsy and bewildered, as if from a calm and profound sleep. She that was to watch, to snatch me from the dagger itself, had forgotten and slept over the appointment that involved my very existence ! But this was no time for wonder or reproach. My late assailant was lying prostrate before me, and his masterless weapon was readily to be seized and appropriated to my own defence. I might have killed him, but a moment's reflection showed me that his single death, whilst it might exasperate his fellows, could tend but little to my safety. This was yet but a present and temporary security ; a respite, not a reprieve, from the fate that impended over me. It was important, therefore, to learn, if possible, from that bewildered creature, the means which 56 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. should have led to my escape from the house ; and if she was still willing and competent to become my guide. The first step had been accidentally accomplished ; but here it seemed that my progress was to find its termination. All the past, except that horrible and distant part of it over which she brooded, had utterly lapsed again from her memory, like words traced upon water. The examination only lasted for a moment, but it sufficed to convince me of this unwelcome result. What then, indeed, could have been expected from the uncertain and intermitting intelligences of a maniac ? I won- dered how I could have built up a single hope on so slippery a foundation. It was now too late to arraign my folly or bewail its consequence ; a few minutes would recal the robber to consciousness, and those were all that would allow me to seek, or avail myself of any passage for retreat. Although no other entrance was immediately apparent, it was obvious that this chamber must have some THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 57 other one, than the panel by which I had so unexpectedly arrived ; and this conclusion proved to be correct. There was a trap-door, in one corner, for com- munication with beneath. To espy it — to grasp the ring — to raise it up — were the transactions of an instant ; but no sooner was it thrown open, than my ears were assailed by a sudden uproar of sounds from below. The noise seemed at first to be the mere Bacchanalian riot of a drunken banditti ; but a continued attention made me interpret differently of the tumult, which now seemed to partake less of the mirth of carousal, than of the violence and voices of some serious affray. The distance of the sounds, which came from the further part of the house, precluded an accurate judgment of their nature. Had the banditti quarrelled amongst themselves, and proceeded to blows ? The disorder and distraction incident to such a tumult could not but be highly favourable to my purpose; and I was just on the point of D 5 58 THE SPANISH TRAaEDY. stepping through the aperture, when the ruffian behind me, as if aroused by the uproar, sprang up on his feet, rushed past me with a speed that seemed to be urged by alarm, and bounded through the trap-door. The room beneath was in darkness, so that I was unable to distinguish his course, which his intimate knowledge of the place, nevertheless, enabled him to pursue with ease and certainty. As soon as his footsteps were unheard, I fol- lowed, with less speed and celerity. I might, indeedj have possessed myself of the lamp which stood upon the table, but a light would infallibly have betrayed me, and I continued to grope my way in darkness and ignorance to the lower chamber. An influx of sound, to the left, denoted an open door, and directing my course to that quarter, I found that it led into a narrow passage. As yet I had seen no light; but now a cool gush of air seemed to promise that a few steps onward I should meet with a window. It proved to be only a loop-hole. THE SPANISH TEAGEDY. 59 The noise as I advanced had meanwhile become more and more violent, and was now even ac- companied by irregular discharges of pistols. My vicinity to the scene of contest made me hesitate. I could even distinguish voices, and partially understood the blasphemies and im- precations that were most loudly uttered. I had before attributed this tumult to a brawling contention amongst the inmates themselves, but now the indications seemed to be those of a more serious strife. The discharges of fire- arms were almost incessant, and the shouts and cries were like the cheers of onset and battle, of fury and anguish. The banditti had doubtless been tracked and assaulted in their den ; and it became necessary to consider what course in such a case it was the most prudent for me to adopt. Should I seek for some place of con- cealment, and there await the issue of a con- test, which would most probably terminate in favour of j ustice ? — or ought I not rather to hasten and lend all my energies to the cause ? 60 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. I Still held in my hand the dagger, of which I had possessed myself; but could it be hoped that thus imperfectly armed, if armed it might be called, my feeble aid could essentially con- tribute to such a victory ? The decision was as suddenly as unexpectedly resolved. A familiar voice, which I could not mistake, though loud and raving far above its natural pitch, amidst a clamour of fifty others — struck on my ear ; and no other call was neces- sary to precipitate my steps towards the scene of action. I had yet to traverse some passages, which the increase of light enabled me to do more readily. The smoke, the din, the flashing reflections along the walls, now told me that I was close upon the strife ; and in a few mo- ments, on turning an abrupt angle, I had it in all its confusion before me. The first and nearest object that struck me was the figure of the Innkeeper himself, ap- parently in the act of reloading his piece. His back was towards me, but I could not mistake THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. ^ 61 his tall and muscular frame. On hearing a step behind him, he turned hastily round, dis- charged a pistol at my head, and then disap- peared in the thickest of the tumult. The ball, however, only whizzed past my ear ; but not harmless, for immediately afterwards I felt some one reel against me from behind, clasp me for an instant by the shoulders, and then roll downwards to the floor. The noise, and the exciting; interest which hurried me hither had hindered me from perceiving that I was followed, and I turned eagerly round to ascertain who had become the victim of the mis-directed shot. It was the ruffian's own daughter ; the unhappy maniac herself, whose shattered brain had thus received from his hand the last pang it was destined to endure ; a single groan was all that the poor wretch had uttered. I felt an inexpressible shock at this horrid catastrophe. I was stained with her blood, particles of her brain even adhered to my clothes ; and I was glad to escape from the horror excited by the 62 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. harrowing spectacle, by plunging into the chaoS before me. Further than of a few monients, during which, however, I had exchanged and parried a number of blows and thrusts, I have no recollection. A spent ball on the rebound struck me directly on the forehead, and laid me insensible, under foot, amidst the dying and the dead. When I recovered, I found myself lying on a bed — the same, by a strange coincidence, that I had already occupied ; but the faces around me, though warlike, were friendly. My first eager inquiries, as soon as I could speak, were for my friend Antonio, for it was indeed his voice that I had recognized amidst the conflict, but I could obtain no direct answer. Sad and silent looks, sighs and tears, only, made up the terrible response. He was then slain ! Nothing but death indeed would have kept him at such a moment from my pillow. It availed nothing to me that the victory had been won, that their wretched adversaries were all prison- THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 63 ers or destroyed ; at such a price, a thousand of such victories would have been dearly pur- chased. If I could have felt any consolation in his death, it would have been to learn that his arm had first amply avenged in blood the murder of the Conde — that the Innkeeper had been cleft by him to the heart — that numbers of the robbers had perished by his heroic hand : but I only replied to the tidings with tears for my friend, and regrets that I had not died with him. How cruelly, by his going before me, had the sweet belief of our youth been falsified .' Was it possible that I had survived : perhaps to see the grass grow over his head ; and to walk alone upon the earth, when he should be nothing but a little dust ? Why had I been spared ? others could convey to Isabelle the afflicting intelligence that she had no longer a father or a lover; and i.i such an overwhelming dispensation, she could well forego the poor and unavaihng consolations of a friend. Such were my natural and desponding feel- 64 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. ings, on contemplating the loss of my beloved friend; — ^but new and indispensable duties re- called the energies of my mind, and diverted me from a grief which would else have con- sumed me. The last sacred rites remained to be performed for the dead ; and although the fate of the Conde might readily be divined, it was necessary to establish its certainty by the discovery of his remains. The prisoners who were questioned on this point maintained an obstinate silence ; and the researches of the military had hitherto been unavailing, except to one poor wretch, whom they rescued from extreme suffering and probable death. I have related the disappearance of my servant Juan, and my suspicions as to the cause of his absence were found to have verged nearly on the truth. He had saved himself, it appeared, from immediate danger, by a feigned compliance with the invitations of the banditti to enrol himself in their numbers ; but as a precaution or a probation, he had been bound THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 65 hand and foot, and consigned to a garret till I should have been first disposed of. The poor fellow was dreadfully cramped in his limbs by the tightness of the hgatures, and was nearly half dead with cold and affright, when he was thus opportunely discovered ; but no sooner had he revived, and comprehended the object of our search, than his memory supplied us with a clue: — the wine-barrels! The house had been narrowly investigated ; but these cellars, by some hasty omission, had been overlooked. I resolved to lead this new inquisition myself. Juan's sickening and disgustful recollections, which now pointed his suspicions, would not let him be present at the examination ; but he directed us by such minute particulars, that we had no difficulty in finding our way to the spot. There were other traces had they been necessary for our guidance : stains of blood were seen on descending the stairs and across the floor, till they terminated at a large barrel or tun, which stood first of a range of several 66 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. others, on the opposite side of the cellar. Here then stood the vessel that contained the object of our search. My firm conviction that it was so, made me see, as through the wood itself, the mutilated appearance which I had conceived of my ill-fated uncle. The horrible picture overcame me ;^and whilst I involuntarily turned aside, the mangled quarters of a human body, and finally the dissevered head, were drawn forth from the infernal re- ceptacle ! As soon as I dared turn my eyes, they fell upon the fearful spectacle ; but I looked in vain for the lineaments I had ex- pected to meet. The remains were those of a middle-aged man ; the features were quite unknown to me ; but a profusion of long black hair told me at a glance, that this was not the head of the aged Conde. Neither could this belong to the old man who had been alluded to by the maniac as having been strangled. Our search must, therefore, be ex- tended. THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 67 The neighbouring barrel from its sound was empty, and the next likewise; but the third, and last one, on being struck, gave in- dications of being occupied ; perhaps, by con- tents as horrible as those of the first. It was, however, only half filled with water. There was still a smaller cellar, communicating with the outer one, by a narrow arched passage; but on examination, it proved to have been applied to its original and legitimate pur- pose, for it contained a considerable quantity of wine. Every recess, every nook, was carefully inspected; the floors in particular were mi- nutely examined, but they supplied no ap- pearance of having been recently disturbed. This unsuccessful result almost begot a doubt in me, whether, indeed, this place had been the theatre of the imputed tragedy ; my strongest belief had been founded on the words of the maniac, in allusion to the old man who had been strangled; but her story pointed to no determinate period of time, and might refer 68 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. to an occurrence of many years back. Surely the police and the military, Antonio cer- tainly, had been led hither by some more perfect information. I had neglected, hitherto, to possess myself of the particulars which led to their attack on the house ; but the answers to my inquiries tended in no way to throw any light upon the fate of the Conde. An- tonio, in his progress through the mountains, had fallen in with a party of the provincial militia, who were scouring the country in pur- suit of the predatory bands that infested it; and the capture of a wounded robber had fur- nished them with the particulars which led to their attack upon the inn. The dying wretch had been eagerly interrogated by An- tonio, as to his knowledge of the transactions of his fellows ; but though he could obtain no intelligence of the Cond6, his impetuous spirit made him readily unite himself with an expe- dition against a class of men, to whom he con- fidently attributed the old nobleman's myste- THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 69 rious disappearance. The mournful sequel I have related. His vengeance was amply but dearly sated on the Innkeeper and his blood- thirsty associates; — but the fate of my uncle remained as doubtful as ever. The discovery was reserved for chance. One of the troopers, in shifting some litter in the stables, remarked that the earth and stones be- neath appeared to have been recently turned up : the fact was immediately communicated to his officer, and I was summoned to be present at this new investigation. The men had already begun to dig when 1 arrived, and some soiled fragments of clothes which they turned up, already assured them of the nature and the nearness of the deposit. A few moments more labour sufficed to lay it bare ; and then, by the torchlight, I instantly recognized the grey hairs and the features of him of whom we were in search. All that remained of my uncle lay before me ! The starting and blood-distended eyes, the gaping mouth, the blackness of the 70 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. face, and a livid mark round the neck, confirmed the tale of the maniac as to the cruel mode of his death. May I never gaze on such an object again I Hitherto, the excitement, the labour, the un- certainty of the search had sustained me ; but now a violent re-action took place, a reflux of all the horrors I had witnessed and endured rushed over me like a flood ; and for some time I raved in a state of high delirium. I was again laid in bed, and in the interval of my repose, preparations were made for our depar- ture. The bodies of the slain robbers and militia-men were promptly interred, and after securing all the portable efi'ects of any value, which the soldiers were allowed to appropriate as a spoil, the house was ordered to be fired, as affording too eligible a refuge and rendezvous for such desperate associations. At my earnest request, a separate grave had been provided for the remains of the unfortunate maniac, which were committed to the earth with all the decen- THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 71 cies that our limited time and means could afford. The spot had been chosen at the foot of a tall pine, in the rear of the house, and a small cross carved in the bark of the tree was the only memorial of this ill-starred girl. These cares, speedily executed, occupied till day-break, and just at sunrise we com- menced our march. A horse, left masterless by the death "of one of the troopers, was as- signed to me ; two others were more mourn- fully occupied by the bodies of Antonio and the Conde, each covered with a coarse sheet ; and the captive robbers followed, bound, with their faces backward, upon the Innkeeper''s mules. The Innkeeper''s wife was amongst the prison- ers, and her loud lamentations, breaking out afresh at every few paces, prevailed even over the boisterous merriment of the troopers, and the low-muttered imprecatisns of the banditti. When, from the rear, I loolced upon this wild procession, in the cold grey light of the morn- ing winding down the mountains, that warlike 72 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. escort, those two horses, with their funereal burthens, the fierce scowling faces of the pri- soners, confronting me ; and then turned back, and distinguished the tall pine-tree, and saw the dense column of smoke soaring upward from those ancient ruins, as from some altar dedi- cated to Vengeance, the whole past appeared to me like a dream ! My mind, stunned by the magnitude and number of eveftts v/hich had been crowded into a single night's space, refused to believe that so bounded a period had suf- ficed for such disproportionate effects; but re- called again and again every scene and every fact, — as if to be convinced by the vividness of the repetitions, and the fidelity of the details — of a foregone reality. I could not banish or -divert these thoughts : all the former horrors were freshly dramatized before me ; the images of the Innkeeper, of the maniac, of Juan, of Antonio, were successively conjured up, and acted their parts anew, till all was finally wound THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. 73 up in the consummation that riveted my eyes on those two melancholy burthens before me. But I will not dwell here on those objects as I did then. An hour or two after sunrise we entered a town, where we delivered up to jus- tice those miserable wretches, who were after- wards to be seen impaled and blackening in the sun throughout the province. And here also my own progress, for three long months, was destined to be impeded. Other lips than mine conveyed to Isabelle the dismal tidings with which I was charged ; other hands than mine assisted in paying to the dead their last pious dues. Excessive fatigue, grief, horror, and a neglected wound, generated a raging fever, from which, with difficulty, and by slow de- grees, I recovered, — alas ! only to find myself an alien on the earth, without one tie to attach me to the life I had so unwillingly regained ! ***** I have only to speak of the fate of one more VOL. I. E 74 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. person connected with this history. In the Convent of St. ***, at Madi'id, there is one, who, by the peculiar sweetness of her disposi- tion, and the superior sanctity of her life, has obtained the love and veneration of all her pure sisterhood. She is called sister Isabelle. The lines of an early and acute sorrow are deeply engraven on her brow, but her life is placid and serene, as it is holy and saint-like; and her eyes will neither weep, nor her bosom heave a sigh, but when she recurs to the memorials of this melancholy story. She is now nearly ripe for heaven ; and may her bliss there be as endless and perfect, as here it was troubled and fearfully hurried to its close I THE MIRACLE OF THE HOLY HERMIT. There 's cold'meat in the cave." — Cymbeline. E 2 THie lioly Hernait . YolJ. Desigaei &. Draifm vo. Stone'ij T.I)igktoii_ THE MIRACLE THE HOLY HERMIT, In my younger days, there was much talk of an old Hermit of great sanctity, who lived in a rocky cave near Naples. He had a very reve- rend grey beard, which reached down to his middle, where his body, looking like a pismire's, was almost cut in two by the tightness of a stout leathern girdle, which he wore probably to re- strain his hunger during his long and frequent abstinences. His nails, besides, had grown long and crooked like the talons of a bird ; his arms and legs were bare, and his brown garments very coarse and ragged. He never tasted *78 THE MIRACLE OF flesh, but fed upon herbs and roots, and drank nothing but water ; nor ever lodged any where, winter or summer, but in his bleak rocky cavern; above all, it was his painful custom to stand for hours together with his arms extended, in imitation of the holy cross, by way of penance and mortification for the sins of his body. After many years spent in these austerities, he fell ill, towards the autumn, of a mortal disease, whereupon he was constantly visited by certain Benedictines and Cordeliers, who had convents in the neighbourhood ; not so much as a work of charity and mercy, as that they were anxious to obtain his body, for they made sure that many notable miracles might be wrought at his tomb. Accordingly, they hovered about his death-bed of leaves, like so many ravens when they scent a prey, but more jealous of each other, till the pious Hermit's last breath at length took flight towards the skies. As soon as he was dead, the two friars who were watching him, ran each to their several THE HOLY HERMIT. 79 convents, to report the event. The Cordelier, being swiftest of foot, was the first to arrive with his tidings, when he found his brethren just sitting down to their noontide meal; whereas, when the Benedictines heard the news, they were at prayers, which gave them the ad- vantage. Cutting the service short, therefore, >vith an abrupt amen, they ran instantly in a body to the cave ; but before they could well fetch their breath again, the Cordeliers also came up, finishing their dinner as they ran, and both parties ranged themselves about the dead Hermit. Father Gometa, a Cordelier, and a very portly man, then stepping in front of his fraternity, addressed them as follows : "My dear brethren, we are too late, as you see, to receive the passing breath of the holy man ; he is quite dead and cold. Put your victuals out of your hands, therefore, and with all due reverence assist me to carry these saintly relics to our convent, that they may repose amongst his fellow Cordeliers." 80 THE MIRACLE OF The Benedictines murmuring at this expres- sion; " Yea,'' added he, " I may truly call him a Cordelier, and a rigid one ; witness his leathern girdle, which, for want of a rope, he hath belted round his middle, almost to the cutting asunder of his holy body. Take up, I say, these pre- cious relics ;" whereupon his followers obeying his commands, and the Benedictines resisting them, there arose a lively struggle, as if be- tween so many Greeks and Trojans, over the dead body. The two fraternities, however, being equally matched in strength, they seemed more likely to dismember the Hermit, than to carry him off on either side, wheiefore Father Go- meta, by dint of entreaties and struggling, procured a truce. " It was a shameful thing,'' he told them, " for servants of the Prince of Peace, as they were, to mingle in such an affray ; and besides, that the country people being likely to witness it, the scandal of such a broil would do more harm to them, jointly, than the possession of the body could be a benefit to either of their THE HOLY HERMIT. 81 orders. The religious men, of both sides, con- curring in the prudence of this advice, they left a friar, on either part, to take charge of tlie dead body, and then adjourned, by common consent, to the house of the Benedictines. The chapel being very large and convenient for the purpose, they went thither to carry on the debate ; and, surely, such a strange kind of service had never been performed before within its walls. Father Gometa, standing be- side a painted window, which made his face of all manner of hues, began in a pompous discourse to assert the claims of his convent ; but Friar John quickly interrupted him ; and another brother contradicting Friar John, all the monks, Benedictines as well as Cordeliers, were soon talking furiously together, at the same moment. Their Babel-arguments, there- fore, were balanced against eacli other. At last, brother Geronimo, who had a shrill voice like a parrot's, leaped upon a bench, and called out for a hearing ; and, moreover, clapping E 5 82 THE MIRACLE OF two large missals together, in the manner of a pair of castanets, he dinned the other noise- mongers into a temporary silence. As soon as they were quiet — " This squabble/ said he, " may easily be adjusted. As for the hermit's body, let those have it, of whatever order, who have ministered to the good man's soul, and given him the extreme unction." At this proposal there was a general silence throughout the chapel ; till Father Gometa, feeling what a scandal it would be if such a man had died without the last sacrament, af- firmed that he had given to him the wafer ; and Father Philippo, on behalf of the Bene- dictines, declared that he had performed the same office. Thus, that seemed to have been superfluously repeated, which, in truth, had been altogether omitted. Wherefore Geronimo, at his wit's end, proposed that the superiors should draw lots, and had actually cut a slip or two out of the margin of his psalter for the pur- pose ; but Father Gometa relied too much on his THE HOLY HERMIT. 88 own subtlety, to refer the issue to mere chance. In this extremity, a certain Capuchin happen- ing to be present, they besought him, as a neutral man and impartial, to lead them to some decision ; and after a little thinking, he was so fortunate as to bring them to an accept- able method of arbitration. The matter being thus arranged, the Cor- deliers returned to their own convent, where, as soon as they arrived, Father Gometa as- sembled them all in the refectory, and spoke to them in these words : • *" '•' You have heard it settled, my brethren, that the claims of our several convents are to be determined by propinquity to the cave. Now I know that our crafty rivals will omit no artifice that may show their house to be the nearest ; wherefore, not to be wil- fully duped, I am resolved to make a pro- per subtraction from our own measurements. I foresee, notwithstanding, that this measuring bout will lead to no accommodation; for the 84 THE MIRACLE OF reckonings on both sides being false, will cer- tainly beget a fresh cavil. Go, therefore, some of you, very warily, and bring hither the blessed body of the hermit, which, by God's grace, will save a great deal of indecent dis- sension, and then the Benedictines may mea- sure as unfairly as they please."" The brethren approving of this design, chose out four of the stoutest, amongst whom was Friar Francis, to proceed on this expedition ; and in the meantime, the event fell out as the superior had predicted. The adverse mea- surers, encountering on their task, began to wrangle ; and after belabouring each other with their rods, returned with complaints to their separate convents ; but Friar Francis, with his comrades, proceeded prosperously to the cave, where they found the dead body of the hermit, but neither of the truant friars who had been appointed to keep watch. Taking the carcase, therefore, without any obstruction, on their shoulders, they began to THE HOLY HERMIT. '95 wend homewards very merrily, till coming to a bye-place in the middle of a wood, they agreed to set down their burthen awhile, and refresh themselves after their labours. One of the friars, however, of weaker nerves than the rest, objected to the companionship of the dead hermit, who with his long white beard and his ragged garments, which stirred now and then in the wind, was in truth a very awful object. Dragging him aside, therefore, into a dark solitary thicket, they returned to sit down on the grass ; and puUing out their flasks, which contained some very passable wine, they began to enjoy themselves without stint or hin- drance. The last level rays of the setting sun were beginning to shoot through the horizontal boughs, tinging the trunks, which at noon are all shady and obscure, with a flaming gold ; but the merry friars thought it prudent to wait till night-fall, before they ventured with their charge beyond the friendly shelter of the 86 THE MIRACLE OF wood. As soon, therefore, as it was so safely dark that they could barely distinguish each other, they returned to the thicket for the body ; but to their horrible dismay, the dead hermit had vanished, nobody knew whither, leaving them only a handful of his grey beard, as a legacy, with a remnant or two of his tat- tered garments. At this discovery, the friars were in despair, and some of them began to weep, dreading to go back to the convent ; but Friar Francis, being in a jolly mood, put them in better heart. '■' Why, what a whimpering is this," said he, " about a dead body? The good father, as you know, was no fop, and did not smell over purely ; for which reason, doubtless, some hun- gry devil of a^ wolf has relieved us from the labour of bearing him any farther. There is no such heretic as your wolf is, who wQuld not be likely to boggle at his great piety, though I marvel he did not object to his meagreness. I tell you, take courage, then. THE HOLY HERMIT. 87 and trust to me to clear you, who have brought you out of fifty such scrapes." The friars knowing that he spoke reasonably, soon comforted themselves ; and running back to the convent, they repaired, all trembling, into the presence of the superior. Father Gometa, inquiring eagerly if they had brought the body, Friar Francis answered boldly, that they had not ; " But here," said he, " is a part of his most reverend beard, and also his mantle, which, like Elisha, he dropped upon us as he ascended into heaven ; for as the pious Elisha was transll^d into the skies, even so was the holy hermit, excepting these precious relics — being torn out of our arms, as it were by a whirlwind." Anon, ap- pealing to his comrades, to confirm his fabri- cation, they declared that it happened with them even as he related ; and moreover, that a bright and glorious light shining upon them, as it did upon Saul and his company, when they journeyed to Damascus, had so bewil- 88 THE MIRACLE OF dered them, that they had not yet recovered their perfect senses. In this plausible manner, the friars got themselves dismissed without any penance; but Father Gometa discredited the story at the bottom of his heart, and went to bed in great trouble of mind, not doubting that they had lost the body by some negligence, and that on the morrow it would be found in the possession of his rivals, the Benedictines. The latter, however, proving as disconcerted as he was, he took comfort, and causing the story to be set down at large in the records of the convent, and subscribed with the names of the four friars, he had it read publicly on the next Sunday from the pulpit, with an exhibition of the beard and the mantle, which procured a great deal of wonder and reverence amongst the congregation. The Benedictines at first were vexed at the credit which was thus lost to their own con- vent; but being afterwards pacified with a THE HOLY HERMIT. W portion of the grey hairs and a shred or two of the brown cloth, they joined in the propa- gation of the story ; and the country people beheve to this day in the miracle of the holy hermit. THE WIDOW OF GALICIA. Sirs, behold in me A wretched fraction of divided love, A widoAv much deject ; Whose life is but a sorry ell of crape, Ev'n cut it when you list* Old Play. THE WIDOW OF GALICIA. There lived in the Province of Galicia, a lady so perfectly beautiful, that she was called by travellers, and by all indeed who beheld her, the Flower of Spain. It too frequently hap- pens that such handsome women are but as beautiful weeds, useless or even noxious; whereas with her excelling charms, she possessed all those virtues which should properly inhabit in so lovely a person. She had therefore many wooers, but especially a certain old Knight of Castille, (bulky in person, and with hideously coarse features,) who, as he was exceedingly 94 THE WIDOW OF GALICIA. wealthy, made the most tempting offers to in- duce her to become his mistress, and failing in that object by reason of her strict virtue, he proposed to espouse her. But she, despising him as a bad and brutal man, which was his character, let fall the blessing of her affection on a young gentleman of small estate but good reputation in the province, and being speedily married, they lived together for three years very happily. Notwithstanding this, the abominable Knight did not cease to persecute her, till being rudely checked by her husband, and threatened with his vengeance, he desisted for a season. It happened at the end of the third year of their marriage, that her husband being un- happily murdered on his return from Madrid, whither he had been called by a lawsuit, she was left without protection, and from the failure of the cause much straitened, besides, in her means of living. This time, therefore, the Knight thought favourable to renew his im- portunities, and neither respecting the sacred- THE WIDOW OF GALICIA. 95 ness of her grief, nor her forlorn state, he mo- lested her so continually, that if it had not been for the love of her fatherless child, she would have been content to die. For if the Knight was odious before, he was now thrice hateful from his undisguised brutality, and above all execrable in her eyes, from a suspicion that he had procured the assassination of her dear husband. . She was obliged, however, to confine this belief to her own bosom, for her persecu- tor was rich and powerful, and wanted not the means, and scarcely the will, to crush her. Many families had thus suffered by his malignity, and therefore she only awaited the arrangement of certain private affairs, to withdraw secretly, with her scanty maintenance, into some remote village. There she hoped to be free from her inhuman suitor; but she was delivered from this trouble in the meantime by his death, yet in so terrible a manner, as made it more grie- vous to her than his life had ever been. It wanted, at this event, but a few days of UO THE WIDOW OF GALICIA. the time when the lady proposed to remove to her country-lodging, taking with her a maid who was called Maria ; for since the reduction of her fortune, she had retained but this one servant. Now, it happened, that this woman going one day to her lady's closet, which was in her bed-chamber, — so soon as she had opened the door, there tumbled forward the dead body of a man ; and the police being summoned by her shrieks, they soon recognized the corpse to be that of the old Castilian Knight, though the countenance was so blackened and disfi- gured as to seem scarcely human. It was suffi- ciently evident, that he had perished by poison ; whereupon the unhappy lady, being inter- rogated, was unable to give any account of the matter ; and in spite of her fair reputation, and although she appealed to God in behalf of her innocence, she was thrown into the common gaol along with other reputed murderers. The criminal addresses of the deceased Knight being generally known, many persons THE WIDOW OF GALICIA. 97 who believed in her guilt, still pitied her, and excused the cruelty of the deed on account of the persecution she had suffered from that wicked man: — but these were the most cha- ritable of her judges. The violent death of her husband, which before had been only attributed to robbers, was now assigned by scandalous persons to her own act ; and the whole province was shocked that a lady of her fair seeming, and of such unblemished character, should have brought so heavy a disgrace upon her sex and upon human nature. At her trial, therefore, the court was crowded to excess ; and some few generous persons were not without a hope of her acquittal ; but the same facts, as before, being proved upon oath, and the lady still producing no justifi- cation, but only asserting her innocence, there remained no reasonable cause for doubting of her guilt. The Public Advocate then began to plead, as his painful duty commanded him, for her condemnation ; — he urged the facts of VOL. 1. F 98 THE WIDOW OF GALICIA. her acquaintance and bad terms with the mur- dered knight; and moreover, certain expres- sions of hatred which she had been heard to utter against him. The very scene and manner of his destruction, he said, spoke to her un- doubted prejudice, — the first a private closet in her own bed-chamber, — and the last by poison, which was likely to be employed by a woman, rather than any weapon of violence. Afterwards, he interpreted to the same con- clusion, the abrupt flight of the waiting-maid, who, like a guilty and fearful accomplice, had disappeared whenever her mistress was ar- rested ; and, finally, he recalled the still mys- terious fate of her late husband ; so that all who heard him began to bend their brows solemnly, and some reproachfully, on the un- happy object of his discourse. Still she upheld herself, firmly and calmly, only from time to time lifting her eyes towards Heaven ; but when she heard the death of her dear husband touched upon, and in a manner that laid his THE WIDOW OF GALICIA. 99 blood to her charge, she stood forward, and placing her right hand on the head of her son, cried : — *' So witness God, if ever I shed his father's blood, so may this, his dear child, shed mine in vengeance." Then sinking down from exhaustion, and the child weeping bitterly over her, the beholders were again touched with compassion, almost to the doubting of her guilt ; but the evidence being so strong against her, she was imme- diately condemned by the Court. It was the custom in those days for a woman who had committed murder, to be first stran- gled by the hangman, and then burnt to ashes in the midst of the market-place ; but before this horrible sentence could be pronounced on the lady, a fresh witness was moved by the grace of God to come forward in her behalf. This was the waiting- woman, Maria, who hither- to had remained disguised in the body of the Court; but now being touched with remorse 100 THE WIDOW OF GALICIA. at her lady's unmerited distresses, she stood up on one of the benches, and called out earnestly to be allowed to make her confession. — She then related, that she herself had been prevailed upon, by several great sums of money, and still more by the artful and seducing promises of the dead Knight, to secrete him in a closet in her lady's chamber ; but that of ^ the cause of his death she knew nothing, except that upon a shelf she had placed some sweet cakes, mixed with arsenic, to poison the rats, and that the Knight being rather gluttonous, might have eaten of them in the dark, and so died. At this probable explanation, the people all shouted one shout, and the lady's innocence being acknowledged, the sentence was ordered to be reversed ; but she reviving a little at the noise, and being told of this providence, only clasped her hands; and then, in a few words, commend- ng her son to the guardianship of good men, and saying that she could never survive the shame of her unworthy reproach, she ended with a deep sigh, and expired upon the spot. THE GOLDEN CUP THE DISH OF SILVER. Bass. If it please you to dine with us ? Shy. Yes, to smell pork ; to eat of the habitation which your prophet, the Nazarite, conjured the Devil into." — Merchant of Venice. ^^rf- Tie Cmp of gold amd the Disli of Silver Desxgnci and Drawm on Stone by T Ihgitoii Txartediy C fluDniandel THE GOLDEN CUP THE DISH OF SILVER. Every one knows what a dog's life the miserable Jews lead all over the world, but especially amongst the Turks, who plunder them of their riches, and slay them on the most fri- volous pretences. Thus, if they acquire any wealth, they are obliged to hide it in holes and corners, and to snatch their scanty enjoyments by stealth, in recompense of the buffets and contumely of their turbaned oppressors. In this manner lived Yussuf, a Hebrew of great wealth and wisdom, but, outwardly, a poor beggarly druggist, inhabiting, with his wife, 104 THE GOLDEN CUP AND Anna, one of the meanest houses in Constanti- nople. The curse of his nation had often fallen bitterly upon his head ; his great skill in me- dicine procuring him some uncertain favour from the Turks, but on the failure of his re- medies, a tenfold proportion of ill-usage and contempt. In such cases, a hundred blows on the soles of his feet were his common payment ; whereas on the happiest cures, he was often dismissed with empty hands and some epithet of disgrace. As he was sitting one day at his humble door, thinking over these miseries, a Janizary eame up to him, and commanded Yussuf to go with him to his Aga or captain, whose palace was close at hand. Yussuf's gold immediately weighed heavy at his heart, as the cause of this summons ; however, he arose obediently, and followed the soldier to the Aga, who was sit- ting cross-legged on a handsome carpet, with his long pipe in his mouth. The Jew, casting himself on -his knees, with his face to the floor, THE DISH OF SILVER. 105 began, like his brethren, to plead poverty in excuse for the shabbiness of his appearance ; but the Aga interrupting him, proceeded to compliment him in a flattering strain on his reputation for wisdom, which he said had made him desirous of his conversation. He then or- dered the banquet to be brought in ; where- upon the slaves put down before them some wine, in a golden cup, and some pork, in a dish of silver ; both of which were forbidden things, and therefore made the Jew wonder very much at such an entertainment. The Aga then point- ing to the refreshments addressed him as follows : — " Yussuf, they say you are a very wi«e and learned man, and have studied deeper than any one the mysteries of nature. I have sent for you, therefore, to resolve me on certain doubts concerning this flesh, and this liquor before us ; the pork being as abominable to your religion, as the wine is unto ours. But I am especially curious to know the reasons why your prophet F 5 106 THE GOLDEN CUP AND should have forbidden a meat, which by report of the Christians is both savoury and whole- some ; wherefore I will have you to proceed first with that argument ; and, in order that you may not discuss it negligently, I am re- solved in case you fail to justify the prohibition, that you shall empty the silver dish before you stir from the place. Nevertheless, to show you that I am equally candid, I promise, if you shall thereafter prove to me the unreasonable- ness of the injunction against wine, I will drink off this golden goblet as frankly before we part." The terrified Jew understood very readily the purpose of this trial ; however, after a se- cret prayer to Moses, he began in the best way he could to plead against the abominable dish that was steaming under his nostrils. He fail- ed, notwithstanding, to convince the sceptical Aga, who, therefore, commanded him to eat up the pork, and then begin his discourse in favour of the wine. THE DISH OF SILVER. 107 The sad Jew, at this order, endeavoured to move the obdurate Turk by his tears ; but the Aga was resolute, and drawing his crooked cimetar, declared, " that if Yussuf did not instantly fall to, he would smite his head from his shoulders." It was time, at this threat, for Yussuf to commend his soul unto Heaven, for in Turkey the Jews wear their heads very loosely ; how- ever, by dint of fresh tears and supplications he obtained a respite of three days, to consi- der if he could not bring forward any further arguments. As soon as the audience was over, Yussuf returned disconsolately to his house, and in- formed his wife Anna of what had passed between him and the Aga. The poor woman foresaw clearly how the matter would end ; for it was aimed only at the confiscation of their riches. She advised Yussuf, therefore, instead of racking his wits for fresh arguments, to carry a bag of gold to the Aga, who condescended to 108 THE GOLDEN CUP AND receive his reasons; and after another brief discourse, to grant him a respite of three days longer. In the same manner, Yussuf procured a further interval, but somewhat dearer; so that in despair at losing his money at this rate, he returned for the fourth time to the palace. The Aga and Yussuf being seated as before, with the mess of pork and the wine between them, the Turk asked, if he had brought any fresh arguments. The doctor replied, "Alas ! he had already discussed the subject so often, that his reasons were quite exhausted ;"" whereupon the flashing cimetar leaping quickly out of its scabbard, the trembling Hebrew plucked the loathsome dish towards him, and with many struggles began to eat. It cost him a thousand wry faces to swallow the first morsel ; and from the laughter that came from behind a silken screen, they were observed by more mockers besides the Aga, who took such a cruel pleasure in the amuse- ment of his women, that Yussuf was com- THE DISH OF SILVER. 109 pelled to proceed even to the licking of the dish. He was then suffered to depart, without wasting any logic upon the cup of wine, which after his loathsome meal he would have been quite happy to discuss. I guess not how the Jew consoled himself besides for his involuntary sin, but he bitterly cursed the cruel Aga and all his wives, who could not amuse their indolent lives with their dancing-girls and tale-tellers, but made merry at the expense of his soul. His wife joined heartily in his imprecations ; and both putting ashes on their heads, they mourned and cursed together till the sunset. There came no Ja- nizary, however, on the morrow, as they expect- ed ; but on the eighth day, Yussuf was sum- moned again to the Aga. The Jew at this message began to weep, making sure, in his mind, that a fresh dish of pork was prepared for him ; however, he re- paired obediently to the palace, where he was told, that the favourite lady of the harem was 110 THE GOLDEN CUP AND indisposed, and the Aga commanded him to prescribe for her. Now, the Turks are very jealous of their mistresses, and disdain, espe- cially, to expose them to the eyes of infidels, of whom the Jews are held the most vile ; — where- fore, when Yussuf begged to see his patient, she was allowed to be brought forth only in a long white veil, that reached down to her feet. The Aga, notwithstanding the folly of such a proceeding, forbade her veil to be lifted; neither v/ould he permit the Jew to converse with her, but commanded him on pain of death to return home and prepare his medicines. The wretched doctor, groaning all the way, went back to his house, without wasting a thought on what drugs he should administer on so hopeless a case ; but considering, instead, the surgical practice of the Aga, which se- parated so many necks. However, he told his wife of the new jeopardy he was placed in for the Moorish JezabeL THE DISH OF SILVER. Ill " A curse take her !" said Anna ; " give her a dose of poison, and let her perish before his eyes." " Nay," answered the Jew, " that will be to pluck the sword down upon our own heads ; nevertheless, I will cheat the infidel's con- cubine with some wine, which is equally damnable to their souls ; and may God visit upon their conscience the misery they have enforced upon mine !" In this bitter mood, going to a filthy hole in the floor, he drew out a flask of schiraz ; and bestowing as many Hebrew curses on the liquor, as the Mugsulmen are wont to utter of blessings over their medicines, he filled up some physic bottles, and repaired with them to the palace. And now let the generous virtues of good wine be duly lauded for the happy sequel ! The illness of the favourite, being merely a languor and melancholy, proceeding from the voluptuous indolence of her life, the draughts 112 THE GOLDEN CUP. of Yussuf soon dissipated her chagrin, in such a miraculous manner, that she sang and danced more gaily than any of her slaves. The Aga, therefore, instead of beheading Yussuf, return- ed to him all the purses of gold he had taken^^ to which the grateful lady, besides, added a valuable ruby ; and, thenceforward, when she was ill, would have none but the Jewish physician. Thus, Yussuf saved bdth his head and his money ; and, besides, convinced the Aga of the virtues of good wine; so that the golden cup was finally emptied, as well as the dish of silver. THE TRAGEDY OF SEVILLE. " When I awoke Before the dawn, amid their sleep I heard My sons (for they were with me) weep and ask For bread." Gary's Dante. THE TRAGEDY OF SEVILLE. EvEEY one, in Seville, has heard of the fa- mous robber Bazardo ; but, as some may be ignorant of one of the most interesting incidents of his career, I propose to relate a part of his history as it is attested in the criminal records of that city. This wicked man was born in the fair city of Cadiz, and of very obscure parentage ; but the time which I mean to speak of is, when he returned to Seville, after being some years absent in the Western Indies, and with a for- tune which, whether justly or unjustly acquired, 116 THE TRAGEDY OF SEVILLE. sufficed to afford him the rank and apparel of a gentleman. It was then, as he strolled up one of the bye-streets, a few days after his arrival, that he was attracted by a very poor woman, gazing most anxiously and eagerly at a shop-window. She was lean and famished, and clad in very rags, and made altogether so miserable an ap- pearance, that even a robber, with the least grace of charity in his heart, would have in- stantly relieved her with an alms. The rob- ber, however, contented himself with observing her motions at a distance, till at last, casting a fearful glance behind her, the poor famish- ed wretch suddenly dashed her withered arm through a pane of the window, and made off with a small coarse loaf. But whether, from the feebleness of hunger or affright, she ran so slowly, it cost Bazardo but a moment's pursuit to overtake her, and seizing her by the arm, he began, thief as he was, to upbraid her, for making so free with another's property. THE TEAGBDY OF SEVILLE. 117 The poor woman made no reply, but uttered a short shrill scream, and threw the loaf, un- perceived, through a little casement, and then turning a face full of hunger and fear, besought Bazardo, for charit3''s sake and the love of God, to let her go free. She was no daily pilferer, she told him, but a distressed woman, who could relate to him a story, which if it did not break her own heart in the utterance, must needs command his pity. But he was no way moved by her appeal ; and the baker coming up and insisting on the restoration of the loaf, to which she made no answer but by her tears, they began to drag her away between them, and with as much violence as if she had been no such skeleton as she appeared. By this time a crowd had assembled, and be- holding this inhumanity, and learning besides the trifling amount of the theft, they bestowed a thousand curses, and some blows too, on Bazardo and the baker. These hard-hearted men, however, maintained their hold ; and the 118 THE TRAGEDY OF SEVILLE. office of police being close by, the poor wretch- ed creature was delivered to the guard, and as the magistrates were then sitting, the cause was presently examined. During the accusation of Bazardo the poor woman stood utterly silent, till coming to speak of her abusive speech, and of the resistance which she had made to her capture, she sud- denly interrupted him, and lifting up her shri- velled hands and arms towards heaven, inquired if those poor bones, which had not strength enough to work for her livelihood, were likely weapons for the injury of any human crea- ture. At this pathetic appeal, there was a general murmur of indignation against the accuser, and the charge being ended, she was advised that as only one witness had deposed against her, she could not be convicted, except upon her own confession. But she scorning to shame the truth, or to wrong even her accuser, for the people were ready to believe that he had im- THE TRAGEDY OF SEVILLE. 119 peached her falsely, freely admitted the theft, adding, that under the like necessity she must needs sin again ; and with that, hiding her face in her hands, she sobbed out, " My child- ren ! — Alas ! for my poor children [^ At this exclamation the judge even could not contain his tears, but told her with a broken voice that he would hear nothing further to her own prejudice ; expressing, more- over, his regret, that the world possessed so little charity, as not to have prevented the mournful crime which she had committed. Then, desiring to know more particulars of her condition, she gratefully thanked him, and imploring the blessing of God upon all those who had shown so much sweet charity on her behalf, she began to relate her melancholy history. " She was the daughter, she said, of a wealthy merchant at Cadiz, and had been instructed in all accomplishments that belong to a lady. That having hstened unhappily to the flatteries 120 THE TRAGEDY OF SEVILLE. of an officer in the King's guard, she had married him, and bestowed upon him all her fortune; but that instead of being grateful for these benefits, he had expended her pro- perty in riotous living ; and, finally, deserted her with her two children, to the care of him that feedeth the ravens." Here her voice be- coming more tremulous, and almost inaudible, she excused herself, saying, that for two whole days she had not tasted of any food, and must needs have perished, but that by God's good grace she had then caught a rat, which served her, loathsome as it was, for a meal. Hereupon, the Judge was exceedingly shock- ed, and immediately gave orders for some re- freshments ; but she declined to touch them, saying, that whilst her children were in Avant she could not eat ; but with his gracious per- mission would only rest her head upon her hands. And so she sate down in silence, whilst all the people contemplated her with pity, still beautiful in her misery, and reduced THE TEAGEDY OF SEVILLE. 121 from a luxurious condition to so dreadful an extremity. In the meantime, the officers were despatched by the judge's direction, to bring hither the children; and after resting for a little while, the unfortunate lady resumed her story. " For two years, she said, she had maintained herself and her httle ones by her skill in embroidery and other works of art; but afterwards, fall- ing ill, from her over-exertion and concealed sorrows, her strength had deserted*- her ; and latterly, having no other resource, she had been obliged to sell her raiment. At last, she had nothing left but the poor rags she at present wore, besides her wedding rino:; and that she would sooner die than part with. For I still live," she added, " in the hope of my husband's return to me, — and then, may God forgive thee, Bazardo, as I will forgive thee, for all this cruel misery." At the mention of this name, her accuser turned instantly to the complexion of marble, VOL. I. G 12S THE TRAGEDY OF SEVILLE. and he would fain have made his escape from the court ; but the crowd pressing upon him, as if willing that he should hear the utmost of a misery for which he had shown so little compassion, he was compelled to remain in his place. He flattered himself, notwithstanding, that by reason of the alteration in his features, from his living in the Indies, he should still be unrecognized by the object of his cruelty ; whereas, the captain of the vessel which had brought him over, was at that moment present ; and wondering that his ship had come safely with so wicked a wretch on board, he in- stantly denounced Bazardo by name, and pointed him out to the indignation of the people. At this discovery there was a sudden move- ment amongst the crowd ; and in spite of the presence of the judge, and of the entreaties of the wretched lady herself, the robber would have been torn into as many pieces as there THE TRAGEDY OF SEVILLE. were persons in the court, except for the timely interposition of the guard. In the meantime, the officers who had been sent for the children, had entered by the opposite side of the hall, and making way to- wards the judge, and depositing somewhat upon the table, before it could be perceived what it was, they covered it over with a coarse linen cloth. Afterwards, being interrogated, they declared, that having proceeded whither they had been directed, they heard sounds of moan- ing, and sobbing, and lamentations, in a child's voice. That entering, upon this, and behold- ing one child bending over another and weeping bitterly, they supposed the latter to have died of hunger ; but on going nearer, they dis- covered that it had a large wound on the left side, and that it was then warm and breathino:, but was since dead. They pointed, as they said this, to the body on the table, where the blood was now beginning to ooze visibly G ^ 1S4! THE TRAGEDY OF SEVILLE. through the Hnen cloth. As for the manner of its being wounded, or the author, they could give no evidence ; not only because the house was otherwise uninhabited, but that the remain- ing child was so affrighted, or so stricken with grief, that it could give no account of the occurrence. His cries, indeed, at this moment, resounded from the adjoining corridor; and the mother, staring wildly around her, and beholding that which lay upon the table, sud- denly snatched away the cloth, and so exposed the body of the dead child. It was very lean and famished, with a gaping wound on its left bosom ; from which the blood trickled even to the clerk''s desk, so that the paper, which contained the record of the lady's sorrows, was stained with this new sad evidence of her mis- fortunes. The people at this dreadful sight uttered a general moan of horror, and the mother made the whole court re-echo with her shrieks ; insomuch, that some from mere anguish ran THE TRAGEDY OF SEVILLE. 125 out of the hall, whilst others stopped their ears with their hands, her cries were so long and piercing. At last, when she could scream no longer, but lay as one dead, the judge rose up, and commanding the other child to be brought in, and the dead body to be removed out of sight, he endeavoured, partly by sooth- ing, and partly by threats, to draw forth the truth of what had been hitherto an incom- prehensible mystery. For a long time, the poor child, being fa- mished and spiritless, made no answer, but only sobbed and trembled, as if his little joints would fall asunder ; till at last, being re-assured by the judge, and having partaken of some wine, he began to relate what had happened. His mother, early in the morning, had promised them some bread ; but being a long time absent, and he and his little brother growing more and more hungry, they lay down upon the floor and wept. That whilst they cried, a small loaf — very small indeed, was thrown in 126 THE TRAGEDY OF SEVILLE. at the window; and both being almost fa- mished, and both struggling together to obtain it, he had unwarily stabbed his little brother with a knife which he held in his hand. And with that, bursting afresh into tears, he be- sought the judge not to hang him. All this time, the cruel Bazardo remained unmoved; and the judge reproaching him in the sternest language, ordered him to be im- prisoned. He then lamented afresh, that the dearth of Christian charity and benevolence was accountable for such horrors as they had witnessed; and immediately, the people, as if by consent, began to offer money, and some their purses, to the unfortunate lady. But she, heedless of them all, and exclaiming that she would sell her dead child for no money, rushed out into the street ; and there repeating the same words, and at last sitting down, she ex- pired, a martyr to hunger and grief, on the steps of her own dwelling. THE LADY IN LOVE WITH ROMANCE. Go, go thy ways, as changeable a baggage As ever cozen'd Knights" — PFitch of Edmonton. THE LADY IN LOVE WITH ROMANCE. Ma>jy persons in Castille remember the old Knight Pedro de Peubla, — surnamed The Gross. In his person, he was eminently large and vulgar, with a most brutal countenance; and in his disposition so coarse and gluttonous, and withal so great a drunkard, that if one could believe in a transmigration of beasts, the spi- rit of a swine had passed into this man's body, for the discredit of human nature. Now, truly, this was a proper suitor for the Lady Blanche, who, besides the comeliness of her person, was adorned with all those accomphsh- & 5 130 THE LADY ments which become a gentlewoman : she was moreover gifted with a most excellent wit ; so that she not only played on the guitar and various musical instruments to admiration, but also she enriched the melody with most beauti- ful verses of her own composition. Her father, a great man, and very proud besides of the nobility of his blood, was not insensible of these her rare merits, but declaring that so precious a jewel deserved to be richly set in gold, and that rather than marry her below her estate he would devote her to a life of pei-petual celibacy, he watched her with the vigilance of an Argus. To do them justice, the young gentlemen of the province omitted no stratagem to gain access to her presence, but all their attempts were as vain as the grasping at water ; and at length her parent becoming more and more jealous of her admi- rers, she was confined to the solitude of her own chamber. It was in this irksome seclusion that, reading IN LOVE WITH EOMANCE. 131 constantly in novels and such works which refer to the ages of chivalry, she became suddenly smitten with such a new passion for the romantic, talking continually of knights and squires, and stratagems of love and war, that her father, doubting whither such a madness might tend, gave orders that all books should be removed from her chamber. It was a grievous thing to think of that young lady, cheerful and beautiful as the day, confined thus, like a wild bird to an un- natural cage, and deprived of the common delights of liberty and nature. At length, that old Knight of Castille, coming, not with rope-ladders, nor disguised in woman's apparel, like some adventurers, but with a costly equi- page, and a most golden reputation, he was permitted to lay his large person at her feet, and, contrary to all expectation, was regarded with an eye of favour. At the first report of his reception, no one could sufficiently marvel how, in a man of 132 THE LADY such a countenance, she could behold any si- milarity with those brave and comely young cavaliers, who, it was thought, must have risen out of their graves in Palestine to behold such a wooer ; but when they called to mind her grie- vous captivity, and how hopeless it was that she could be freed by any artifice from the vi- gilance of her father, they almost forgave her that she was ready to obtain her freedom by bestowing Jier hand on a first cousin to the Devil. A certain gallant gentleman, however, who was named Castello, was so offended by the news, that he would have slain the Knight, without any concern for the consequences to himself; but the Lady Blanche, hearing of his design, made shift to send him a message, that by the same blow he would wound her quiet for ever. In the mean time her father was overjoyed at the prospect of so rich a son-in-law as the Knight : for he was one of those parents, that would bestow their children upon Midas himself. IN LOVE WITH ROMANCE^ 133 notwithstanding that they should be turned into sordid gold at the first embrace. In a transport of joy, therefore, he made an unusual present of valuable jewels to his daughter, and told her withal, that in any reasonable request he would instantly indulge her. This liberal promise astonished Blanche not a little ; but after a moment's musing she made answer. "You know. Sir," she said, "my passion for romance, and how heartily I despise the fashion of these degenerate days, when every thing is performed in a dull formal manner, and the occurrence of to-day is but a pattern for the morrow. There is nothing done now so ro- mantically as in those delightful times, when you could not divine, in one hour, the fate that should befal you in the next, as you may read of in those delicious works of which you have so cruelly deprived me. I beg, therefore, as I have so dutifully consulted your satisfaction in the choice of a husband, that you will so far indulge me, as to leave the manner of our marriage to 134 THE LADY my own discretion, which is, that it may be on the model of that in the history of Donna Elea- nora, in which novel, if you remember, the lady being confined by her father as I am, contrives to conceal a lover in her closet, and making their escape together by a rope-ladder, they are hap- pily united in marriage." " Now, by the Holy Virgin !" replied her father, "this thing shall never be;" and foreseeing a thousand difficulties, and above all that the Knight would be exceeding adverse to his part in the drama, he repented a thousand times over of the books which had filled her with such pre- posterous fancies. The lady, notwithstanding, was resolute ; and declaring that otherwise she would kill herself rather than be crossed in her will, the old miser reluctantly acceded to her scheme. Accordingly it was concerted that the next evening, at dusk, the Knight should come and play his serenade under her lattice, where- upon, hearing his most ravishing music, she was to let fall a ladder of ropes, and so admit him to IN LOVE WITH ROMANCE. 135 her chamber ; her father, moreover, making his nightly rounds, she was to conceal her lover in her closet, and then, both descending by the ladder together, they were to take flight on a pair of fleet horses, which should be ready at the garden gate. " And now,"" said she, " if you fail me in the smallest of these particulars, the Knight shall never have of me so much as a ring may em- brace," and with this injunction they severally awaited the completion of their drama. The next night, the Lady Blanche watched at her window, and in due season the Knight came with his twanghng guitar ; but, as if to make her sport of him for the last time, she aflected to mistake his music. "Ah !" she cried, " here is a goodly serenade to sing one awake with ; I prythee go away a mile hence, with thy execrable voice, or I will have thee answered with an arquebuss." All this time the Knight fretted himself into a violent rage, stamping and blaspheming all 136 THE LADY the blessed saints ; but when he heard mention of the arquebuss, he made a motion to run away, which constrained the lady to recal him, and to cast him down the ladder without any fur- ther ado. It was a perilous and painful journey for him, you may be sure, to climb up to a single story ; but at length with great labour he clambered into the balcony, and in a humour that went nigh to mar the most charming ro- mance that was ever invented. In short, he vowed not to stir a step further in the plot : but Blanche, telling him that for this first and last time he must needs fulfil her will, which would so speedily be resolved into his own ; and seducing him besides with some little tokens of endearment, he allowed himself to be locked up in her closet. The lady then laid herself down in bed, and her father knocking at the door soon after, she called out that he was at liberty to enter. He came in then, very gravely, with a dark Ian- IN LOVE WITH ROMANCE. 137 tern, and asking if his daughter was asleep, she replied that she was just on the skirts of a doze. " Ah," quoth he, after bidding her a good night, " am I not a good father to humour thee thus, in all thy fantasies ? In verity, I have for- gotten the speech which I ought here to deliver; but pray look well to thy footing, Blanche, and keep a firm hold of the ladder, for else thou wilt have a deadly fall, and I would not have thee to damage my carnations." Hereupon he departed ; and going back to his own chamber, he could not help praising God that this troublesome folly was so nearly at an end. It only remained for him now to receive the letter, which was to be sent to him, as if to procure his fatherly pardon and bene- diction ; and this, after a space, being brought to him by a domestic, he read as follows : — " Sir, '' If you had treated me with loving-kind- ness as your daughter, I should most joy- 15^ THE LADY fully have reverenced you as my father : but, as you have always carried a purse where in- stead you ought to have worn a human heart, I have made free to bestow myself where that seat of love will not be wanting to my happi- ness. As for the huge Knight, whom you have thought fit to select for my husband, you will find him locked up in my closet. For the manner of my departure, I would not wilHngly have made you a party to your own disap- pointment ; but that, from your excessive vigi- lance, it was hopeless for me to escape except by a ladder of your own planting. Necessity was the mother of my invention, and its father was Love. Excepting this performance, I was never romantic, and am not now ; and, there- fore, neither scorning your forgiveness, nor yet despairing at its denial, I am going to settle into that sober discretion which I hope is not foreign to my nature. Farewell. — Before you read this I am in the arms of my dear Josef Castello, a gentleman of such merit, that you IN LOVE WITH ROMANCE. 139 will regain more honour with such a son, than you can have lost in your undutiful daughter, "Blanche." On reading this letter, the old man fell into the most ungovernable rage, and releasing the Knight from the closet, they reproached each other so bitterly, and quarrelled so long, as to make it hopeless that they could overtake the fugitives, even had they known the direction of their flight. In this pleasant manner, the Lady Blanche of Castille made her escape from an almost hopeless captivity and an odious suitor ; and the letter which she wrote is preserved unto this day, as an evidence of her wit. But her father never forgave her elopement ; and when he was stretched even at the point of death, being importuned on this subject, he made answer that, " he could never forgive her, when he had never forgiven himself for her evasion.*' And with these words on his lips he expired. THE EIGHTH SLEEPER OF EPHESUS, " Fie ! this fellow would sleep out a Lapland night !' THE EIGHTH SLEEPER OF EPHESUS. It happened one day, in a certain merry party of Genoese, that their conversation fell at last on the noted miracle of Ephesus. Most of the company treated the story of the Seven Sleepers as a pleasant fable, and many shrewd conceits and witty jests were passed on the occasion. Some of the gentlemen, inventing dreams for those drowsy personages, provoked much mirth by their allusions; whilst others speculated satirically on the changes in manners, which they must have remarked after their century of slumber — all of the listeners being 144 THE EIGHTH SLEEPER highly diverted, excepting one sober gentleman, who made a thousand wry faces at the dis- course. At length, taking an opportunity to address them, he lectured them very seriously in defence of the miracle, calling them so many heretics and infidels ; and saying that he saw no reason why the history should not be beheved as well as any other legend of the holy fathers. Then, after many other curious arguments, he brought the example of the dormouse, which sleeps throughout a whole winter, affirming, that the Ephesian Christians, being laid in a cold place, like a rocky cavern or a sepulchre, might rea- sonably have remained torpid for a hundred years. His companions, feigning themselves to be converted, flattered him on to proceed in a discourse which ^was so diverting, some of them replenishing his glass continually with wine — of which, through talking till he became thirsty, he partook very freely. At last after OF EPHESUS. 145 Uttering a volume of follies and extravagances, he dropped his head upon the table and fell into a profound doze ; during which interval, his merry companions plotted a scheme against him, which they promised themselves would afford some excellent sport. Carrying him softly therefore to an upper chamber, they laid him upon an old bed of state, very quaintly furnished and decorated in the style of the gothic ages. Thence repairing to a private thea- tre in the house, which belonged to their enter- tainer, they arrayed themselves in some Bo- hemian habits, very grotesque and fanciful, and disguised their faces with paint ; and then send- ing one of their number to keep watch in the bed-chamber, they awaited in this masquerade the awaking of the credulous sleeper. In an hour or thereabouts, the watcher, perceiving that the other began to yawn, ran instantly to his comrades, who, hurrying up to the chamber, found their Ephesian sitting up- right in bed, and wondering about him at its VOL. I. H J46 THE EIGHTH SLEEPER uncouth mouldering furniture. One of them then speaking for the rest, began to congratulate him on his revival out of so tedious a slumber, persuading him, by help of the others and a legion of lies, that he had slept out a hundred years. He thereupon asking them who they were, they answered they were his dutiful great grandchildren, who had kept watch over him by turns ever since they were juveniles. In proof of this, they showed him how dilapi- dated the bed had become since he had slept in it, nobody daring to remove him against the advice of the physicians. " I perceive it well," said he, *^ the golden em- broideries are indeed very much tarnished — and the hangings in truth, as tattered as any of our old Genoese standards that were carried against the Turks. These faded heraldries too, upon the head-cloth, have been thoroughly fretted by the moths. I notice also, my dear great grandchildren, by your garments, how much the fashions have altered since my time. OF EFHESUS. 147 though you have kept our ancient language very purely, which is owing of course to the invention of printing. The trees, likewise, and the park, I observe, have much the same ap- pearance that I remember a century since — but the serene aspect of nature does not alter so constantly like our frivolous human customs.'"* Then recollecting himself, he began to make inquiries concerning his former acquaintance, and in particular about one Giacoppo Rossi — the same wag that in his mummery was then standing before him. They told him he had been dead and buried, fourscore years ago. " Now, God be praised !'' he answered ; " for that same fellow was a most pestilent coxcomb, who, pretending to be a wit, thought himself licensed to ridicule men of worth and gravity with the most shameful buiFooneries. The world must have been much comforted by his death, and especially if he took with him his fellow mountebank, Guidolphi, who was as laborious a jester, but duller."" H 2 148 THE EIGHTH SLEEPER. In this strain, going through the names of all those that were with him in the room, he praised God heartily that he was rid of such a generation of knaves and fools and profane heretics; and then recollecting himself afresh, '' Of course, my great grandchildren," said he, " I am a widower ?" His wife, who was amongst the maskers, at this question began to priclc up her ears, and answering for herself, she said, " Alas ! the good woman that was thy partner has been dead these seventy-three years, and has left thee desolate." At this news the sleeper began to rub his hands together very briskly, saying, " Then there was a cursed shrew gone ;*' whereupon his wife striking him in a fury on the cheek, she let fall her mask through this indiscretion; and so awaked him out of his marvellous dream. MADELINE. One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons, A natural perspective, that is, and is not. Twelfth Night. MADELINE. There lived in Toledo a young gentle- man, so passionately loved by a young lady of the same city, that on his sudden decease she made a vow to think of no other ; and having neither relations nor friends, except her dear brother Juan, who was then abroad, she hired a small house, and lived almost the life of a hermit. Being young and handsome, however, and possessed besides of a plentiful fortune, she was much annoyed by the young gallants of the place, who practised so many stratagems to get speech of her, and molested her so continually, that to free herself from their im- portunities, both now and for the future, she exchanged her dress for a man's apparel, and 152 MADELINE. privately withdrew to another city. By favour of her complexion, which was a brunette''s5 and the solitary manner of her life, she was enabled to preserve this disguise; and it might have been expected that she would have met with few adventures ; but on the contrary, she had barely sojourned a month in this new dwell- ing, and in this unwonted garb, when she was visited with still sterner inquietudes than in those she had so lately resigned. As the beginning of her troubles, it hap- pened, one evening, in going out a little dis- tance, that she was delayed in the street by seeing a young woman, who, sitting on some stone steps, and with scanty rags to cover her, was nursing a beautiful infant at her breast and weeping bitterly. At this painful spectacle, the charitable Madeline immediately cast her purse into the poor mother's lap, and the wo- man eagerly seizing the gift, and clasping it to her bosom, began to implore the blessing of God upon so charitable and Christian-like MADELINE. 153 a gentleman. But an instant had scarcely been gone, when on looking up, and more completely discerning the countenance of her benefactor, she suddenly desisted. " Ah, wretch !'*' she cried, " do you come hither to insult me ? Go again to your false dice ; and the curse of a wife and of a mother be upon you !" Then casting away the purse, and bending herself down over her child, and crying, " Alas ! my poor babe, shall we eat from the hand that has ruined thy father;" — she resumed her weeping. The tender Madeline was greatly afflicted at being so painfully mistaken ; and hastening home, she deliberated with herself whether she should any longer retain an apparel which had subjected her to so painful an occurrence ; but recalhng her former persecutions, and trusting that so strange an adventure could scarcely befal her a second time, she continued in her masculine disguise. And now, thinking of the comfort and protection which her dear H 5 154 MADJELINE. brother Juan might be to her in such troubles, she became vehemently anxious for his return ; and the more so, because she could obtain no tidings of him whatever. On the morrow, therefore, she went forth to make inquiry ; and forsaking her usual road, and especially the quarter where she had encountered with that unfortunate woman, she trusted reasonably to meet with no other such misery. Now it chanced that the road which she had chosen on this day led close beside a cemetery; and just at the moment when she arrived by the gates, there came also a funeral, so that she was obliged to stand aside during the procession. Madeline was much struck by the splendour of the escutcheons ; but still more by the general expression of sorrow amongst the people; and inquiring of a bye-stander the name of the deceased: — " What !" said the man, " have ye not heard of the villanous murder of our good lord, the Don Felix de Castro? — the hot curse of God fall on the MADELINE. 155 wicked Cain that slew him !" and with that, he uttered so many more dreadful imprecations as made her blood run cold to hear him. In the meantime, the mourners one by one had almost entered ; and the last one was just stepping by, with her hands clasped and a countenance of the deepest sorrow, when cast- ing her eyes on Madeline, she uttered a piercing shriek, and pointing with her finger, cried, " That is he, that is he who murdered my poor brother !" At this exclamation, the people eagerly pressed towards the quarter whither she pointed ; but Madeline, shrinking back from the piercing glance of the lady, was so hidden by the gate as to be unnoticed ; and the next man being seized on suspicion, and a great tumult arising, she was enabled to make her escape. " Alas !" she sighed inwardly, " what sin have I com- mitted, that this cruel fortune pursues me whithersoever I turn. Alas, what have I done;""' and walking sorrowfully in these me- <^ 156 MADELINE. ditations, she was suddenly accosted by a strange domestic. " Senor," he said, " my lady desires most earnestly to see you ; nay, you must needs come;" and thereupon leading the way into an antient, noble-looking mansion, the be- wildered Madeline, silent and wondering, was introduced to a large apartment. At the further end a lady attired in deep mourning, like a widow, was reclining on a black velvet sofa; the curtains were black, the pictures were framed also in black, and the whole room was so furnished in that dismal colour, that it looked like a very palace of grief. At sight of Madehne, the lady rose hastily and ran a few steps forward; but her limbs failing, she stopped short, and rested with both hands on a little table which stood in the centre of the room. Her figure was tall and graceful, but so wasted, that it seemed as if it must needs bend to that attitude; and her coun- tenance was so thin and pale, and yet withal so MADELINE. 157 beautiful, that Madeline could not behold it without tears of pity. After a pause, the lady cried in a low voice, " Ah, cruel, how could you desert me ! See how I have grieved for you !" and therewith unbinding her hair, so that it fell about her face, it was as grey as in a \voman of four-score ! " Alas !" she said, " it was black once, when I gave thee a lock for a keep-sake ; but it was fitting it should change when thou hast changed ;'' and leaning her face on her hands she sobbed heavily. At these words, the tender Madeline ap- proached to console her ; but the lady pushing her gently aside, exclaimed mournfully, " It is too late! it is too late now!" and then castinsr herself on the sofa, gave way to such a passion of grief, and trembled so exceedingly, that it seemed as if life and sorrow would part asun- der on the spot. Madeline kneeling down, and swearing that she had never injured her, be- sought her to moderate a transport which broke 158 MADELINE. her heart only to gaze upon; and the lady moving her lips, but unable to make any reply, then drew from her bosom a small miniature ; and sobbing out, " Oh, Juan, Juan !"" hid her face again upon the cushion. At sight of the picture, the miserable Ma- deline was in her own turn speechless ; and remembering instantly the beggar and the mourner, whose mistakes were thus illustrated by the unhappy lady — she comprehended at once the full measure of her wretchedness. '' Oh, Juan, Juan," she groaned, " is it thus horribly that I must hear of thee I" and stretching herself upon the carpet, she uttered such piercing cries, that the lady, alarmed by a grief which surpassed even her own, endea- voured to raise her, and happening to tear open the bosom of her dress, the sex of Ma- deline was discovered. " Alas, poor wretch ! hast thou too been deceived," cried the lady — " and by the same false Juan ;" and enfolding MADELINE. 159 Madeline in her arms, the two unfortunates wept together for the space of many minutes. In the mean time, a domestic abruptly en- tered ; and exclaiming that the murderer of Don Felix was condemned, and that he had seen him conducted to prison, he delivered into the hands of his mistress a fragment of a letter, which she read as follows : — " Most dear and injured lady, " Before this shocks your eyes, your ears will be stung with the news that it is I who have killed your kinsman ; and knowing that by the same blow I have slain your peace, I am not less stained by your tears than by his blood which is shed. My wretched life will speedily make atonement for this last offence ; but that I should have requited your admirable constancy and Affection by so un- worthy a return of cruelty and falsehood, is a crime that scorches up my tears before I can 160 MADELINE. shed them ; and makes me so despair, that I cannot pray even on the threshold of death. And yet, I am not quite the wretch you may account me, except in misery ; but desiring only to die as the most unhappy man in this unhappy world, I have withheld many particu- lars which might otherwise intercede for me with my judges. But I desire to die, and to pass away from both hatred and pity, if any such befal me ; but above all, to perish from a remembrance whereof I am most unworthy: and when I am but a clod, and a poor remnant of dust, you may happily forgive, for mor- tality's sake, the many faults and human sins which did once inhabit it. " I am only a few brief hours short of this consummation : and the life which was bes- towed for your misery and mine will be extin- guished for ever, ^y blood is running its last course through its veins— and the light and air of which all others so largely partake, is scantily measured out to me. Do not curse me— do I MADELINE. 161 not forget that which you once were to me, though unrelated to my crimes; but if my name may still live where my lips have been, put your pardon into a prayer for my soul against its last sunrise. Only one more request. I have a sister in Toledo who tenderly loves me, and believes that I am still abroad. If it be a thing possible, confirm her still in that happy delusion— or tell her that I am dead, but not how. As I have concealed my true name, I hope that this deadly reproach may be spared to her, and now from the very confines of the grave — " It was a painful thing to hear the afflicted lady reading thus far betwixt her groans — but the remainder was written in so wavering a hand, and withal so stain^ and blotted, that, like the meaning of death itself, it surpassed dis- covery. At length, "Let me go," cried Made- line, " let me go and liberate him ! If they 16^ MADELINE. mistake me thus for my brother Juan, the gaoler will not be able to distinguish him from me, and in this manner he may escape and so have more years for repentance, and make his peace with God.'** Hereupon, wildly clap- ping her hands, as if for joy at this fortunate thought, she entreated so earnestly for a woman- ly dress that it was given to her, and throwing it over her man's apparel, she made the best of her way to the prison. But, alas ! the countenance of the miserable Juan was so changed by sickness and sharp anguish of mind, - that for want of a more happy token she was constrained to recognize him by his bonds. Her fond stratagem therefore would have been hopeless, if Juan besides had not been so resolute, as he was, in his opposition to her entreaties. She was obliged, therefore, to con- tent herself with mingling tears with him till night, in his dungeon, — and then struggling, and tearing her fine hair, as though it had been guilty of her grief, she was removed from him MADELINE. 163 by main force, and in that manner conveyed back to the lady's residence. For some hours she expended her breath only in raving and the most passionate ar- guments of distress, — but afterwards she be- came as fearfully calm, neither speaking, nor weeping, nor listening to what was addressed to her, merely remarking about midnight, that she heard the din of the workmen upon the scaf- fold — and which, though heard by no other person at so great a distance, was confirmed afterwards to have been a truth. In this state, with her eyes fixed and her lips moving, but without any utterance, she remained till morn- ing in a kind of lethargy — and therein so much more happy than her unfortunate companion, who at every sound of the great bell which is always tolled against the death of a convict, started and sobbed and shook, as if each stroke was made against her own heart. But of Madeline, on the contrary, it was noted that even when the doleful procession was passing 164 MADELINE. immediately under the window at which she was present, she only shivered a little, as if at a cool breath of air, and then turning slowly away, and desiring to be laid in bed, she fell into a slumber, as profound nearly as death it- self. But it was not' her blessed fate to die so quickly, although on the next morning the unhappy partner of her grief was found dead upon her pillow^ still and cold, and with so sorrowful an expression about her countenance, as might well rejoice the beholder that she was divorced from a life of so deep a trouble. As for Madeline, she took no visible note of this occurrence, nor seemed to have any return of reason till the third day, when growing more and more restless, and at length wandering out into the city, she was observed to tear down one of the proclamations for the execution, which were still attached to the walls. After this, she was no more seen in the neighbourhood, and it was feared she had violently made away with her life ; but by later accounts from Toledo, it MADELINE. 165 was ascertained that she had wandered back, bare-footed and quite a maniac, to that city. She was for some years the wonder and the pity of its inhabitants, and when I have been in Toledo with my uncle Francis, I have seen this poor crazed Madeline, as they called her, with her Ibng loose hair and her fine face, so pale and thin, and so calm-looking, that it seemed to be only held alive by her large black eyes. She was always mild and gentle, and if you provoked it, would freely converse with you ; but oftentimes in the midst of her discourse, whether cheerful or sad, she would pause and sigh, and say in a different voice, " Oh, Juan, Juan P' and with these two words, simple though they be, she made every heart ache that heard her. MASSETTO AND HIS MARE. '•'■ Quit that form of a woman, and be turned instantly into mare."— The Story of Beder, Prince of Persia. MASETTO AND HIS MARE. It is remarkable, and hardly to be believed by those who have not studied the history of superstition, what extravagant fables may be imposed on the faith of the vulgar people ; es- pecially when such fables are rehearsed in print, which of itself has passed before now as the work of a black or magical art, and has still influence enough over ignorant minds, to make them beHeve, like Masetto, that a book of ro- mances is a gospel. This Masetto, like most other rustics, was a very credulous man ; but more simple other- wise than country folks commonly appear, VOL. I. I 170 MASETTO AND HIS MARE. who have a great deal of crafty instinct of their own, which comes to them spontaneously, as to the ravens and magpies. And whereas pastoral people are generally churlish and headstrong, and in spite of the antique poets, of coarse and brutal tempers, Masetto, on the contrary, was very gentle and mild, and so compassionate with- al, that he would weep over a wounded crea- ture like a very woman. This easy disposition made him liable to be tricked by any subtle knave that might think it worth his pains, and amongst such rogues there was none that duped him more notably than one Bruno Cor- vetto, a horse-courser, and as dishonest as the most capital of his trade. This fellow, observ- ing that Masetto had a very good mare, which he kept to convey his wares to Florence, re- solved to obtain her at the cheapest rate, which was by stratagem, and knowing well the simple and credulous character of the farmer, he soon devised a plan. Now Masetto was very tender to all dumb animals, and especially to his mare, MASETTO AND HIS MARE. 171 who was not insensible to his kindly usage, but pricked up her ears at the sound of his voice, and followed him here and there, with the sa- gacity and affection of a faithful dog, together with many other such tokens of an intelligence that has rarely belonged to her race. The crafty Corvetto, therefore, conceived great hopes of his scheme : accordingly, having planted himself in the road by which INIasetto used to return home, he managed to fall into discourse with him about the mare, which he regarded very earnestly, and this he repeated for several days. At last Masetto observing that he seemed very much affected when he talked of her, became very curious about the cause, and inquired if it had ever been his good fortune to have such another good mare as his own ; to this Corvetto made no reply, but throwing his arms about the mare's neck, began to hug her so lovingly, and with so many deep drawn sighs, that Masetto began to stare amazingly, and to cross himself as fast as he I 2 172 MASETTO AND HIS MARE. could. The hypocritical Corvetto then turning away from the animal, — "Alas!" said he, "this beloved creature that you see before you is no mare, but an unhappy woman, disguised in this horrible brutal shape by an accursed ma- gician. Heaven only knows in what manner my beloved wife provoked this infernal malice, but doubtless it was by her unconquerable virtue, which was rivalled only by the loveliness of her person. I have been seeking her in this shape, all over the wearisome earth, and now I have discovered her I have not wherewithal to re- deem her of you, my money being all expended in the charges of travelling, otherwise I would take her instantly to the most famous wizard, Michael Scott, who is presently sojourning at Florence, and by help of his magical books might discover some charm to restore her to her natural shape.'*'* Then clasping the docile mare about the neck again, he affected to weep over her very bitterly. The simple Masetto was very much disturbed MASETTO AND HIS MARE. ITS at this story, but knew not whether to believe it, till at last he bethought himself of the vil- lage priest, and proposed to consult him upon the case ; and whether the lady, if there was one, might not be exorcised out of the body of his mare. The knavish Corvetto, knowing well that this would ruin his whole plot, was pre- pared to dissuade him. '* You know," said he, " tlie vile curiosity of our country people, who would not fail at such a rumour to pester us out of our senses ; and, especially, they would torment my unhappy wife, upon whom they would omit no experiment, however cruel, -for their satisfaction. Besides, it would certainly kill her with grief, to have her disgrace so pub- lished to the world, which she cannot but feel very bitterly ; for it must be a shocking thing for a young lady who has been accustomed to listen to the loftiest praises of her womanly beauty, to know herself thus horribly degraded in the foul body of a brute. Alas ! who could think that her beautiful locks, which used 174 MASETTO AND HIS MAIIE, to shine like p;olclen wires, are now turned by damnable magic into this coarse slovenly mane; — or her delicate white hands — oh ! how pure and lily-like they were — into these hard and iron-shod hoofs !" The tender-hearted Masetto beginning to look very doleful at these excla- mations, the knave saw that his performance began to take effect, and so begged no more for the present, than that Mazetto would treat his mare very kindly, and rub her teeth daily with a sprig of magical hornbeam, w^hich the simple- witted rustic promised very readily to perform. He had, notwithstanding, some buz- zing doubts in his head upon the matter, which Corvetto found means to remove by degrees, taking care, above all, to caress the unconscious mare whenever they met, and sometimes going half-privately to converse with her in the stable. At last, Masetto being very much distressed by these proceedings, he addressed Corvetto as follows : — " I am at my wit's end about this MASETTO AXD HIS MARE. 175 matter. I cannot find in my heart, from re- spect, to make my lady do any kind of rude work, so that my cart stands idle in the stable, and my wares are thus unsold, which is a state of things that I cannot very well afford. But, above all, your anguish whenever you meet with your poor wife is more than I can bear; it seems such a shocking and unchristian-like sin in me, for the sake of a little money, to keep you both asunder. Take her, therefore, freely of me as a gift ; or if you will not receive her thus, out of consideration for my poverty, it shall be paid me when your lady is restored to her estates, and by your favour, with her own lily white hand. Nay, pray accept of her with- out a word ; you must be longing, I know, to take her to the great wizard, Michael Scott ; and in the mean time I will pray, myself, to the blessed saints and martyrs, that his charms may have the proper effect." The rogue, at these words, with undissembled joy fell about the mare's neck ; and, taking her by the halter, 176 MASETTO AND HIS MARE. after a formal parting with Masetto, began to lead her gently away. Her old master, with brimful eyes, continued watching her departure till her tail was quite out of sight ; whereupon, Corvetto leapt instantly on her back, and with- out stint or mercy began gallopping towards Florence, where he sold her, as certain Saxons are recorded to have disposed of their wives, in the market-place. Some time afterwards, Masetto repairing to Florence on a holiday, to purchase another horse for his business, he beheld a carrier in one of the streets, who was beating his jade very cruelly. The kind Masetto directly inter- fered in behalf of the ill-used brute, — which indeed, was his own mare, though much alter- ed by hard labour and sorry diet, — and now got into a fresh scrape, with redoubled blows, through capering up to her old master. Ma- setto was much shocked, you may be sure, to discover the enchanted lady in such a wretched plight. But not doubting that she had been MASETTO AND HIS MAKE. 177 stolen from her afflicted husband, he taxed the carrier Yery roundly with the theft, who laugh- ed at him in his turn for a madman, and proved by three witnesses, that he had purchased the mare of Corvetto. Masetto's eyes were thus opened, but by a very painful operation. How- ever, he purchased his mare again, without bargaining for either golden hair or lily-white hands, and with a heavy heart rode back again to his village. The inhabitants when he arrived, were met together on some public business ; after which Masetto, like an imprudent man as he was, complained bitterly amongst his neighbours of his disaster. They made them- selves, therefore, very merry at his expense, and the schoolmaster especially, who was reck- oned the chiefest wit of the place. Masetto bore all their railleries with great patience, de- fending himself with many reasonable argu- ments — and at last he told them he would bring them in proof quite as wonderful a case. Accordingly, stepping back to his own house, I 5 178 MASEITO AND HIS MARE. he returned with an old tattered volume, which Corvetto had bestowed on him, of the '* Arabian Nights," and began to read to them the story of Sidi Nonman, whose wife was turned, as well as Corvetto's, into a beautiful mare. His neighbours laughing more lustily than ever at this illustra« tion, and the schoolmaster' crowing above them all, Masetto interrupted him with great indigna- tion. " How is this. Sir," said he, " that you mock me so, whereas, I remember, that when I was your serving-man and swept out the school- room, I have overheard you teaching the little children concerning people in the old ages, that were half men and the other half turned into horses ; yea, and showing them the effigies in a print, and what was there more impossible in this matter of my own mare ?''"' The priest in- terposing at this passage, in defence of the cchoolmaster, Masetto answered him as he had answered the pedagogue, excepting that instead of the Centaurs, he alleged a miracle out of the Holy Fathers, in proof of the powers of MASETTO AND HIS MARE. 179 magic. There was some fresh laughing at this rub of the bowls against the pastor, who being a Jesuit and a very subtle man, began to con- sider within himself whether it was not better for their souls, that his flock should believe by wholesale, than have too scrupulous a faith, and accordingly, after a little deliberation, he sided with Masetto. He engaged, moreover, to write for the opinion of his College, who replied, that as sorcery was a devilish and infernal art, its existence was as certain as the devil's. Thus a belief in enchantment took root in the village, which in the end flourished so vigo- rously, that although the rustics could not be juggled out of any of their mares, they burn- ed nevertheless a number of unprofitable old women. THE STORY MICHEL ARGENTL View 'em well. Go round about 'em, and still View their faces ; round about yet, See how death waits upon 'em, for Thou shalt never view 'em more. Elder Buotheh. THE STORY OF MICHEL ARGENTI Michel Argent i was a learned physician of Padua, but lately settled at Florence, a few years only before its memorable visitation, when the Destroying Angel brooded over that unhap- py city, shaking out deadly vapours from its wings. It must have been a savage heart indeed, that could not be moved by the shocking scenes that ensued from that horrible calamity, and which were fearful enough to overcome even the dear- est pieties and prejudices of humanity ; causing the holy ashes of the dead to be no longer vene- 184 THE STORY OF rated, and the living to be disregarded by their nearest ties : the tenderest mothers forsaking their infants ; wives flying from the sick couches of their husbands ; and children neglecting their dying parents; when love closed the door against love, and particular selfishness took place of all mutual sympathies. There were some brave, humane spirits, nevertheless, that with a divine courage ventured into the very chambers of the sick, and contended over their prostate bodies with the common enemy; and amongst these was Argenti, who led the way in such works of mercy, till at last the pesti- lence stepped over his own threshold, and he was beckoned home by the ghastly finger of Death, to struggle with him for the wife of his own bosom. Imagine him then, worn out in spirit and body, ministering hopelessly to her that had been dearer to him than health or life; but now, instead of an object of loveliness, a livid and ghastly spectacle, almost too loathsome to MICHEL ARGENTI. 185 look upon ; her pure flesh being covered with blue and mortiferous blotches, her sweet breath changed into a fetid vapour, and her accents expressive only of anguish and despair. These doleful sounds were aggravated by the songs and festivities of the giddy populace, which, now the pestilence had abated, ascended into the desolate chamber of its last martyr, and mingled with her dying groans. These ending on the third day with her hfe, Argenti was left to his solitary grief, the only living person in his desolate house; his servants having fled during the pestilence, and left him to perform every office with his own hands. Hi- therto the dead had gone without their rites ; but he had the melancholy satisfaction of those sacred and decent services for his wife's remains, which during the height of the plague had been direfuUy suspended ; the dead bodies being so awfully numerous, that they defied a careful sepulture, but were thrown, by random and slovenly heaps, into great holes and ditches. 186 THE STORY OF As soon as was prudent after this catastrophe, his friends repaired to him with his two little children, who had fortunately been absent in the country, and now returned with brave ruddy cheeks and vigorous spirits to his arms; but, alas ! not to cheer their miserable parent, who thenceforward was never known to smile, nor scarcely to speak, excepting of the pesti- lence. As a person that goes forth from a dark sick chamber is still haunted by its glooms, in spite of the sunshine; so, though the plague had ceased, its horrors still clung about the mind of Argenti, and with such a deadly influence in his thoughts, as it bequeathes to the infected garments of the dead. The dreadful objects he had witnessed still walked with their ghostly images in his brain — his mind, in short, being but a doleful lazaretto devoted to pestilence and death. The same horrible spectres pos- sessed his dreams; which he sometimes described as filled up from the same black source, and MICHEL ARGENTI. 187 thronging with the Hving sick he had visited, or the multitudinous dead corses, with the un- mentionable and unsightly rites of their inhu- mation. These dreary visions entering into all his thoughts, it happened often, that when he was summoned to the sick, he pronounced that their malady was the plague, discovering its awful symptoms in bodies where it had no existence ; but above all, his terrors were busy with his children, whom he watched with a vigilant and despairing eye ; discerning constantly some deadly taint in their wholesome breath, or de- claring that he saw the plague-spot in their tender faces. Thus, watching them sometimes upon their pillows, he would burst into tears and exclaim that they were smitten with death ; in short, he regarded their blue eyes and ruddy cheeks but as the frail roses and violets that are to perish in a day, and their silken hair like the most brittle gossamers. Thus their exis- 188 THE STOEY OF tence, which should have been a blessing to his hopes, became a very curse to him through his despair. His friends, judging rightly from these tokens that his mind was impaired, persuaded him to remove from a place which had been the theatre of his calamities, and served but too frequently to remind him of his fears. He repaired, there- fore, with his children to the house of a kins- woman at Genoa; but his melancholy was not at all relieved by the change, his mind being now like a black Stygian pool that reflects not, ex- cept one dismal hue, whatever shifting colours are presented by the skies. In this mood he continued there five or six weeks, when the superb city was' thrown into the greatest alarm and confusion. The popular rumour reported that the plague had been brought into the port by a Moorish felucca, whereupon the magis- trates ordered that the usual precautions should be observed; so that although there was no MICHEL ARGENTI. 189 real pestilence, the city presented the usual appearances of such a visitation. These tokens were sufficient to aggravate the malady of Argenti, whose illusions became in- stantly more frequent and desperate, and his affliction almost a frenzy ; so that going at night to his children, he looked upon them in an agony of despair, as though they were already in their shrouds. And when he gazed on their delicate round cheeks, like ripening fruits, and their fair arms, like sculptured marbles, entwining each other, 'tis no marvel that he begrudged to pestilence the horrible and loathsome dis- figurements and changes which it would bring upon their beautiful bodies; neither that he contemplated with horror the painful stages by which they must travel to their premature graves. Some meditations as dismal I doubt not occupied his incoherent thoughts, and whilst they lay before him so lovely and calm-looking, made him wish that instead of a temporal sleep, 190 THE STORY OF they were laid in eternal rest. Their odorous breath, as he kissed them, was as sweet as flowers; and their pure skin without spot or blemish.: nevertheless, to his gloomy fancy the corrupted touches of Death were on them both, and devoted their short-lived frames to his most hateful inflictions. Imagine him gazing full of these dismal thoughts on their faces, sometimes smiting him- self upon his forehead, that entertained such horrible fancies, and sometimes pacing to and fro in the chamber with an emphatic step, which must needs have wakened his little ones if they had not been lapped in the profound slumber of innocence and childhood. In the meantime the mild light of love in his looks, changes into a fierce and dreary fire ; his sparkling eyes, and his lips as paUid as ashes, betraying the despe- rate access of frenzy, which like a howling demon passes into his feverish soul, and pro- vokes him to unnatural action : and first of all MICHEL ARGENTI. 191 he plucks away the pillows, those downy minis- ters to harmless sleep, but now unto death, with which crushing the tender faces of his little ones, he thus dams up their gentle respirations before they can utter a cry ; then casting him- self with horrid fervour upon their bodies, with this unfatherlike embrace he enfolds them till they are quite breathless. After which he lifts up the pillows, and, lo ! there lie the two mur- dered babes, utterly quiet and still, — and with the ghastly seal of death imprinted on their waxen cheeks. In this dreadful manner Argenti destroyed his innocent children, — not in hatred, but igno- rantly, and wrought upon by the constant ap- prehension of their death ; even as a terrified wretch upon a precipice, who swerves towards the very side that presents the danger. Let his deed, therefore, be viewed with compassion, as the fault of his unhappy fate, which forced upon him such a cruel crisis, and finally ended l^ MICHEL ARGENTI. his sorrows by as tragical a death. On the morrow his dead body was found at sea, by some [fishermen, and being recognized as Ar- genti^s, it was interred in one grave with those of his two children. THE THREE JEWELS. How many shapes hath Love ? Marry, as many as your molten lead. VOL. I. THE THREE JEWELS. There are many examples in ancient and modern story, of lovers who have worn various disguises to obtain their mistresses; the great Jupiter himself setting the pattern by his nota- ble transformations. Since those heroic days. Love has often diverted himself in Italy as a shepherd with his pastoral crook ; and I propose to tell you how, in more recent times, he has gone amongst us in various other shapes. But in the first place I must introduce to you a handsome youth, named Torrello, of Bergamo, who was enamoured of Fiorenza, the daughter of gentlefolks in the same neighbourhood. His enemies never objected any thing against Tor- k2 196 THE THREE JEWELS. rello, but his want of means to support his gen- tlemanly pretensions and some extravagances and follies, which belong generally to youth, and are often the mere foils of a generous nature. However, the parents of Fiorenza be- ing somewhat austere, perceived graver offences in his flights, and forbade him, under grievous penalties, to keep company with his mistress. Love, notwithstanding, is the parent of more inventions than Necessity, and Torrello, being a lively-witted fellow, and withal deeply inspired by love, soon found out a way to be as often as he would in the presence of his lady. Seeing that he could not transform himself, like Jupi- ter, into a shower of gold for her sake, he put on the more humble seeming of a gardener, and so got employed in the pleasure-ground of her parents. I leave you to guess, then, how the flowers prospered under his care, since they were to form bouquets for Fiorenza, who was seldom afterwards to be seen without some pretty blossom in her bosom. She took many THE THREE JEWELS. 197 lessons besides of the gardener, in his gentle craft, and her fondness growing for the employ- ment, her time was almost all spent naturally amongst her plants, and to the infinite cultiva- tion of her heart's-ease, which had never before prospered to such a growth. She learned also of Torrello a pretty language of hieroglyphics, which he had gathered from the girls of the Greek Islands, so that they could hold secret colloquies together by exchanges of flowers ; and Fiorenza became more eloquent by this kind of speech than in her own language, which she had never found competent to her dearest con- fessions. Conceive how abundantly happy they were in such employments, surrounded by the lovely gifts of Nature, their pleasant occupation of itself being the primeval recreation of human- kind before the fall, and love especially being with them, that can convert a wilderness into a garden of sweets. The mother of Fiorenza, chiding her some- 198 THE THREE JEWELS. times for the neglect of her embroideries, she would answer in this manner : — " Oh, my dear mother ! what is there in labours of art at all comparable with these ? Why should I task myself with a tedious nee- dle to stitch out poor tame formal emblems of these beautiful flowers and plants, when thus the living blooms spring up naturally under my hands. I confess I never could account for the fondness of young women for that unwholesome chamber- work, for the sake of a piece of inani- mate tapestry, which hath neither freshness nor fragrance ; whereas, this breezy air, with the odour of the plants and shrubs, inspirits my very heart. I assure you, 'tis like a work of ma- gic to see how they are charmed to spring up by the hands of our skilful gardener, who is so civil and kind as to teach me all the secrets of his art." By such expressions her mother was quieted; but her father was not so easily pacified ; for it happened, that whilst the roses flourished every- THE TIIRKK JEWELS. 199 where, the household herbs, by the neglect of Torrello and his assistants, went entirely to de- cay, S9 that at last, though there was a nosegay in every chamber, there was seldom a sallad for the table. The master taking notice of the neglect, and the foolish Torrello in reply show- ing a beautiful flowery arbour, which he had busied himself in erecting, he was abruptly dis- charged on the spot, and driven out, like Adam, from his Paradise of flowers. The mother being informed afterwards of this transaction — " In truth," said she, " it was well done of you, for the fellow was very forward, and I think Fiorenza did herself some disparagement in making so much of him, as I have observed. For example, a small fee of a crown or two would have paid him handsomely for his lessons to her, without giving him one of her jewels, which I fear the knave will be insolent enough to wear and make a boast of." And truly Torrello never parted with the gift, 200 THE THREE JEWELS. which, as though it had been some magical talisman, transformed him quickly into a master falconer, on the estate of the parent of Fio- renza ; and thus he rode side by side with her whenever she went a-fowling. That healthful exercise soon restored her cheerfulness, which, towards autumn, on the withering of her flow- ers, had been touched with melancholy ; and she pursued her new pastime with as much eagerness as before. She rode always beside the falconer, as constant as a tassel-gentle to his lure ; whilst Torrello often forgot to recal his birds from their flights. His giddiness and inadvertence at last procuring his dismissal, the falcon was taken from his finger, which Fio- renza recompensed with a fresh jewel, to con- sole him for his disgrace. After this event, there being neither garden- ing nor fowling to amuse her, the languid girl fell into a worse melancholy than before, that quite disconcerted her parents. After a con- sultation, therefore, between themselves, they THE THREE JEWELS. ^01 sent for a noted physician from Turin, in spite of the opposition of Fiorenza, who understood her own ailment sufficiently to know that it was desperate to his remedies. In the mean time his visits raised the anxiety of Torrello to such a pitch, that after languishing some days about the mansion, he contrived to waylay the doctor on his return, and learned from him the m3^ste- rious nature of the patient's disease. The doc- tor confessing his despair of her cure, "Be of good cheer,""* replied Torrello ; "I know well her complaint, and without any mi- racle will enable you to restore her, so as to redound very greatly to your credit. You tell me that she will neither eat nor drink, and can- not sleep if she would, but pines miserably away, with a despondency which must end in either madness or her dissolution : whereas, I promise you she shall not only feed heartily, and sleep soundly, but dance and sing as merrily as you can desire." He then related confidentially, the history of K 5 202 THE THREE JEWELS. their mutual love, and begged earnestly, that the physician would devise some means of get- ting him admitted to the presence of his mis- tress. The doctor being a good-hearted man, was much moved by the entreaties of Torrello, and consented to use his ability. " However," said he, " I can think of no way but one, which would displease you — and that is, that you should personate my pupil, and attend upon her with my medicines." The joyful Torrello assured the doctor, " that he was very much mistaken in suppos- ing that any falsely-imagined pride could over- master the vehemence of his love ;"" and accord- ingly putting on an apron, with the requisite habits, he repaired on his errand to the languish- ing Fiorenza. She recovered very speedily, at his presence — but was altogether well again, to learn that thus a new mode was provided for their interviews. The physician thereupon was gratified with a handsome present by her parents, who allowed the assistant likewise to THE THREE JEWELS. continue his visits till he had earned another jewel of Fiorenza. Prudence at last telling them that they must abandon this stratagem, they prepared for a fresh separation, but taking leave of each other upon a time too tenderly, they were observed by the father, and whilst Torrello was indignantly thrust out at the door, Fiorenza was commanded, with a stern rebuke, to her own chamber. The old lady thereupon asking her angry husband concerning the cause of the uproar, he told her that he had caught the doctor's man on his knees to Fiorenza. '* A plague take him !" said he ; " 'tis the trick of all his tribe, with a pretence of feeling women's pulses to steal away their hands. I marvel how meanly the jade will bestow her favour next; but it will be a baser varlet, I doubt, than a gardener, or a falconer." *' The falconer 1" said the mother, " you spoke just now of the doctor's man." " Ay," quoth he, " but I saw her exchange 204 THE THREE JEWELS. looks, too, with the falconer ; my heart misgives me, that we shall undergo much disgrace and trouble on account of such a self-willed and froward child." " Alas !" quoth the mother, " it is the way of young women, when they are crossed in the man of their liking; they grow desperate and careless of their behaviour. It is a pity, me- thinks, we did not let her have Torrello, who, with all his faults, was a youth of gentle birth, and not likely to disgrace us by his manners ; but it would bring me down to my grave, to have the girl debase herself with any of these common and low-bred people.'"* Her husband, agreeing in these sentiments, they concerted how to have Torrello recalled, which the lady undertook to manage, so as to make the most of their parental indulgence to Fiorenza. Accordingly, after a proper lec- ture on her indiscretions, she dictated a duti- ful letter to her lover, who came very joyfully in his own character as a gentleman, and a time THE THREE JEWELS. 205 was appointed for the wedding. When the day arrived, and the company were all assem- bled, the mother, who was very lynx-sighted, espied the three trinkets, namely, a ring, a clasp, and a buckle, on the person of Torrello, that had belonged to her daughter: however, before she could put any questions, he took Fiorenza by the hand, and spoke as follows. " I know what a history you are going to tell me of the indiscretions of Fiorenza ; and that the several jewels you regard so suspiciously, were bestowed by her on a gardener, a falconer, and a doctor's man. Those three knaves, being all as careless and improvident as myself, the gifts are come, as you perceive, into my own posses- sion ; notwithstanding, lest any should impeach, therefore, the constancy of this excellent lady, let them know that I will maintain her honour in behalf of myself, as well as of those other three, in token of which I have put on their several jewels.*" The parents being enlightened by this dis- 206 THE THREE JEWELS. course, and explaiTiing it to their friends, the young people were married, to the general satis- faction ; and Fiorenza confessed herself thrice happy with the gardener, the falconer, and the doctor's man. GERONIMO AND GHISOLA. This small, small thing, you say is venomous. Its bite deadly, tho' but a very pin's prick. Now, ought Death to be called a Fairy— For he might creep in, look you, through a keyhole." Old Play. GERONIMO AND GHISOLA. There are many tragical instances on record, of cruel parents who have tried to control the aiFections of their children ; but as well might they endeavour to force backwards the pure mountain current into base and unnatural chan- nels. Such attempts, vvhether of sordid parents or ungenerous rivals, redound only to the dis- grace of the contrivers ; for Love is a jealous deity, and commonly avenges himself by some memorable catastrophe. Thus it befel to the ambitious Marquis of Ciampolo, when he aimed at matching his only daughter, Ghisola, with the unfortunate Alfieri ; whereas her young heart was already devoted 210 GERONIMO AND GHISOLA. to her faithful Geronimo, a person of gentle birth and much merit, though of slender estate. For this reason, his virtues were slighted by all but Ghisola, who had much cause to grieve at her father^s blindness ; for Alfieri was a proud and jealous man, and did not scorn to disparage his rival by the most unworthy reports. He had, indeed, so little generosity, that although she pleaded the prepossession of her heart by another, he did not cease to pursue her ; arid finally, the Marquis, discovering the reason of her rejection, the unhappy Geronimo was im- peratively banished from her presence. In this extremity, the disconsolate lovers made friends with a venerable oak, in the Mar- quis's park, which presented a convenient cavity for the reception of their scrolls ; and in this way, this aged tree became the mute and faith- ful confidant of their secret correspondence. Its mossy and knotted trunk was inhabited by seve- ral squirrels, and its branches by various birds ; andln its gnarled roots, a family of red ants had GERONIMO AND GHISOLA. 211 made their fortress, which afforded a sufficient excuse for Ghisola to stop often before the tree, as if to observe their curious and instructive labours. In this manner they exchanged their fondest professions, and conveyed the dearest aspirations of their hearts to each other. But love is a purblind and imprudent pas- sion, which, like the ostrich, conceals itself from its proper sense, and then foolishly imagines that it is shrouded from all other eyes. Thus, whenever Ghisola walked abroad, her steps wan- dered by attraction to the self-same spot, her very existence seeming linked, like the life of a dryad, to her favourite tree. At last, these repeated visits attracting the curiosity of the vigilant Alfieri, his ingenuity soon divined the cause; and warily taking care to examine all the scrolls that passed between them, it hap- pened that several schemes, which they plotted for a secret interview, were vexatiously discon- certed. The unsuspicious lovers, however, at- tributed these spiteful disappointments to the 212 GERONIMO AND GHISOLA. malice of chance ; and thus their correspondence continued till towards the end of autumn, when the oak tree began to shed its last withered leaves ; but Ghisola heeded not, so long as it afforded those other ones, which were more gol- den in her eyes than any upon the boughs. One evil day, however, repairing as usual to the cavity, it was empty and treasureless, al- though her own deposit had been removed as heretofore ; and the dews beneath, it appeared, had been lately brushed away by the foot of her dear Geronimo. She knew, notwithstand- ing, that at any risk he would not so have grieved her ; wherefore, returning homewards with a heavy heart, she dreaded, not unreason- ably, that she should discover what she pined for in the hands of her incensed father ; but being deceived in this expectation, she spent the rest of the day in tears and despondence ; for, rather than believe any negligence of Gero- nimo, she resolved that he must have met with some tragical adventure ; wherefore his bleed- GERONIMO AND GIIISOLA. 213 ing ghost, with many more such horrible phan- tasies, did not fail to visit her in her thoughts and dreams. In the meantime, Geronimo was in equal despair at not having received any writings from Ghisola; but his doubts took another turn than hers, and justly ahghted on the treacherous Alfieri. At the first hints of his suspicion, therefore, he ran to the house of his rival, where the domestics refused positively to admit him, declaring that their master, if not already deceased, was upon the very threshold of death. Geronimo naturally supposing this story to be a mere subterfuge, drew his sword, and with much ado forced his way up to the sick man's chamber, where he found him stretched out upon a couch, and covered from head to heel ^vith a long cloak. The noise of the door disturbing him, Alfieri uncovered his face, and looked out with a countenance so hor- ribly puckered by anguish and distorted, that Geronimo for an instant forgot his purpose, 214 GERONIMO AND GHISOLA. but recovering himself from the shock, he asked fiercely for the letters. The dying wretch answered to this demand with a deep groan, and removing the cloak, he showed Geronimo his bare arm, which was swelled as large round nearly as a man's body, and quite black and livid to the shoulder ; but the hand was redder in colour, and merely a lump of unshapely flesh, though without any perceptible wound. " This," said he, pointing to the livid mem- ber, *' is my punishment for a deep offence to you ; and there is your cruel avenger." Geronimo, turning by his direction towards the table, at first sight discovered nothing deadly, but on looking within a little silver box, he discovered a small dead scorpion, the bite of which, in our climate, is frequently mortal. Alfieri then motioning to Geronimo to come nearer, continued with great difficulty in these words : — ^* There is a certain old oak, with a cleft in GERONIMO AND GHISOLA. 215 it, in the Marquis's park, which is but too well known to us both. My evil fortune led me to discover its use to you; and my baseness to abuse that knowledge, for which I am suffering these torments. For putting my guilty hand into the hollow for your papers, which I blush to confess were my object, I was stung on my finger by this accursed reptile, who was lurking in the bottom of the hole. I have killed it as you see, though my own anguish commenced with its destruction. Notwithstanding, I took away the papers and ran hither, where, on looking at my hand, it was as scarlet as my shame; and my arm was already beginning to swell to this monstrous size, and the convulsed muscles were all writhing together like as many ser- pents. And now my pangs, together with the fever of my remorseless mind, have brought me to the extremity you behold." Saying which, he fell into a fresh fit of agony, so that the sweat issued in large drops from his fore- head, and his eves turned in their sockets with 216 GERONIMO AND GHISOLA. nothing but the whites upon Geronimo, whose flesh crept all over with compassion and dread. This paroxysm passing over, he wiped away the foam from his mouth, and began to speak again, but in a much weaker voice and by syllables. " You see," said he, " my injuries have re- turned, like ardent coals, upon my own head. I designed to have supplanted you, whereas I am myself removed from my place on the earth. Let me then depart with your forgiveness for the peace of my soul; whilst, on my part, I make you amends as far as I may. And first of all, take this box with its fatal contents to the Marquis, and bid him know by this token that God was adverse to our will. And because I did love, though vainly, let all my possession be laid at the same feet where I used to kneel ; and beseech her, for charity's sake, to bestow her prayers on my departed soul. Tell her my pangs were bitter, and my fate cruel, ex- cept in preserving her from as horrible a cala- GERONIMO AND GHISOLA. 217 mity." He then fell backwards again upon the couch, and died. As soon as he was laid out, Geronimo went and delivered the message to the Marquis, whom he found chiding with Ghisola for her melancholy. As he was much impressed with the dreadful scene he had witnessed, he de- scribed it very eloquently, so that both of his hearers were much affected, and especially at sight of the box with the dead scorpion. It cost Ghisola some fresh tears, which her lover did not reprove, to be told of the expressions which related to herself; but the Marquis was still more shocked at the relation, and confess- ing that it was the judgment of heaven, he no longer opposed himself to the union of Ghisola with Geronimo. He then caused the remains of Alfieri to be honourably buried ; and it was observed that Geronimo shed the most tears of any one that wept over his tomb. VOL. THE FALL OF THE LEAF. " What is here ? Gold, yellow glittering precious gold !" TIMON OF ATHENS. l2 ■^ '■^ ^^j^f^" TlieTalL of tke Leaf", Designed. ?: Uravraoii Stoieiy T. I)i|}itoii . Tnnteliy CBulLm.aiL3.eI. THE FALL OF THE LEAF. There is novice that causes more calamities in human Hfe, than the intemperate passion for gaming. How many noble and ingenious per- sons it hath reduced from wealth unto poverty ; nay, from honesty to dishonour, and by still de- scending steps into the gulf of perdition. And yet how prevalent it is in all capital cities, where many of the chiefest merchants, and courtiers especially, are mere pitiful slaves of fortune, toil- ing like so many abject turnspits in her ignoble wheel. Such a man is worse off than a poor bor- rower, for all he has is at the momentary call of 222 THE FALL OF THE LEAF. imperative chance ; or rather he is more wretch- ed than a very beggar, being mocked with an appearance of wealth, but as deceitful as if it turned, like the monies in the old Arabian story, into decaying leaves. In our parent city of Rome, to aggravate her modern disgraces, this pestilent vice has lately fixed her abode, and has inflicted many deep wounds on the fame and fortunes of her proud- est families. A number of noble youths have been sucked into the ruinous vortex, some of them being degraded at last into humble retain- ers upon rich men, but the most part perishing by an unnatural catastrophe ; and if the same fate did not befal the young Marquis de Malas- pini, it was only by favour of a circumstance which is not likely to happen a second time for any gamester. This gentleman came into a handsome revenue at the death of his parents, whereupon, to dis- sipate his regrets, he travelled abroad, and his graceful manners procured him a distinguished THE FALL OF THE LEAF. 22S reception at several courts. After two years spent in this manner he returned to Rome, where he had a magnificent palace on the banks of the Tiber, and which he further enriched with some valuable paintings and sculptures from abroad. His taste in these works was much admired ; and his friends remarked with still greater satis- faction, that he was untainted by the courtly vices which he must have witnessed in his travels. It only remained to complete their wishes, that he should form a matrimonial alli- ance that should be worthy of himself, and he seemed likely to fulfil this hope in attachin|>- himself to the beautiful Countess of Maraviglia. She was herself the heiress of an ancient and honourable house ; so that the match was re- garded with satisfaction by the relations on both sides, and especially as the young pair were most tenderly in love with each other. For certain reasons, however, the nuptials were deferred for a time, thus affording leisure for the crafty machinations of the Devil, who 2S4 THE FALL OF THE LEAF. delights, above all things, to cross a virtuous and happy marriage. Accordingly, he did not fail to make use of this judicious opportunity, but chose for his instrument the lady's own brother, a very profligate and a gamester, who soon fasten- ed, like an evil genius, on the unlucky Malaspini. It was a dismal shock to the lady, when she learned the nature of this connexion, which Ma- laspini himself discovered to her, by incautipus- ly dropping a die from his pocket in her presence. She immediately endeavoured, with all her influ- ence, to reclaim him from the dreadful passion for play, which had now crept over him like a moral cancer, and already disputed the sove- *reignity of love; neither was it without some dreadful struggles of remorse on his own part, and some useless victories, that he at last gave himself up to such desperate habits, but the power of his Mephistophiles prevailed, and the visits of Malaspini to the lady of his affections became still less frequent ; he repairing instead THE FALL OF THE LEAF. 225 to those nightly resorts where the greater por- tion of his estates was already forfeited. At length, when the lady had not seen him for some days, and in the very last week be- fore that which had been appointed for her marriage, she received a desperate letter from Malaspini, declaring that he was a ruined man, in fortune and hope ; and that at the cost of his life even, he must renounce her hand for ever. He added, that if his pride would let him even propose himself, a beggar as he was, for her acceptance, he should yet despair too much of her pardon to make such an offer; whereas, if he could have read in the heart of the unhappy lady, he would have seen that she still preferred the beggar JMalaspini, to the richest nobleman in the Popedom. With abun- dance of tears and sighs perusing his letter, her first impulse was to assure him of that loving truth ; and to offer herself with her estates to him, in compensation of the spites L 5 226 THE FALL OF THE LEAF. of Fortune : but the wretched Malaspini had withdrawn himself no one knew whither, and she was constrained to content herself with grieving over his misfortunes, and purchasing such parts of his property as were exposed for sale by his plunderers. And now it became apparent what a villanous part his betrayer had taken ; for, having thus stripped the unfor- tunate gentleman, he now aimed to rob him of his life also, that his treacheries might remain undiscovered. To this end he feigned a most vehement indignation at Malaspim*s neglect and bad faith, as he fermed it, towards his sister ; protesting that it was an insult to be only washed out with his blood : and with these expressions, he sought to kill him at any advan- tage. And no doubt he would have become a murderer, as well as a dishonest gamester, if Malaspini's shame and anguish had not drawn him out of the way ; for he had hired a mean lodging in the suburbs, from which he never THE FALL OF THE LEAF. 227 issued but at dusk, and then only to wander in the most unfrequented places. It was now in the wane of Autumn, when some of the days are fine, and gorgeously deco- rated at morn and eve by the rich sun's embroi- deries ; but others are dewy and dull, with cold nipping winds, inspiring comfortless fancies and thoughts of melancholy in every bosom. In such a dreary hour, Malaspini happened to walk abroad, and avoiding his own squandered estates, which it was not easy to do by reason of their extent, he wandered into a bye place in the neighbourhood. The place was very lonely and desolate, and without any near habitation ; its main feature especially being a large tree, now stripped bare of its vernal honours, except- ing one dry yellow leaf, which was shaking on a topmost bough to the cold evening wind, and threatening at every moment to fall to the damp, dewy earth. Before this dreary object Malaspini stopped some time in contemplation, THE FALL OF THE LEAF. commenting to himself on the desolate tree, and drawing many apt comparisons between its na- kedness and his own beggarly condition. " Alas ! poor bankrupt," says he, " thou hast been plucked too, like me ; but yet not so basely. Thou hast but showered thy green leaves on the grateful earth, which in another season will repay thee with sap and sustenance ; but those whom I have fattened will not so much as lend again to my living. Thou wilt thus regain all thy green summer wealth, which I shall never do ; and besides, thou art still bet- ter off than I am, with that one golden leaf to cheer thee, whereas I have been stripped even of my last ducat !" With these and many more similar fancies he continued to aggrieve himself, till at last, being more sad than usual, his thoughts tended unto death, and he resolved, still watching that yel- low leaf, to take its flight as the signal for his own departure. THE FALL OF THE LEAF. " Chance," said he, " hath been my temporal ruin, and so let it now determine for me, in my last cast between life and death, which is all that its malice hath left me." Thus, in his extremity he still risked some- what upon fortune ; and very shortly the leaf being torn away by a sudden blast, it made two or three flutterings to and fro, and at last settled on the earth, at about a hundred paces from the tree. Malaspini instantly interpreted this as an omen that he ought to die; and following the leaf till it alighted, he fell to work on the same spot with his sword, in- tending to scoop himself a sort of rude hollow for a grave. He found a strange gloomy plea- sure in this fanciful design, that made him labour very earnestly; and the soil besides being loose and sandy, he had soon cleared away about a foot below the surface. The earth then became suddenly more obstinate, and trying it here and there with his sword, it 230 THE FALL OF THE LEAF. struck against some very hard substance ; whereupon, digging a little further down, he discovered a considerable treasure. There were coins of various nations, but all golden, in this petty mine; and in such quantity as made Malaspini doubt, for a mo- ment, if it were not the mere mintage of his fancy. Assuring himself, however, that it was no dream, he gave many thanks to God for this ' timely providence ; notwithstanding, he hesitated for a moment, to deliberate whether it was honest to avail himself of the money; but believing, as was most probable, that it was the plunder of some banditti, he was re- conciled to the appropriation of it to his own necessities. Loading himself, therefore, with as much gold as he could conveniently carry, he has- tened with it to his humble quarters ; and by making two or three more trips in the course of the night, he made himself master of the whole treasure. It was sufficient, on being reckoned. THE FALL OF THE LEAF. 281 to maintain him in comfort for the rest of his life ; but not being able to enjoy it in the scene of his humiliations, he resolved to reside abroad; and embarking in an English vessel at Naples, he was carried over safely to London. It is held a deep disgrace amongst our Ita- lian nobility for a gentleman to meddle with either trade or commerce ; and yet, as we behold, they will condescend to retail their own produce, and wine especially, — yea, marry, and with an empty barrel, like any vintner's sign, hung out at their stately palaces. Malas- pini perhaps disdained from the first these illiberal prejudices; or else he was taught to renounce them by the example of the London merchants, whom he saw in that great mart of the world, engrossing the universal seas, and enjoying the power and importance of princes, merely from the fruits of their traffic. At any rate, he embarked what money he possessed in various mercantile adventures, which ended THE FALL OF THE LEAl?. SO profitably, that in three years he had re- gained almost as large a fortune as he had formerly inherited. He then speedily returned to his native country, and redeeming his pa- ternal estates, he was soon in a worthy condi- tion to present himself to his beloved Countess, who was still single, and cherished him with all a woman's devotedness in her constant affection. They were therefore before long united, to the contentment of all Rome ; her wicked relation having been slain some time before, in a brawl with his associates. As for the fortunate wind-fall which had so befriended him, Malaspini founded with it a noble hospital for orphans; and for this rea- son, that it belonged formerly to some father- less children, from whom it had been withheld by their unnatural guardian. This wicked man it was who had buried the money in the sand : but when he found that his treasure was stolen, he went and hanged himself on the very tree that had caused its discovery. BARANGA. Miserable creature ! If thou persist in this, 'tis damnable. Do'st thou imagine thou canst sUde in blood, And not be tainted with a shameful fall ? Or, like the black and melanchohc yew-tree, Do'st think to root thyself in dead men's graves And yet to prosper ? ' THE WHITE DEVIL. BARANGA. It has been well said, that if there be no marriages made up in Heaven, there are a great many contrived in a worse place; the Devil having a visible hand in some matches, which turn out as mischievous and miserable as he could desire. Not that I mean here to rail against wedlock, the generality of such mockers falling into its worst scrapes ; but my mind is just now set upon such contracts as that of the Marquis Manfredi with Baranga, who before the year was out began to devise his death. This woman, it has been supposed by those who remember her features, was a Jewess,— which, in a Catholic country, the Marquis 236 BARANGA. would be unwilling to acknowledge, — however, he affirmed that he had brought her from the kingdom of Spain. She was of the smallest figure that was ever known, and very beautiful, but of as impatient and fiery a temper as the cat-a-mountains of her own country ; never hesi- tating, in her anger, at any extremes, — neither sparing her own beautiful hair nor her richest dresses, which she sometimes tore into shreds with her passionate hands. At such times she confirmed but too plausibly her imputed sister- hood with Jael and Deborah, and those tradi- tional Hebrew women who faltered not even at acts of blood ; and who could not have looked more wildly at their tragedies than she, when she stood in her splendid rags, with her eyes flashing as darkly and as dangerously as theirs. As soon as she arrived in Italy, her fatal beauty captivated a number of unhappy youths, who were led by her waywardness into the most painful adventures ; some of them suffer- ing by encounters amongst themselves, and BARANGA. 237; Others by the conversion of her fickle favour into hatred and scorn. Manfredi suspected Uttle of these mischiefs, till at last the season of the Carnival drew nigh, when fearing the influence of that long revel of pleasure and dissipation upon her mind, he withdrew with her to his country seat, which was about nine leagues distant from Rome. Thither she was followed by one of her gallants, named Vitelli, a ferocious and dissolute man, and whom it is believed she engaged to pursue her, not so much from personal liking, as in the hope of his assistance to relieve her from this irksome retirement. Her temper, in the meantime, being irritated by such restraint, grew every day more fierce and desperate — her cries often resounding through the house, whfch was strewed with fresh tokens of her fury. With whatever grief the Marquis beheld these pa- roxysms, he comforted himself by a fond reliance on her affection, and endeavoured by the most tender assiduities to console her for the disap- 238 BARANGA. pointment he had inflicted. The moment of her arrival in the country, therefore, he pre- sented her, as a peace-offering, with a pair of superb ear-rings ; but he quickly beheld her with her ears dropping blood, and the jewels, which she had violently plucked away, lying trampled on the floor. It was common for such scenes to happen whenever they encountered ; and in consequence their meetings, by mutual care, were more and more avoided, till they almost lived asunder in the same house. In the mean time, Ba- ranga did not forget her desire to be present at the Carnival, but contrived several stolen interviews with Vitelli ; after which her manner changed abruptly from its usual violence to a gentler and thoughtful demeanour, her hours being chiefly spent solitarily in her own cham- ber. Above all, she never mentioned the Car- nival, which had been till then her constant subject, but seemed rather to resign herself quietly to the wishes of her husband, who, BARANGA. 239 seeing her so docile, repented in his heart of having ever crossed her pleasure. It was in those infamous times, that the hell-born fashion of empoisonment spread itself throughout Italy like a contagious pestilence, and to the everlasting scandal of our history was patronized and protected by the rich and great. Thus there were various professors of the infernal art, who taught, by their damnable compounds, how to ravish away life either sud- denly or by languishing stages ; and many persons of note and quality became their disci- ples, to the endless perdition of their souls, or at best, to the utter hardening of their hearts, according as they were prompted in their ex- periments by unlawful curiosity, or by more black and malignant motives. Whilst some practised, therefore, on the bodies of dogs and cats, and such mean animals, there were not wanting others who used their diabolical skill upon human relations that were obnoxious, and the names of many such victims are recorded. S40 B A RANG A. though the fate of a still greater number was hinted only by popular suspicion. To one of these vile agents then, the base Vitelli addressed himself; and the secret stu- dies of Baranga were guided by his direction. Whilst the Marquis was hoping in the whole- some results of a temporary melancholy and seclusion, which have made some minds so no- bly philosophize, her guilty lovely hands were tampering with horrid chemistry ; and her meditations busy with the most black and deadly syrups. There is a traditional picture of her thus occupied in her chamber, with the apparition of Death at her elbow, whilst with her black and piercing eyes she is watching the martyrdom of a little bird, that is perishing from her Circean compounds. And now we may suppose Manfredi to be doomed as the next victim of her pernicious craft — who, on his part, was too unsuspicious to reject any thing which she might tender to hirii with her infinitely small and delicate white EATiANGA. 241 hand. And assuredly the appointment of liis death was not far distant, when the jealousy of the disappointed suitors of Baranga prevent- ed her design. The}- had not omitted to place some spies over her movements: wherefore, on the eve of the Carnival, Manfredi was ad- vised by a letter in an unknown hand, that she had concerted with Vitelli her elopement to Rome, and in a nun's habit, as he might con- vince himself with little pains, by an inspection of her wardrobe. Manfredi was not a person to shut his eyes wilfully against the light, — but recalled with some uneasiness her mysterious seclusion. He chose a time, therefore, when Baranga was ab- sent, to visit her wardrobe, where, if he did not discover the nun's habit, he found a com- plete suit of new sables, which had been pre- pared by her in anticipation of her widowhood. It is easy to conceive with what horror he shrunk aghast at this dreary evidence of her malignity, which yet was not fully confirmed, VOL. I. M S42 EARANGA. till he had broken into her unholy study, and lo ! there lay the dead bird, beside some sam- ples of her diabolical chemistry, upon a table. There were lying about baneful hellebore, and nightshade, and laurel, and such poisonous herbs, and I know not what deadly resins and gums, whether in syrups or as drugs, toge- ther with divers venomous styles and imbued needles for the infliction of death ; yea, even subtle and impalpable powders to be inhaled by the sleeping with the vital air, to such a villa- nous pitch those curst empoisoners had carried their speculative inventions. Manfredi knew too well the import of these dreadful symptoms, to doubt any longer of her purpose ; however, he touched nothing, but with a dreadful stern composure returned down stairs, and sending for a trusty domestic, com- manded him to go instantly for a shroud. The man, obeying this strange order without any comment, in an hour returned with the deathly garment, which the Marquis with his own hands BARANGA. 243 then hung up in the wardrobe, beside the wi- dow's weeds, and in that plight left it for the discovery of Baranga. And truly this was but a timely proceeding, for in that very hour she concerted with Vitelli to poison her husband at supper with a dish of sweetmeats ; after which she returned home, and was first startled by the stern silence of Man- fredi, who turned from her without a syllable. Her wretched guilty heart immediately smote her, and running up to her devilish sanctuary, she saw that it had been invaded ; but how much more was she shocked upon sight of the dreary and awful shroud hanging beside those premature weeds, which it warned her she was never to put on ! In a frenzy of despair, therefore, turning her own cruel arms against herself, she swallowed one of the most deadly of her preparations, and casting herself down on the floor, with a horrible ghastly countenance awaited the same dreadful pangs which she had so lately witnessed on the poisoned bird. And 244 BARANGA. now, doubtless, it came bitterly over her, what fearful flutterings she had seen it make, and throbs, and miserable gaspings of its dying beak ; and even as the bird had perished, so did she. There was no one bold enough to look upon her last agonies ; but when she was silent and still, the Marquis came in and wept over lier ill-starr'd body-^ which had been brought by its ungovernable spirit to so frightful a dissolution. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. tONDGN : PRlilTED BY S. AND R. BENTLEY, BORSET-STREET. % %.