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to pass a week or two in the society of charming women, all zealously employed in nursing him,—for such was the truth,-one of the young ladies being supposed, and I fear with justice, to be the object of his addresses. The ungrateful wretch convinced me by his reply, (as we conversed in French, and were not understood by those present,) that his greatest torment was impatience to escape from his confinement, in order to see or write to the other fair one. At the end of a week he was sufficiently recovered to be removed to the house of his family. From certain hints, dropped during a conversation which took place more than a month after the event, it is to be feared that the knife of the assassin, in approaching so near to the heart of his intended victim, succeeded, by some mysterious electric transmission, in inflicting a positive wound on that of the lady of the balcony." (p. 412.)

Nor do, we conceive, the following story at all diminish this unfavourable impression. It occurred at Malaga :—

"A person of consideration in the town had been found in the street stabbed and robbed. His friends being possessed of much influence, and disposing, no doubt, of other weighty inducements to action, the police was aroused to unusual activity; the murderer was arrested and brought before the alcalde primero. A summary mode of jurisprudence was put in practice, and the culprit was ordered for execution on the following day. On being led from the presence of the court, he turned to the alcalde, and addressing him with vehemence, threatened him with certain death, in the event of the sentence being put in execution. The alcalde, although doubtless not entirely free from anxiety, was, by the threat itself, the more forcibly bound to carry into effect the judgment he had pronounced. The execution, therefore, took place at the appointed hour. The following morning the dead body of the alcalde was found in the street adjoining that in which he resided." (p. 415.)

Seville is also remarkable for the first established Inquisition in Spain. Our author seems to consider that the horrors enacted in these dens of mystery were exaggerated. Surely it cannot escape so gifted a perception as his, that man uncontrouled will enact horrors that beggar conception to even describe. Responsible authority has its abuses; verdicts of juries are considered harsh; judges occasionally the same, who are subject to the broad arena of the public; but these mysterious murders, these deeds in night's embrace, these convenient modes of satiating malice or lust, cannot but excite shuddering horror in all men. Neither does the argument amount to much, that when the Inquisition at Toledo was bared to public view, many horrors were not detected. Capital punishment is a quiet process, and the removal of traces of its execution soon effected; nay, in

hanging and other methods is bloodless, and leaves not a print behind of the past. And here we terminate our review, and have certainly to thank our author for many and new views of Spanish matters, for much valuable information, for a work of high illustrative beauty, for a book adapted equally to the boudoir of a belle, the library of a student, or the studio of an artist.

ART. V.-Niccolo de' Lapi; or, The Siege of Florence. By Massimo d'Azeglio. Milan, 1841.

THERE is something melancholy in the manner in which modern Italian writers love to dwell on the past glories of their country; that country in which the brave, the noble, and the high-minded have at the present day no scope for the exertion of their native energies; where if one, more patriotic or more chivalrous than the multitude dare to struggle against the overwhelming force of circumstances, he is crushed by the strong hand of foreign power-or worse still, betrayed by the meaner minds with which he must necessarily be associated. In such a case, where can the Italian heart-in which any love of his beautiful but degraded country still dwells-turn but to the times long past, when (in spite of the factions which even then rent Italy, and which gradually, but surely, prepared the way for foreign conquest) there were still liberties to be defended, as well as true hearts which dared to die in their defence.

On these days, then, their recollections linger, not with the pride of an old man who feels that the hand of time alone has been able to quell his strength, but rather like one whose powers have been undermined in youth by slow and lingering disease, who ventures not to look forward to better days, and who, hopeless but not resigned, feels that henceforward he must perforce

"Nudrirsi di memoria e non di speme."

Amongst the numerous writers of Italian fiction who have arisen within the present century, Manzoni is too well known and too popular to need remark. Rosini, in spite of his ponderous erudition, is not generally interesting: he, indeed, dwells with and on the past, but he does not possess the animating spirit which gives life and reality to past scenes, and it seems rather the mummy than the living man which he places before his reader.

Saddened, as he

Massimo d'Azeglio treads in a different path. himself tells us, by the terrible judgments which have fallen on his country, he sought for traces of the ancient manners of Florence in unfrequented scenes, where the course of its usages, its language, and its traditions still remains undisturbed and uneffaced by the footsteps of the stranger.

"I climbed the mountains of Pistoja, and refreshed my ear and my heart by listening to peasants and shepherds who spoke to me in the pure tongue of Florence of the noble deeds of Castruccio and Francesco Ferruccio. Not that they had learned aught of them from books or history; but, from generation to generation, the memory of their valour had been preserved, and they forgot not that upon their own hills Ferruccio died for the safety of Florence. I bless Heaven for the moments that I passed sitting at their humble hearths, listening to the rude yet noble narrations of simple peasants, who knew much of those ancient and glorious days, but nothing of the events of the present time. An inborn feeling teaches them its worthlessness."

Such is the tone in which d'Azeglio speaks of the past. He seeks to embody the spirit rather than the events of the sixteenth century, and it is of one of his works, entitled "Niccolo de’ Lapi," much read and appreciated in Italy, though little known to the English public, that we intend giving a slight sketch to our readers.

The scene is laid during the celebrated siege of Florence in 1529 and 1530, by the Emperor Charles V. His object was to restore the dominion of the Medici, who had been expelled by the Florentines. The citizens were divided into two factions,the Palleschi, so called from the palle or balls, the armorial bearings of the Medici; and the Piagnoni or popular party, so named in contempt by their adversaries, as they chiefly consisted of the severe and self-denying followers of the celebrated Dominican Savonarola.

"It was an October morning in the year 1529, and the day dawned slowly and gloomily, dispersing with difficulty the dense mist which crowned Florence. The heavy and continuous rain, freezing as it fell, might almost be called snow, and not a soul was to be seen in the streets save a few soldiers and the officers of the night-watch, who were returning to the palace benumbed with cold, wrapped in their cloaks, and with their hoods down closely around their faces. The closed windows and barred doors showed that the greater part of the citizens were still sunk in sleep. The churches were beginning to be opened, but the sacristans who prepared the altars were as yet their only visitants. In St. Mark alone (belonging to the Dominicans) a small number of the faithful were assembled, summoned by the bell,

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*

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which, beginning an hour before day-light, still tolled for the dead. * Before the high altar, and between two massive iron candlesticks, a bier was placed on the ground. Upon it lay the corpse of a young man, who did not seem to have passed his 25th year. A crucifix was placed in his hands, which were clasped upon his breast, and the pavement as well as the coffin was strewed, according to the customs of Florence, with the leaves and flowers of the orange-tree.

"The mass had not yet begun, and a single candle only was burning. Its red and flickering light, falling on a group of persons who had arrived first, and who knelt in prayer round the corpse, lighted up, after the manner of Rembrandt, the nearest figures, while it fell more and more faintly on the objects as they became more distant, and died away into darkness in the farther recesses of the church. Above, the gleam was only diminished by the pale cold light of morning, which began to dawn faintly through the large upper windows. Not a minute passed without the entrance of men-one, two, or three at a time,-who by their heavy steps, by the clash of their arms, and the dim glancing of their corslets, might be known as soldiers. Thus the crowd gradually increased, closing round the bier and the group that surrounded it, which seemed to consist of the nearest relations of the deceased.

"Two steps from the feet stood an old man, far advanced in years; he wore the lucco, or gown formerly used by the Florentines, especially by grave and elderly persons. The old man's figure was tall, his chest wide, and his whole appearance robust and vigorous; his beard, which was long and thick, and the few locks which strayed from beneath his hood, were snow-white; his eye-brows alone preserved their original brown colour, and the frequent contraction of his brows gave a stern expression to his dark eyes. The name of this old man was Niccolo de' Lapi, his family was plebeian, and he himself head of the guild of silk-weavers. He was among the earliest and most devoted followers of Friar Girolamo. He had mourned over his death, and now venerated him as a martyr. Born in Apulia, whither his father had been banished by the Medici, Niccolo witnessed the misery of his latter years and of his obscure death, embittered by the sorrows of exile, and imbibed almost necessarily, even with the impressions of childhood, a deeply-rooted hatred towards the Pallesca faction.

"He had returned to Florence, amassed great wealth in his father's warehouses, with which he assisted Florence when endangered by the invasion of Charles VIII. and the spiritless conduct of Piero dei Medici. When rumours of a siege began to prevail, Niccolo, trusting to the famous maxim of Savonarola

'Florentia flagellabitur, et post flagella renovabitur,'

supported the party who refused to make any terms with the Medici, and used every possible means to excite the people to resistance.

"The army conducted by Phillibert, Prince of Orange, encamped on the hills to the south of Florence, 24th October 1529, and Niccolo, during the few days which had passed since the commencement of the siege, had already assisted at the obsequies of one of his sons, who died fighting beneath the walls.

"He was now attending the burial of another, but his aged form was erect, and his face calm, and his mind absorbed in thoughts of God; to whom he offered the lives not of these sons only-whom he considered as martyrs-but of all those who remained to him, and his own life also, if Florence might but be saved. Madonna Fiore, his wife, who had died some few years previously to the time of which we speak, had borne him five sons and two daughters. The three remaining sons stood with him round the bier; two of them wore the corslet and coats of mail which the youth of Florence in those days may literally be said never to have doffed. The youngest, named Bindo, was a beautiful boy of fourteen, but from his height he might have passed for eighteen; he alone wore no corslet, and unlike his brothers, was wholly unarmed; his form was strong and beautifully proportioned, and his dark eyes had all the fire of his father's spirit, tempered with the softness of youth. Niccolo's tenderness for this noble boy had hitherto prevented his yielding to Bindo's entreaties to be allowed to take up arms with the other youths of Florence. At last, to calm his impatience, he promised that if one of his brothers should fall, he would allow him to bear arms in his place. The time to claim this promise was now arrived, and Niccolo was not a man to shrink from its fulfilment.

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That morning before he left home, Niccolo, in spite of his austere nature, could not resist caressing Bindo; and taking him apart into his chamber, he said, 'My son, hitherto thou hast been a child; but since thou hast resolved henceforward to bear thee as a man, do so in God's name. Come with us, then; it is well that thou shouldst learn betimes the course of earthly events. Pray God to make thee a brave man, and may He aid thee according to thy father's blessing!'

"The old man's voice and expression softened as he embraced his son, and they proceeded together to St. Mark's. Of the remaining sons of Niccolo, the eldest, a man of nearly forty, was named Averardo, and the other Viesi. His two daughters knelt together at a little distance from the others; the eldest was called Laudomia, the youngest Lisa. In the mean while the friar who officiated as sacristan lighted four candles on the high altar; he approached the bier, holding a stick, to the end of which was fastened a lighted nib; and after having lighted the candles, he said to Niccolo in a low voice as he passed, pointing to the dead,' He was of the house of Lapi Messer Niccolo, and was worthy of his race. Peace with his soul!' 'Amen,' replied the old man, and the friar sighed and returned to the sacristy."

Such is the opening scene, and such our first introduction to the noble-hearted Niccolo. The characters of his daughters is also well described-Laudomia, pure, humble, and heavenly

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