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at his side. Upon recovering her consciousness, showers of tears expressed the intensity of her sufferings; her cries would have moved rocks and beasts of prey to pity, such were the piteous tones in which these words were uttered: "Sweet heavens, what dreadful thing hath happened! What malignant star hath struck with death one of the best and noblest hearts that ever beat! O where is the soul that but now shone in thy face? Wretch that I am, shall I never behold it more! Art thou fled, for ever fled, sweet guardian of my honour, my love, and peace! But what will betide them now, when every tongue will be busy with my fame? Whither shall I turn for help, reduced to such sad extremities as I now am?" And while, abandoned to her woe, the hapless girl thus poured her lamentations to the night, she never ceased her endeavours to restore the object of them by every means in her power, rubbing his heart and temples, joining his hands and lips to her own, and trying to breathe her soul into his. Finding that he yet gave no signs of life, she sweetly folded him in her arms, and bathed his inanimate features with her tears. Ippolito's soul, just on the point of taking wing, seemed to welcome so much bliss; and suddenly recovering his suspended powers, he heard the sweet words she uttered, and found himself alive in her arms. It was then he felt himself amply repaid for all the trials he had undergone; the sweetness and ecstasy of the reward far surpassing all he had been able to conceive, in breathing his vows thus closely into her ear. The moment before she was about to transfix her breast with her lover's sword in a paroxysm of despair; the next she found herself pressed to his breathing bosom, receiving, as it were, the gift of two lives restored to her at once. For some time they both remained doubtful whether to believe that all was real, and gazed upon each other as if in a dream, until the fresh spirit of their joy being somewhat abated, they sat down by each other, side by side, with that serene and ineffable pleasure which the imagined certainty of their bliss inspired. But it was destined, alas, to be of short duration; a voice was heard calling upon the name of Gangenova, gradually approaching nearer and nearer, so that they were compelled to part almost without bidding each other adieu. The poor girl hastened trembling by the same path that she had left the house: she fancied, in the disorder of her spirits, that she suddenly heard the terrific howlings of wild beasts, accompanied by the most dismal screams and cries; and such was the impression they made

upon her imagination, just after having taken leave of Ippolito, as to deprive her of the power of motion. It was long before she recovered even strength enough to regain her apartment, and with panting breast and dishevelled hair, she threw herself upon the couch, still unable to banish the terrific ideas that haunted her imagination.

In the meanwhile the sisters of Gangenova, being likewise freed from the superintendence of their mother, had been innocently enjoying themselves in their chamber, frequently calling the fair girl by her name to come and join in their diversion. Paying little heed to her silence, they continued for some time to amuse themselves with their games, until one of them, by way of adding a little novelty to the scene. crept forward in the dark, intending to surprise her in her own room. Still receiving no reply, she ran for a light, and on returning found her sister stretched upon the bed, resembling rather a lifeless statue than a breathing human form. Calling her second sister in great alarm, they made eager inquiries into the cause of her agitation, feeling assured that something extraordinary must have happened. The poor girl was equally unwilling and unable to reply, and her sisters, in some anxiety, despatched a messenger for their mother, who lost no time in returning to resume her maternal charge. With a little more authority, she insisted upon knowing the cause of her alarm, and upbraided her sisters severely for not keeping a more vigilant watch. Gangenova declared herself quite unable to account for the manner in which she had been affected, and the others professed equal ignorance as to the cause of her indisposition. In this dilemma her mother had recourse to the advice of the most expert physicians the city had to boast, which brought no alleviation however to her daughter's alarming symptoms; not one of them being able to discover that her illness was owing to some sudden surprise, while she, far more jealous of her fair fame than of her life, concealed from every one the real cause of her sufferings. Growing rapidly worse, she became extremely anxious to behold once more her beloved Ippolito; and recollecting the old nurse, she instantly sent for her, entreating that she would, as soon as possible, acquaint him with her situation, and find some means by which they might at least meet to take an eternal farewell.

Upon receiving these sad tidings Ippolito grew deadly pale and trembled, though at the same moment he hastened to comply with her wishes. He assumed the dress of a poor

traveller, with a false beard, so as to render it almost impossible to recognize him, and set out to beg alms at several houses adjacent to that of his beloved. As he approached the latter, the lady of the mansion herself made her appearance, half wild and distracted at the situation of her loveliest daughter. Informed of the occasion of her grief, the wily pilgrim, availing himself of the circumstance, bade her not despair, as the power of the Lord was in finite, and his goodness equal to his power. Moreover, with his aid, he had himself become skilled in all the virtues of almost all the plants under the sun, and had devoted his knowledge of herbs and juices to the relief of his unhappy fellow-creatures, besides possessing secrets adapted to every species of disease. The poor credulous old lady raised her hands to heaven in gratitude upon hearing such consolatory words, vowed that he had been peculiarly sent by Providence, and insisted that he should be instantly introduced to her unhappy girl.

The moment Ippolito beheld her he perceived that the tidings he had received were indeed too true. So much was he shocked, that he could with difficulty support his character; more particularly when he saw, from the brightening features of his beloved, that she instantly recognized him. Taking, then, the hand of the suffering girl within his own, as if to feel how fast her life-blood ebbed, he begged her attendants to stand apart, while he proceeded to try his secret prayers and charms in his own way. Ippolito was thus enabled to learn the real source of her illness from her own lips. Beholding him with a mixture of tenderness and pity, that added momentary lustre to her dying charms, she attempted, in those low soft tones he so much loved, to infuse balm into his wounded spirit. Painfully sensible of the extent of his loss, Ippolito from very grief was unable to utter a word, much less to ask the needful questions of his beloved. Wildly pressing his hand, she besought him never to forget the tender love he had borne her, and which she had seldom been happy enough to tell him how warmly and deeply she returned. "For joyful, oh, very joyful, my Ippolito," she continued, "would my departure have been to me before now, had not solicitude for your fate detained me. As it is, I die content, nay grateful, for two unexpected benefits: the one to have seen you thus, to hear you, and to feel your hand in mine; and the other, to know that I lived, and that I died, beloved by my most noble and faithful-hearted Ippolito!"

It was now that the latter attempted to console and encourage her, declaring it would be his only pride to fulfil her wishes in the minutest point; but here his voice failing him, through his fast-coming tears and sobs, he laid his aching head down by the side of his beloved's, and there remaining for a short time, as he breathed forth a soul-distracting adieu; he raised it again painfully, passed his hand over his eyes, and looking his last look, left the apartment. He then joined her weeping mother, and so far from holding out any hope, he said that pity for the sad and dying state in which he had found the poor patient had drawn scalding tears from his eyes. And he had not long been gone, before the gentle spirit of his love, as if unable to continue longer without him, prepared to take wing, and in a few hours actually fled, as if to prepare in some happier scene a mansion of rest for their divided loves. For the wretched Ippolito, though able to bear up long enough to behold the beloved one consigned to earth, had no sooner witnessed all the virtues and charms he had so fondly esteemed and loved for ever entombed in the vault of the Salimbeni, than just as the ceremony was about to close, he fell dead at the foot of her marble monument. So strange and sudden an event threw the surrounding company, by whom it was regarded as little less than a miracle, into the utmost surprise and confusion, all of them believing that Ippolito Saracini was then on his way to the shrine of San Giacomo of Galicia. His unhappy parents hearing of this his untimely end, hastened to join their tears with those of the mother of the beauteous Gangenova, by whose side the faithful Ippolito was laid.

CHANGE.

Youth's fairy-land recedes, and year by year
Less brightly do sweet memories to the soul
Come o'er the widening interval so drear,
Like gales o'er parched desert. The control
Of after-customs in life's pilgrimage
Takes from us, with the relish, the regret
For what we deem'd we never should forget
To love:-Then strangely in extremest age

The early past appears, and all between
Fades traceless from remembrance.-It is not,
As some might deem, a mockery in our lot
That thus we change, just e'er death close the scene.
Oh, no! 'tis foretaste of the coming heav'n,
Where more than youthful joy will unto man be giv'n.

THOMAS BRYDSON.

LAMENT FOR THE DECLINE OF CHIVALRY.

[Thomas Hood, born in London, 1798; died 3d May, 1845. Humourist and novelist. He began the business of life as clerk in a counting-house; then proceeded to learn the art of engraving under his uncle, Robert Sands; and finally he adopted the profession of letters. Frequent ill-health marred his prospects, although his works rapidly obtained the popularity which they still possess. A pension of £100 a year was offered to him by government when too late to be of service to him personally; but at his request it was continued to his wife. He was sometime editor of the London Magazine, the New Monthly Magazine, and for one year of the Gem, an annual in which first appeared The Dream of Eugene Aram. To Punch, amongst other valuable contributions, he gave The Song of the Shirt. His chief works are: Odes and Addresses to Great People: Whims and Oddities, Hood's Own; Hood's Comic Miscellany; Up the Rhine; Tylney Hall, a novel; Our Family, a novel, not completed, &c. "Hood's verse, whether serious or comic, was ever pregnant with materials for thought. Well may we say, in the words of Tennyson, 'Would he could have stayed with us!' for never could it be more truly recorded of any one that, he was a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.'"-D. M. Moir.]

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Alas for Lion-Hearted Dick!
That cut the Moslems to the quick,
His weapon lies in peace:
Oh, it would warm them in a trice,
If they could only have a spice

Of his old mace in Greece!

The famed Rinaldo lies a-cold,
And Tancred too, and Godfrey bold,
That scaled the holy wall!
No Saracen meets Paladin,
We hear of no great Saladin,

But only grow the small!

Our Cressys too have dwindled since
To penny things-at our Black Prince
Historic pens would scoff:
The only one we moderns had,
Was nothing but a Sandwich lad,

And measles took him off!

Where are those old and feudal clans,
Their pikes, and bills, and partizans;
Their hauberks-jerkins-buffs?

A battle was a battle then,
A breathing piece of work; but men
Fight now--with powder puffs!

The curtal-axe is out of date!
The good old cross-bow bends-to Fate,
"Tis gone--the archer's craft!
No tough arm bends the springing yew,
And jolly draymen ride, in lieu

Of death, upon the shaft!

The spear-the gallant tilter's pride, The rusty spear, is laid aside,

Oh, spits now domineer! The coat of mail is left alone,And where is all chain armour gone? Go ask at Brighton Pier.

We fight in ropes, and not in lists,
Bestowing hand-cuffs with our fists,
A low and vulgar art!
No mounted man is overthrown!
A tilt! It is a thing unknown--
Except upon a cart!

Methinks I see the bounding barb,
Clad like his chief in steely garb,

For warding steel's appliance! Methinks I hear the trumpet stir! "Tis but the guard to Exeter,

That bugles the "Defiance." In cavils when will cavaliers Set ringing helmets by the ears, And scatter plumes about? Or blood-if they are in the vein? That tap will never run again Alas, the Casque is out!

No iron crackling now is scored
By dint of battle-axe or sword,

To find a vital place-
Though certain doctors still pretend,
A while, before they kill a friend,

To labour through his case!

Farewell, then, ancient men of might! Crusader, errant-squire, and knight!

Our coats and custom soften,To rise would only make you weepSleep on, in rusty-iron sleep,

As in a safety-coffin !

ORATORY.

[Henry, Lord Brougham, born at Edinburgh, 19th September, 1778; died at Cannes, 7th May, 1868. He was one of the founders of the Edinburgh Review (1802);

be distinguished himself at the bar-notably as the advocate of Queen Caroline; he won high repute in parliament; he became lord-chancellor in 1830; and he rendered important service to the cause of education by his share in the organization of mechanics' institutes, and in establishing the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. He wrote upon almost every subject, and wrote well. His Works, Critical, Historical, Philohical, Scientific, and Rhetorical, have been published in ten volumes; and his Contributions to the Edinburgh Rece have been issued in three volumes by Griffin & Co. The following extract is from his review of the works of Demosthenes, of which the French critic M. Villemain declared him to be "the best of modern interpreters." Brougham also wrote a novel, Arthur Lunel, which was not published until five years after his death.1]

We must be permitted to dwell yet a little upon a topic, in itself truly inexhaustiblethe prodigious merit of the immortal original (works of Demosthenes). And we pursue this course the rather in these times, when a corrupt or a careless eloquence so greatly abounds, that there are but few public speakers who give any attention to their art, excepting those who debase it by the ornaments of a most vicious taste. Not, indeed, that the two defects are often kept apart; for some men appear to bestow but little pains upon the preparation of the vilest composition that ever offended a classical ear, although it displays an endless variety of far-fetched thoughts, forced metaphors, unnatural expressions, and violent perversions of ordinary language:-in a word, it

1 A feeble denial of the authorship was raised in some quarters; but there appears to be little doubt that Brougham wrote the novel, although he kept it in manuscript whilst he lived.

is worthless without the poor merit of being elaborate; and affords a new instance how wide a departure may be made from nature with very little care, and how apt easy writing is to prove hard reading.

Among the sources of this corruption may clearly be distinguished as the most fruitful, the habit of extempore speaking, acquired rapidly by persons who frequent popular assemblies, and, beginning at the wrong end, attempt to speak before they have studied the art of oratory, or even duly stored their minds with the treasures of thought and of language, which can only be drawn from assiduous intercourse with the ancient and modern classics. The truth is, that a certain proficiency in public speaking may be attained with nearly infallible certainty by any person who chooses to give himself the trouble of frequently trying it, and can harden himself against the pain of frequent failures. Complete self-possession and perfect fluency are thus acquired, almost mechanically,

and with little or no reference to the talents of him who becomes possessed of them. If he is a man of no capacity, his speeches will of course be very bad; but though he be a man of genius, they will not be eloquent. A sensible remark or a fine image may frequently occur; but the loose and slovenly and poor diction, the want of art in combining and disposing his ideas, the inability to bring out many of his thoughts, and the utter incompetency to present any of them in the best and most efficient form, will deprive such a speaker of all claims to the character of an orator, and reduce him to the level of an ordinary talker. The same man, had he the same powers of convincing or expounding, never spoken in public, would have possessed them in conversation with one or two persons. provided he were only called upon to exert Perhaps the habit of speaking may have taught him something of arrangement, and a few of the simplest methods of producing an impression; but beyond these first steps he cannot possibly proceed by this empirical process; and his diction is sure to be much worse than if he had never made the attempt-clumsy, redundant, incorrect, unlimited in quantity, but of no value. Such a speaker is never in want of a word, and hardly ever has one that is worth having.

It is a very common error to call this natural eloquence; it is the reverse; it is neither natural nor eloquence. A person under the influence of strong passions or feelings, and pouring forth all that fills his mind, produces a powerful effect on his hearers, and frequently attains, without any art, the highest beauties of rhetoric.

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The language of the passions flow easily; but it is concise and simple, and the opposite of that wordiness which we have been describing. The untaught speaker, who is also unpractised, and utters according to the dictates of his feelings, now and then succeeds perfectly; but, in those instances, he would not be the less successful for having studied the art; while that study would enable him to succeed equally in all that he delivers, and give him the same control over the feelings of others, whatever might be the state of his own. Herein, indeed, consists the value of the study; it enables a man to do at all times what nature only teaches upon rare occasions.

Now, we cannot imagine any better corrective to the faults of which we are complaining in the eloquence of modern times, than the habitual contemplation of those exquisite models which the ancients have left us; and especially the more chaste beauties of Greek composition. Its perfect success, both in moving the audience to whom it was addressed, and the readers in all ages who studied it, cannot be denied; its superiority to all that has ever been produced in other countries is confessed. There may be some use, therefore, in observing how certainly it was the result of intense labour-labour previously bestowed to acquire the power, and the utmost care used in almost every exercise of that power. Without somewhat both of this discipline and this sedulous attention, it would be as vain to think of emulating those divine originals, by dint of a habit of fluent speech attained through much careless practice, as to attempt painting like Raphael without having learned to draw, and by the help of some mechanical contrivance.

The extreme pains which the most illustrious of the Greeks bestowed upon their compositions, are evinced by all the accounts transmitted to us of the course of education deemed requisite to form an orator, and by the wellknown anecdotes of the steps by which both Demosthenes, and, after his example, Cicero and some of his contemporaries, trained selves to rhetorical habits.

passage, there may be some suspicion that his reluctance to "trust his success to fortune," affected his execution upon certain occasionsperhaps in the memorable debate with Philip, of which the orator's illustrious rival has left us so lively and so cutting a description. His anxiety in preparing may, however, be further estimated by the circumstance of his having left a collection of exordia, or introductions, almost resembling that "volumen proamiorum," which we know Cicero to have kept ready by him, from the pleasant mistake that he committed in sending one to Atticus as the beginning of his treatise De Gloria, when he had before used it for the Third Book of the Academic Questions. It may justly be conceived that Demosthenes was not likely to have a book of introductions, so unconnected with any particular subject as to be applicable to any speech. This rather befitted Sallust, or Cicero himself, than the close reasoning, business-like Athenian. Yet in whatever way we account for it, and though we suppose that most of the exordia in question were written in the prospect of making some particular speech, when time was wanting to compose the whole, the fact of fifty-six of these pieces remaining, only two or three of which exist in their connection with any of his known orations, seems to prove, incontestably, the laborious nature of the process by which he reached and kept his vast pre-eminence in eloquence.

From the detailed examination into which we have entered of these repetitions, two conclusions may be drawn, both highly illustrative of the degree in which oratory among the Greeks was considered as an art demanding the utmost care, and calculated to exhibit the mere display of skill, as well as to attain more important objects. In the first place, we find that the greatest of all orators never regarded the composition of any sentence worthy of him to deliver, as a thing of easy execution. Practised, as he was, and able surely, if any man ever was, by his mastery over language, to them-pour out his ideas with facility, he elaborated every passage with almost equal care. Having the same ideas to express, he did not, like our easy and fluent moderns, clothe them in different language for the sake of variety; but reflecting that he had, upon the fullest deliberation, adopted one form of expression as the best, and because every other must needs be

But let us come to Demosthenes himself. His extreme care in composing his orations is as well known as the sedulous discipline which he underwent to learn the art; and, notwithstanding the facility which he must have acquired, both by this preparation and by long and constant practice, he was averse, in an extraordinary degree, to extempore speaking. Plutarch relates this of him; and, notwithstanding the great excellence which is ascribed to his unpremeditated harangues in the same

He tells him, as soon as he discovers the mistake, to cancel the exordium, and prefix another, which he sends, taken from the same collection.-Ep. ad Att.

xvi. 6

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