and her mother were driven with ignominy from the villa to their former abode; and the establishment of Fazio was completely broken up; his wife, with her family and domestics, being compelled to take refuge wherever they could. On being released from court, where she had appeared in evidence against her own husband, the wretched Pippa returned home; but to a home desolate and deserted by all but her children. In the agony of her grief, she wept, she raved, she tore her hair, too late perceiving, with feelings of remorse, the grievous error she had committed.

The tidings spread rapidly throughout all Pisa, and the people joined in expressing their astonishment, no less at the supposed enormity and deceit of which Fazio was accused, than at the strange treachery and ingratitude of his wife. Even her own relatives and friends, who assisted her, unanimously agreed in condemning her conduct, reproaching her bitterly for the degradation and ruin which she had brought upon her family; besides the inhumanity of having thus betrayed her husband to a painful and ignominious death. Having said this, they left her weeping bitterly, and overpowered with intolerable remorse. On the ensuing day, the wretched Fazio was led forth, and drawn through the streets of Pisa on a sledge; and after being thus exhibited to the people, he was conducted to the place of execution, there, having been first broken upon the wheel, he was executed in the presence of the people, and left on the same spot, by way of example, during the rest of the day.

The tidings of this terrific scene coming to the ears of his wife, whom he had continued cursing and reviling to his latest hour, in a fit of desperation, she resolved to take vengeance upon herself. About dinner hour then, there being few people to observe her, she seized her two little boys by the hand, and led them, weeping, towards the great square, the scene of the execution; while such as met her by the way only bestowed their maledictions on her, and allowed her to pass on. When she arrived at the foot of the platform, where the body lay, few spectators being present, she proceeded, still weeping bitterly, to ascend the steps of the platform, with the children along with her, no one around offering the least resistance. There, affecting to lament over the wretched fate of her husband, she was sternly and severely upbraided by all who stood near, who said aloud: "See how she can weep, now that it is done! It is her own work; she would have it so; and let her therefore despair!" The wretched wife then tearing her hair, and striking her lovely face and bosom with her clenched hands, while she pressed her burning lips to the cold features of her hus band, next bade her little boys kneel down to kiss their father; at which sight, the surrounding spectators, forgetting their anger, suddenly burst into tears. But their distracted mother, draw

ing a knife from her bosom, with remorseless fury, hastily plunged it into the breasts of her sons, and before the people were prepared to wrest the deadly weapon from her hand, she had already turned it against herself, and fallen upon the lifeless bodies of her husband and her children. With a loud cry the people ran towards the fatal spot, where they found the dying mother and her two infants, pouring their last sighs as they lay weltering in their blood. Tidings of this tragic scene having spread rapidly throughout all Pisa, crowds of people came hastening from all sides filled with lamentation and terror, to witness so heart-rending a spectacle; where the yet warm and reeking bodies of the father, the mother, and the children, were piled indiscriminately upon each other. And surely nothing we have heard of the woes of Thebes, of Syracuse, or of Athens, of Troy, or of Rome, can be said to equal the domestic sorrow and calamity which Pisa thus witnessed in the lot of a single family, the whole of which was swept away in one day, the innocent victims of mistaken justice. The terror and surprise of the inhabitants of Pisa, shortly spreading through other parts of Italy, caused so great a sensation in the different cities, that people left their houses to visit the fatal spot, lamenting over the bodies of the innocent children, lying, with smiling countenances, as if buried in a profound slumber, on their parent's funeral bier. It was impossible for them to restrain their tears at the sight, a sight sufficient to soften a heart of stone, and at which justice herself now dropped her fatal sword. For she at length consented to grant to the prayers of Fazio's relatives that the bodies of the hapless children should be decently interred in the burial ground of Santa Catharina; while those of the parents, who had died a desperate and unrepentant death, were to be placed without the sacred bounds, under the walls of the city. The procession was accompanied with the tears and lamentations of thousands, whose outcries against the cruelty and injustice of their fate, and whose expressions of pity for their sufferings, were loud and vehement.

THE DEATH-BED.

WE watch'd her breathing through the night,
Her breathing soft and low,

As in her breast the wave of life

Kept heaving to and fro !

So silently we seemed to speak

So slowly moved about!

As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her living out!

Our very hopes belied our fears

Our fears our hopes belied

We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died!

For when the morn came dim and sad

And chill with early showers,

Her quiet eyelids closed-she had
Another morn than ours!

THOMAS HOOD.

AUTUMN.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun:
Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core:
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or in a half-reaped furrow sound asleep.

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while the hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes, like a gleaner, thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cyder press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Aye, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,-
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

;

Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourne ;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

A NIGHT IN A CHURCH.

It is now nearly twenty years ago, that I was staying for some months in the village of in Cumberland: the place itself is small, but the church is a large Gothic structure, dimly lighted by coloured glass windows, and enriched by splendid monuments of the former lords of the manor. I was sent for one evening to visit a sick friend, and left word with my family, that if I found her worse, I should probably pass the night with her. She was, however, much better than I had anticipated, and after remaining an hour with her I prepared to return home. I had to pass a meadow adjoining the church-yard, and, as a heavy shower of rain had fallen, the grass was wet; the church-doors were open for the purpose of cleaning it for the next day, which was Sunday, and, by walking through the church I should avoid the inconvenience of the damp path. The pew-opener, who was coming out, let me in at the door, and shut it after her, telling me that I should find the door at the other end open, as some one was still employed there. As I passed through, I stopped for a moment to look at the effect of the coloured shadows from the window on one of the monuments, and the appearance of it was so brilliant and so beautiful, that I remained several minutes before it wrapt in admiration, and was only roused from my contemplation by the noise of the door violently closing and shutting out my

retreat.

I acknowledge that at that moment I suffered extreme agitation; my heart beat audibly, and I felt as if the power of breathing had left me. I knew there was no possibility of making myself heard, and that I had no prospect but that of passing the night where I was. In a little time, however, reason came to my aid; I reflected that I was in no real danger; the weather was warm, and I had no reason to apprehend injury to my health from remaining one night in the church: no one would be made uneasy by my absence from home, for my family were prepared to expect it; and, in short, I argued with myself on the folly of my fear, and in some degree succeeded in removing it. The next consideration was, in what part of the church should I endeavour to rest, and I fixed on the large seat belonging to the lords of the manor. It was a spacious square pew, with a carpet on the floor, well-stuffed cushions on the seats, and moreen curtains drawing all round it; a comfortable resting-place might well be made there, and I worked myself up to a pitch of philanthropic heroism, by wishing that hundreds of poor creatures, who were wanderers on the earth, were lodged as well as I was.

I had only one objection to this seat, and that appeared to me so