never see must I never see the light again, and Florence, and my dear friends?" And he fell into almost abject entreaties to be spared; for he thought of Dianora. But the bystanders fancied that he was merely afraid of death; and by the help of suggestions from the Bardi partisans, their pity almost turned into contempt. He prostrated himself at the magistrate's feet; he kissed his knees; he disgusted his own father; till finding everything against him, and smitten at once with a sense of his cowardly appearance and the necessity of keeping his mistress's honour inviolable, he declared his readiness to die like a man, and at the same time stood wringing his hands, and weeping like an infant. He was sentenced to die next day.

The day came. The hour came. The

Standard of Justice was hoisted before the door of the tribunal, and the trumpet blew through the city, announcing the death of a criminal. Dianora, to whom the news had been gradually broken, heard it in her chamber, and would have burst forth and proclaimed the secret but for Madonna Lucrezia, who spoke of her father, and mother, and all the Bardi, and the inutility of attempting to save one of the opposite faction, and the dreadful consequences to every body if the secret were betrayed. Dianora heard little about everybody; but the habit of respecting her father and mother, and dreading their reproaches, kept her, moment after moment, from doing anything but listen and look pale ; and, in the meantime, the procession began moving towards the scaffold.

Ippolito issued forth from the prison, looking more like a young martyr than a criminal. He was now perfectly quiet, and a sort of unnatural glow had risen into his cheeks, the result of the enthusiasm and conscious selfsacrifice into which he had worked himself during the night. He had only prayed, as a last favour, that he might be taken through the street in which the house of the Bardi stood; for he had lived, he said, as everybody knew, in great hostility with that family, and he now felt none any longer, and wished to bless the house as he passed it. The magistrate, for more reasons than one, had no objection; the old confessor, with tears in his eyes, said that the dear boy would still be an honour to his family, as surely as he would be a saint in heaven; and the procession moved on. The main feeling of the crowd, as usual, was that of curiosity, but there were few indeed, in whom it was not mixed with pity; and many females found the sight so intolerable, that they were seen coming away down the streets, weeping bitterly, and unable to answer the questions of those they met.

The procession now began to pass the house of the Bardi. Ippolito's face, for an instant, turned of a chalky whiteness, and then re

sumed its colour. His lips trembled, his eyes filled with tears; and thinking his mistress might possibly be at the window, taking a last look of the lover that died for her, he bowed his head gently, at the same time forcing a smile, which glittered through his watery eyes. At that instant the trumpet blew its dreary blast for the second time. Dianora had already risen on her couch, listening, and asking what noise it was that approached. Her aunt endeavoured to quiet her with excuses; but this last noise aroused her beyond control; and the good old lady, forgetting herself in the condition of the two lovers, no longer attempted to stop her. "Go," said she, "in God's name, my child, and Heaven be with you."

Dianora, her hair streaming, her eye without a tear, her cheek on fire, burst, to the astonishment of her kindred, into the room where they were all standing. She tore them aside from one of the windows with a preternatural strength, and, stretching forth her head and hands, like one inspired, cried out, "Stop! stop! it is my Ippolito! my husband !" And, so saying, she actually made a movement as if she would have stepped to him out of the window; for everything but his image faded from her eyes. A movement of confusion took place among the multitude. Ippolito stood rapt on the sudden, trembling, weeping, and stretching his hands towards the window, as if praying to his guardian angel. The kinsmen would have prevented her from doing anything further; but, as if all the gentleness of her character was gone, she broke from them with violence and contempt, and rushing down stairs into the street, exclaimed, in a frantic manner, "People! Dear God! Countrymen ! I am a Bardi; he is a Buondelmonte; he loved me; and that is the whole crime !" and, at these last words, they were locked in each other's arms.

The populace now broke through all restraint. They stopped the procession; they bore Ippolito back again to the seat of the magistracy, carrying Dianora with him; they described in a peremptory manner the mistake; they sent for the heads of the two houses; they made them swear a treaty of peace, amity, and unity; and in half an hour after the lover had been on the road to his death, he set out upon it again, the acknowledged bridegroom of the beautiful creature by his side.

Never was such a sudden revulsion of feeling given to a whole city. The women who had retreated in anguish, came back the gayest of the gay. Everybody plucked all the myrtles they could find, to put into the hands of those who made the former procession, and who now formed a singular one for a bridal; but all the young women fell in with their white veils; and instead of the funeral dirge,

a song of thanksgiving was chanted. The very excess of their sensations enabled the two lovers to hold up. Ippolito's cheeks, which seemed to have fallen away in one night, appeared to have plumped out again faster; and if he was now pale instead of highcoloured, the paleness of Dianora had given way to radiant blushes which made up for it. He looked, as he ought, like the person saved; she, like the angelic saviour. Thus the two lovers passed on, as if in a dream tumultuous but delightful. Neither of them looked on the other; they gazed hither and thither on the crowd, as if in answer to the blessings that poured upon them; but their hands were locked fast; and they went like one soul in a divided body.

of their previous history? Did any Chinese gentleman ever show the amount of his breeding and accomplishments more completely, by the nails which he carries at his fingers' ends? The Italian Rimatori are equally comprehensive. We no sooner see the majority of their rhymes, than we long to save the modesty of their general pretensions so much trouble in making out their case. Their cores and amores are not to be disputed. Cursed is he that does not put implicit reliance upon their fedeltà !—that makes inquisition why the possessor più superbo ca. They may take the oaths and their seat at once. For example

LVIII.-RHYME AND REASON:

OR A NEW PROPOSAL TO THE PUBLIC RESPECTING POETRY IN ORDINARY.

A FRIEND of ours the other day, taking up the miscellaneous poems of Tasso, read the title-page into English as follows:"The Rhymes of the Lord Twisted Yew, Amorous, Bosky, and Maritime."* The Italians exhibit a modesty worthy of imitation in calling their Miscellaneous Poems, Rhymes. Twisted Yew himself, with all his genius, has put forth an abundance of these terminating blossoms, without any fruit behind them: and his countrymen of the present day do not scruple to confess, that their living poetry consists of little else. The French have a game at verses, called Rhymed Ends (Bouts Rimés) which they practise a great deal more than they are aware; and the English, though they are a more poetical people, and lay claim to the character of a less vain one, practise the same game to a very uncandid extent, without so much as allowing that the title is applicable to any part of it.

Yet how many "Poems" are there among all these nations, of which we require no more than the Rhymes, to be acquainted with the whole of them? You know what the rogues have done, by the ends they come to. For instance, what more is necessary to inform us of all which the following gentleman has for sale, than the bell which he tinkles at the end of

his cry? We are as sure of him, as of the

muffin-man.

Where is the dull and inordinate person that would require these rhymes to be filled up? If they are brief as the love of which they complain, are they not pregnant in conclusions, full of a world of things that have passed, infinitely retrospective, embracing, and enough? If not "vast," are they not "voluminous ?"

It is doubtless an instinct of this kind that has made so many modern Italian poets intersperse their lyrics with those frequent single words, which are at once line and rhyme, and which some of our countrymen have in vain endeavoured to naturalise in the English opera. Not that they want the same pregnancy in our language, but because they are neither so abundant nor so musical; and besides, there is something in the rest of our verses, however common-place, which seems to be laughing at the incursion of these vivacious strangers, as if it were a hop suddenly got up, and unseasonably. We do not naturally take to anything so abrupt and saltatory.

Here, without any more ado, we have the whole history of a couple of successful rural lovers comparing notes. They issue forth in the morning; fall into the proper place and dialogue; record the charms and kindness of their respective mistresses; do justice at the same time to the fields and shades; and conclude by telling their flocks to wait as usual while they renew their addresses under the, boughs. How easily is all this gathered from the rhymes! and how worse than useless would it be in two persons, who have such interesting avocations, to waste their precious time and the reader's in a heap of prefatory remarks, falsely called verses !

Of Love-songs we have already had specimens; and, by the bye, we did not think it necessary to give any French examples of our involuntary predecessors in this species of writing. The yeur and dangereux, moi and foi, charmes and larmes, are too well-known as well as too numerous to mention. We proceed to lay before the reader a Prologue; which, if spoken by a pretty actress, with a due sprinkling of nods and becks, and a judicious management of the pauses, would have an effect equally novel and triumphant. The reader is aware that a Prologue is generally made up of some observations on the drama in general, followed by an appeal in favour of the new one, some compliments to the nation, and a regular climax in honour of the persons appealed to. We scarcely need observe, that the rhymes should be read slowly, in order to give effect to the truly understood remarks in the intervals.

Here we have some respectable observations on the advantages of the drama in every age, on the wideness of its survey, the different natures of tragedy and comedy, the vicissitudes of fashion, and the permanent greatness of the British empire. Then the young bard, new to the dramatic art, is introduced. He disclaims all hope of reward for any merit of his own, except that which is founded on a proper sense of the delicacy and beauty of his fair auditors, and his zeal in the cause of virtue. To this, at all events, he is sure his critics will be just; and though he cannot help feeling a certain timidity, standing where he does, yet upon the whole, as becomes an Englishman, he is perfectly willing to abide by the decision of his countrymen's hands, hoping that he shall be found

to sense, if not to genius, true, And trusts his cause to virtue, and-to You. Should the reader, before he comes to this explication of the Prologue, have had any other ideas suggested by it, we will nudertake to say, that they will at all events be found to have a wonderful general similitude; and it is to be observed, that this very flexibility of adaptation is one of the happiest and most useful results of our proposed system of poetry. It comprehends all the possible common-places in vogue; and it also leaves to the ingenious reader something to fill up; which is a compliment that has always been held due to him by the best authorities.

The next specimen is what, in a more superfluous condition of metre, would have been entitled Lines on Time. It is much in that genteel didactic taste, which is at once thinking and non-thinking, and has a certain neat and elderly dislike of innovation in it, greatly to the comfort of the seniors who adorn the circles.

We ask any impartial reader, whether he could possibly want a more sufficing account of the progress of this author's piece of reasoning upon Time? There is, first, the address to the hoary god, with all his emblems and consequence about him, the scythe excepted; that being an edge-tool to rhymers, which they judiciously keep inside the verse, as in a sheath. And then we are carried through all the stages of human existence, the caducity of which the

writer applies to the world at large, impressing upon us the inutility of hope and exertion, and suggesting of course the propriety of thinking just as he does upon all subjects, political and moral, past, present, and to come.

1822.

LIX.-VICISSITUDES OF A LECTURE;

OR, PUBLIC ELEGANCE AND PRIVATE NON-PARTICULARITY.

POOR NED POUNCHY! He is no longer alive; otherwise we should not risk the wounding of his good-natured eyes by these pages. Neither was he ever known enough to the many to undergo the hazard of their now digging him up again; and, finally, we have obscured the illustrious obscurity of his name by an alias. We may, therefore, without offence, resuscitate a passage in his life, for the amusement of those critical readers, whom it was his highest ambition to gratify.

Ned Pounchy had long been seized with a passionate desire to give a lecture-his favourite mode of literary intercourse-and on Shakspeare and Milton-his favourite poets. Accordingly, after a series of blissful preparations and half-threatening obstacles, which only perfected the pleasure of the result, he found himself one evening at the upper end of a great room in a certain tavern, standing with book in hand, and in most consummate black satin small-clothes and silk stockings (the former very crinkled and scholarly), with a great screen at his back, and an expectant set of beholders in front of him, to whom he had undertaken to set forth the merits of a scene or two in the Tempest, and to recite Milton's charming poems, Allegro and Pensieroso.

Now our friend Pounchy, or rather our friend's friend (for we had no particular knowledge of him, except on this occasion) was a somewhat stout and short man, like many an eminent individual before and since, of some forty or five-and-forty years of age; and if, unlike them, he seemed to think his person qualified to compete with his intellectual attractions, and to require only "a fair stage and no favour," yet his genial disposition did (there can be no doubt of it) instinctively suggest to itself, that the favour would be granted him ; and in fact, he appeared so cosy and comfortable, and after-dinner-like, in the very midst of a certain elevation of neckcloth and powdered head, that it was impossible not to sympathise with his satisfaction, and be prepared to relish whatever taste he should be pleased to give us of his critical nicety. He had no rostrum, or desk, before him. All in that respect was open and above-board; undisguised as his good faith; and as he walked to and fro, his shoes creaked a little.

Suddenly, after a brief but serious conference with some head that emerged from behind the screen, and returning towards us with a hum and haw, intermingled with applications of white handkerchief, he opened upon his audience with a brief introduction to the first scene of the Tempest. His tones were of an importance commensurate with the fame of his author; and none of the homely seamanship in the text beguiled him, for an instant, out of a due respect for it. Not that he omitted to expatiate on the extreme naturalness of the scene. That was a point, which Ned evidently regarded as one of the most serious objects of his duty to impress upon us. He could not have been more emphatic, or given us greater time to deliberate on what we heard, had he recited the soliloquy in Hamlet. Thus, instead of those excellent but too uncritical imitators of seamen, Mr. T. P. Cooke, Mr. Smith, and others, conceive the following exordium of the play set forth in its utmost solemnity of articulation by the mouth of Mr. Ward or Mr. Barrymore,-accompanied furthermore by a mention, at once particular and careless, and singularly incorporating itself with the text, of the name of the party speaking-which, if you reflect upon it, was a very great nicety, and showed the lecturer's just sense of all which he could be expected to combine in his delivery, as holding the double office of reader and performer. Repeat, for instance, out loud, and very slowly, the following words; and the sound of your voice will enable you the better to appreciate our critic's delicacy :

Enter a SHIPMASTER and a BOATSWAIN.
Master Boatswain-

(which you are to read as if he was speaking of a young gentleman of the name of Boatswain, son of John Boatswain, Esq.-"Master Boatswain.")

Boatswain Here, master; what-cheer("What—cheer,” very slow and pompous.)

Master Good

Good, Esquire-young " Master Good.") (here another young gentleman, son of Thomas

-speak-to-the mariner-fall-to it-yarely, or we

run ourselves-aground-Bestir-bestir.

(Bestir, bestir, very wide apart, and all pompous.)

Exit-Master. Enter-Mariners.
Boatswain Heigh-

(Here it seems to transpire that the boatswain's name is Heigh or Hay-Boatswain Hay.)

Boatswain Heigh-my heart-cheerly-cheerly-my heart;-yare-yare-Take in the topsail

(all observe, as if he were reading some mighty text in a pulpit)

-take in the topsail-tend-to the master's-whistle

And so he went on, amidst the deep and admiring silence of the spectators, whose

shoulders you might observe, here and there, gradually begin shaking, out of some irrepressible emotion. A wag who has a lively but confused recollection of the scene, insists that there was a passage in the dialogue, which upon examination we cannot find, but which he delights to repeat as having been thus delivered,-very slow and pompous, yet with the remarkable absence of stops between the names and words of the speakers, and all in a level tone

First Boatswain Hip-hollo-a
Second Boatswain Hollo-a-hip.

But this is manifestly a figment, superinduced upon a strongly excited fancy.

Of the rest of this scene from the Tempest, singularly enough, we have no sort of recollection. Whether this forgetfulness be owing to some unremembered stoppage on the part of the reciter, or to the criticisms of the friends about us, or some uproarious sympathy analogous to the tumult on board ship, we cannot say; but the thing has clean gone out of our memory. All we can call to mind is a little thin old gentleman, probably a friend of the lecturer's, who kept going about among the benches, smiling, and apparently asking the ladies how they liked it; and exhibiting a hand laden with rings.

But now came the Allegro. Our memory serves us very well on this point, for reasons which will be obvious.

HENCE,-loathed-MEL-ancholy

began Ned, in the most vehement, but at the same time dignified manner you can conceive -absolutely startling us-his mouth thrust out, his eye fierce, his right arm extended at full length, tossing his head, and then pointing; -in short, telling Melancholy to go to the greatest possible distance, and as if showing her whereabouts it was.

Hence-loathed-Melancholy

Of Cerberus-and-BLACK-est-midnight born ("blackest" excessively black on the first syllable)

In-Stygian-cave-forlorn

Midst horrid shapes and sights-and shrieks-unholy"unholy" with an immense emphasis on the o -and so he went on till he came to the words

tain the united dignity of the poetical and reciting characters.

But now comes, not only the cheerfulness, but the catastrophe. "Great wits have short memories," said somebody; probably because he had one himself. Ned however was at all events a brother instance; for after getting through the "Graces," and " Aurora," and the "fresh-blown roses," and "quips and cranks," &c., with the most extraordinary solemnity (and it was no great distance to get) he stuck fast at the very spot where he was bound to proceed in his happiest manner; to wit, upon the line,

"Come and trip it, as you go."

66 as

He remembered "Come and trip it;" but he could not, for the life of him, conjure up you go."

The head behind the screen was now heard, prompting—

"Come and trip it, as you go." But Ned, it turned out, was unfortunately deaf, and the words were lost upon him. "Come and trip it, as you go,"

said the voice, still in a whisper, but with greater emphasis.

In vain.-Ned bent his head again to catch the words, and again they were repeated with emphasis still greater, but always in a whisper

"Come and trip it, AS YOU GO.

"

In vain again.-Once more Ned bent his head, with all its painstaking and powder; and again the words were sent forth, in a sort of whisper in a rage;

"Come and trip it, AS YOU GO." "Good God!" the whisper seemed to say, "Will you never hear me?"

The reader must imagine the audience all this time, hearing what the lecturer could not hear, as plainly as their own words, and ready to burst.

At length he does catch the words; and with an irresistible air of hilarity and selfsatisfaction (as if the little obstacle were removed from between him and his triumphs) resumes his stately way

"Come-and trip it-as you go-
On the light

("light" very heavy)

fantastic-toe

fantastic," imperious)

And-in thy-right hand-lead-with thee
The mountain-nymph-sweet-liberty
And-if I-give thee-honour-due-
Mirth,-admit me-of-thy crew-

To live with her-and live-with thee
In-un-reproved-pleasures-free."

Alas! while in the act of arriving at these pleasures, and little thinking that he was about to disclose what they were, he unfortunately kept stepping backwarder and backwarder, till in a moment he bolted against the