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life long! Hast thou forgot how she stood by the lake, with her favourite merlin on her wrist, and her white greyhound Lily-bell at her side, looking like the very goddess of the chase, so full of life and spirit, and cheeriness? And that bright evening when she led the dance round the May-pole? Well-a-day, poor lady! 'tis a woful change!"

It was remarkable that the Lady Edith's attention, which neither the louder speech of her elder attendants, nor the ringing tones of the harper, had been able to command, was arrested at once by the soft low voice of Alice. The womanly sympathy sank soothingly into the woman's heart, just as the gentle rain from heaven penetrates the parched hill-side, from whose arid surface the sharp and arrowy hail rebounds without impression. The drooping mistress listened in mournful silence, whilst her faithful maiden, unconscions that she had attracted her notice, pursued, in still lower accents, the train of thought which her own fond recollections of the freedom and happiness which they had tasted among their native mountains had awakened in her mind.

"Poor Albert, too! the wandering minstrel, who came to the castle gate to crave lodging for one night, and sojourned with us for three long months; and then, when he had wrought himself up to go,-and, verily, it was a parting like that of the spirit and the flesh, when he left our old walls,-returned again and again, and finally fixed himself in the fisherman's cottage, where the mountain streamlet, after meandering along the meadow, falls into the lake. Poor Albert! I warrant me he taketh good care of Lily-bell and my lady's merlin, whereof he craved the charge from old Geoffrey. I marvel whether my lady knoweth that her pretty Lily-bell and her favourite falcon be in hands that will tend them so faithfully, for her dear sake! To my fancy, Mabel, that poor youth, albeit so fearful and so ashamed in her presence, worshipped the very ground that she trod upon. I have seen him kiss Lily-bell's glossy head, after her hand had patted it, reverently and devoutly, as though it had been a holy relic in the great minster at Durham."

Again the full and ringing chords of the harp-but, this time, to an old border air, well known to the northern maids-arose from beneath the casement. The voice, too, was different from that of the courtly minstrel-deeper, manlier, pouring forth the spirit of the words, as they gushed spontaneously, as it seemed, from his lips, as though, in his case, song were but the medium of feeling, and the poet's fancy and the musician's skill buried in the impassioned grief of the despairing lover. So the strain rang:-

"High o'er the baron's castle tall,
Rich banners float with heavy fall;
And light and song, in mingling tide,
Pour forth, to hail the lovely bride.

Yet, lady, still the birchen tree
Waves o'er the cottage on the lea;

The babbling stream runs bright and fair,The love-star of the west shines there." "Ha!" exclaimed old Margaret; "that ditty hath aroused my lady. See how she listens."

""Tis the roundelay which she herself was wont to sing," observed Mabel; "but the words are different."

"Peace! peace!" cried the lady Edith, checking, with some impatience the prattle of her attendants, and leaning against the casement which she flung open, as the deep and earnest voice of the minstrel again resounded through the apartment. "Be silent, I pray ye!"

"Mailed warders pace o'er keep and tower;
Gay maidens deck the lady's bower;
Page, squire, and knight, a princely train,
Wait duteous at her bridle rein.
Yet in that cot the milk-white hound,
The favourite falcon, still are found;
And one more fond, more true than they,
Born to adore and to obey."

"Alack! alack!" sighed the tender-hearted
deemed that his strange fondness for Lily-bell
Alice. "Well-a-day, poor youth!
I ever
- albeit as pretty and playful a creature as
swift of foot as ever followed hare over the
ever gambolled on the green-sward, and as
mountains-had a deeper source than love of
the good hound. Well-a-day, poor Albert!
He was a goodly youth!"

"Hush! hush!" exclaimed the Lady Edith, as the symphony finished, and the voice again mingled with the chords of the harp, struck hand trembled and the heart waxed faint. falteringly and unsteadily now, as though the

"The coronet of jewels rare

Shines proudly o'er her face so fair;
And titles high and higher name
Lord Howard's lovely bride may claim.
And yet, the wreath of hawthorn bough
Once lightlier pressed that snowy brow;
And hearts that wither now were gay,
When she was but the queen of May."

"Alas! alas! my lady, my dear sweet lady!" murmured Alice to herself, as poor Edith, after lingering at the window long enough to ascertain that the harp was silent, and the harper gone, sank into a seat with a sigh and a look of desolation, that proved, more plainly than words, the truth of the last lines of the minstrel's lay.

"Alas! alas! dear lady!" exclaimed she, in a louder tone, as the sudden burst of startling noises, the warlike blasts of trump and cornet, the jarring dissonant sound caused by raising the heavy portcullis, and lowering the massive drawbridge, and the echoing tramp of barbed steeds and mailed horsemen in the courts of the castle, showed that the expected bridegroom had at length arrived.

Edith wrung her hands in desperation.

"This knight I cannot, and I will not see. ing-women, and was echoed by the pretty Go to him, Margaret; say that I am sick-greyhound, Lily-bell, who had followed the that I am dying. The blessed saints can bear Lord Howard into the room, and now stood witness that thou wilt say but the truth in so trembling with ecstasy before her fair mistelling him. Sick at heart am I, sick to the tress, resting her head in her lap, and looking death! Oh that I had died before this wretch-up into her face with eyes beaming with afed hour!" And poor Edith burst into an fectionate gladness-eyes that literally glowed agony of tears, that shook her very frame. with delight.

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Why goest thou not, Margaret?" inquired she, a few moments after, when, exhausted by its own violence, her grief had become more tranquil. "Why dost thou not carry my message to the Lord Howard? Why dally thus, old dame? Mabel, go thou! They stand about me as though I were an ignorant child, that knew not what she said! Do my bidding on the instant, Mabel: thou wert best!" "Nay, good my lady, but our gracious lord the king-"

"Tell me not of kings, maiden! I'll to sanctuary. I'll fly this very night to my aunt, the prioress of St. Mary's. The church knoweth well how to protect her votaries. Woe is me! that, for being born a rich heir, I must be shut from the free breath of heaven, the living waters, and the flowery vales, in the dark and gloomy cloister! To change the locks that float upon the breeze for the dismal veil! To waste my youth in the cold and narrow convent cell-a living tomb! Oh! it is a sad and a weary lot. But better so, than to plight my troth to one whom I have never seen, and can never love! to give my hand to one man, whilst my heart abideth with another."

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Lady!" cried Margaret; "do my senses play me false! Or is it Edith Clifford that speaketh thus of a low-born churl?"

"A low-born churl!" responded Edith."There is a regality of mind and of spirit about that youth, which needeth neither wealth nor lineage to even him with the greatest-the inborn nobility of virtue and of genius! Never till now knew I that he loved me; and now— Hasten to this lord, Alice; and see that he cometh not hither. Wherefore lingerest thou, maiden?" inquired Edith, of the pitying damsel, who staid her steps with an exclamation of surprise, as the door of the chamber was gently opened. "Tell the Lord Howard the very truth; men say that he is good and wise -too wise, too good, to seek his own happiness at the expense of a poor maiden's misery. Tell him the whole truth, Alice. Spare thy mistress that shame. Say that I love him not -say that I love—”

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Never was happiness more perfect than that of the betrothed maiden, on this so dreaded bridal eve. And heartily did her faithful attendants sympathise in her happiness; only Mabel found it impossible to comprehend why, in the hour of hope and joy, as in that of sear and sorrow, her dearly beloved finery should be neglected.

"To think," quoth the provoked bowerwoman, "that now that all these marvels have come about, and that the Lord Howard turns out to be none other than the youth Albert, my lady will not vouchsafe to tell me whether her kirtle shall be of cloth of gold or cloth of silver; or whether she will don the coronet of rubies or the emerald wreath! Well-a-day!" quoth Mabel, "this love! this love!"

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FLORENCE.

THE WAGER.

"Gone to be married! Gone to swear a peace!" Shakspeare.

LILY on liquid roses floating!

So floats yon foam o'er pink champagne. Fain would I join such pleasant boating, And prove that ruby main,

And float away on wine!

"Those seas are dangerous (greybeards swear)
Whose sea-beach is the goblet's brim;
And true it is they drown all Care-
But what care we for him,
So we but float on wine!
"And true it is they cross in pain,

Who sober cross the Stygian ferry;
But only make our Styx-Champagne,
And we shall cross right merry,
Floating away on wine.

"Old Charon's self shall make him mellow,
Then gaily row his boat from shore;
While we, and every jovial fellow,
Hear unconcern'd the oar

That dips itself in wine!"*

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"So you really wrote this, Giovanni ?" said the young and pretty Beatrice Alberti, as she sat upon a terrace of her brother's villa, overNay, sweetest lady, from thine own dear looking the Val d'Arno. Sing it to me. I lips must come that sweet confession," said a want to hear it in your own voice. Can Anvoice at her side, and, turning to the well-tonio play the air?" known acents, Edith saw, at her feet, him who, And the little page ran rapidly over the having won her heart as the wandering min-notes, and then accompanied the conte's rich, strel, the humble falconer, claimed her hand as the rich and high-born Philip Howard, the favourite of the king.

A cry of joy burst from the astonished wait

*The editor is indebted for this Anacreontic — almost an impromptu-to the kind friend, Mr. Kenyon. (she is proud to name him,) to whom she also owes the stanzas entitled Shrine of the Virgin."

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mellow, baritone voice, in a melody as rich, and flowing as the verses. Both the singing and the playing were full of right Italian taste; and the fair Florentine, charmed with both the words and the air, was evidently not a little proud of her gay and gallant brother, whose talent as a poet she had never even suspected. Well," said Giovanni, when he had concluded, "will this do, Beatrice? Will that Anacreontic win me the laurel wreath to-night at the Palazzo Riccardi, think you?"

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Beatrice started from her seat in astonish

ment.

"You go to the Palazzo Riccardi! You contend for the laurel crown! You, Giovanni Alberti, who, since you were the height of Antonio there, have done nothing but laugh at the old précieuse, the marchesa, with her pedants and her poets, and all the trumpery of all the Della Cruscans transported into a lady's saloon! You are making a fool of me, brother! You never can mean it!"

"I am perfectly in earnest, I assure you," replied the conti, looking, or rather trying to look, as grave as an habitually joyous and hilarious temperament would permit. "I have repented of my sins of scoffing and mockery, and mean to make that venerable priestess of the muses all possible amends by enacting the part of her Monsieur Trissotin, her homme d'esprit."

With this great lawsuit pending, too! A suit which, if you gain it, will leave that sweetlooking creature, her daughter (every one speaks so well of that pretty, gentle Bianci), little better than a beggar! Why, it would be like the story of one of the Montechi, in the house of the Capuletti, in times of old. Think of that dismal tragedy! And, then, our uncle, the cardinal, what would he say? Think of him."

"There are no tragedies now-a-days, Beatrice at least none of the Romeo and Giulietta description; they have left off happening and as to our dearly beloved uncle, he is a man of peace, and also with reverence be it spoken a man of contrivance. Leave his eminence to me. Go I shall; and I'll wager the antique gem that you were wishing for the other day, do you remember?-the Psycheagainst your doves, that I bring home the prize. I see," continued he gaily," that you think my verses too good to please that fantastical assembly; and, perhaps, you are right. But good or bad, they will answer my purpose; and you shall confess yourself that my wager is won.' So saying, the light-hearted cavalier nodded to his sister, and departed, carolling as he went, the refrain of his own song, "Floating away on wine."

well as in the estimate of his fond sister, reckoned amongst the most accomplished cavaliers of Florence; and a very short space of time found him passing through the Lung 'Arno, on his way to his splendid home in the Piazza del Granduca, regarding with the indifference of an accustomed eye and a pre-occupied mind, the spacious, yet tranquil town, whose size, compared with its population, and whose fortified palaces are so striking to strangers; as well as the magnificent groups in bronze and ¦ marble, mere copies of which enrich the museums of other nations, whilst the originals are the familiar and out-door treasures of the city of the Medici.

Little thought our friend Giovanni, passing them at full speed on his full-blooded barb, of palace or of statue; and as little, some few hours after, when pacing in the twilight the church of Santa Croce, did he heed, even while looking them in the face, the monuments of Galileo, of Machiavelli, or of him who wore so nobly the triple crown of Art- the sculptor, painter, architect, Michael Angelo Buonarotti. His thoughts were on other matters.

"Ay, there is the good father safe enough until he be wanted, I warrant him," cried he, gazing complacently upon a round, rosy, goodhumoured brother of the order of St. Francis, drowsily ensconced beside a dimly-lighted shrine. "Per Bacco! the Monte Pulciano hath done its good office. Look, if he have not fallen asleep over his beads! And a comfortable nap to thee, Father Paolo! Stay there till I come to rouse thee!" And off danced the mercurial conte, murmuring his old burden, "Floating away, floating away. floating away on wine!"

A blue-stocking party loses none of its proverbial dulness in the marble halls of Italy; and the assembly gathered together in the marchesa's magnificent saloon-that is to say, that very important part of such an assembly, the listeners, were roused from a state of drowsihood, scarcely inferior to that of Father Paolo, by the unexpected entrance of the young heir of the Alberti in the palace of the Riccardi.

It was a most animating sensation. The appearance of a Montagu amongst the festivities of the Capulets, was nothing to it. The commerce of flattery (for the important business of the evening had not yet begun) suddenly ceased; and the foundress of these classical amusements, a fade and faded lady, emulous of her of the golden violet, who sat on a fauteuil, slightly elevated, with the laurelwreath on its crimson velvet cushion, laid upon a small table of rich mosaic, before her, Five minutes saw him prancing on his met- and two starched and withered dames of the tled barb, a fiery roan, whose gay curvets and noble houses of Mozzi and Gerini at her side, sudden bounds showed to great advantage his stopped short in the midst of a compliment, noble owner's horsemanship; for the young with which, as in duty bound, she was repayConte Alberti was, by common reputation, asing the adulation of one of the competitors

for the prize, and started between horror and astonishment, as if she had been confronted by an apparition.

"Really a poet?" asked the lady.

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Why, that is putting my inodesty to a very severe test," said the gentleman. “Really Our inodern Romeo, however, was not a a poet! Who may dare answer that question man to be dumfounded by the amazement of in the affirmative? Judge for yourself. Come a great lady, or awe-stricken by her displea-out into the porch, and Antonio shall bring his sure. He advanced with a mixture of gaiety and gallantry, an assured yet winning grace, which, for the moment, at least, the stately marchesa found irresistible, and professing himself an humble aspirant at the court of the Muses, come to do homage to their fair representative, took his station at the back of her chair, and listened with smiling attention to the competitors for the wreath.

It was, perhaps, the very worst period of Italian literature; before Alfieri had come in his might to renew the old strength and power of the sweetest of modern languages; and when the versifiers of the day, "the wordcatchers, who lived on syllables," confined themselves to mere verbal quiddities, and the most feeble and trivial imitations of the worst parts the only parts that such mimics can hope to catch-of the great poets of a preceding age.

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Signor Ricci, a lean, yellow, shrivelled anatomy, began the recitations with squeaking forth a canzone to Angiolina, all bristling with concelli, after the manner, as he was pleased to say, of Petrarch; and was followed by a wild, sallow, pseudo-enthusiast, who declaimed, with astounding vociferation and gesticulation, an unfinished and seemingly interminable dream, in the involved and difficult triple rhyme which, beauty and sublimity apart, was, in the matter of obscurity, pretty truly what it professed to be—a fragment in imitation of Dante.

For "flickering lights, to no one focus brought,
And mirage mists still baffled thirsty thought,
And night-mare phantasies from drowsy grot,
And far similitudes that liken not.'

Rhymed Plea for Tolerance.

Signor Puzzi beat Signor Ricci all to nothing. And accordingly he gratified to the highest point the bad taste of this coterie of Italian précieuses; and in the midst of tapping of fans and murmurs of admiration of this grand effort of their chosen bard, the Monsieur Trissotin of Florence, our friend Giovanni gently stole off to a quiet corner near the door, where sat a very sweet-looking little maiden, whose black eyes sparkled with innocent pleasure, and whose rosy lips curled into irrepressible smiles at his approach. She made room for him beside her, with a natural symplicity and artlessness that formed a strange contrast with the affectation and minauderie of the rest of the assembly.

"So you are a poet, Conte Alberti ?" said she, in a low voice.

“To be sure I am," replied he gaily; "any thing that will bring me to you."

guitar, and I'll sing the words to his accom-
paniment. You have heard such a serenade
before. Don't you remember our old signal?
The moon is abroad in her glory to-night,
Mid the deep blue sky and the cloudlets white;
Gaily her beams pierce the vine's trellised shade;
Softly they sleep on the long colonnade;

Calm her path in the heavens, though the bright orb
below

Still trembles and heaves to the dark river's flow.

All lovely things are around us to-night; The rose with her perfume, the moon with her light;' and so forth. This song is worth a thousand of that. To be sure," added he, laughing, "that is not saying much for it. But these stanzas are really good. Only come and

hear."

"You'll win the prize, then?”

"I have laid a wager with Beatrice that I carry the prize home to her, in spite of them all; and it will be your fault if I lose it. Only come out into the porch; I can't sing here. Besides, I have something important to say to you. I want you to help me to get rid of our weary lawsuit. Would you not like to put an end to this unnatural strife, and live with Beatrice as a sister and friend?"

"Ay, from the bottom of my heart, would I, Conte Alberti!" said Bianca, clasping her hands fervently. "From the very bottom of my heart! And with you, too," she added, with great simplicity.

"Come with me now, then, and I will show you how it may be managed. I beseech you,

come.

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• Oh, Giovanni, I cannot; I must not! We shall be missed. See, Signor Puzzi has finished, and they are going to call for your poem.'

"Heaven forefend!" cried Giovanni. "No! the danger's past. Young Caroli is going to declaim a drama à l'improvvista. What subject do they give him? The Judgment of Solomon, by Jove! The Judgment of Solomon!!! Now, will he turn the marchesa into the Queen of Sheba, and go flattering on for two good hours, at the very least. They are safe enough now. Come, fairest Bianca! Dearest Bianca, come!"

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heir male, would have nobody to go to law, with but himself. I had not then seen my little Bianca, and, therefore, I turned a deaf ear to his hints. But after I had seen her, Fede di Dio! if it had been necessary, to gain admittance, that I should have constructed as vile a canzone as Signor Ricci,and have dreamed as detestable a dream as Signor Puzzi,—and dramatised the Judgment of Solomon into the bargain, I'd have done it. We have sent a dutiful billet to the marchesa, and I have no doubt but, for joy at getting rid of the lawsuit, and out of compliment to my poetical genius, she will behave like a reasonable woman-the more especially as what is done cannot be undone, and all the anger in the world will not mend it. So now, my fairest Beatrice, you have nothing to do but to set her the good example of bearing misfortune with philosophy, and pay me my wager. The doves! Signora, the doves!"

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It was somewhere in the last quarter of the last century, that Charles Pemberton, the younger son of an ancient but impoverished family, having committed the old-fashioned folly of marrying a young lady, for no better qualifications than beauty, sense, and goodness, without regard to those worldly considerations which modern prudence deems indispensable, esteemed himself most fortunate to inherit, through the bequest of a distant relative, a small estate in the Island of Ceylon; and to obtain a commission in a Dutch regiment serving in that colony, in which, in the course of fourteen or fifteen years, he attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel.

Living chiefly upon his own property, about a mile from the beautiful village of Negumbo, amongst some of the finest scenery of Ceylon (which the inhabitants imagine to have been the abode of our first parents, the paradise of the old world); enjoying an elegant competence, and all sufficient to each other, Colonel and Mrs. Pemberton would have considered themselves blessed beyond the ordinary lot of humanity, in spite of their banishment from the country they loved so dearly, and the society they were so well calculated to adorn, but for the great evil of eastern climates, the successive deaths of several promising children. Five fine boys and girls had they followed to the grave; and the only one who now remained to them was their little son,

William, a child remarkable for his affectionate temper, his intelligence, and his beauty; upon whom both parents doted, more particularly, perhaps, his mother, whose own health had been considerably injured by the repeated trials which her maternal feelings had undergone.

No tutor had been provided for Willy, whom they intended hereafter to send to England for education. Meanwhile his father taught him, when at home in the intervals of duty, whilst Mrs. Pemberton supplied his place in his absence; but the active, lively boy was much about in the cinnamon plantations (just then beginning to be cultivated by the few British residents on the islands,) which were superintended by a Cinglese, called Vinna, a man of remarkable quickness and much apparent fidelity; whilst on longer excursions, he was put in charge of a superior domestic servant, a Malay of the name of Gatura, who, by his pliancy of manner, and powers of amusement, had greatly ingratiated himself with his young

master.

So implicit was the colonel's confidence in these dependants, especially in Vinna-for there was an occasional expression in the dark eye of the Malay, which recalled to recollection the vindictiveness of his race;-but such was his reliance upon Vinna's integrity and care, that it came upon him like no common shock, to find, having contracted for the sale. of some essential oil of cinnamon (extracted from such fragments as happen to be broken off in packing up the bales), and having seen it actually measured and ready for delivery, that half-a-dozen bottles of this valuable oil, which sometimes sells as high as ten pounds British, a pint, were missing; and that, upon subjecting all concerned to an examination, two of the very peculiar bottles, in which the oil had been contained, were found in a corner of Vinna's hut, behind the earthen vessels used for cooking rice; whilst another was hidden between the brass basin and the pestle and mortar, where the spices are pounded, upon the bench which surrounded the apartment, and formed, with the articles which we have enumerated, nearly the whole of its simple furniture. The bottles were not merely distinguishable by their fabric and shape; but the strong aroma of the precious commodity, and even a few drops left in the bottom, proved that they had been secretly and hastily emptied of their contents; and that Vinna, the trusted superintendent of this valuable manufactory, was himself the thief.

After one simple but earnest denial of the charge-a denial to which his master made no other reply than pointing to the concealed bottles-the delinquent attempted no further defence, but resigned himself tranquilly to what ever punishment the laws might decree. That extremity was, however, averted by the intercession of Willy, whose urgent entreaty for

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