you should have risen from your knees; such a posture is undue to a captive.

Boy. Papa! what did the lady say? Do you ever make ladies captives?

(To Constantia). Run away: I will hold his hands for him.

Constantia. I intend to run away; but you are quite as dangerous as your father. Count! you must name my ransom.

teous a knight. I could almost say, prosper! prosper! for the defence, the happiness, the example, of our Sicily.

Tancredi. We may be deprived of territory and power; but never of knighthood. The brave alone can merit it, the brave alone can confer it, the recreant alone can lose it. So long as there is Norman blood in my veins I am a knight: and our blood and our knighthood are given us to defend the sex. Insensate! I had almost said the weaker ! and with your eyes before me!

Constantia. He can not be a rebel, nor a false bad man.

Tancredi. Madonna, I received it when you presented your royal hand to my respectful homage. The barons who accompanied you are mounted at the door, in order to reconduct you; and the most noble and the most venerable of Tancredi. Lady! the sword which I humbly mine will be proud of the same permission. lay at your feet was, a few years ago, a black misConstantia. I also am a Sicilian, Tancredi ! I shapen mass of metal: the gold that surrounds also am sensible to the glories of the Norman it, the jewel that surmounts it, the victories it Never shall my husband, if I have any hath gained, constitute now its least value; it influence over him, be the enemy of so cour-owes the greatest to its position.

race.

FRA FILIPPO LIPPI AND POPE EUGENIUS THE FOURTH.

Eugenius. Filippo! I am informed by my son | loose to thy intractable and unruly wishes. Now, Cosimo de' Medici of many things relating to thy this love of the world, what can it mean? A life and actions, and among the rest, of thy throw-love of music, of dancing, of riding? What in ing off the habit of a friar. Speak to me as to a short is it in thee? friend. Was that well done?

Filippo. Holy Father! I was ever of a hot and

Filippo. Holy Father! it was done most unad-amorous constitution. visedly.

Eugenius. Continue to treat me with the same confidence and ingenuousness; and, beside the remuneration I intend to bestow on thee for the paintings wherewith thou hast adorned my palace, I will remove with my own hand the heavy accumulation of thy sins, and ward off the peril of fresh ones, placing within thy reach every worldly solace and contentment.

Filippo. Infinite thanks, Holy Father! from the innermost heart of your unworthy servant, whose duty and wishes bind him alike and equally to a strict compliance with your paternal commands.

Eugenius. Was it a love of the world and its vanities that induced thee to throw aside the frock?

Filippo. It was indeed, Holy Father! I never had the courage to mention it in confession among my manifold offences.

Eugenius. Bad! bad! Repentance is of little use to the sinner, unless he pour it from a full and overflowing heart into the capacious ear of the confessor. Ye must not go straightforward and bluntly up to your Maker, startling him with the horrors of your guilty conscience. Order, decency, time, place, opportunity, must be observed.

Filippo. I have observed the greater part of them time, place, and opportunity.

Eugenius. That is much. In consideration of it, I hereby absolve thee.

Filippo. I feel quite easy, quite new-born. Eugenius. I am desirous of hearing what sort of feelings thou experiencest, when thou givest

VOL. II.

Eugenius. Well, well! I can guess, within a trifle, what that leads unto. I very much disapprove of it, whatever it may be. And then? and then? Prythee go on: I am inflamed with a miraculous zeal to cleanse thee.

Filippo. I have committed many follies, and some sins.

Eugenius. Let me hear the sins; I do not trouble my head about the follies; the Church has no business with them. The state is founded on follies, the Church on sins. Come then, unsack them.

Filippo. Concupiscence is both a folly and a sin. I felt more and more of it when I ceased to be a monk, not having (for a time) so ready means of allaying it.

Eugenius. No doubt. Thou shouldst have thought again and again before thou strippedst off the cowl.

Filippo. Ah! Holy Father! I am sore at heart. I thought indeed how often it had held two heads together under it, and that stripping it off was double decapitation. But compensation and contentment came, and we were warm enough without it.

Eugenius. I am minded to reprove thee gravely. No wonder it pleased the Virgin, and the saints about her, to permit that the enemy of our faith should lead thee captive into Barbary.

Filippo. The pleasure was all on their side.

Eugenius. I have heard a great many stories both of males and females who were taken by Tunisians and Algerines and although there is a sameness in certain parts of them, my especial

G

benevolence toward thee, worthy Filippo, would induce me to lend a vacant ear to thy report. And now, good Filippo, I could sip a small glass of muscatel or Orvieto, and turn over a few bleached almonds, or essay a smart dried apricot at intervals, and listen while thou relatest to me the manners and customs of that country, and particularly as touching thy own adversities. First, how wast thou taken?

Filippo. I was visiting at Pesaro my worshipful friend the canonico Andrea Paccone, who delighted in the guitar, played it skilfully, and was always fond of hearing it well accompanied by the voice. My own instrument I had brought with me, together with many gay Florentine songs, some of which were of such a turn and tendency, that the canonico thought they would sound better on water, and rather far from shore, than within the walls of the canonicate. He proposed then, one evening when there was little wind stirring, to exercise three young abbates* on their several parts, a little way out of hearing from the water's edge.

Eugenius. I disapprove of exercising young abbates in that manner.

Filippo. Inadvertently, O Holy Father! I have made the affair seem worse than it really was. In fact, there were only two genuine abbates; the third was Donna Lisetta, the good canonico's pretty niece, who looks so archly at your Holiness when you bend your knees before her at bed-time. Eugenius. How? Where?

Filippo. She is the angel on the right-hand side of the Holy Family, with a tip of amethystcoloured wing over a basket of figs and pomegranates. I painted her from memory: she was then only fifteen, and worthy to be the niece of an archbishop. Alas! she never will be: she plays and sings among the infidels, and perhaps would eat a landrail on a Friday as unreluctantly as she would a roach.

Eguenius. How now, rogue! Why should not the churchman look majestically and courageously? I myself have found occasion for it, and exerted it.

Filippo. The world knows the prowess of your Holiness.

Eugenius. Not mine, not mine, Filippo! but His who gave me the sword and the keys, and the will and the discretion to use them. I trust the canonico did not misapply his station and power, by taking the fish at any unreasonably low price; and that he gave his blessing to the remainder, and to the poor fishermen and to their nets.

Filippo. He was angry at observing that the vessel, while he thought it was within hail, stood out again to sea.

Eugenius. He ought to have borne more manfully so slight a vexation.

Filippo. On the contrary, he swore bitterly he would have the master's ear between his thumb and forefinger in another half-hour, and regretted that he had cut his nails in the morning lest they should grate on his guitar. " They may fish well,” cried he, "but they can neither sail nor row; and, when I am in the middle of that tub of theirs, I will teach them more than they look for." Sure enough he was in the middle of it at the time he fixed: but it was by aid of a rope about his arms, and the end of another laid lustily on his back and shoulders. "Mount, lazy longchined turnspit, as thou valuest thy life," cried Abdul the corsair, "and away for Tunis." If silence is consent, he had it. The captain, in the Sicilian dialect, told us we might talk freely, for he had taken his siesta. "Whose guitars are those?" said he. As the canonico raised his eyes to heaven and answered nothing, I replied, "Sir, one is mine: the other is my worthy friend's there." Next he asked the canonico to what market he was taking those young slaves, pointing to the abbates. The canonico sobbed and Eugenius. Poor soul! So this is the angel with could not utter one word. I related the whole the amethyst-coloured wing? I thought she story; at which he laughed. He then took up looked wanton: we must pray for her release. . the music, and commanded my reverend guest from the bondage of sin. What followed in your to sing an air peculiarly tender, invoking the excursion? compassion of a nymph, and calling her cold as Filippo. Singing, playing, fresh air, and plash-ice. Never did so many or such profound sighs ing water, stimulated our appetites. We had accompany it. When it ended, he sang one himbrought no eatable with us but fruit and thin marzopane, of which the sugar and rose-water were inadequate to ward off hunger; and the sight of a fishing-vessel between us and Ancona, raised our host's immoderately. "Yonder smack," said he, "is sailing at this moment just over the very best sole-bank in the Adriatic. If she continues her course and we run toward her, we may be supplied, I trust in God, with the finest fish in Christendom. Methinks I see already the bellies of those magnificent soles bestar the deck, and emulate the glories of the orient sky." He gave his orders with such a majestic air, that he looked rather like an admiral than a priest.

*Little boys, wearing clerical habits, are often called

abbati.

self in his own language, on a lady whose eyes were exactly like the scymeters of Damascus, and whose eyebrows met in the middle like the cudgels of prize-fighters. On the whole she resembled both sun and moon, with the simple difference that she never allowed herself to be seen, lest all the nations of the earth should go to war for her, and not a man be left to breathe out his soul before her. This poem had obtained the prize at the University of Fez, had been translated into the Arabic, the Persian, and the Turkish languages, and was the favourite lay of the corsair. He invited me lastly to try my talent.

played the same air on the guitar, and apologised for omitting the words, from my utter ignorance of the Moorish. Abdul was much

are seldom that; but he would give a friend a dinner, a flask of wine or two in preference, and a piece of advice as readily as either. I waited on Monsignor at Macerata, soon after his elevation.

Eugenius. He must have been heartily glad to embrace his companion in captivity, and the more especially as he himself was the cause of so grievous a misfortune.

The

pleased, and took the trouble to convince me that the poetry they conveyed, which he translated literally, was incomparably better than ours. "Cold as ice!" he repeated, scoffing: "anybody might say that who had seen Atlas: but a genuine poet would rather say, "Cold as a lizard or a lobster." There is no controverting a critic who has twenty stout rowers and twenty well-knotted rope-ends. Added to which, he seemed to know Filippo. He sent me word he was so unwell he as much of the matter as the generality of those could not see me. "What! said I to his valet, who talk about it. He was gratified by my atten-" is Monsignor's complaint in his eyes?" tion and edification, and thus continued: "I have remarked in the songs I have heard, that these wild woodland creatures of the west, these nymphs, are a strange fantastical race. But are your poets not ashamed to complain of their inconstancy? whose fault is that? If ever it should be my fortune to take one, I would try whether I could not bring her down to the level of her sex; and if her inconstancy caused any complaints, by Allah they should be louder and shriller than ever rose from the throat of Abdul." I still thought it better to be a disciple than a commentator.

Eugenius. If we could convert this barbarian and detain him awhile at Rome, he would learn that women and nymphs (and inconstancy also) are one and the same. These cruel men have no lenity, no suavity. They who do not as they would be done by, are done by very much as they do. Women will glide away from them like water; they can better bear two masters than half one; and a new metal must be discovered before any bars are strong enough to confine them. But proceed with your narrative.

Filippo. Night had now closed upon us. Abdul placed the younger of the company apart, and after giving them some boiled rice, sent them down into his own cabin. The sailors, observing the consideration and distinction with which their master had treated me, were civil and obliging. Permission was granted me, at my request, to sleep on deck.

Eugenius. What became of your canonico? Filippo. The crew called him a conger, a priest, and a porpoise.

Eugenius. Foul-mouthed knaves! could not one of these terms content them? On thy leaving Barbary was he left behind?

Filippo. Your Holiness consecrated him, the other day, Bishop of Macerata.

Eugenius. True, true; I remember the name, Saccone. How did he contrive to get off?

Filippo. He was worth little at any work; and such men are the quickest both to get off and to get on. Abdul told me he had received three thousand crowns for his ransom.

Eugenius. He was worth more to him than to me. I received but two first-fruits, and such other things as of right belong to me by inheritance. The bishopric is passably rich he may serve thee.

Filippo. While he was a canonico he was a jolly fellow; not very generous; for jolly fellows

fellow shrugged up his shoulders and walked away. Not believing that the message was a refusal to admit me, I went straight up-stairs, and finding the door of an ante-chamber half open, and a chaplain milling an egg-posset over the fire, I accosted him. The air of familiarity and satisfaction he observed in me, left no doubt in his mind that I had been invited by his patron. "Will the man never come?" cried his lordship. Monsignor !" exclaimed I, running in and embracing him; "behold him here!" He started back, and then I first discovered the wide difference between an old friend and an egg-posset.

Yes,

Eugenius. Son Filippo! thou hast seen but little of the world, and art but just come from Barbary. Go on.

Filippo. "Fra Filippo!" said he gravely, "I am glad to see you. I did not expect you just at present: I am not very well: I had ordered a medicine and was impatient to take it. If you will favour me with the name of your inn, I will send for you when I am in a condition to receive you; perhaps within a day or two." "Monsignor!" said I, "a change of residence often gives a man a cold, and oftener a change of fortune. Whether you caught yours upon deck (where we last saw each other), from being more exposed than usual, or whether the mitre holds wind, is no question for me, and no concern of mine."

Eugenius. A just reproof, if an archbishop had made it. On uttering it, I hope thou kneeledst and kissedst his hand.

Filippo. I did not indeed.

Eugenius. O! there wert thou greatly in the wrong. Having, it is reported, a good thousand crowns yearly of patrimony, and a canonicate worth six hundred more, he might have attempted to relieve thee from slavery, by assisting thy relatives in thy redemption.

Filippo. The three thousand crowns were the uttermost he could raise, he declared to Abdul, and he asserted that a part of the money was contributed by the inhabitants of Pesaro. "Do they act out of pure mercy?" said he. "Ay, they must, for what else could move them in behalf of such a lazy unserviceable street-fed cur?" In the morning, at sunrise, he was sent a-board. And now, the vessel being under weigh, "I have a letter from my lord Abdul," said the master, "which, being in thy language, two fellow slaves shall read unto thee publicly." They came forward and began the reading. Yesterday I purchased these two slaves from a cruel unrelenting master, under whose lash

Eugenius. Return we to that bad man, the | own." Usually, when he had emptied the second master or captain, who evinced no such dispositions.

Eugenius. Did he so? Cappari! I would not have made him a bishop for twice the money if I had known it earlier. Could not he have left them alone? Suppose one or other of them did doubt and persecute, was he the man to blab it out among the heathen?

bottle, a desire of converting the Mahometans came over him: and they showed themselves Filippo. He added, "The other captives, though much less obstinate and refractory than they are older men, have stouter hearts than thine." generally thought. He selected those for edifica"Alas! they are longer used to hardships," an- tion who swore the oftenest and the loudest by swered he. "Dost thou believe, in thy con- the Prophet; and he boasted in his heart of science," said the captain, "that the water we having overcome, by precept and example, the have aboard would be harmless to them? for we stiffest tenet of their abominable creed. Cerhave no other; and wine is costly; and our quan-tainly they drank wine, and somewhat freely. tity might be insufficient for those who can afford The canonico clapped his hands, and declared to pay for it." "I will answer for their lives," that even some of the apostles had been more replied the canonico. "With thy own?" inter- pertinacious recusants of the faith. rogated sharply the Tunisian. "I must not tempt God," said, in tears, the religious man. "Let us be plain," said the master. "Thou knowest thy money is safe: I myself counted it before thee when I brought it from the scrivener's: thou hast sixty broad gold pieces: wilt thou be answerable, to the whole amount of them, for the lives of thy two countrymen if they drink this water?" "O Sir! said the canonico, "I will give it, if, only for these few days of voyage, you vouchsafe me one bottle daily of that restorative wine of Bordeaux. The other two are less liable to the plague: they do not sorrow and sweat as I do. They are spare men. There is enough of me to infect a fleet with it; and I can not bear to think of being anywise the cause of evil to my fellow-creatures." "The wine is my patron's," eried the Tunisian; "he leaves everything at my discretion: should I deceive him?" "If he leaves everything at your discretion," observed the logician of Pesaro," there is no deceit in disposing of it." The master appeared to be satisfied with the argument. "Thou shalt not find me exacting," said he; "give me the sixty pieces, and the wine shall be thine." At a signal, when the contract was agreed to, the two slaves entered, bringing a hamper of jars. "Read the contract before thou signest," cried the master. He read. "How is this? how is this? Sixty golden ducats to the brothers Antonio and Bernabo Panini, for wine received from them?" The aged men tot-gative. tered under the stroke of joy; and Bernabo, who would have embraced his brother, fainted.

Filippo. A judgment, it appears, fell on him for so doing. A very quiet sailor, who had always declined his invitations, and had always heard his arguments at a distance and in silence, being pressed and urged by him, and reproved somewhat arrogantly and loudly, as less docile than his messmates, at last lifted up his leg behind him, pulled off his right slipper, and counted deliberately and distinctly thirty-nine sound strokes of the same, on the canonico's broadest tablet, which (please your holiness) might be called, not inaptly, from that day, the tablet of memory. In vain he cried out. Some of the mariners made their moves at chess and waved their left-hands as if desirous of no interruption; others went backward and forward about their business, and took no more notice than if their messmate was occupied in caulking a seam or notching a flint. The master himself, who saw the operation, heard the complaint in the evening, and lifted up his shoulders and eyebrows, as if the whole were quite unknown to him. Then, acting as judge-advocate, he called the young man before him and repeated the accusation. To this the defence was purely interro"Why would he convert me? I never converted him." Turning to his spiritual guide, he said, "I quite forgive thee: nay, I am ready to On the morrow there was a calm, and the appear in thy favour, and to declare that, in geneweather was extremely sultry. The canonico sat ral, thou hast been more decorous than people of in his shirt on deck, and was surprised to see, I thy faith and profession usually are, and hast not forget which of the brothers, drink from a goblet scattered on deck that inflammatory language a prodigious draught of water. "Hold!" cried which I, habited in the dress of a Greek, heard he angrily; "you may eat instead; but putrid or last Easter. I went into three churches; and the sulphureous water, you have heard, may produce preachers in all three denounced the curse of the plague, and honest men be the sufferers by Allah on every soul that differed from them a your folly and intemperance." They assured tittle. They were children of perdition, children him the water was tasteless, and very excellent, of darkness, children of the devil, one and all. It and had been kept cool in the same kind of earthen jars as the wine. He tasted it, and lost his patience. It was better, he protested, than any wine in the world. They begged his acceptance of the jar containing it. But the master, who had witnessed at a distance the whole proceeding, now advanced, and, placing his hand against it, said sternly, "Let him have his

seemed a matter of wonder to me, that, in such numerous families and of such indifferent parentage, so many slippers were kept under the heel. Mine, in an evil hour, escaped me: but I quite forgive thee. After this free pardon I will indulge thee with a short specimen of my preaching. I will call none of you a generation of vipers, as ye call one another; for vipers neither bite nor cat