characters. Let it suffice that in general his perceptions are true: had he more poetry in him, with no less wit, we should have liked better what we now like well ind our remarks would probably have savored more of the warmth of advocacy than of the coolness of deliberation. The sentence reminds us, both in sound and sense, not to conclude our article without admonishing our author for some of his liberties with language. He has hought proper to be almost as antithetical s the Euphuists whom Shakspeare deighted to ridcule:- -e. g. a few sentences: "Accordingly his poetry is instinctively philoophical and his philosophy instinctively poetal; histories come from him like creations, nd creations like pure histories. In a word, is creative and perceptive faculties are conantly playing into each other's hands and erfecting each other's work; and it is hard to 1 whether he carries more of imagination to the regions of truth or more of truth into e regions of imagination." "The lord and the tinker (Sly) are the two tremes of society; so much so, indeed, that ey well-nigh meet round on the other side, as tremes are apt to do. There is just about as uch gold in the one character as in the other; ly in the lord it is all on the outside, in the ape of gilding; in the tinker it is all in the ntre, in the shape of a kernel. And it is ubtful which be more ludicrous or the more ṛnified, the ennui which drives the one to k sport in duping a sot, or the sottishness ich makes the other dupable into the belief his being a lord.” On the whole, it is not easy to decide ether the poet hath conferred the greater or upon us by writing this play, (Comedy of rors,) or by writing no more like it." "Now, to say that Shakspeare's age was a le age, that it was without true culture, in best sense of the term, is about as magnifiit a piece of historical misrepresentation as easily be found. It is one of the instances common in modern times, wherein people e presumed their fathers to have been in the k, because they have themselves got into the respecting their fathers." In bringing my teaspoon to this Niagara, > tragedies,) I trust I am not ignorant on ch side the danger lies: I have not forgot and shall not forget, that he who can look sun in the face with undazzled eye has e reason to distrust his sight. Wherefore, egard to this part of the course, I can only I dare neither refuse to try nor hope to ceed; I cannot expect to do much, and not despair to do something; and if my performances should be found small, I trust the smallness of my promises will not be forAt all events, let me entreat you for gotten. your own sakes not to transfer the feebleness of shall deem myself fortunate if, small as I am, my efforts to the account of my subject: and I the greatness of my load do not crush me into less even than my usual dimensions." This is well enough in its way, yet it is anything but good writing; it is simply point-making. No man can write in such a fashion without knowing that he is odd, and without meaning to be so; and a writer who practices such fire-works must not expect to acquire the sounding flow of natural fervor. wit and a humorist, but he must not be He may be good as a allowed to consider himself a good writer. There is no worse habit, both for its monotony and its effect upon a writer's mind, than this constructing antitheses and pointed sentences. It breaks up thinking into mote-catching, and gives a see-saw motion to style that drowses perception in the reader. We trust there are few readers who would not consider it an insult to their good sense for us to go into an explanation how we can be pleased with such things for what they are, and still so decidedly object to them, as characterizing a style. Nor is it necessary, we believe, that our author should be very severely treated for what there is reason to suppose he has emotion enough to outgrow. Only-let no one imitate him. He has prepared these pellets of wit for "some people," and has therewith exterminated that class, so that we can go on now, without thinking of, or writing at or for them. But they that are well need no physician; and there is no reason why we should be made to swallow any more antithetical pills, though ever so well disguised with saucy wit. Mr. Hudson has now a right to take advantage of the position he as a literary man has honestly acquired, and to go on laboring for truth, not in his original sphere, as one unknown to the public, but in that to which he has raised himself by being a successful writer. As a lawyer who practices several years with success in inferior cases ought, as he goes on, to take the responsibility of more important ones, leaving the others to younger men; or, as a physician, after having experience in prolonging the lives of poor patients, ought gradually to esteem it his place to take the care of those whose health is of more importance to society; so should a man of letters, when he has got through his justice court and dispensary practice, carry into a higher walk of his profession the qualities that have sustained him through the unavoidable rudimental exercises, and dare from his attained eminence another and loftier flight. Many passages in these lectures show that their author, would he but attempt it, has the power to master a fine rhetorical style, and thus to elevate the reader instead of addressing him at his own level. He is never very free from mannerism or stiffness, (his dedication is horribly nice,) but yet he shows in many passages the ability to command an impressive eloquence. The following, though marred by the tendency to antithesis, is very beautiful:— But how very capable our author is of taking place among the best writers, both as having skill with language and true ele vation, may be seen by the following: "We see Cordelia only in the relation of daughter, and scarcely see her even there; yet we know what she is or would be throughout well as if we had seen her in them all. She the whole circle of human relations, just as is just such a creature, like some we may have known, as it makes one feel safer and happier to live in the same town with; to walk the same streets that she walks in; to kneel in the same church where she hath knelt: such an one, the knowledge of whose being in the same ble, our outlook more beautiful; puts peace into our pillow, and a soft religious life and or into our thoughts; makes the night calmer, and the day cheerfuler, the air softer and balmer about us: at thought of whom the objects th were looking black upon us brighten up int smiles; the consciousness of whose prese brings consecration of the place and sanctita tion of the feelings; and the knowing of wha regenerates and purifies the heart, because so can be truly known only in proportion as t heart is pure. And finally, Cordelia, so ric mild, sweet, gentle austerities, belongs to th class of beings, of whom there are pro more to be found than there are to find the who seem born to give happiness or somets better than happiness to others, and yet to k little of it themselves: unless, peradventur they have the unseen and unprized gift of s ing the happiness they create; so that while ta seem no less pitiable, they really are no kenviable, than admirable." house with us renders our room more comforta "The truth is, the ages of Pericles, of Augustus, and of Leo, all together, can hardly show so much wealth of genius and of culture as the single age of Elizabeth. It was, so to speak, a perfect volcanic eruption of every order of talent, of every degree of intellectual excellence. Or rather, it was the Sabbath of Christendom, when the fierce stormful elements of mediæval chaos first appeared in a beautiful and beneficent creation, and the genius of modern civilization, resting from his long labors, first smiled upon the works of his hands. Uniting faith without superstition, and philosophy without skepticism, it seems to have had all the grace of art without stiffness, all the This is rhetorical and antithetical, but sincerity of youth without its ignorance, and all feels natural-truly eloquent-eloquei the enthusiasm of chivalry without its extrava-spite of the handy-dandy fashion of to gance. This flowerage of so many centuries the thought to and fro. A writer wi of preparation, this bursting forth of the bloom and perfume which had been accumulating for perceptions are so true, and who seems had neither the twilight rudeness nor the have so much genuine emotion, ought midday sultriness, but simply the morning fresh- be held very strictly to task for his af ness of modern civilization; the freshness, too, of tion and bad habits. He ought t a morning sparkling with dews and vocal songs, commanded, "more in sorrow than as if the star-beams of the preceding night had anger," or rather entreated, in the los been fashioning themselves into music and gems; a morning crowned with all the bright- truth and for his own sake, to strive a ness, yet free from all the languor of the day what he seems so able to reach, a free eloquence that would enable his 2-and mind to have their proper infupon his fellow-countrymen. ages, which hath since followed." The antitheses here do not seem studied, and the flow of expression harmonizes with the thought. Though extremely artificial in structure, the paragraph has therefore a poetic effect. The style seems to have been formed by art acting under the impulse of emotion." Perhaps it will be thought unfair, is certainly unusual, to criticise an for what he ought to be, when wel given him so much praise for what b But Mr. Hudson, from the delightful ner in which he has accomplished b ionary labor treated of in the first part of ur article, has awakened our sympathy, nd we feel in taking leave of him that it 3 not quite enough to thank him for what e has done, without expressing a wish hat he would do more. And if we have, a speaking of his book, made the proporions of blame too great for the praise, it may be excused on the ground, to use a form of speech which it is to be hoped neither he nor we will ever require again, that there has no work lately issued from the press which has deserved a little censure more, or could bear a great deal so well. G. W. P. EZZELINO DA ROMANO, SURNAMED "THE CRUEL." A CHARACTER OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. Ir is well known that the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet owes its origin to incidents which took place in the city of Verona, when "Civil broils, bred of an airy word These rival factions were a subdivision of the two grand parties known as the Guelphs and Ghibellines. Verona thus divided was the first stage where Ezzelino da Romano, one of the most notorious characters of his age, appeared before the world. By historians he is represented as a man of no ordinary energies, but who by turning them to evil became the scourge of his cotemporaries, and the execration of posterity. Tradition describes him as the most cruel of tyrants, and the poets of Italy have treated him still worse. Ariosto sums up his character by calling him a son of the Devil, who did so much mischief that Marius, Sylla, Nero, and Caligula may be considered as merciful when compared to him. "Ezzelino immanissimo tiranno ORLANDO FURIOSO. Dante, though a fellow-Ghibelline of our hero, describes in a certain part of the infernal regions a lake of boiling blood, from which the heads of such monsters of cruelty as Dyonisius of Sicily and Alexander Pherous are seen to emerge, only however to be pierced by the arrows of Centaurs ranging on the banks. While he is looking at them the sage Chilon his guide, pointing to one of them, says: "Seest thou those horrid features, overshadowed by dark locks?" "Tis Ezzelino. "E quella fronte che ha il pel cosi' Nero E' Azzolino." INFERNO, Canto XII. It cannot but prove interesting to have a brief sketch of a person handled so unmercifully by such celebrated authorities, more especially as his chronicle furnishes an idea of matters and things during the thirteenth century, in the leading events of which he bore a prominent part. Ezzelino da Romano, so called from the name of the village where he was born, began to rise into importance about the year 1225, when, uniting himself with Salinguerra, a famous desperado chief of those days, he appeared in Verona to reinforce the Montecchi, who had just driven out of the city Count Richard di San Bonifazio, head of the Cappelletti or Guelphs. The good services rendered by Ezzelino to this faction, gained him, in Verona, a little power, which he increased by his subtlety and boldness. He had frequent opportu- | nities of signalizing himself on account of the unceasing broils between the cities of Lombardy and the Marca Trevigiana, torn by numerous factions, each division of which was headed by some warlike noble, or ambitious adventurer, desirous to increase the fame of his house, and enlarge the number of his adherents. His first care was to expel from Verona the nobles who adhered to Count Richard, reducing their palaces and towers to ashes. We find him soon after on horseback, at the head of his Veronese, crossing the country in the direction of Vicenza. Through the assistance of his brother, Alberico da Romano, who had some little power there, he entered the place, and the Veronese war-cry terrified the unwary Vicentines, who flew to arms and fought desperately in the streets and thoroughfares. Although the forces of Padua soon came to their assistance, Ezzelino defeated them with great slaughter; and having created Alberico Governor of Vicenza, he returned to Verona proud of having detached a city from the Guelph party. The Paduans, however, had not to wait long for an opportunity of retaliating upon Ezzelino. He had got into his possession the castle of Fonte, allied to the Paduans, but they fell upon him with such determination that he was compelled, much to his confusion, to retreat before their superior forces. They got word soon after, that he had caused the city of Treviso, which had named him its citizen, to take arms and proceed against the Bishops of Feltre and Belluno, and that, putting himself at the head of the Trevisans, he had taken those two little towns. The Paduans exhorted the citizens of Treviso to get rid of Ezzelino, and not having succeeded, they formed a league against him with the Patriarch of Aquileja and the Marquis of Este, and marched towards Treviso, setting fire to everything they found on the way. Felre and Belluno were finally given up to the aggressors, and Ezzelino was obliged to go and create mischief in some other quarter. He owed thenceforth a grudge to the Marquis Azzo D'Este, which time make him forget, as we shall see. { dissensions of Verona had not et, and they were stirred up anew by the election to the office of Governor of Giustiniani, a patrician of Venice, who not only recalled the exiled nobles, but received into the city Count Richard of San Bonifazio, head of the Capulet faction. The jealousy of the Montecchi at this occurrence can be easily imagined. Ezzelino and his old associate, Salinguerra, blew the coals; and at their instigation, and with their assistance, Giustiniani was driven from the town, and the Count, with several of his adherents, was thrown into prison. The principal part of the Count's faction took refuge in the castle of San Bonifazio, where they elected a Governor, and implored the help of the commune of Padua. Every device they could think of was tried by the Paduans to coax or terrify Ezzelino and Salinguerra into the liberation of Count Richard, but in vain. They and the Marquis of Este, with other friends of the imprisoned nobleman, even begged that holy and learned preacher, Friar Anthony of Lisbon, better known afterwards under the title of St. Anthony of Padua, to induce the Veronese to set the Count free. Willing to do anything that might lead to restore peace among brothers, the good saint proceeded to Verona, and tried both reason and entreaty with the chief men of the city, showing them the direful consequences which would ensue from their refusing to release a prisoner obtained by means which they knew themselves to be fraudulent and unjust. His exhortations were cast to the wind on account of the state of exasperation in which all minds were at the time, so that after doing all that lay in his power, he left them, and returned again to Padua. The effect of this unchristian obstinacy was, that not only the forces of Pados and the Marquis of Este poured into the territory of Verona, but even Modena and Mantua were drawn into their side of the quarrel. Several towns and castles were reduced to ashes, and the tide of war rolled on to the very gates of Verona. Blind tachment to a favorite leader, and factions enmity, may account for many outrages ta one who understands the state of Italy the middle ages, when every man was warrior, every warrior's country was the town of his birth or adoption, and every town's code of honor the principles of iss petty prince or baron. But even thes meagre excuses cannot palliate the conduct | elements which, mingling together, formed every man, and predominated over him by turns. of Ezzelino. He respected no laws, and cared for no standard, but served in the capacity of leader, man-at-arms, or cutthroat, the master whose influence he could use to the best advantage for the accomplishment of his private ends. In the year 1232, Frederic II., Emperor of Germany, was in Ravenna. Having done his utmost on several occasions to sow dissension among the Italian commonwealths, and show his ingratitude towards the Pope, by whom he had been crowned, changing his tact with every change of fortune, but still getting worse as he grew older, this monarch deemed it his interest in the present year to maim and disable, as far as possible, the cities of Lombardy, which had formed a confederacy against him. Ezzelino was among the foremost to aid, by his counsel and his arm, this plot designed for the ruin of his native country; and the foreign tyrant was so much pleased with his advances, that he subsequently rewarded his zeal with the hand of an illegitimate daughter. One of the first acts of the infamous Ezzelino was to imprison Guido da Rho Podesta, or Governor of Verona, with the judges, and give the city into the hands of the Count of Tyrol and other officers, who, accompanied by a hundred and fifty horsemen, besides a hundred cross-bow men, took possession of Verona n the Emperor's name. The reward of the traitor was the captaincy of a foreign orce, at the head of which he resisted hose of the confederates who opposed im, sacking and burning their towns and trongholds, besides giving them a warm eception whenever they showed their faces a the territory of Verona. Division became so rife in Lombardy, nd the two parties of the Imperials and Confederates so violent against each other, hat Pope Gregory IX., who had changed is residence from Avignon again to Rome, nd succeeded in quelling dissension there, esolved to try to open the eyes of the ombards upon the danger to which the hole country was exposed by their interinable feuds. The manner in which the ope set about completing his wise and ious purpose, is characteristic of those mes when respect for religion, feudal faaticism, and warlike passions were the The Pope elevated to the honor of Envoy Apostolic, and endowed with ample faculties, Fra Giovanni da Vicenza, of the order of St. Dominic, a man of acknowledged sanctity and persuasive eloquence, charging him to represent to the jealous cities of Lombardy, with words of heavenly unction, the grievous sins and the injury to their native land ensuing from their detestable brawls, and to exhort them to sincere repentance, and to the maintenance of the brotherly love nearly forgotten amongst them. Friar John was soon upon the field of battle. So great was the fame of his virtue and eloquence, that the inhabitants of Padua turned out in their best clothes to receive him; and having met him on the road between their city and Monselice, taking him up with great devotion, they put him on their carroccio or war-chariot, and drew him fairly into the town with loud demonstrations of joy. The good friar spoke to them, and afterwards to their troublesome neighbors, with such effect that even the Montagues of Verona promised to behave themselves better in future; and the wicked Ezzelino himself swore to do all the holy father had ordered for their greater good. Several of the cities, at the suggestion of Friar John, gave liberty to those of different factions who were confined in their prisons,, and made away with such parts of their statutes as had been the cause of civil contention. Encouraged by the beneficial effects of his mission, and desirous to give stability to the peace which had been obtained, Friar John, in accordance with the principal chieftains and councils of the towns, appointed a day upon which all the communes should meet, for the general good and tranquillity. He chose for the rendezvous an extensive plain near the river Adige, four miles from Verona. A great day for the cities of Lombardy was the Feast of St. Augustine, August 28th, 1233. The cities of Verona, Mantua, Brescia, Vicenza, Padua, and Treviso, had poured out their warriors in arms, and all their people-men, women, and children-in their gayest attire. Each population was preceded by the carroccio tastefully and gaudily arranged. |