The Bouquet. aze here only made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have sight nothing of my own but the thread that ties them." de from the Atlas. POSTHUMOUS PAPERS, FACETIOUS AND FANCIIFUL OF A PERSON LATELY ABOUT TOWN. Correspondence. THE LAND OF MOULDY CAKES. "Farewell, beggarly Scotland, Brose, brimstone, kilts, and kail; When I came to merry Carlisle, I turn'd and laugh'd loud laughters three, If ever I cross the Sask again, May the muckle deil carry me." TO THE EDITOR. Old Ballad. SIR, I perused the paper of Caledonia with mingled had taken the whipping as an unmerited compliment, | phical Quarles's, of the youth of life in death-of the inwhen paid to a pig of his age,—since none but pigs of nocence of a life that lives not out of its ignorant youth tender years are whipped to death to make them tender. into the wiser wickedness of age. If ever I become an alYou pull the leg, twist the tail, and flog the flank for half derman, and die, as one should do, of a ninth-of-Novem an hour longer; he squeaks up and down the whole com- ber dinner, on my civic tomb let the Bacon of the age We copy the following whimsical and entertaining pass of the chromatic scale, till every note is run through, enchisel a twin pair of these pretty pieces of pork, to show and your head feels as if sharp swords were thrusting at once the brevity of life, and the innocence of enjoying through both ears; but nothing you can do can con the good things of it to the last moment, as do these delivince him of the error of his ways." Meanwhile cate feeders!-But let us not, after all, despise the pig, the amused mob increase around you, encouraging which we cannot do without contemning pork, which is your patience by laughing at your distress; and now generally understood to be a derivative from pig; for by he flimsiness of this title had caused us to put aside you begin to grow savage-angry, whereupon the pas. the pig, rooting up the earth for buried acorns, man was pok with much ephemeral trash: it was only accident sing old ladies ejaculate every variety of shame in your taught the necessity of ploughing and sowing if he would proved that by a great injustice we had laid gene- ears. By this time the blackguard boys begin to swarm likewise eat. bit and buoyant humour upon a heap of insipidity, about you like bees at a gathering; one volunteers a stick ity, aridity, stupidity, and all those idities which so with a nail in it, a second a stone, a third pushes his cap characterize the firstlings of the boyish muse. The in the face of your charge; the rest raise the exulting amous Papers consist of stories, Eastern, Italian, halloo, or keep up the roaring laugh. These insults pglish, essays and sketches, characters and carica- heaped on insults put your pig on his mettle, and he When the author touches upon the existing man- either bolts in between their legs promiscuously, and society, he fails for want of experience; but when tumbles them down one after another, like an ill delivered bjects of his fertile remarks are the things which bowl among the descending nine"-skittles, not muses, man must be acquainted with, but which every man or else, selecting some newly-breeched urchin in particu e differently, he revels in an oddity and a quaint-lar, makes between his legs as through a postern, and idea that far excel the elaborate affectations of Mr. flinging him over his back, pitches him upon the rope punning whimsicalities, which have found such that runs tightly from his leg to your hand, where the with this laughter-loving generation. The fairest bread and butter muncher hangs a moment in doubtful however, to produce our specimens. We are poise like a tumbled rope-dancer, and then rolls off into mistaken if the ingenuity of the Chapter on Pigs is the mud to the indelible disgrace of his juvenile new versally relished. corduroys. Or else the averse perversity, to deceive ere is any thing in which perverseness is humorously you with a show of willingness to go the way you wish ng, it is in the stubborn wrong-headedness of a him, makes a fresh start for the pave, where a flaunting h-paced pig. To see one of these creatures going fat lady is waddling her way to the Peacock, and, rush-feelings of mirth and pity: mirth, at the evident Scotch hheld is a certain cure for a quinsey: Melancholy ing under her petticoats, (which are, perhaps, not so conceit which breathes through every line; and pity, that could not choose but laugh, till her black lungs long as they should be when old ladies wear them,) the writer, whoever he may be, should have exposed his like chanticleer;" his perverseness is so straight-throws up her heels, with the skill of Rowland, the incapacity so lamentably. He commences his sage prothough his course is not (or he will not under-wrestler, and then runs on, dragging you after him, so to be,) but is as devious as the meanderings of squeaking extra hideously, as if to drown the cries of the duction by the words "Eupolis, who gave," &c. Now I st vagabond filthy rivulet, the Fleet-the closest of more-frightened-than-hurt old gentlewoman, with a noise have read it over and over; I have examined it line by sons too-for both are dirty, and both find their more barbarous. And here (the joke having arrived at the line, and word by word, without being able to discover to ter much struggling, through Fleet-market. climax) the by-standers laugh louder than ever; when, what verb that unfortunate, isolated Eupolis belongs. hat drives a pig ought to be blest with even more seizing the porky perplexity by the hind legs, you fling Again, he calls my description ill-natured: but I know than the long-suffering Job; for none other could him over your shoulder, and sweat and swear all the way fe to market, and "bate no jot" of his temper: he to Smithfield, your tender charge, meanwhile, making the not what induces him to give it that epithet; for, I assure ald, might defy "half the world in arms" to streets vocal with one long-continued shriek; and, arriving you, Sir, (far from wishing to hurt Caledonia's culinary him." Imagine yourself, most patient of my there just at the close of the market, you tumble him into feelings) I wrote the offending passage rather in jest than at the cross-roads at Islington, with a whip in one a pen, head and pettitoes together, and, selling him for otherwise: but, now that he has thrown down the gauntlet and at the extreme end of a longish rope-for he half his value, to get rid of him, swear to turn Jew, and of defiance, I must (how despicable soever his attack may we the whole length of his tether a pig, endea- abhor pork, living or dead, as long as you live. g your way to Smithfield. You direct the head of There is also no animal thing that dies with so much be) prove to you, and to your readers, that my statement charge, by directing his tail due St. John's-street- clamour, and that has such a sincere objection to die as was strictly true. I know not how I can do this better he looks down it, as if conscious that it led to that your pig. The sturdy bull takes the death-blow on his than by analyzing his own epistle; and, were I disposed stinguishable bourne"-Holbourne, if you will head, and drops to the ground, without uttering one bellow to cavil at expression, I might show that he himself has hence "no traveller" in the pork line" returns;" of complaint; and even the "silly sheep" dies quietly advocated my side of the question; for he distinctly says, cannot oblige you, so turns round, and makes with under the stab of the slaughterer: but your perverse pig no legs for the City-road, or Pentonville. If neither sooner suspects the knife to be at his throat, than his that there is no better place in Britain for mouldy bread, ways are agreeable, he has no objection to turning shrieks reach the skies; and even when the fatal thrust rancid butter, sour milk, and braxy mutton. But this is round, and retracing his steps through the merry has passed through his skin, and complaint would be a mere play on words, and I must proceed to more subIslington back to the sty of his nativity; and if thought useless with any other living or dying creature, stantial evidence. Your correspondent very calmly innot decide on this proposition immediately, he is his lament, instead of suffering diminution, increases with nough to persist in waiting your leisure, and sticks his suffering; he reels round the stye of his fathers, drunk quires why I did not send these faulty articles back? point, as immovable as a rusty weathercock: at with death, and continues to shriek till the "last ruddy This is really too bad; for I do most solemnly assure you af perverseness, as it is the centre of all his actions, drops" that visited " his sad heart" depart to visit the that I am no chameleon. I cannot live on air; and this pivot on which his action turns, he veers round amalgamators of black puddings. After death, too, when was the only alternative offered: for, even in case of doing ind like the boxing-hand of the compass, to all his chin and cheeks are shaven, and he looks for once in as your correspondent recommends, I could not have obbut keeps to none, neither making way forward, his life cleanly, there is a most rigid expression of reluc, or backward. Your patience now begins to tance to die in his pale, pathetic face; the mouth still tained any thing better. With regard to the term braxy out" at your fingers' ends, and you apply the whip looks as if it had closed in the full persuasion that all was not being understood so far north, I must state that it was most persuasive manner possible: he squeaks very not eaten that might be eaten-that there was still food much farther north that I learned the word; and, if the dy, and utters his shrill laments till all the pas- enough in the trough of life to have made it unnecessary good people of Fort William do not know the name, they stop their ears with their fingers, and housekeepers for him yet to die. Days after his decease, this demurring appear to be extremely well acquainted with the substance. in their windows. He seems to regret his inca- expression continues in the corners of his chaps, and seems The inn where I put up was the best, I may almost say, to please you, let him turn whichever way he will; to make a mouth at the ravenous death; or, to say axes nothing of his predetermination against St. least of it, sullenly and silently argues with fate and the only one in the town; for the other huts, professing to street-road. You then twist his thin and useless necessity to the last. Even when his head leaves his body, be inns, were such that I scarcely think an Englishman ind your thumb, till you have screwed it as tight his spirit knows not where, nor cares where, since a head could have lived in them. This one is, however, as Caleere in a tourniquet, and endeavour to urge him is of little use without a belly, and his was all in all to donia states, ready for the reception of the "first families by this, the last resource of defeated drivers of him; and even when it lies in a cleanly china dish, in his counter-tenor squeak is only the more piercing some confectioner's window, the yellow and sour lemon in England;" that is, the landlord is very willing to take thetic; and tells the story of his tail, in sounds disparting his tusked jaws, and mocking at their power- them in, in more ways than one, but entertainment is out misery to hear:" but he is as undecidedly de-lessness to bite, how chap-fallen it looks, and irresistibly of the question. The bad meat taken to the English markets has nothing to do with the present discussion. Although I admit that practice to be too common, yet, in the English inns we find both comfort and elegance. The two last sentences of his paper are really incomprehensible. I cannot understand them; they are downright nonsense; and I am obliged to abandon them in despair, and proceed to say a few words to yourself. as ever as to the tenor of his way. And now, by his shricks, you loose his tail, and pull reso at the string which keeps him prisoner by the leg. is, at that moment, advancing almost twice his own on the road you wished him to take, but the pull was intended to urge him onward, he wilfully mises into a direct command to stand still, and once he is "fixed as monumental marble." You ply the till his sides look like a tally of the number of lashes as received; but it has so little effect on his temper, You could almost persuade yourself to think that he the pathetic. I am sometimes, in the sincerity and depth Next in pathos to your elderly pig departed, is the I admit Scotch breakfasts, in some parts, to be excel-lent; but it is on the borders, in Dumfriesshire, Kirkcud like, for "The Sacrament Day," (which was written by me, under a different signature) in one of your former numbers, will, I think, acquit me of that charge. Antiquities. EUPOLIS. CHIMNEY SWEEPS AND MACHINES. Since our last publication, we have had two We believe the machine to be that bright, and Roxburgh: yet, in many other parts of Scot- I steep steps: the arches, from which the portcullis descended, [ land, and even amongst the recesses of the Grampians are acutely pointed, and on each side is a massy round (thanks to English innovation) there are excellent accom-tower. Several other towers project from the wall, which modations. Their fish is beyond compare; and their little extends along two entire sides of this court. Few apart- chimneys, a straight and a crooked one, cleansed b ments can now be traced, and those only on the first story. hill mutton, when really bona fide killed, is sweeter than On the outside of these two fronts of the higher ballium, improved sweeping machine introduced here the English. This does not, however, weaken my argu-is an immense moat, hewn in the solid rock, which min- Cropper. ment; these places are not genuine Scotch inns, such as gles, at unequal heights, with the stones of the ramparts" Glass's Improved." In both experiments it most the one at Fort William, where the very meat seemed to and towers above, so that the whole, both on a distant pletely answered the purpose, and, in our opinion, cry nemo me impune lacessit. Any one who will read Dr. the rock, than the work of human hands, so singularly which are so intricately constructed, that it is impa and near view, seems more like an excrescence from the generally succeed; but, unfortunately, there are chi Maculloch's Highlands will be convinced of the truth of are the crags and the hewn ashlar intermingled, and the my statement, the confirmation coming, as it does, from whole mass coated over with lichens, ivy, and evergreens. to force a passage up them by any mechanical a one whose talents and impartiality cannot be called in quesOne of the wells mentioned by Webbe remains in this vance. These, however, we believe to be very rare tion. I do not make these remarks from any national dis- court. The two sides which are not defended by the if, as we hope, the machines become general, the moat and towers, are partly inclosed by a low wall, and lature will, we trust, compel the proprietors of such partly open to the precipice, which, in one of the angles, terminates in huge crags, jutting frightfully out from the neys to make an opening in the horizontal part of the rock, at the height of 366 feet, as described in a very in order to cleanse it by mechanical means. The faithful, though coarse manner, in Buck's engraving would be very practicable, and ought to be enfers The view from the summit is very extensive and magni-But we must, for this week, be brief, as our object ficent; but the most interesting points are the adjacent notice an obstacle which has, unexpectedly, pr Broxton Hills, and the estuaries of the Dee and the Mersey, down both of which the eye looks in a direct line to itself upon using the machine upon our own kitchend the Irish Sea. ney. We have said that the experiment succeeded pletely, and so it did; for, although in its descent obstacle to which we advert occurred, it is of a natu may be very easily obviated. There are two chimney-pots, the one flat and smooth at the other with points, or angular. That on our chimney was of the latter description; and, after machine had made its way up to the top in excellent in drawing it down the brush got entangled on the and, upon using force to get it down, it brought ap of the upper part of the chimney with it. We have tioned this circumstance as a hint to those who m chimney-tops, to make them without the angles, a caution to those who intend to use the have their angular chimney-tops altered, lest an invention should get into disrepute through a may so readily be removed.-We have a meth own to propose for cleansing chimneys, and ap of our acquaintance has suggested a most excl for the same purpose, which will, probably, BEESTON CASTLE. (From Ormerod's History of Cheshire.) The present hall of Beeston has been long occupied by farmers. The ancient hall was surrounded by a moat, and suffered severely during the siege of the neighbouring castle, being fired by Prince Rupert's soldiers, March 19, 1644-5. The estate, with the manor of Peckforton, were offered for sale about 1745, at the price of £9000, and in 1756, at the price of £11,000; but no purchasers accepted the terms. In 1801, the timber alone on these estates was worth £30,000, most of which grew on the eminences occupied during the siege. The village is scattered round the foot of the hill, at the side where it declines to the south-east, and consists of a number of straggling picturesque cottages, chiefly aged, ruinous, and formed with timber, built on each side of the road, among orchards and luxuriant foliage, with a sandy lane winding among them, and the lower line of the fortifications here and there peeping through the trees. Immediately above the village rises the bold insulated mass of rock, which forms so striking an object to Cheshire, and the adjacent counties. It is perfectly detached, and nearly pentagonal in form, sloping like the Forest and Broxton Hills, towards one extremity, and presenting at the other a front of precipitous and overhanging rocks, which are continued at the sides for a short space, and then gradually mix with the slope, with which the rest of the hill declines towards the village. Such elevations are not of unfrequent occurrence in Scotland; but the castles on their summits have been exposed to considerable inconvenience from the deficiency of water; a want which here was provided against by two wells, dug to the level of Beeston Brook; one of which, in Webb's time, although partly filled up, was 275 feet in depth, and the other 240 feet. The importance of the place, as commanding one of the three avenues to Chester, at an early period of history, has been noticed in the introduction to this hundred (Edisbury,) and it is most probable that some kind of fortress was then erected on the summit, for the protection of the pass. The first line of works commences about half way up the ascent, consisting of a wall flanked with eight towers, at irregular distances, in the style introduced by the Crusaders in the thirteenth century, in imitation of the fortresses of the Holy Land: a perfect specimen of this style is still existing in the walls of Conway, and its resemblance to its original may be traced by reference to elegant delineations of the walls of Constantinople by the pencil of Dallaway. These works inclose a court which is entered through a gateway defended by a square tower. The ground rises rapidly, and the sides of the hill commence their precipitous and broken form immediately above the line of fortifications, which have been, therefore, only thrown across the hill from side to side, in an irre. gular semicircle, and have never been continued at the sides, though so represented in a small plate published in the Vale Royal, and very unnecessarily copied by Boydell in 1747, on a scale which gains it the credit of a more accurate delineation. E To Tarporley. A Draw Well.-B Castle Ditch. C Outer Court.-D Inner Court. EE Precipitous sides of the rock, where the wall is dis. simple and effectual than any hitherto devised. continued. The erection of this fortress was commenced in 1220, by Randle Blundeville, sixth Earl of Chester," who, after he was come from the Holie Land, began to build the castels of Chartleie and Beeston, and after he also builded the abbeie of Dieu l'encresse, toward the charges susteined about the building of which castels and abbeie, he took toll throughout all his lordships of all such persons as passed by the same, with any cattel, chaffre, or merchandize." On the death of John Scot, the last of the local Earls, in 1237, 21 Hen. III. the King, previous to the assumption of the earldom into his hands, seized on the castles of Chester and Beeston. The commissioners appointed for this purpose were Hugh le Despenser, Stephen de Segrave, and Henry de Aldithley. In 1256, 40 Hen. III. Prince Edward (to whom his father had, two years previously, assigned the principality of Wales) made his first progress into Cheshire, to visit his lands and castles; and entering Chester on the day of St. Kenelm, received the homage of the nobles and gentry of Cheshire and Wales. In this year, Fulco de Orreby, Justice of Chester, received the charge of the Castle of Beeston, with those of Chester, Dissard, Schotewyke, and Vaenor. By the vicissitudes of the struggle with Simon de Montfort, the earldom and its appendages were wrested from Prince Edward, by a forced surrender, in 1264, and Beeston was garrisoned by the partisans of that rebellious noble. On the news of Prince Edward's escape from Hereford, in 1265, his Cheshire adherents took up arms, and, under the command of James de Audley and Urian de St. Pierre, possessed themselves of this important strong-hold, on the behalf of their sovereign. This event took place on the Sunday after the Prince's escape; and the battle of Evesham being fought on the 11th of The higher ballium contains about a statute acre. The the nones of May following, Edward instantly marched steep approach into the outer court would barely give to Beeston, with Humphrey de Bohun, Henry de Hastaccess to a carriage: the entrance to the inner one never ings, and Guy de Montfort, as captives, where his enemies, could have admitted it. It is approached by a ruinous Lucas de Taney, Justice of Chester, and Simon, Abbot platform, on which the drawbridge formerly fell, and is of St. Werburgh, surrendered, and threw themselves on ascended, after crossing the intervening chasm, by a flight of his mercy, on the vigil of the feast of the Assumption. To Correspondents. CALCULATING INTEREST.—We have been favoured, by an T. J.-Tyro-S. V.—A Student, and about a dozen other GYMNASIA. We shall reply to Peter in our next. tended to. Printed, published, and sold, every Tuesday, by E. SMI and Co., Clarendon-buildings, Lord-street. ビュニ OR, Literary and Scientific Mirror. "UTILE DULCI." miliar Miscellany, from which all religious and political matters are excluded, contains a variety of original and selected Articles; comprehending Literature, CritiCISM, MEN and ERS, AMUSEMENT, elegant EXTRACTS, Poetry, ANECDOTES, BIOGRAphy, Metrorology, the Drama, ARTS and SCIENCES, WIT and SATIRE, Fashions, Natural History, &c. forming dsome ANNUAL VOLUME, with an INDEX and TITLE-PAGE. Persons in any part of the Kingdom may obtain this Work from London through their respective Booksellers. 404.-Vol. VIII. Tales, Romances, &c. BEATRICE BERNARDI. - LEGEND OF CHAMOUNIX.-AN Original taLE, WRITTEN BY MRS. CADDICK, who has recently taken up her residence in Liver. Te and who has a Novel in the press, entilled Tales of Affections. "Go get thee to a nunnery." as noon in Milan-the overwhelming brightness of jan noon, and the recently crowded streets were as and as hashed as though it had been midnight. and then, perchance, a casual wanderer passed on the shade which towering and antiquated palaces across the more narrow streets, but almost the enpulation of the city had crowded together into the magnificent cathedral, which they proudly boasted eing equal to the famed St. Peter's at Rome. At od Milan was, indeed, the rival of the "eternal the proud capital of an independent state whose Fere as kings; and all the natural advantages defrom her situation in the fertile plains at the feet Alps; all that wealth could purchase, or power ad; all that genius could pour forth from the exfountain of the mind; all that was glorious in or captivating in beauty,—were then collected her bounds. Years-centuries have passed away hen. Milan has yet her natural beauties; she has marble-walled cathedral;-but where are they led over her destinies ? bling sister of the bridegroom, who was deemed, by many separated for ever, forbear, even before that vast and min" The hour of midnight came; the stately halls of the noon; and a flood of light found its way through me of the cathedral, and poured down upon the stugranite columns immediately beneath it, with splendence, that the very floor became dazzlingly and the eye, wearied of gazing upon it, turned tup the more dimly lighted and solemn aisles, which ed from the centre on either hand, and which were ated by altars of incomparable magnificence. One was now lighted up with waxen tapers of immense and around it there stood mitred abbots and princely Patiently in seeming, but with a tortured heart and a; priests, and nonks, and choristers;-and there burning brain, did she suffer herself, as the rites proceed burning of incense, and low melodious chanting, ed, to be divested of her splendid robes, and attired in Performance of other rites, at once impressive from the habit of that religious order of which she was to be Pomp, and important in their object. Ranged on a member. One by one, the assisting sisterhood drew from thand, were assembled all that Milan could produce amid her tresses the strings of orient pearl which had ble and gay. The Duke," pride in his port—defi- adorned them, and Beatrice, without emotion, saw them in his eye," stood next to the altar, and around him cast upon the earth as vanities dangerous to the health of ted his courtiers, glittering in embroidered vests, and the soul; but a pang of regret shot through her heart when ned and jewelled caps. Opposite to the Duke stood her long hair (that glossy, raven, and luxuriant hair which consort; distinguished from the beauties of her retinue had charmed Ronaldi) was strewed also at the foot of the * by her lofty mien and regal bearing, than by the altar. But the sacred veil was thrown over her-the emal coronet that surmounted her raven hair. In front blematic crown of thorns was placed above it-the lady altar were they whose nuptials were thus splendidly abbess received her into her flock-and what had she to honourably attended, the Marchese Bernardi, and do with the world? What was Ronaldi to her? Yet, as Donna Felicia Guarina, the only daughter of one of she passed the place where he stood, on her way from the most powerful nobles of Milan. The bridal train con-hall to the convent, a stifled groan fell on her ear; at that of the choicest of the young nobility assembled at moment he was all the world to her; and scarcely could and, among the rest, the Lady Beatrice, the trem- they who were thus, in the prime of youth and beauty, he ed art enumerated these advantages to herself, she thought for a moment of the sacrifice that had been made to ensure them. For a single moment her mind reverted from the splendid scene around her to the dark and gloomy cell, the midnight orisons, the fasting and privations to which she had doomed her devoted daughter, the meek, the unresisting Beatrice. A transient feeling of maternal love, something between sorrow and remorse, rushed to her heart. The father of the bride filled his wine cup, and drank to the united houses of Bernardi and Guarini.— Beatrice and her cell were forgotten. The Marchesa had been left a widow early in life, with two children, Antonio and Beatrice. During the minority of the former, she lived in retirement, and repaired the fortune impoverished by her husband. She was fond of power, and had a mind that rendered her fit to take charge of the education of her son. She ruled him with unrelaxing severity; she taught him maxims of government and the arts of a court; she instilled into him a passion for greatness; she incited him to seek renown, to aspire. When he had attained the age at which her power over lavish the long-accumulated treasures of affection, whose | charm to the scene; here he had listened to the sweet,) him as a minor was legally terminated, she gave up to him existence in her own bosom she had now acquired a tones of her melting voice; the consciousness of her his estates, improved in beauty and value, and rendered to knowledge of. It was a dangerous moment for a young became insupportable, and he escaped from the garden him a strict account of her stewardship. From that hour girl in the situation of Beatrice, (awed, as she was, into a private entrance which he knew too well. It a she relinquished the authority of a parent, and assumed silence and reserve, by the presence of those who were the into the road leading to the city, and he mechanical the character of a friend; she became his confidant and legitimate objects of tenderness,) to be thrown into the sued his way to the cathedral; the doors stood ope a adviser. She emerged from her retirement into the gaiety society of Ronaldi, whose age, temperament, and opinions and night, that its roof might afford refuge and se of the world, and her charms, (for she was yet young.) her were like her own;-who moved, like herself, in a splendid to those who had committed, in the extravagance of masculine sense, her knowledge of mankind, and the pageant in which he had no real influence; who held a sion, some unmeditated crime. The soft rays of t splendour of her establishment, drew to her proud ances. situation which called forth none of his nobler and better moon streamed through the windows, and shed a pa tral palace the nobility, and beauty, and talent of Milan. feelings; and it was only to be expected, in this dearth of and delicious light around; tapers yet burned before Her daughter Beatrice, who was but a secondary object in other happiness, that they should love each other. Often, altar at which Beatrice had knelt when she relinqua her eyes compared with Antonio, was permitted to appear in the calm beauty of an Italian night, they lingered for the world-relinquished Ronaldi; but the pomp d amid this splendid circle. Like the statue of one of her hours in the palace garden, no earthly being knowing of gion, the pride of chivalry, the splendour of beauty, ancestors in a niche, or their portrait upon the wall, she their interview; and, at such moments, the splendours of all vanished. Ronaldi, bereaved, desolate, wit was there to be gazed at or admired; but her voice was rank and wealth-court influence and favour-talent-first, best, and dearest hopes suddenly cut off, w never heard; she sat mutely at her mother's side, and chivalry-even the beauty of nature, was nothing to them. alone. Before him was the image of the Virgin, to neither gave an opinion nor displayed a grace. Though All that tide of affection, which, in ordinary life, would have service Beatrice had consecrated herself; behind fairer in face, and finer in form, than most of the illus-been lavished on those who had lived with them since in- aisle down which she had moved; the gate throught trious ladies who were invited to the Palagga, that the fancy, had long been locked up within their hearts-and she had passed, when she vanished from his signtre young Marchese might, from among them, select a bride, now, having found a channel, it burst spontaneously forth; there was no rest here for a spirit tortured like his, yet her beauty had been little spoken of, and her first pub. they had within themselves a pure, unopened mine of left the cathedral. lic appearance at the marriage of her brother was also her happiness, and love now brought its treasures to the light. Last. The bride selected by the Marchesa for her son had They had been so satisfied with the entire possession of many charms and much wealth, but her father demanded each other's affections, that they had never thought of its a portion for her greater than Antonio could give; so all being interrupted; they had never proposed to themselves negotiations were, for a time, suspended. to secure the continuance of their happiness by marriage; and the fiat of the Marchesa, that Beatrice should become nun, at once destreyed the fairy fabric of bliss they had erected for themselves. Urged by despair, Beatrice, as a last resource, communicated to her mother her love for Ronaldi. The Marchese heard her with surprise and indignation; surprise, that one whom she had deemed so passive and unloving, should be enamoured at all; and indignant, that the object should be one beneath her. She spurned her kneeling victim from her feet, and added, that this passion alone, so unworthy a descendant of the house of Bernardi, rendered her fit only to be secluded from the world; that the walls of a convent were the best safeguards for one so destitute of pride and prudence as to become the inamorata of a page. The late Marchese, aware of the ambitious temper of his wife, and fearing that Beatrice might be ill provided a for if left to her mother's mercy, bequeathed to his daughter the half of his property-a provision which ensured to Beatrice the elegancies of her rank, whether married or not. But Beatrice was of a yielding temper, wholly unable to resist severity or oppression; and, from long habit, the submissive slave of her mother's will. So well did the Marchesa know this, that she sent for the timid girl to her apartment, and without condescending to use argument or entreaty; without assuming any appearance of regret; without affecting to believe that this measure would promote her eternal, instead of her temporal happiness, she required her daughter to relinquish her fortune to Antonio, and to retire into a nunnery. Beatrice heard her with breathless anguish; she would have remonstrated, but the imperious parent assured her that her intention could not be shaken, and motioned to her to leave the zoom. A few weeks, during which she was carefully secluded, were allowed Beatrice, previously to the final arrangements for her brother's marriage, to bid adieu to the world; at the expiration of then, the same day saw the marriage of the Marchese to the Lady Felicia, and the espousal of Beatrice to a conventual life. cypress and trice was immured-it was fast;-sullen silence re He wandered to the gate of the convent in which within and without. He roaned round its gada which was overhung by the boughs of planted within; he felt a sudden desire to look over, by the exertion of a little strength, some agility, and the assistance of a drooping cypress bough, that ra few minutes he descended to the ground on the che nearly to the ground, he gained the top of the wall and was standing where it was death to be d Reckless of consequences, but without any aim or except the desire of drawing nearer to Beatrice, proached a part of the convent, which he ca be the chapel, and, proceeding along, under the its wall, he perceived a sinal door, partially and sunk below the level of the ground. H two or three steps, and, pushing against it, foll admitted into the chapel, immediately beside t the door being intended to admit the officiating p the neighbouring Augustine monastery, and its per the hurry of the last important day, had neglected and gloomy; but here too, tapers, in honour of the cure it. The farther extremity of the chapel sas sion, yet burned before the shrine of the Virgin, their light, he discovered a female form prostrate earth, and, by her low and anguished wailing, st recognised Beatrice. She muttered his name, at moment, he was at her side. She returned to her own apartment, and gave way to a passionate burst of grief and resentment. It was not the To be entombed alive is an idea of such extreme horror, splendour she was called upon to relinquish, not the world, that humanity always shudders when it is presented to the that she regretted-it was Romaldi. This youth was the mind; yet, compared to the enduring sacrifice that Beason of a soldier of fortune, who, falling bravely in defence trice made, it is as nothing; at the most a few short mo. They did not speak-words were far too poor to t of the Duke, bequeathed his child to the care of himments of extreme torture would be terminated by death; whose life and safety he had purchased with his own. but to live through long years of imprisoninent in a clois. the fulness of their feelings they only knew that they The boy was handsome, and had abilities worth cultivat-ter; to exchange the hopes that beat high in the young met again-that they were restored to each other, ng. He first filled the office of page to the Duke, and and ardent heart, for the constrained duties of religion in separation worse than death. The idea of es was afterwards retained near his person in the discharge of which the spirit has no part; to drag through the day sented itself to the mind of Ronaldi-he took t more important duties. On one of his royal master's secret with no wish, no motive, no end; to weep through the sisting novice in his arms, and, after some difficus, and political visits to the Marchesa Bernardi, Ronaldi ac- night; to feel that the frame, the body, in its unimpaired world of alarm, succeeded in scaling the convent companied him, and saw, for the first time, the lady Bea-strength of bone, and muscle, and nerve, may last too placed her under the protection of his foster-mobet trice. Further opportunities were, by chance, afforded long for the weary soul to endure its bondage; to look resided in the suburbs of the city. To visit his apar them of meeting in the palace; and the affection thus ori back with unsleeping, undying regret,-forward with hope- in the ducal palace, and bring from it his little s ginated soon sought out occasions and means for private less sorrow; to strive in vain with the recollections that wealth, was the business of Ronaldi; to assume the and stolen interviews. Though educated at home, and in the heart will cherish, though the lips vowed to forego guise of a peasant girl, was the hasty occupation of the society of her mother and brother, the affections of them; to struggle between duty and inclination; to trice; and, mounted on one steed, after the manner of Beatrice (and those affections were of the best and kind-shrink, self accused, from the utterance of prayers that peasantry, they hasted, ere an hour had elapsed, Hest order) had never been called forth. No one had are but a mockery;-these, these are sufferings to which road from Milan, anxious to pass the boundary taken the trouble to overcome the reserve, and subdued death, in its most terrific form, would appear infinitely simplicity of her manners, or thought it fitting to notice preferable; and Beatrice, in contemplation of her lot, whether she had any feelings or not. Indeed, she scarcely flung herself at midnight at the foot of the altar, and knew herself that she had a heart so rich in passionate ten- wept in the agony of her heart. derness as it was afterwards proved to be,-since she heard Ronaldi accompanied the Duke of Milan to the palace ao continually of her vast inferiority to Antonio, that she of Bernardi, and was one of the festal train assembled at deemed herself equally destitute of feeling and intellect. its hospitable board; but, unable to bear the recollections Yet she was carefully and highly educated, and it was in of Beatrice, which every object inspired, he rushed away seading the impassioned poets of her own land, that she from society, and sought the loneliest haunts of the palace faret discovered the want of an object on which she might garden. Here, too, her presence had often lent a fresh "Where the Tesino madly flows," and enter the state of Piedmont Beatrice, who kn that offenders against the civil law there found safety punishment, flattered herself that they too, withi boundary, should be safe from pursuit; but Ronaldi was aware that the strong arm of the church could re them in every state between the Mediterranean and Alps, spared neither whip nor spur to his steed, and al lowed Beatrice little repose, until they reached the north ern confines of their native land, then, bidding adhes fir tits smiling plains and sunny skies, they passed the and descended on the side of Savoy, to seek safety peace in the valley of Switzerland. tal y was then, even more than it is now, the garden of ope; it had then, as now, its genial climate and cloudsky; its classical associations; its thrilling records of arted fame. It was then the abode of living genius. y thing that was powerful in literature and eloquence, ive in poesy, captivating in music, immortal in paintnd statuary; all that was splendid and successful in ; every thing advantageous in commerce and manu. res; all that could immortalize or enrich a country, hen a birth-place and a home within its cities, or was ported to them from the furthest shores of the known The departing radiance of Roman glory yet linaround the relics of those mighty masters of the Milan, Florence, Genoa, and Venice, were queens g the nations: yet, even then, was beginning that paralysis which has since crept to the very heart of and benumbed her to an apathetic endurance of foslavery. Then were the wiles of an ambitious priest directed against all power that was not centred in elves; then, by skilfully substituting the mockeries Lion for its realities, by encouraging luxury, and by ling to the passions of men (which they enlisted to service by the doctrine of indulgences and absolu they overthrew the temporal authority of princes, id the axe to the root of that moral dignity in a nahich is its best safeguard against ruin. On the other Switzerland was, even then, an asylum from political eligious persecutions, the nurse of civil and religious om; and her people, conversant with nature in her thest forms, and preserving the stern simplicity and spirit of republicanism in their governments, af, as they yet do, an example of national character way opposed to that of the subtle, refined, luxurious, clay." There is a wide difference between the imaginative "Of early habits, those false links that bind, At times, the greatest to the meanest mind;" and she began painfully to contemplate the ties of kin "Those petty ills that half defy that acknowledged no object but one; this love, though when he felt her whole frame shudder as he folded her to his heart, and was conscious that she returned not his parting caress, he scarcely forbore to execrate the ambition of the Marchesa, the original cause of all their sor rows and danger. The few remaining months of the summer passed away, and they found themselves shut up in their solitary hut, by the wintry snow storms of the Alps. Often, as the wind whistled and roared without, did they shrink together from its blasts, penetrating through their ill-erected dwelling; and then, only, would Ronaldi regret that he had brought his Beatrice from the security of her convent. He remembered the luxurious elegance of the Bernardi palace-the splendour of her ancestral halls, and he sighed as he spread before her the scanty provision, the produce of the chase and their little field; but he did her wrong to believe that such regrets ever occupied her mind. Toil, privation, and fatigue, were nothing to Beatrice, when shared with her husband; and, had she only fled with him ere she had uttered her vows in the cathedral of Milan, no shade of sorrow would ever have darkened her brow. Conscience alone was her tormentor, and time might have dropped balsam on the wounds of her spirit; but that winter, the first of their residence in Chamounix, was one of extreme severity, and, at its close, after a night of storms, an avalanche was discovered to have buried, in its descent, the cottage of Ronaldi, and the fugitive in mates had perished together. perstitious Italian. Severe in morals, but tolerant gion, all who fled from the thunders of the Romish yet she feared to encourage it. She was not sufficiently that previously to any uncommon storm, they are heard were securely protected in Switzerland; and Roonce more breathed with freedom when he conducted ide from a small chapel in the plain of Chamonix, ded to the Virgin, to the humble cottage where they to reside "The world forgetting-by the world forgot." e is a deity before whose image the young heart is ly prostrated, whose omnipotence it believes, whose etit solicits. The aged and the avaricious bow down d, and believe that it will precure for them every that is desirable to the eyes, or dear to the heart: ung expect the same effects from the potency of There is so large a portion of romance in early pashat it easily overlooks or disbelieves the difficulties of iontemns plain matter of fact, and trusts to the idol ships to remove all evil; yet often, like the heathens the image it has counted to be gold proves "to be Their story afterwards became known to the inhabitants of the valley, through the minister of the little chapel where they had been united; and superstition, which is often peculiarly powerful in the minds of those who dwell in mountain solitudes, added many supernatural circumstances to the simple relation. Tradition has transmitted it from father to son, and it is the belief of the peasantry around, that the unfortunate lovers long after revisited, and even yet, return to, the scene of the catastrophe; and convinced that she had done wrong to fly from her hus. to bewail the disasters it will occasion, and blend their band to the church; yet she was so far under the dominion melancholy voices with the low moanings of the wind. of long-nurtured superstition, as to look on every token of Others believe, that, on the anniversary of their destruc affection that she either granted to, or received from him, tion, their cottage rises again, and appears as though it as being criminal. In vain Ronaldi reasoned with her on stood on the side of the hill; that at midnight it sinks the invalidity of a compulsory vow; in vain he assured her amid the mass of snow surrounding it, while the air is that the life of comparative usefulness which she had chosen filled with the dying shrieks of Ronaldi and his bride, who in preference to the unprofitable indolence of a cloister, are thus to be annually punished, till the end of time, for was one every way consistent with the immutable laws of their guilty outrage of the laws of the church. Doubtnature and reason; that religion never pointed out con- lessly, these fictions, however exaggerated by transmission, ventual seclusion as a sure passport to eternity; but it was first originated in the melancholy fate of the lovers; and rather the device of a church, which hoped to strengthen the wailings, that are said to fill the air on particular ocits own power and interest more earnestly than it desired casions, are no other than the swelling and sinking of the the piety of its votaries. Still she was unconvinced, and, wind, pent up in the cavities of the mountain, or whistling at times, when she started away from his embrace at the round its snow-crowded summit; but which seem, to the moment of his departure on some dangerous hunting ex-apprehensive and superstitious peasantry, to have the cursion, as though there were contamination in his touch; semblance of human lamentations. |