Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

We left Messina under a sky which no painter would or could attempt; indeed, it would not have looked well on paper, or out of reality. There are certain unusual, yet magnificent appearances in nature, from which the artist conventionally abstains, not so much from the impotence of art, as that the nearer his approach to success the worse the picture. At one time the colours were like shot or clouded silk, or the beautiful uncertainty of the Palamida of these shores, or the matrix of opal; at another, the Pacific Ocean above, of which the continuity is often for whole months _entire_, was broken into gigantic continents and a Polynesia of rose-coloured islands that no ships might approach; while in this nether world the middle of the Calabro-Sicilian strait was occupied by a condensation of vapour, (one could never profane them by the term of _sea-mist_ or _fog_,) the most subtile and attenuated which ever came from the realms of cloud-compelling Jove. This fleecy tissue pursued its deliberate progress from coast to coast, like a cortege of cobwebs carrying a deputation from the power-looms of _Arachne_ in _Italy_ to the rival silk-looms at Catania. We pass the dry beds of mountain torrents at every half mile, ugly gashes on a smooth road; and requiring too much caution to leave one's attention to be engaged by many objects altogether new and beautiful. The rich yellow of the _Cactus_, and the red of the _Pomegranate_, and the most tender of all vegetable greens, that of the young _mulberry_, together with a sweet wilderness of unfamiliar plants, are not to be perfectly enjoyed on a fourfooted animal that stumbles, or on a road full of pitfalls. We shall only say that the _Cynara cardunculus_, (a singularly fine thistle or _wild artichoke_;) the prickly uncultivated _love-apple_, (a beautiful variety of the _Solanum_,) of which the decoction is not infrequently employed in nephritic complaints; the _Ferula_, sighing for occupation all along the sea-shore, and shaking its scourge as the wind blows; the _Rhododendron_, in full blossom, planted amongst the shingles; the _Thapsia gargarica_, with its silver umbel, looking at a short distance like mica, (an appearance caused by the shining white fringe of the capsule encasing its seed,) and many other strange and beautiful things, were the constant attendants of our march. We counted six or seven varieties of the spurge, (_Euphorbium_,) each on its milky stem, and in passing through the villages had _Carnations_ as large as _Dahlias_ flung at us by sunburnt urchins posted at their several doors. The sandy shore for many miles is beautifully notched in upon by tiny bays like basins, on which boats lie motionless and baking in the sun, or oscillate under a picturesque rock, immersed up to its shoulders in a green _hyaloid_, which reflects their forms from a depth of many fathoms. On more open stretches of the shore, long-drawn ripples of waves of tiny dimension are overrunning and treading on one another's heels for miles a-head, and tapping the anchored boat "with gentle blow." The long-horned oxen already spoken of, toil along the seaside road like the horses on our canal banks, and tug the heavy felucca towards Messina--a service, however, sometimes executed by men harnessed to the towing-cord, who, as they go, offend the Sicilian muses by sounds and by words that have little indeed of the [Greek: Dôriz aoida]. The gable ends of cottages often exhibit a very primitive windmill for sawing wood within doors. It is a large wheel, to the spokes of which flappers are adjusted, made of coarse matting, and so placed as to profit by the ordinary sea breeze; and, while the _wind_ is thus _sawing_ his planks for him, the carpenter, at his door, carries on his craft. We pass below not a few fortresses abutting over the sea, or perched on the mountain tops. Many of these are of English construction, and date from the occupation of the island during the French war: in a word, the whole of this Sicilian road is so variously lovely, that if we did not know the _cornice_ between _Nice_ and _Genoa_, we should say it was quite unrivaled, being at once in lavish possession of all the grand, and most of the milder elements of landscape composition. It is long since it became no wonder to us that the greatest and in fact the only, real pastoral poet should have been a Sicilian; but it is a marvel indeed, that, having forgotten to bring his _Eclogues_ with us, we cannot, through the whole of Sicily, find a copy of Theocitus for sale, though there is a _Sicilian_ translation of him to be had at Palermo. As he progresses thus delightfully, a long-wished for moment awaits the traveller approaching towards _Giardini_--turning round a far projecting neck of land, _Etna_ is at last before him! A disappointment, however, on the whole is Etna himself, thus introduced. He looks far below his stature, and seems so _near_, that we would have wagered to get upon his shoulders and pull his ears, and return to the little town to dine; the ascent also, to the eye, seems any thing but steep; nor can you easily be brought to believe that such an expedition is from Giardini a three days' affair, except, indeed, that yonder belt of snow in the midst of this roasting sunshine, has its own interpretation, and cannot be mistaken. Alas! In the midst of all our flowers there was, as there always is, the _amari aliquid_--it was occasioned here by the _flies_. They had tasked our _improved_ capacity for bearing annoyances ever since we first set foot in Sicily; but _here_ they are perfectly incontrollable, stinging and buzzing at us without mercy or truce, not to be driven off for a second, nor persuaded to drown themselves on any consideration. Verily, the honey-pots of Hybla itself seem to please these troublesome insects less than the _flesh_-pots of Egypt.

The next day begins inauspiciously for our ascent to Taormina; but the attendants of the excursion are already making a great noise, without which nothing can be done in either of the two Sicilies. A supply of shabby donkeys are brought and mounted, and, once astride, we begin to ascend, the poor beasts tottering under our weight, and by their constant stumbling affording us little inclination to look about. It takes about three-fourths of an hour of this donkey-riding to reach the old notched wall of the town. Two Taorminian citizens at this moment issue from under its arch, in their way down, and guessing what we are, offer some indifferent coins which do not suit us, but enable us to enter into conversation. We demand and obtain a _cicerone_, of whom we are glad to get rid after three hours' infliction of his stupidity and endurance of his ignorance, without acquiring one idea, Greek, Roman, Norman, or Saracen, out of all his erudition. After going through the whole tour with such a fellow for a Hermes, we come at last upon the far-famed theatre, where we did not want him. Here, however, a very intelligent attendant, supported by the king of Naples on a suitable pension of five baiocchi a-day, takes us out of the hands of the Philistine, and with a plan of the ground to aid us, proceeds to give an intelligible, and, as appears to us, a true explanation of the different parts of the huge construction, in the area of which we stand delighted. He directed our attention to a large arched tunnel, under and at right angles to the pulpita, and we did not want direction to the thirty-six niches placed at equal distances all round the ellipse, and just over the lowest range of the CUNEI. All niches were, no doubt, for statues; but these might also have been, it pleases some to suppose, for the reverberation of applause; and they quote something about _"Resonantia Vasa"_ from Macrobius, adding, that such niches were once probably lined with brass. Of bolder speculatists, some believe the _kennel_ to have been made with a similar intention. Others hold that it may have been a concealed way for introducing lions and tigers to the arena! Now, what if it were a _drain_ for the waters, which, in bad weather, soon collect to a formidable height in such a situation? Whether for voice, or wild beasts, or drainage, or none of these objects, there it is. As to the first, we cannot help being sceptical. Did it ever occur to an audience to wish the noise they make _greater_, and contrive expedients for _making it so?_

We are here high up amidst the mountains, where, we are to remember, as the ancients came not to spend, like ourselves, an idle hour, but to consume most of the day, _shelter_ would be wanted. Two large lateral spaces, or as it were, side chambers, have received this destination at the hands of the antiquary, and have been supposed lobbies for foul weather or for shade at noon. We were made to notice by our guide, what we should else have overlooked, how the main passage described above communicates with several smaller ones in its progress, and that a small stair was a subsequent contrivance or afterthought meant to relieve, on emergency, the overcharged large one; its workmanship and style showed it plainly to have been added when the edifice had already become _an antiquity_. This altogether peculiar and most interesting building has also suffered still later interpolations: a Saracenic frieze runs round the wall; so that the hands of three widely different nations have been busy on the mountain theatre, which received its _first audience_ twenty-five centuries ago! The view obtained from this spot has often been celebrated, and deserves to be. Such mountains we had often seen before; such a sky is the usual privilege of Sicily; these indented _bays_, which break so beautifully the line of the coast, had been an object of our daily admiration; the hoary side of the majestic Etna, and Naxos with its castellated isthmus, might be seen from _other_ elevated situations; and the acuminated tops of Mola, with its Saracenic tower, were commanded by neighbouring sites--Taormina _alone_, and for its _own_ sake, was the great and paramount object in our eyes, and possessed us wholly! We had been following _Lyell_ half the day in antediluvian remains; but what are the bones of _Ichthyosauri_ or _Megalotheria_ to this gigantic skeleton of Doric antiquity, round which lie scattered the sepulchres of its ancient audiences, Greek, Roman, and Oriental--tombs which had become already an object of speculation, and been rifled for arms, vases, or gold rings, before Great Britain had made the first steps beyond painted barbarism!

The eruptions of Etna have all been recorded. Thucydides mentions one of them episodically in the Peloponesian war. From the cooled caldron that simmers under all that snow, has proceeded all the lava that the ancients worked into these their city walls. The houses of Taurominium were built of and upon _lava_, which it requires a thousand years to disintegrate. After dinner we walk to Naxos, saluting the statue of the patron of a London parish, _St Pancras_, on our way. He stands on the beach here, and claims, by inscription on his pedestal, to have belonged to the apostolic times, St Peter himself having, he says, appointed him to his bishopric. He is patron of Taormina, where he has possessed himself of a Greek temple; and he also protects the faithful of Giardini. Lucky in his _architects_ has been St Pancras; for many of our readers are familiar with his very elegant modern church in the New Road, modelled, if we have not forgotten, on the Erechtheum, with its _Pandrosean Vestries_, its upright tiles, and all the subordinate details of Athenian architecture. We _met_ here the subject of many an ancient _bas relief_ done into flesh and blood--a dozen men and boys tripping along the road to the music of a bagpipe, one old _Silenus_ leading the jocund throng, and the whole of them, as the music, such as it was, inspired, leaping about and gesticulating with incredible activity. It was a bacchanalian subject, which we had seen on many a sarcophagus, only that the fellows here were not _quite_ naked, and that we looked in vain for those nascent horns and tails by which the children of Pan and Faunus ought to be identified. We always look out for _natural history_. Walking in a narrow street, we saw a tortoise, awake for the season, come crawling out to peep at the poultry; his hybernation being over, he wants to be social, and the hens in astonishment chuckle round him, and his tortoiseshell highness seems pleased at their kind enquiries, and keeps bobbing his head in and out of his _testudo_ in a very sentimental manner. Women who want his shell for _combs_ do not frequent these parts, and so, unless a cart pass over him as he returns home, he is in clover.

A bird frequents these parts with a blue chest, called _Passer solitarius;_ he abounds in the rocky crevices. The notes of one, which was shown to us in a cage, sounded sweetly; but, as he was carnivorous, the weather was too hot for us to think of taking him away. We saw two snakes put into the same box: the one, a viper, presently killed the other, and much the larger of the two. Serpents, then, like men, do _not_, as the _Satirist_ asserts, spare their kind. We are disappointed at not finding any coins, nor any other good _souvenirs_, to bring away with us. The height of Taormina is sufficient to keep it from fever, which is very prevalent at Giardini below. Its bay was once a great place for catching _mullet_ for the Roman market. It seems to have been the _Torbay_ of Sicily. Some fish love their ease, and rejoice not in turbulent waters. The _muræna_, or lamprey, on the contrary, was sought in the very whirlpools of _Charybdis_. The modern Roman, on his own side of Italy, has few turbot, but very good ones are still taken off Ancona, in the Adriatic, where the _spatium admirabile Rhombi_, as the reader will, or ought to recollect, was taken and sent to Domitian at Albano by _Procaccio_ or _Estafetta_. Juvenal complains that the Tyrrhene sea was exhausted by the demand for fish, though there was no _Lent_ in those times. If the Catholic clergy insist that there _was_, we beg to object, that the keepers thereof were probably not in a condition to compete with the _Apiciuses_ of the day, who bought fish for their _bodies'_, and not for their SOULS' SAKE.

CATANIA.

Tum Catane nimium ardenti vicina Typhæo.

After a pleasant drive of twenty miles, we find ourselves at _Aci-Reale_, where a street, called "Galatea," reminds us unexpectedly of a very classical place called Dean's Yard, where we once had doings with _Acis_, as he figures in Ovid's _Metamorphoses_. We were here in luck, and, having purchased some fine coins of several of the tyrants of Sicily from the apothecary, proceeded on our way to Catania. In half an hour we reach the basaltic Isles of the Cyclops, and the Castle of Acis, whom the peasants hereabouts tell you was their king, when Sicily was under the Saracenic yoke. The river _Lecatia_, now lost, is supposed formerly to have issued hereabouts, in the port of Ulysses. Our next move placed us amidst the silk-slops of Catania. We have hardly been five minutes in the town, when offers abound to conduct us up Ætna, in whom, as so much national wealth, the inhabitants seem to take as much interest as in her useful and productive silk-looms. Standing fearless on the pavement of lava that buried their ancient city, they point up with complacency to its fountains above. The mischievous exploits of Ætna, in past times, are in every mouth, and children learn their Ætnean catechism as soon as they are breeched. Ætna here is all in all. Churches are constructed out of his quarried _viscera_--great men lie in tombs, of which the stones once ran liquid down his flames--snuff is taken out of lava boxes--and devotion carves the crucifix on lava, and numbers its beads on a lava rosary--nay, the apothecary's mortar was sent him down from the great mortar-battery above, and the village _belle_ wears fire-proof bracelets that were once too hot to be meddled with. Go to the museum, and you will call it a museum of Ætnean products. Nodulated, porous, condensed, streaked, spotted, clouded, granulated lava, here assumes the colour, rivals the compactness, sustains the polish, of jasper, of agate, and of marble; indeed it sometimes surpasses, in beautiful veinage, the finest and rarest Marmorean specimens. You would hardly distinguish some of it, worked into jazza or vase, from _rosso antico_ itself. A very old and rusty armoury may, as here, be seen any where; but a row of formidable shark skulls, taken along the coast, and some in the very port of Catania, are rarities on which the _ciceroni_ like to prelect, being furnished with many a story of bathers curtailed by them, and secure a large portion of attention, especially if you were just thinking of a dip. A rather fine collection of bronzes has been made from excavations in the neighbourhood, which, indeed, must always promise to reward research. A figure of Mercury, two and a half feet high, and so exactly similar to that of John of Bologna, that his one seemed an absolute plagiarism, particularly attracted our attention on that account. The great Italian artist, however, had been dead one hundred and fifty years before this bronze was dug up. Next in importance to the bronzes, we esteem the collection of Sicilian, or Græco-Sicilian vases, though inferior in number and selectness to those of the Vatican, or Museo-Borbonico. There is also some ancient sculpture, and some pretty mosaic. Of this composition is a bathfloor, where a family of Cupids, in the centre of the pavement, welcome you with a _utere feliciter_, (may it do you good.) Round the border, a circle of the personified _"months"_ is artistically chained together, each bearing his _Greek_ name, for fear of a mistake--names not half so good as Sheridan's translation of the Revolutionary calendar--snowy, flowy, blowy--showery, flowery, bowery--moppy, croppy, poppy--breezy, sneezy, freezy. In Catania, we find no lack of coins, nor of sharp-eyed dealers, who know pretty generally their value throughout Europe; but, in order to be quite sure of the price _current,_ ask double what they take from one another, and judge, by your abatement of it, of the state of the market elsewhere. Now mind, sir, when they present you the most impudent forgeries, you are not to get into a passion; but, glancing from the object to the vender, quietly insinuate your want of _absolute_ conviction in a _"che vi pare di questa moneta."_ He now looks at it again, and takes a squint at _you;_ and supposing you smell a rat, probably replies that certainly he _bought_ it for _genuine;_ but you _have suggested a doubt,_ and the piece really begins, even to _him_, to look suspicious, _"anzi à me."_ You reply coolly, and put it down--"That was just what I was thinking;" and so the affair passes quietly off. And now you _may_, if you happen to be tender-hearted, say something compassionate to the poor innocent who has been _taken in_, and proceed to ask him about another; and when you see any thing you long to pocket, enquire what can he afford to let a _brother collector_ (give him a step in rank) have _it_ for; and so go on feeling your way, and never "putting your arm so far out that you cannot comfortably draw it back again." He will probably ask you if you know Mr B---- or C----, (English collectors,) with whom he has had dealings, calling them "_stimabili signori;_" and, of course, you have no doubt of it, though you never heard of them before. It is also always conciliative to congratulate him on the possession of such and such rare and "_belle cose;_" and if you thus contrive to get into his good graces, he will deal with you at _fair prices_, and perhaps amuse you with an account of such tricks as he is not ashamed to have practised on _blockheads_, who will buy at any cost if the die is fine. Indeed, it has passed into an aphorism among these _mezzo-galantuomini_, as their countrymen call them, that a fine coin is always worth _what you can get for it._

We heard the celebrated organ of St Benedict, which has been praising God in tremendous hallelujahs ever since it was put up, and a hundred years have only matured the richness of its tones. Its voice was gushing out as we entered the church, and filling nave and aisle with a diapason of all that was soft and soothing, as if a choir of Guido's angels had broke out in harmony.

A stream of fresh water issues under the old town-wall, and an immense mass of incumbent lava, of at least ninety feet high, impends just above its source, the water struggling through a mass of rock once liquefied by fire, in as limpid a rill as if it came from limestone, and so excellent in quality that no other is used in Catania. Women with buckets were ascending and descending to fetch supplies out of the lava of the dead city below, for the use of the living town above. Moreover, this is the only point in Catania where the accident of a bit of wall arresting for some time the progress of the lava current, has left the level of the old town to be rigidly ascertained.

Here, as at _Aci-Reale_, balconies at windows, for the most part supported by brackets, terminating in human heads, give a rich, though rather a heavy, appearance to the street. Much amber is found and worked at Catania. It has been lately discovered in a fossil state, and in contiguity with fossil wood; but we were quite _electrified_ at the price of certain little scent-bottles, and other articles made of this production. You see it in all its possible varieties of colour, opacity, or transparency. The green opalized kind is the most prized, and four pounds was demanded for a pair of pendants of this colour for earrings. Besides the yellow sort, which is common every where, we see the ruby red, which is very rare: some varieties are freckled, and some of the sort which afforded subjects for Martial, and for more than one of the Greek anthologists, with insects in its matrix. _This_ kind, they say, is found exclusively on the coast of Catania. There are such pieces the size of a hand, but it is generally in much smaller bits. Amber lies under, or is formed _upon_ the sand, and abounds most near the _embouchure_ of a small river in this neighbourhood. Many beautiful shells, fossils, and other objects of natural history, appear in the dealers' trays; and polished knife-handles of Sicilian _agate_ may be had at five dollars a dozen.

THE LAST OF THE KNIGHTS.

DON JOHN AND THE HERETICS OF FLANDERS.

It would almost seem as though chivalry were one of the errors of Popery; so completely did the spirit of the ancient orders of knighthood evaporate at the Reformation! The blind enthusiasm of ignorance having engendered superstitions of every kind and colour, the blow struck at the altar of the master idol proved fatal to all.

In Elizabeth's time, the forms and sentiment of chivalry were kept up by an effort. The parts enacted by Sidney and Raleigh, appear studied rather than instinctive. At all events, the gallant Sir Philip was the last of English knights, as he was the first of his time. Thenceforward, the valour of the country assumed a character more professional.

But a fact thus familiar to us of England, is more remarkable of the rest of Europe. The infallibility of Rome once assailed, every faith was shaken. Loyalty was lessened, chivalry became extinct; expiring in France with Henri IV. and the League--in Portugal with Don Sebastian of Braganza--and in Spain with Charles V., exterminated root and branch by the pen of Cervantes.

One of the most brilliant effervescences, however, of those crumbling institutions, is connected with Spanish history, in the person of Don John of Austria;--a prince who, if consecrated by legitimacy to the annals of the throne, would have glorified the historical page by a thousand heroic incidents. But the sacrament of his baptism being unhappily unpreceded by that of a marriage, he has bequeathed us one of those anomalous existences--one of those incomplete destinies, which embitter our admiration with disappointment and regret.

On both sides of royal blood, Don John was born with qualifications to adorn a throne. It is true that when his infant son was entrusted by Charles V. to the charge of the master of his household, Don Quexada, the emperor simply described him as the offspring of a lady of Ratisbon, named Barbara Blomberg. But the Infanta Clara Eugenia was confidentially informed by her father Philip II., and confidentially informed her satellite La Cuea, that her uncle was "every way of imperial lineage;" and but that he was the offspring of a crime, Don John had doubtless been seated on one of those thrones to which his legitimate brother Philip imparted so little distinction.

Forced by the will of Charles V. to recognize the consanguinity of Don John, and treat him with brotherly regard, one of the objects of the hateful life of the father of Don Carlos seems to have been to thwart the ambitious instincts of his brilliant Faulconbridge. For in the boiling veins of the young prince abided the whole soul of Charles V.,--valour, restlessness, ambition; and his romantic life and mysterious death bear alike the tincture of his parentage.

That was indeed the age of the romance of royalty! Mary at Holyrood,--Elizabeth at Kenilworth--Carlos at the feet of his mother-in-law,--the Béarnais at the gates of Paris,--have engraved their type in the book of universal memory. But Don John escapes notice--a solitary star outshone by dazzling constellations. Commemorated by no medals, flattered by no historiographer, sung by no inspired "godson," anointed by neither pope nor primate, his nook in the temple of fame is out of sight, and forgotten.

Even his master feat, the gaining of the battle of Lepanto, brings chiefly to our recollection that the author of Don Quixote lost his hand in the action; and in the trivial page before us, we dare not call our hero by the name of "Don Juan," (by which he is known in Spanish history,) lest he be mistaken for the popular libertine! And thus, the last of the knights has been stripped of his name by the hero of the "Festin de Pierre," and of his honours by Cervantes, as by Philip II. of a throne.--

Hard fate for one described by all the writers of his time as a model of manly grace and Christian virtue! How charming is the account given by the old Spanish writers of the noble youth, extricated from his convent to be introduced on the high-road to a princely cavalier, surrounded by his retinue, whom he is first desired to salute as a brother, and then required to worship, as the king of Spain! We are told of his joy on discovering his filial relationship to the great emperor, so long the object of his admiration. We are told of his deeds of prowess against the Turks at Lepanto, at Tunis against the Moor. We are told of the proposition of Gregory XIII. that he should be rewarded with the crown of Barbary, and of the desire of the revolted nobility of Belgium, to raise him to their tottering throne; nay, we are even assured that "la couronne d'Hibernie" was offered to his acceptance. And finally, we are told of his untimely death and glorious funeral--mourned by all the knighthood of the land! But we hear and forget. Some mysterious counter-charm has stripped his laurels of their verdure. Even the lesser incidents of the life of Don John are replete with the interest of romance. When appointed by Philip II. governor of the Netherlands, in order that he might deal with the heretics of the Christian faith as with the faithful of Mahomet, such deadly vengeance was vowed against his person by the Protestant party headed by Horn and the Prince of Orange, that it was judged necessary for his highness to perform his journey in disguise. Attired as a Moorish slave, he reached Luxembourg as the attendant of Ottavio Gonzaga, brother of Prince Amalfi, at the very moment the troops of the king of Spain were butchering eight thousand citizens in his revolted city of Antwerp!--

The arrival of the new governor afforded the signal for more pacific measures. The dispositions of Don John were humane--his manners frank. Aware that the Belgian provinces were exhausted by ten years of civil war, and that the pay of the Spanish troops he had to lead against them was so miserably in arrear as to compel them to acts of atrocious spoliation, the hero of Lepanto appears to have done his best to stop the effusion of blood; and, notwithstanding the counteraction of the Prince of Orange, the following spring, peace and an amnesty were proclaimed. The treaty signed at Marche, (known by the name of the Perpetual Edict,) promised as much tranquillity as was compatible with the indignation of a country which had seen the blood of its best and noblest poured forth, and the lives and property of its citizens sacrificed without mercy or calculation.

But, though welcomed to Brussels by the acclamations of the people and the submission of the States, Don John appears to have been fully sensible that his head was within the jaws of the lion. The blood of Egmont had not yet sunk into the earth; the echoes of the edicts of Alva yet lingered in the air; and the very stones of Brussels appeared to rise up and testify against a brother of Philip II.!

Right thankful, therefore, was the young prince when an excuse was afforded for establishing himself in a more tenable position, by an incident which must again be accounted among the romantic adventures of his life. For the sudden journey of the fascinating Margaret of Valois to the springs of Spa, on pretence of indisposition, was generally attributed to a design against the heart of the hero of Lepanto.

A prince so remarkable for his gallantry of knighthood, could do no less than wait upon the sister of the French king, on her passage through Namur; and, once established in the citadel of that stronghold of the royalists, he quitted it no more. In process of time, a camp was formed in the environs, and fortresses erected on the banks of the Meuse under the inspection of Don John; nor was it at first easy to determine whether his measures were actuated by mistrust of the Protestants, or devotion to the worst and most Catholic of wives of the best and most Huguenot of kings.

The blame of posterity, enlightened by the journal of Queen Margaret's proceedings in Belgium, (bequeathed for our edification by the alienated queen of Henri IV.,) has accused Don John of blindness, in the right-loyal reception bestowed on her, and the absolute liberty accorded her during her residence at Spa, where she was opening a road for the arrival of her brother the Duke of Alençon. It is admitted, indeed, that her attack upon his heart met with defeat. But the young governor is said to have made up in chivalrous courtesies for the disappointment of her tender projects; and Margaret, if she did not find a lover at Namur, found the most assiduous of knights.

Many, indeed, believe that his attentions to the French princess were as much a feint as her own illness; and that he was as completely absorbed in keeping at bay his heretic subjects, as her highness by the desire of converting them into the subjects of France. It was only those admitted into the confidence of Don John who possessed the clue to the mystery.

Ottavio Gonzaga, on his return from a mission to Madrid with which he had been charged by Don John, was the first to acquaint him with the suspicions to which the sojourn of Margaret had given rise.

"I own I expected to find your highness in better cheer," said he, when the first compliments had been exchanged. "Such marvels have been recounted in Spain of your fêtes and jousts of honour, that I had prepared myself to hear of nothing at headquarters but the silken pastimes of a court."

"Instead of which," cried Don John, "you find me, as usual, in my steel jerkin, with no milder music at command than the trumpets of my camp; my sole duty, the strengthening of yonder lines," continued he, (pointing from a window of the citadel, near which they were standing, commanding the confluence of the Sambre and Meuse,) "and my utmost diversion, an occasional charge against the boars in yonder forest of Marlagne!"

"I cannot but suppose it more than _occasional_," rejoined Gonzaga; "for I must pay your highness the ill compliment of avowing, that you appear more worn by fatigue and weather at this moment, and in this sunless clime, than at the height of your glorious labours in the Mediterranean! Namur has already ploughed more wrinkles on your brow than Barbary or Lepanto."

"Say rather in my _heart_!" cried the impetuous prince. "Since you quitted me, six months ago, my dear Gonzaga, I have known nothing but cares! To you I have no scruple in avowing, that my position in this country is hateful. So long accustomed to war against a barbarous enemy, I could almost fancy myself as much a Moor at heart, as I appeared in visage, when in your service on my way to Luxembourg, whenever I find my sword uplifted against a Christian breast!--Civil war, Ottavio, is a hideous and repugnant thing!"--

"The report is true, then, that your highness has become warmly attached to the people of these rebel provinces?" demanded Gonzaga, not choosing to declare the rumour prevalent in Spain, that an opportunity had been afforded to the prince by the Barlaimont faction, of converting his viceroyalty into the sway of absolute sovereignty.

"So much the reverse, that the evil impression they made on me at my arrival, has increased a hundred-fold! I abhor them yet more and more. Flemings or Brabançons, Hainaulters or Walloons, Catholic or Calvinist, the whole tribe is my aversion; and despite our best endeavours to conceal it, I am convinced the feeling is reciprocal!"

"If your highness was equally candid in your avowals to the Queen of Navarre," observed Gonzaga gravely,--"I can scarcely wonder at the hopes she is said to entertain of having won over the governor of Mons to the French interest, during her transit through Flanders."

"Ay, indeed? Is such her boast?" cried the prince, laughing. "It may indeed be so!--for never saw I a woman less scrupulous in the choice or use of arms to fight her battles. But, trust me, whatever her majesty may have accomplished, is through no aiding or abetting of mine."

"Yet surely the devoted attentions paid her by your highness"--

"My highness made them _appear_ devoted in proportion to his consciousness of their hollowness! But I promise you, my dear Ottavio, there is no tenderer leaning in my heart towards Margaret de Valois, than towards the most thicklipped of the divinities who competed for our smiles at Tunis."

Gonzaga shrugged his shoulders. He was convinced that, for once, Don John was sinking the friend in the prince. His prolonged absence had perhaps discharged him from his post as confidant.

"Trust me," cried the young soldier, discerning his misgivings--"I am as sincere in all this as becomes our friendship. But that God has gifted me with a happy temperament, I should scarcely support the disgusts of my present calling. It is much, my dear Gonzaga, to inherit as a birthright the brand of such an ignominy as mine. But as long as I trusted to conquer a happier destiny--to carve out for myself fortunes as glorious as those to which my blood all but entitles me--I bore my cross without repining. It was this ardent hope of distinction that lent vigour to my arm in battle--that taught prudence to my mind in council. I was resolved that even the base-born of Charles V. should die a king!"--

Gonzaga listened in startled silence. To hear the young viceroy thus bold in the avowal of sentiments, which of late he had been hearing imputed to him at the Escurial as the direst of crimes, filled him with amazement.

"But these hopes have expired!" resumed Don John. "The harshness with which, on my return triumphant from Barbary, my brother refused to ratify the propositions of the Vatican in my favour, convinced me that I have nothing to expect from Philip beyond the perpetual servitude of a satellite of the King of Spain."

Gonzaga glanced mechanically round the chamber at the emission of these treasonable words. But there was nothing in its rude stone walls to harbour an eavesdropper.

"Nor is this all!" cried his noble friend. "My discovery of the unbrotherly sentiments of Philip has tended to enlighten me towards the hatefulness of his policy. The reserve of his nature--the harshness of his soul--the austerity of his bigotry--chill me to the marrow!--The Holy Inquisition deserves, in my estimation, a name the very antithesis of holy."

"I _beseech_ your highness!" cried Ottavio Gonzaga--clasping his hands together in an irrepressible panic.

"Never fear, man! There be neither spies nor inquisitors in our camp; and if there _were_, both they and you must even hear me out!" cried Don John. "There is some comfort in discharging one's heart of matters that have long lain so heavy on it; and I swear to you, Gonzaga, that, instead of feeling surprised to find my cheeks so lank, and my eyes so hollow, you would rather be amazed to find an ounce of flesh upon my bones, did you know how careful are my days, and how sleepless my nights, under the perpetual harassments of civil war!--The haughty burgesses of Ghent, whom I could hate from my soul but that they are townsmen of my illustrious father, the low-minded Walloons, the morose Brugeois, the artful Brabançons--all the varied tribes, in short, of the old Burgundian duchy, seem to vie with each other which shall succeed best in thwarting and humiliating me. And for what do I bear it? What honour or profit shall I reap on my patience? What thanks derive for having wasted my best days and best energies, in bruising with my iron heel the head of the serpent of heresy? Why, even that Philip, for some toy of a mass neglected or an ave forgotten, will perchance give me over to the tender questioning of his grand inquisitor, as the shortest possible answer to my pretensions to a crown,--while the arrogant nobility of Spain, when roused from their apathy towards me by tidings of another Lepanto, a fresh Tunis, will exclaim with modified gratification--'_There_ spoke the blood of Charles the Fifth! Not so ill fought for a bastard!'"

Perceiving that the feelings of his highness were chafed, the courtier, as in vocation bound, assured him he underrated the loyalty towards him of his fellow countrymen of the Peninsula; and that his services as governor of the Low Countries were fully appreciated.

"So fully, that I should be little surprised to learn the axe was already sharpened that is to take off my head!" cried Don John, with a scornful laugh. "And such being the exact state of my feelings and opinions, my trusty Gonzaga, I ask you whether I am likely to have proved a suitable Petrarch for so accomplished a Laura as the sister of Henry III?"--

"I confess myself disappointed," replied the crafty Italian.--"I was in hopes that your highness had found recreation as well as glory in Belgium. During my sojourn at the court of Philip, I supported with patience the somewhat ceremonious gravity of the Escurial, in the belief that your highness was enjoying meanwhile those festal enlivenments, which none more fully understand how to organize and adorn."

"If such an expectation really availed to _enliven_ the Escurial," cried Don John recklessly, "your friendship must indeed possess miraculous properties! However, you may judge with your own eyes the pleasantness of my position; and every day that improves your acquaintance with the ill blood and ill condition of this accursed army of the royalists, ill-paid, ill-disciplined, and ill-intentioned, will inspire you with stronger yearnings after our days of the Mediterranean, where I was master of myself and of my men."

"And all this was manifested to Margaret, and all this will serve to comfort the venomous heart of the queen mother!"--ejaculated Gonzaga, shrugging his shoulders.

"Not a syllable, not a circumstance! The Queen of Navarre was far too much engrossed by the manoeuvres of her own bright eyes, to take heed of those of my camp."

"Your highness is perhaps less well aware than might be desirable, of how many things a woman's eyes are capable of doing, at one and the same time!"--retorted the Italian.

"I only wish," cried Don John impatiently, "that instead of having occasion to read me those Jeremiads, you had been here to witness the friendship you so strangely exaggerate! A ball, an excursion on the Meuse, a boar hunt in the forest of Marlagne, constitute the pastimes you are pleased to magnify into an imperial ovation."

"Much may be confided amid the splendour of a ball-room,--much in one poor half hour of a greenwood rendezvous!"--persisted the provoking Ottavio.

"Ay--_much_ indeed!" responded Don John, with a sigh so deep that it startled by its significance the attention of his brother in arms. "But not to such a woman as the Queen of Henri the Béarnais!" returned the Prince. "By our Lady of Liesse! I wish no worse to that heretic prince, than to have placed his honour in the keeping of the _gente Margot_."

Fain would Gonzaga have pursued the conversation, which had taken a turn that promised wonders for the interest of the despatches he had undertaken to forward to the Escurial, in elucidation of the designs and sentiments of Don John,--towards whom his allegiance was as the kisses of Judas! But the imperial scion, (who, when he pleased, could assume the unapproachability of the blood royal,) made it apparent that he was no longer in a mood to be questioned. Having proposed to the new-comer (to whom, as an experienced commander, he destined the colonelship of his cavalry,) that they should proceed to a survey of the fortifications at Bouge, they mounted their horses, and, escorted by Nignio di Zuniga, the Spanish aide-de-camp of the prince, proceeded to the camp.

The affectionate deference testified towards the young governor by all classes, the moment he made his appearance in public, appeared to Gonzaga strangely in contradiction with the declarations of Don John that he was no favourite in Belgium. The Italian forgot that the Duke of Arschot, the Counts of Mansfeld and Barlaimont, while doffing their caps to the representative of the King of Spain, had as much right to behold in him the devoted friend of Don John of Austria, as _he_ to regard _them_ as the faithful vassals of his government.

A fair country is the country of Namur!--The confluent streams--the impending rocks--the spreading forests of its environs, comprehend the finest features of landscape; nor could Ottavio Gonzaga feel surprised that his prince should find as much more pleasure in those breesy plains than in the narrow streets of Brussels, as he found security and strength.

On the rocks overhanging the Meuse, at some distance from the town, stands the village of Bouge, fortified by Don John; to attain which by land, hamlets and thickets were to be traversed; and it was pleasant to see the Walloon peasant children run forth from the cottages to salute the royal train, making their heavy Flemish chargers swerve aside and perform their lumbering cabrioles far more deftly than the cannonading of the rebels, to which they were almost accustomed.

As they cut across a meadow formed by the windings of the Meuse, they saw at a distance a group formed, like most groups congregated just then in the district, of soldiers and peasants; to which the attention of the prince being directed, Nignio di Zuniga, his aide-de-camp, was dispatched to ascertain the cause of the gathering.

"A nothing, if it please your highness!" was the reply of the Spaniard--galloping back, hat in hand, with its plumes streaming in the breeze;--that the Prince's train, which had halted, might resume its pace.

"But a nothing of what sort?" persisted Don John, who appreciated the trivialties of life very differently from those by whom he was surrounded.

"A village grievance!--An old woman roaring her lungs out for a cow which has been carried off by our troopers!"--grumbled the aide-de-camp, with less respect than was usual to him.

"And call you that a _nothing_?"--exclaimed his master. "By our lady of Liesse, it is an act of cruelty and oppression--a thing calculated to make us hateful in the eyes of the village!--And many villages, my good Nignio, represent districts, and many districts provinces, and provinces a country; and by an accumulation of such resentments as the indignation of this old crone, will the King of Spain and the Catholic faith be driven out of Flanders!--See to it! I want no further attendance of you this morning! Let the cow be restored before sunset, and the marauders punished."

"But if, as will likely prove the case, the beast is no longer in its skin?"--demanded the aide-de-camp. "If the cow should have been already eaten, in a score of messes of pottage?"

"Let her have compensation."

"The money chest at headquarters, if it please your highness, is all but empty," replied Nignio, glancing with a smile towards Gonzaga,--as though they were accustomed to jest together over the reckless openness of heart and hand of their young chief.

"Then, by the blessed shrine of St Jago, give the fellows at least the strappado," cried Don John, out of all patience. "Since restitution may not be, be the retribution all the heavier."

"It is ever thus," cried he, addressing himself to Gonzaga, as the aide-de-camp resumed his plumed beaver, and galloped off with an imprecation between his lips, at having so rustic a duty on his hands, instead of accompanying the parade of his royal master. "It goes against my conscience to decree the chastisement of these fellows. For i' faith, they that fight, must feed; and hunger, that eats through stone walls, is apt to have a nibble at honesty. My royal brother, or those who have the distribution of his graces, is so much more liberal of edicts and anathemas than of orders on the treasury of Spain, that money and rations are evermore wanting. If these Protestants persist in their stand against us, I shall have to go forth to all the Catholic cities of the empire, preaching, like Peter the hermit, to obtain contributions from the pious!"

"His Majesty is perhaps of opinion," observed Gonzaga, "that rebels and heretics ought to supply the maintenance of the troops sent to reduce them to submission."

"A curious mode of engaging their affections towards either the creed or prince from which they have revolted!" cried Don John. "But you say true, Ottavio. Such are precisely the instructions of my royal brother; whom the Almighty soften with a more Christian spirit in his upholding of the doctrines of Christianity!--I am bidden to regard myself as in a conquered country. I am bidden to feel myself as I may have felt at Modon or Lepanto. It may not be, it may not be!--These people were the loyal subjects of my forefathers. These people are the faithful followers of Christ."

"Let us trust that the old woman may get back her cow, and your highness's tender conscience stand absolved,"--observed Gonzaga with a smile of ill-repressed derision. "I fear, indeed, that the Court of the Escurial is unprepared with sympathy for such grievances."

"Gonzaga!"--exclaimed Don John, suddenly reining up his horse, and looking his companion full in the face, "these are black and bitter times; and apt to make kings, princes, nobles, ay, and even prelates, forget that they are men; or rather that there be men in the world beside themselves."--Then allowing his charger to resume its caracolling, to give time to his startled friend to recover from the glow of consciousness burning on his cheek,--he resumed with a less stern inflexion. "It is the vexation of this conviction that hath brought my face to the meagreness and sallow tint that accused the scorching sun of Barbary. I love the rush of battle. The clash of swords or roaring of artillery is music to me. There is joy in contending, life for life, with a traitor, and marshaling the fierce battalions on the field. But the battle done, let the sword be sheathed! The struggle over, let the blood sink into the earth, and the deadly smoke disperse, and give to view once more the peace of heaven!--The petty aggravations of daily strife,--the cold-blooded oppressions of conquest,--the contest with the peasant for his morsel of bread, or with his chaste wife for her fidelity,--are so revolting to my conscience of good and evil, that as the Lord liveth there are moments when I am tempted to resign for ever the music I love so well of drum and trumpet, and betake myself, like my royal father, to some drowsy monastery, to listen to the end of my days to the snuffling of Capuchins!"

Scarce could Ottavio Gonzaga, so recently emancipated from the Escurial, refrain from making the sign of the cross at this heinous declaration!--But he contained himself.--It was his object to work his way still further into the confidence of his royal companion.

"The chief pleasure I derived from the visit of the French princess to Namur," resumed Don John, "was the respite it afforded from the contemplation of such miseries and such aggressions. I was sick at heart of groans and murmurs,--weary of the adjustment of grievances. To behold a woman's face, whereof the eyes were not red with weeping, was _something_!"--

"And the eyes of the fair Queen of Navarre are said to be of the brightest!" observed Gonzaga with a sneer.

"As God judgeth my soul, I noted not their hue or brightness!" exclaimed Don John. "Her voice was a woman's--her bearing a woman's--her tastes a woman's. And it brought back the memory of better days to hear the silken robes of her train rustling around me, instead of the customary clang of mail; and merry laughs instead of perpetual moans, or the rude oaths of my Walloons!"

An incredulous smile played on the handsome features of the Italian.--

"Have out your laugh!" cried Don John. "You had not thought to see the lion of Lepanto converted into so mere a lap-dog!--Is it not so?"

"As little so as I can admit without the disrespect of denial to your highness,"--replied Gonzaga, with a low obeisance. "My smile was occasioned by wonder that one so little skilled in feigning as the royal lion of Lepanto, should even hazard the attempt. There, at least--and there alone--is Don John of Austria certain of defeat!"

"I might, perhaps, waste more time in persuading you that the air of Flanders hath not taught me lying as well as compassion," replied the Infant; "but that yonder green mound is our first redoubt. The lines of Bouge are before you."

Professional discussion now usurped the place of friendly intercourse. On the arrival of the prince, the drums of headquarters beat to arms; and a moment afterwards, Don John was surrounded by his officers; exhibiting, in the issuing of his orders of the day, the able promptitude of one of the first commanders of his time, tempered by the dignified courtesy of a prince of the blood.

Even Ottavio Gonzaga was too much engrossed by the tactical debates carrying on around him, to have further thought of the mysteries into which he was resolved to penetrate.

It was not till the decline of day, that the prince and his _état major_ returned to Namur; invitations having been frankly given by Don John to a score of his officers, to an entertainment in honour of the return of his friend.

Amid the jovialty of such an entertainment, Gonzaga entertained little doubt of learning the truth. The rough railleries of such men were not likely to respect so slight a circumvallation as the honour of female reputation; and the glowing vintage of the Moselle and Rhine would bring forth the secret among the bubbles of their flowing tides. And, in truth, scarcely were the salvers withdrawn, when the potations of these mailed carousers produced deep oaths and uproarious laughter; amid which was toasted the name of Margaret, with the enthusiasm due to one of the originators of the massacre of St Bartholomew, from the most Catholic captains of the founder of the Inquisition of Spain.