Chapter V: Act I (1)

_The scene is a subterranean vault in the Abbey of
Quedlinburgh, with coffins, 'scutcheons, death's-heads, and
cross-bones; toads and other loathsome reptiles are seen
traversing the obscurer parts of the stage._--Rogero _appears,
in chains, in a suit of rusty armor, with his beard grown, and
a cap of a grotesque form upon his head; beside him a crock,
or pitcher, supposed to contain his daily allowance of
sustenance.--A long silence, during which the wind is heard to
whistle through the caverns._--Rogero _rises, and comes slowly
forward, with his arms folded._

ROGERO.--Eleven years! it is now eleven years since I was first immured in this living sepulchre;--the cruelty of a Minister--the perfidy of a Monk--yes, Matilda! for thy sake--alive amidst the dead--chained--coffined--confined--cut off from the converse of my fellow-men. Soft! what have we here! [_Stumbles over a bundle of sticks._] This cavern is so dark that I can scarcely distinguish the objects under my feet. Oh, the register of my captivity! Let me see; how stands the account? [_Takes up the sticks and turns them over with a melancholy air; then stands silent for a few minutes as if absorbed in calculation._] Eleven years and fifteen days!--Hah! the twenty-eighth of August! How does the recollection of it vibrate on my heart! It was on this day that I took my last leave of Matilda. It was a summer evening; her melting hand seemed to dissolve in mine as I prest it to my bosom. Some demon whispered me that I should never see her more. I stood gazing on the hated vehicle which was conveying her away forever. The tears were petrified under my eyelids. My heart was crystallized with agony. Anon I looked along the road. The diligence seemed to diminish every instant; I felt my heart beat against its prison, as if anxious to leap out and overtake it. My soul whirled round as I watched the rotation of the hinder wheels. A long trail of glory followed after her and mingled with the dust--it was the emanation of Divinity, luminous with love and beauty, like the splendor of the setting sun; but it told me that the sun of my joys was sunk forever. Yes, here in the depths of an eternal dungeon, in the nursing-cradle of hell, the suburbs of perdition, in a nest of demons, where despair in vain sits brooding over the putrid eggs of hope; where agony wooes the embrace of death; where patience, beside the bottomless pool of despondency, sits angling for impossibilities. Yet even _here_, to behold her, to embrace her! Yes, Matilda, whether in this dark abode, amidst toads and spiders, or in a royal palace, amidst the more loathsome reptiles of a court, would be indifferent to me; angels would shower down their hymns of gratulation upon our heads, while fiends would envy the eternity of suffering love--Soft; what air was that? it seemed a sound of more than human warblings. Again [_listens attentively for some minutes_]. Only the wind: it is well, however; it reminds me of that melancholy air which has so often solaced the hours of my captivity. Let me see whether the damps of this dungeon have not yet injured my guitar. [_Takes his guitar, tunes it, and begins the following air with a full accompaniment of violins from the orchestra:--_]

[_Air, 'Lanterna Magica.'_]

SONG

Whene'er with haggard eyes I view
This dungeon that I'm rotting in,
I think of those companions true
Who studied with me at the U--
--niversity of Gottingen,
--niversity of Gottingen.

[_Weeps and pulls out a blue kerchief, with which he wipes his
eyes; gazing tenderly at it, he proceeds:--_]

Sweet kerchief, checked with heavenly blue,
Which once my love sat knotting in!--
Alas! Matilda _then_ was true!
At least I thought so at the U--
--niversity of Gottingen,
--niversity of Gottingen.

[_At the repetition of this line Rogero clanks his chains in
cadence._]

Barbs! barbs! alas! how swift you flew,
Her neat post-wagon trotting in!
Ye bore Matilda from my view;
Forlorn I languished at the U--
--niversity of Gottingen,
--niversity of Gottingen.

This faded form! this pallid hue!
This blood my veins is clotting in!
My years are many--they were few
When first I entered at the U--
--niversity of Gottingen,
--niversity of Gottingen.

There first for thee my passion grew,
Sweet, sweet Matilda Pottingen!
Thou wast the daughter of my Tu-
tor, law professor at the U--
--niversity of Gottingen,
--niversity of Gottingen.

[A]Sun, moon, and thou, vain world, adieu!
That kings and priests are plotting in:
Here doomed to starve on water gru--
el, never shall I see the U--
--niversity of Gottingen,
--niversity of Gottingen.

[_During the last stanza Rogero dashes his head repeatedly
against the walls of his prison, and finally so hard as to
produce a visible contusion. He then throws himself on the
floor in an agony. The curtain drops, the music still
continuing to play till it is wholly fallen._]

[A] This verse is said to have been added by the younger Pitt.

THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE KNIFE-GRINDER

FRIEND OF HUMANITY

Needy Knife-grinder! whither are you going?
Rough is the road; your wheel is out of order--
Bleak blows the blast; your hat has got a hole in't,
So have your breeches!

Weary Knife-grinder! little think the proud ones
Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike
Road, what hard work 'tis crying all day, "Knives and
Scissors to grind O!"

Tell me, Knife-grinder, how you came to grind knives?
Did some rich man tyrannically use you?
Was it some squire? or parson of the parish?
Or the attorney?

Was it the squire, for killing of his game? or
Covetous parson, for his tithes distraining?
Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little
All in a lawsuit?

Have you not read the 'Rights of Man,' by Tom Paine?
Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids,
Ready to fall, as soon as you have told your
Pitiful story.

KNIFE-GRINDER

Story? God bless you! I have none to tell, sir;
Only last night a-drinking at the Chequers,
This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were
Torn in a scuffle.

Constables came up for to take me into
Custody; they took me before the justice;
Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish-
Stocks for a vagrant.

I should be glad to drink your honor's health in
A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence;
But for my part, I never love to meddle
With politics, sir.

FRIEND OF HUMANITY

I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damned first--
Wretch! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance!
Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded,
Spiritless outcast!

[_Kicks the Knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit
in a transport of republican enthusiasm and universal
philanthropy._]

ON THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION

From the 'Speech on Parliamentary Reform'

Other nations, excited by the example of the liberty which this country has long possessed, have attempted to copy our Constitution; and some of them have shot beyond it in the fierceness of their pursuit. I grudge not to other nations that share of liberty which they may acquire: in the name of God, let them enjoy it! But let us warn them that they lose not the object of their desire by the very eagerness with which they attempt to grasp it. Inheritors and conservators of rational freedom, let us, while others are seeking it in restlessness and trouble, be a steady and shining light to guide their course; not a wandering meteor to bewilder and mislead them.

Let it not be thought that this is an unfriendly or disheartening counsel to those who are either struggling under the pressure of harsh government, or exulting in the novelty of sudden emancipation. It is addressed much rather to those who, though cradled and educated amidst the sober blessings of the British Constitution, pant for other schemes of liberty than those which that Constitution sanctions--other than are compatible with a just equality of civil rights, or with the necessary restraints of social obligation; of some of whom it may be said, in the language which Dryden puts into the mouth of one of the most extravagant of his heroes, that

"They would be free as Nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in the woods the noble savage ran."

Noble and swelling sentiments!--but such as cannot be reduced into practice. Grand ideas!--but which must be qualified and adjusted by a compromise between the aspirings of individuals and a due concern for the general tranquillity;--must be subdued and chastened by reason and experience, before they can be directed to any useful end! A search after abstract perfection in government may produce in generous minds an enterprise and enthusiasm to be recorded by the historian and to be celebrated by the poet: but such perfection is not an object of reasonable pursuit, because it is not one of possible attainment; and never yet did a passionate struggle after an absolutely unattainable object fail to be productive of misery to an individual, of madness and confusion to a people. As the inhabitants of those burning climates which lie beneath a tropical sun, sigh for the coolness of the mountain and the grove; so (all history instructs us) do nations which have basked for a time in the torrid blaze of an unmitigated liberty, too often call upon the shades of despotism, even of military despotism, to cover them,--

"--O quis me gelidis in vallibus Haemi
Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra!"

a protection which blights while it shelters; which dwarfs the intellect and stunts the energies of man, but to which a wearied nation willingly resorts from intolerable heats and from perpetual danger of convulsion.

Our lot is happily cast in the temperate zone of freedom, the clime best suited to the development of the moral qualities of the human race, to the cultivation of their faculties, and to the security as well as the improvement of their virtues;--a clime not exempt, indeed, from variations of the elements, but variations which purify while they agitate the atmosphere that we breathe. Let us be sensible of the advantages which it is our happiness to enjoy. Let us guard with pious gratitude the flame of genuine liberty, that fire from heaven, of which our Constitution is the holy depository; and let us not, for the chance of rendering it more intense and more radiant, impair its purity or hazard its extinction!

ON BROUGHAM AND SOUTH AMERICA

I now turn to that other part of the honorable and learned gentleman's [Mr. Brougham's] speech; in which he acknowledges his acquiescence in the passages of the address, echoing the satisfaction felt at the success of the liberal commercial principles adopted by this country, and at the steps taken for recognizing the new States of America. It does happen, however, that the honorable and learned gentleman being not unfrequently a speaker in this House, nor very concise in his speeches, and touching occasionally, as he proceeds, on almost every subject within the range of his imagination, as well as making some observations on the matter in hand,--and having at different periods proposed and supported every innovation of which the law or Constitution of the country is susceptible,--it is impossible to innovate without appearing to borrow from him. Either, therefore, we must remain forever absolutely locked up as in a northern winter, or we must break our way out by some mode already suggested by the honorable and learned gentleman; and then he cries out, "Ah, I was there before you! That is what I told you to do; but as you would not do it then, you have no right to do it now."

In Queen Anne's reign there lived a very sage and able critic named Dennis, who in his old age was the prey of a strange fancy that he had himself written all the good things in all the good plays that were acted. Every good passage he met with in any author he insisted was his own. "It is none of his," Dennis would always say: "no, it's mine!" He went one day to see a new tragedy. Nothing particularly good to his taste occurred till a scene in which a great storm was represented. As soon as he heard the thunder rolling over his head he exclaimed, "That's my thunder!" So it is with the honorable and learned gentleman: it's all his thunder. It will henceforth be impossible to confer any boon, or make any innovation, but he will claim it as his thunder.

But it is due to him to acknowledge that he does not claim everything; he will be content with the exclusive merit of the liberal measures relating to trade and commerce. Not desirous of violating his own principles by claiming a monopoly of fore-sight and wisdom, he kindly throws overboard to my honorable and learned friend [Sir J. Mackintosh] near him, the praise of South America. I should like to know whether, in some degree, this also is not his thunder. He thinks it right itself; but lest we should be too proud if he approved our conduct _in toto_, he thinks it wrong in point of time. I differ from him essentially; for if I pique myself on anything in this affair, it is the time. That at some time or other, States which had separated themselves from the mother country should or should not be admitted to the rank of independent nations, is a proposition to which no possible dissent could be given. The whole question was one of time and mode. There were two modes: one a reckless and headlong course by which we might have reached our object at once, but at the expense of drawing upon us consequences not lightly to be estimated; the other was more strictly guarded in point of principle, so that while we pursued our own interests, we took care to give no just cause of offense to other Powers.

CESARE CANTU

(1805-1895)

Cesare Cantu, an Italian historian, was born at Brivio on the Adda, December 2d, 1805. The eldest of ten children, he belonged to an old though impoverished family. To obtain for him a gratuitous education his parents destined him for the priesthood. On the death of his father in 1827 he became the sole support of his mother, brothers, and sisters. In 1825 he had made his appearance as a writer with a poem entitled 'Algiso and the Lombard League.' His 'History of Como,' following in 1829, gave him a standing in the world of letters.

Although not a member of the revolutionary society 'Young Italy,' he was the confidant of two of its leaders, Albera and Balzetti, a circumstance which led to his arrest in 1833. Seized by the Austrian officials in the midst of his lecture at the Lyceum in Milan, he was incarcerated in the prison in the Convent of Santa Margherita. Although deprived of books and pen, he beguiled the time by writing with a toothpick and candle-smoke on the back of a map and on scraps of paper, 'Margherita Pusteria,' with one exception the most popular historical novel in the Italian language.

Liberated at the end of a year, but deprived of his professorship, he and his family would probably have starved had he not chanced to meet a publisher who wanted a history of the world. The result of this meeting was his 'Universal History' in thirty-five volumes (Turin, 1836 _et seq._), which has gone through forty editions and been translated into many languages. It brought the publisher a fortune and Cantu a modest independence.

Up to the time of his death in 1895, Cantu wrote almost without intermission. Besides the books already mentioned, the most notable are the 'History of a Hundred Years, 1750-1850' (1864), and the 'Story of the Struggles for Italian Independence' (1873). His masterpiece is the 'Universal History,' the best work of its kind in Italian and perhaps in any language for lucidity and rapidity of narration, unity of plan, justness of proportion, and literary art. It is however written from the clerical point of view, and is not based on a critical study of documentary sources. The political offenses for which Cantu suffered persecution were his attempts to secure a federal union of the Italian States under the hegemony of Austria and the Papacy.

THE EXECUTION

From 'Margherita Pusterla'

The beautiful sunshine which one sees in Lombardy only at the season of vintage, spread its white light and gentle warmth upon the sombre facades of Broletto. The Piazza was packed with people; the balconies and belvideres were filled with motley groups. Even ladies were contending for the best places to see the horrible sight. One mother showed her little boy all this preparation for death, and said to him:--

"Do you see that man yonder with the long black beard and rough skin? He devours bad boys in two mouthfuls: if you cry, he will carry you off."

The frightened child tightly clasped his mother's neck with his small arms, and hid his face in her breast. Another, half ashamed at being seen there, asked, "Who is the victim?"

"It is," replied a neighboring stranger, "the wife of the man who was beheaded yesterday."

"Ah, ah!" put in a third, "then it is the mother of the little boy who was executed yesterday with Signor Pusterla?"

"How was that?" resumed the first speaker; "did they behead a child?"

"It is only too true," said a woman, joining in the conversation; "and such a pretty little boy! Two blue eyes, bluer than the sky, and a face as gentle and sweet as that of the Christ-child, and hair like threads of gold. I came here to show my boy how the wicked are punished, and as I stood near the scaffold, I heard and saw everything!"

"Tell us, tell us, Mother Radegonda." And Radegonda, enchanted at occupying the centre of attention, began.

"I will tell you," she said. "When he was there--but for the love of charity, give me more room; you do not wish to stifle my little Tanuccio?--Well, when he began to ascend the ladder, ah, see, the child does not wish to go! He stamps his foot, he weeps, he cries--"

"I believe you," interrupted a person named Pizzabrasa, "for I heard all the way from the Loggia dei Mercanti, where I was being crushed, his cries of 'Papa! Mamma!'"

"That was it," continued Radegonda; "and he recoiled with horror before that savage figure," she said, pointing with her forefinger to Mastro Impicca. "His father sobbed, and could not speak; but his confessor whispered in his ear--"

"I saw also," interrupted Pizzabrasa, determined to show that he had been an eye-witness, and he continued:--"the golden hair of the child soon mingled with the black hair and beard of the father. One would have said they were yellow flames on a funeral pall. I also saw the child caress the priest who talked to him, and the priest--"

"Who is the priest?" interrupted the first speaker. The question was passed from lip to lip, until finally a man, dressed somewhat after the ecclesiastical fashion and having a serene and devout face, replied:--

"He is the one who preached at Lent last year at Santa-Maria del Sacco. He could have converted Herod himself. But the world is so wicked! He had no more success than if he had preached in the desert."

"His name?"

"Fra Buonvicino of the monastery Della Ricchezza de Brera. But the riches that he covets are not those which one acquires in sewing cloaks. Do you know him? Ah, what a man! question him, talk to him, he knows everything, and--"

"But what did he say to the child?"--"And what did the child say?"--"And the child's father, what did he do?"--It was thus they interrupted the speaker, without listening to his eulogy.

Here Radegonda, regretting that she had been deposed from her throne, took occasion to resume her speech, for no one was able to give more details. She began again.

"Here, here," she said, "who is to talk, you or I? There are some people who stick their noses everywhere and who--Now do you want to know what the priest said? and how the poor condemned creature walked with courage? and how in one instant he was in heaven in the company of the angels?"

"And what did the child say?"

"The little child did not want to go along. He said:--'I know that it is beautiful in Paradise, that the angels live there, and the kind God, and there lives the good Madonna: but I would rather stay here with Papa and Mamma; I would rather stay with them!' he repeated, and cried."

"Sacred innocence!" exclaimed one of the listeners by an instinctive compassion, and shed a few tears; but if any one had questioned him regarding the justice of putting the child to death, he would have unhesitatingly answered in the affirmative.

Our eloquent Radegonda continued:--

"But the priest! Is there any one here who did not see his face? Well, you know how it looks when it rains and shines at the same time,--when they say the Devil beats his wife,--that was the face of the good monk. Tears large as the beads of a rosary ran down his cheeks, and at the same time he had a smile like an angel.... He said to the boy, 'Your father goes with you to Paradise!' The child looked at him with sad eyes, and asked, 'But Mamma?'--'Your mother,' replied the priest, 'will come with us.'--'If I stay on earth,' said the child, 'I must then live without them?' The monk answered 'Yes'; and then the little one consented to kneel."

Here sobs checked the course of the narrative; and the narrator was half ashamed at being affected by the fate of the condemned ones, just as a young lady is ashamed when she is caught weeping at the theatre. Pizzabrasa concluded the recital:

"The child dropped upon his knees, and raised towards heaven his little hands that were whiter than snow, and then the executioner cut his hair and opened his great eyes to frighten him."

"How much I would have been willing to pay to have been present," exclaimed one of the group; "such affecting scenes delight me."

"Then why didn't you come?" asked a neighbor.

The other replied, "What do you think? I had to take to Saint-Victor a saddle and bridle which I had mended."

And then with that indifference such compassionate souls have for the sorrows of others which have affected them for a moment, they turned the conversation on a thousand unrelated topics....

On the balconies, on the platforms, and in the magistrates' halls, conversation of another description was held. Ladies and gentlemen of high degree discussed arms and battles, inconstant favors of the court, passage of birds, and the scarcity of hares; they demanded and related news; and read from the books of this one and that one. Signora Theodora, the young wife of Francesco dei Maggi, one of the most famous beauties, asked in the most nonchalant way as she drew on her gloves, "Who is this one about to be executed?"

"Margherita Visconti," replied Forestino, one of the sons of the Duke, who was playing the gallant with all the ladies present.

"Visconti!" exclaimed the young woman. "She is then a relative of Signor Vicario?"

"Yes, a distant relative," responded the young man.

But the jester Grillincervello interposed:--"She might have been a nearer relative, but as she refused this, you see what has happened."

"She must regret her action," said another; "she is so young and beautiful!"

"And then she is not accustomed to dying," put in the fool, a reflection which caused peals of laughter around him.

Then he turned towards Forestino and his brother Bruzio, around whom all had gathered in homage: "Serene Princes, it is my opinion that if you wish to render attentions to the lady of Signor Franciscolo del Maggi, she will not imitate Margherita."

At this moment the clock struck again. There was sullen silence--then a second stroke--then a third, vibrating with a moribund horror.

"She has arrived?"

"No."

"Why is she so late?" was the universal question; for the spectators were impatient, and imbued with expectation and curiosity, as if they were in a theatre waiting for the curtain to rise.

"Perhaps they have pardoned her?" said one.

"Well, for my part, I should be glad." And the people seemed to find as much pleasure in imagining a pardon as in watching the execution: either way it gave them material for applause, emotion, criticism, and discussion.

Soon all observations were interrupted, for upon the _parlera_, which was covered with black cloth and velvet cushions, they saw appear the magistrates, the podesta, his lieutenant, and finally the captain Lucio. As I have told you, justice was then barbarous but honest, and these men came to admire their work.

Through all the narrow streets, which terminated at this point, ran a whisper; and the murmurs grew more excited towards the large gate which gave entrance to the Pescheria Vecchia. Here was seen the winding funeral procession, which made a long circuit to let the multitude profit by the lesson.

"Here she is! Here she is!" they cried, and exactly like a regiment of infantry in obedience to the commands of a sergeant, the entire crowd stood on tiptoe, stretched their necks, and turned heads and eyes to the scene.

Then appeared a yellow standard bordered with gold lace, upon which was painted a skeleton, erect. In one hand it held a scythe and in the other an hour-glass. At the right of the skeleton there was painted a man with a cord around his neck, and to the left a man carrying his head in his hands. Behind this gonfalon advanced two by two the Brothers of the Consolation. This was a pious fraternity founded in the chapel of Santa Maria dei Disciplini; this chapel was afterwards changed into a church, which yielded to none other in Milan for its beauty of architecture. To-day it is a common school. This fraternity, which was transferred to San Giovanni _alle Case rotte_, had for its one aim to succor the condemned and to prepare them for death. The brothers advanced. They were attired in white habits, fitting tightly around their figures, and their cowls were sewn around their heads. Instead of a face, one saw a cross embroidered in red, and at the arms of this cross tiny holes were made for the eyes to peer forth. On their breasts they wore a black medal representing the death of Christ, and at the foot of the cross was engraved the head of Saint John the Baptist. With their long unbelted robes, the chains on their wrists, they resembled nocturnal phantoms.

The last ones bore a coffin, and sang in lugubrious tones the doleful 'Miserere.' Chanting a service and carrying the bier of a person still in the flesh! Breaking through the crowd, they arrived near the scaffold and placed the bier upon the ground. Then they arranged themselves in two cordons around the block, so that they could receive the victim among them, and also to form a guard between the world and her who was to leave it. Now a car came, moving slowly and drawn by two oxen caparisoned in black. In this car was our poor Margherita.

In obedience to the curious sentiment which commands one to adorn one's self for all occasions, even the melancholy ones, Margherita had dressed herself in a rich robe of sombre hue. With great pains she had arranged her black hair, which set off to advantage the delicate pallor of the face revealing so much suffering. Upon her neck, which had so often disputed whiteness with pearls, she now wore her rosary, which seemed to outline the circle of the axe. In her hands she clasped the crucifix attached to the chapelet, and from this she never removed her eyes,--eyes which had always beamed with kindness and sweetness, but which were now full of sorrow. They could only look upon one object--the cross, the one hope of salvation.

By her side was seated Buonvicino, even paler, if possible, than she. In his hand he held an image of the Crucified God who has suffered for us. From time to time he spoke some consoling words to the young victim,--a simple prayer such as our mothers have taught us in infancy, and which come to us again in the most critical moments of life:--"Savior, unto thee I yield my spirit. Maria, pray for me at the hour of death. Depart, Christian soul, from this world, which is but a place of exile, and return into that celestial country sanctified by thy suffering, so that angels may bear thee to Paradise!"...

When Margherita appeared, every one exclaimed: "Oh, how beautiful she is! She is so young!"

Then tears flowed. Many a silken handkerchief hid the eyes of fair ladies, and many a hand, accustomed to a sword, tried to retard tears.

Every one looked towards Lucio to see if he would not wave a white handkerchief--the signal of pardon.

Translated through the French by Esther Singleton, for the
'Library of the World's Best Literature.'

GIOSUE CARDUCCI

(1836-)

BY FRANK SEWALL

Rarely in the history of ancient or modern literature has a writer, while living, been so generally recognized by his countrymen as their national prophet as has the Italian poet and essayist Carducci. In January, 1896, he completed his thirty-fifth year as Professor of Belles-Lettres in the University of Bologna; and the solemn and brilliant festivities with which the event was celebrated, extending over three days and including congratulatory addresses from the king, from the municipality, from the students and graduates, from foreign universities, and from distinguished scholars at home and abroad, testified to the remarkable hold this poet has gained on the affections and esteem of the Italian people, and the deep impress his writing has made on the literature of our time.

Born in northern Italy in the year 1836, and entering upon his literary career at a time coincident with the downfall of foreign power in Tuscany, the history of his authorship is a fair reflection of the growth of the new Italy of to-day. In an autobiographical sketch with which he prefaces his volume of 'Poesie' (1871) he depicts with the utmost sincerity and frankness the transition through which his own mind has passed, in breaking from the old traditions in which he had been nursed at his mother's knee, and in meeting the dazzling radiance of modern thought and feeling; the thrill of national liberty and independence,--no longer a glory dreamed of, as by Alfieri, nor sung in tones of despair, as by Leopardi, but as a living experience of his own time. He felt the awakening to be at once a literary, political, and religious one; and following his deep Hellenic instincts, the religious rebound in him was rather to the paganism of the ancient Latin forefathers than to the spiritual worship that had come in with the infusion of foreign blood.

"This paganism," he says, "this cult of form, was naught else but the love of that noble nature from which the solitary Semitic estrangements had alienated hitherto the spirit of man in such bitter opposition. My sentiment of opposition, at first feebly defined, thus became confirmed conceit, reason, affirmation; the hymn to Apollo became the hymn to Satan. Oh! the beautiful years from 1861 to 1865, passed in peaceful solitude and quiet study, in the midst of a home where the venerable mother, instead of fostering superstition, taught us to read Alfieri. But as I read the codices of the fourteenth century, the ideas of the Renaissance began to appear to me in the gilded initial letters like the eyes of nymphs in the midst of flowers, and between the lines of the spiritual _laude_ I detected the Satanic strophe."

So long had Italy lived in passive dependence on the fame of her great writers of the times of Augustus and of the Medici, and in the apathy of a long-abandoned hope of political independence and achievement, that it required a man of powerful instinct and genius to rouse the people to a sense of their actual possession of a national life and of a literature that is not alone of the past, and so to throw off both the "livery of the slave and the mask of the courtesan." Such was the mission of Carducci. As Howells in his 'Modern Italian Poets' remarks of Leopardi:--"He seems to have been the poet of the national mood; he was the final expression of that hopeless apathy in which Italy lay bound for thirty years after the fall of Napoleon and his governments." So it may be said of Carducci that in him speaks the hope and joy of a nation waking to new life, and recalling her past glories, no longer with shame but a purpose to prove herself worthy of such a heritage.

A distinguished literary contemporary, Enrico Panzacchi, says of Carducci:--

"I believe that I do not exaggerate the importance of Carducci when I say that to him and to his perseverance and steadfast work we owe in great part the poetic revival in Italy."

Cesar Lombroso, in the Paris Revue des Revues, says:--"Among the stars of first magnitude shines one of greatest brilliance, Carducci, the true representative of Italian literary genius."

The poem that first attracted attention and caused no little flutter of ecclesiastical gowns was the 'Hymn to Satan,' which appeared in 1865 in Pistoja, over the signature "Enotrio Romaho," and bore the date "MMDCXVIII from the foundation of Rome." It is not indeed the sacrilegious invective that might be imagined from the title, but rather a hymn to Science and to Free Thought, liberated from the ancient thraldom of dogma and superstition. It reveals the strong Hellenic instinct which still survives in the Italian people beneath the superimposed Christianity, and which here, as in many other of Carducci's poems, stands out in bold contrast with the subjective and spiritual elements in religion. It is this struggle of the pagan against the Christian instinct that accounts for the commingled sentiment of awe and of rebellion with which Carducci contemplates his great master Dante; for while he must revere him as the founder of Italian letters and the immortal poet of his race, he cannot but see both in the spirituality of Dante's conception of the Church and in his absolute loyalty to the Empire, motives wholly foreign to the ancient national instinct. Referring again to his transition years, he writes:

"Meanwhile the shadow of Dante looked down reproachfully upon me; but I might have answered:--'Father and Master, why didst thou bring learning from the cloister to the piazza, from the Latin to the vulgar tongue? Thou first, O great public accuser of the Middle Ages, gavest the signal for the rebound of thought. That the alarm was sounded from the bells of a Gothic campanile mattered but little.'"

Without a formal coronation, Carducci may be regarded as the actual poet laureate of Italy. He is still, at sixty years of age, an active and hard-working professor at the University of Bologna, where his popularity with his students in the lecture-room is equal to that which his writings have gained throughout the land. A favorite with the Court, and often invited to lecture before the Queen, he is still a man of great simplicity, even to roughness, of manners, and of a genial and cordial nature. Not only do the Italians with one voice call him their greatest author, but many both in Italy and elsewhere are fain to consider him the foremost living poet in Europe.

The citations here given have been selected as illustrating the prominent features of Carducci's genius. His joy in mental emancipation from the thraldom of dogma and superstition is seen in the 'Roma' and in the 'Hymn to Satan.' His paganism and his "cult of form," as also his Homeric power of description and of color, are seen in 'The Ox' and in 'To Aurora.' His veneration for the great masters finds expression in the sonnets to Homer and Dante, and the revulsion of the pagan before the spiritual religious feeling is shown in the lines 'In a Gothic Church' and in the sonnet 'Dante.'

The poems of Carducci have appeared for the most part in the following editions only:--'Poesie,' embracing the 'Juvenilia,' 'Levia Gravia,' and the 'Decennali'; 'Nuove Poesie,' 'Odi Barbare,' 'Nuove Rime.' Zanichelli in Bologna publishes a complete edition of his writings. His critical essays have appeared generally in the Nuova Antologia, and embrace among the more recent a history and discussion of Tasso's 'Aminta,' and the 'Ancient Pastoral Poetry': a preface to the translation by Sanfelice of Shelley's 'Prometheus'; the 'Torrismondo' of Tasso: 'Italian Life in the Fifteenth Century,' etc. Eight 'Odes' of Carducci have been translated into Latin by Adolfo Gandiglo of Ravenna, and published by Calderini of that city in 1894.

THE BLIND POET.

Photogravure from a Painting by W. A. Bouguereau.]

* * * * *

Translations from Frank Sewall's 'Giosue Carducci and the
Hellenic Reaction in Italy' and 'Carducci and the Classic
Realism.' By permission of Dodd, Mead and Company, copyright
1892.

ROMA

From the 'Poesie'

Give to the wind thy locks; all glittering
Thy sea-blue eyes, and thy white bosom bared.
Mount to thy chariot, while in speechless roaring
Terror and Force before thee clear the way!
The shadow of thy helmet, like the flashing
Of brazen star, strikes through the trembling air.
The dust of broken empires, cloud-like rising,
Follows the awful rumbling of thy wheels.
So once, O Rome, beheld the conquered nations
Thy image, object of their ancient dread.[A]
To-day a mitre they would place upon
Thy head, and fold a rosary between
Thy hands. O name! again to terrors old
Awake the tired ages and the world!

[A] The allusion is to the figure of 'Roma' as seen on ancient
coins.

HOMER

From the 'Levia Gravia'

And from the savage Urals to the plain
A new barbarian folk shall send alarms,
The coast of Agenorean Thebes again
Be waked with sound of chariots and of arms;
And Rome shall fall; and Tiber's current drain
The nameless lands of long deserted farms:
But thou like Hercules shalt still remain,
Untouched by fiery Etna's deadly charms;
And with thy youthful temples, laurel-crowned,
Shalt rise to the eternal Form's embrace
Whose unveiled smile all earliest was thine;
And till the Alps to gulfing sea give place,
By Latin shore or on Achaean ground,
Like heaven's sun shalt thou, O Homer, shine!

IN A GOTHIC CHURCH

From the 'Poesie'

They rise aloft, marching in awful file,
The polished shafts immense of marble gray,
And in the sacred darkness seem to be
An army of giants

Who wage a war with the invisible;
The silent arches soar and spring apart
In distant flight, then re-embrace again
And droop on high.

So in the discord of unhappy men,
From out their barbarous tumult there go up
To God the sighs of solitary souls
In Him united.

Of you I ask no God, ye marble shafts,
Ye airy vaults! I tremble--but I watch
To hear a dainty well-known footstep waken
The solemn echoes.

'Tis Lidia, and she turns, and slowly turning,
Her tresses full of light reveal themselves,
And love is shining from a pale shy face
Behind the veil.

ON THE SIXTH CENTENARY OF DANTE

From the 'Levia Gravia'

I saw him, from the uncovered tomb uplifting
His mighty form, the imperial prophet stand.
Then shook the Adrian shore, and all the land
Italia trembled as at an earthquake drifting.
Like morning mist from purest ether sifting,
It marched along the Apenninian strand,
Glancing adown the vales on either hand,
Then vanished like the dawn to daylight shifting.
Meanwhile in earthly hearts a fear did rise,
The awful presence of a god discerning,
To which no mortal dared to lift the eyes.
But where beyond the gates the sun is burning,
The races dead of warlike men and wise
With joy saluted the great soul's returning.

THE OX

From the 'Poesie'

I love thee, pious ox; a gentle feeling
Of vigor and of peace thou giv'st my heart.
How solemn, like a monument, thou art!
Over wide fertile fields thy calm gaze stealing,
Unto the yoke with grave contentment kneeling,
To man's quick work thou dost thy strength impart.
He shouts and goads, and answering thy smart,
Thou turn'st on him thy patient eyes appealing.
From thy broad nostrils, black and wet, arise
Thy breath's soft fumes; and on the still air swells,
Like happy hymn, thy lowing's mellow strain.
In the grave sweetness of thy tranquil eyes
Of emerald, broad and still reflected dwells
All the divine green silence of the plain.

DANTE

From the 'Levia Gravia'

O Dante, why is it that I adoring
Still lift my songs and vows to thy stern face,
And sunset to the morning gray gives place
To find me still thy restless verse exploring?
Lucia prays not for my poor soul's resting;
For me Matilda tends no sacred fount;
For me in vain the sacred lovers mount,
O'er star and star, to the eternal soaring.
I hate the Holy Empire, and the crown
And sword alike relentless would have riven
From thy good Frederic on Olona's plains.
Empire and Church to ruin have gone down,
And yet for them thy songs did scale high heaven.
Great Jove is dead. Only the song remains.

TO SATAN

From the 'Poesie'

To thee my verses,
Unbridled and daring,
Shall mount, O Satan,
King of the banquet!

Away with thy sprinkling,
O Priest, and thy droning,
For never shall Satan,
O Priest, stand behind thee.

See how the rust is
Gnawing the mystical
Sword of St. Michael;
And how the faithful

Wind-plucked archangel
Falls into emptiness;
Frozen the thunder in
Hand of Jehovah.

Like to pale meteors, or
Planets exhausted,
Out of the firmament
Rain down the angels.

Here in the matter
Which never sleeps,
King of phenomena,
King of all forms,

Thou, Satan, livest.
Thine is the empire
Felt in the dark eyes'
Tremulous flashing,

Whether their languishing
Glances resist, or
Glittering and tearful, they
Call and invite.

How shine the clusters
With happy blood,
So that the furious
Joy may not perish,

So that the languishing
Love be restored,
And sorrow be banished
And love be increased.

Thy breath, O Satan!
My verse inspires,
When from my bosom
The gods I defy

Of kings pontifical,
Of kings inhuman.
Thine is the lightning that
Sets minds to shaking.

For thee Arimane,
Adonis, Astarte;
For thee lived the marbles,
The pictures, the parchments,

When the fair Venus
Anadyomene
Blessed the Ionian
Heavens serene.

For thee were roaring the
Forests of Lebanon,
Of the fair Cypri
Lover re-born;

For thee rose the chorus,
For thee raved the dances,
For thee the pure shining
Loves of the virgins,

Under the sweet-odored
Palms of Idume,
Where break in white foam
The Cyprian waves.

What if the barbarous
Nazarene fury,
Fed by the base rites
Of secret feastings,

Lights sacred torches
To burn down the temples,
Scattering abroad
The scrolls hieroglyphic?

In thee find refuge
The humble-roofed plebs,
Who have not forgotten
The gods of their household.

Thence comes the power,
Fervid and loving, that,
Filling the quick-throbbing
Bosom of woman,

Turns to the succor
Of nature enfeebled;
A sorceress pallid,
With endless care laden.

Thou to the trance-holden
Eye of the alchemist,
Thou to the view of the
Bigoted mago,

Showest the lightning-flash
Of the new time
Shining behind the dark
Bars of the cloister.

Seeking to fly from thee,
Here in the world-life
Hides him the gloomy monk
In Theban deserts.

O soul that wanderest
Far from the straight way,
Satan is merciful.--
See Heloisa!

In vain you wear yourself
Thin in rough gown; I
Still murmur the verses
Of Maro and Flaccus

Amid the Davidic
Psalming and wailing,
And--Delphic figures
Close at thy side--

Rosy, amid the dark
Cowls of the friars,
Enters Licorida,
Enters Glicera.

Then other images
Of days more fair
Come to dwell with thee
In thy secret cell.

Lo! from the pages of
Livy, the Tribunes
All ardent, the Consuls,
The crowds tumultuous,

Awake; and the fantastic
Pride of Italians
Drives them, O Monk,
Up to the Capitol;

And you whom the flaming
Fire never melted,
Conjuring voices,
Wickliffe and Huss,

Send to the broad breeze
The cry of the watchman:--
"The age renews itself;
Full is the time."

Already tremble
The mitres and crowns.
Forth from the cloister
Moves the rebellion.

Under his stole, see,
Fighting and preaching,
Brother Girolamo
Savonarola.

Off goes the tunic
Of Martin Luther;
Off go the fetters
That bound human thought.

It flashes and lightens,
Girdled with flame;
Matter, exalt thyself;
Satan has won!

A fair and terrible
Monster unchained
Courses the ocean,
Courses the earth.

Flashing and smoking,
Like the volcanoes, he
Climbs over mountains,
Ravages plains,

Skims the abysses;
Then he is lost
In unknown caverns
And ways profound,

Till lo! unconquered,
From shore to shore,
Like to the whirlwind,
He sends forth his cry.

Like to the whirlwind
Spreading his wings,...
He passes, O people,
Satan the great!

Hail to thee, Satan;
Hail the rebellion!
Hail, of the reason the
Great Vindicator!

Sacred to thee shall rise
Incense and vows.
Thou hast the god
Of the priest disenthroned!

TO AURORA

From the 'Odi Barbare'

Thou risest and kissest, O Goddess, with thy rosy breath, the clouds,
Kissest the dusky pinnacles of marble temples.

The forests feel thee, and with a cool shiver awake;
Up soars the falcon, flashing in eager joy.

Meanwhile amid the wet leaves mutter the garrulous nests,
And far off the gray gull screams over the purple sea.

First to delight in thee, down in the laborious plain,
Are the streams which glisten amid the rustling poplars.

Daringly the sorrel colt breaks away from his feeding,
Runs to the brooks with high-lifted mane, neighing in the wind.

Wakeful answer from the huts the great pack of the hounds,
And the whole valley is filled with the noisy sound of their barking.

But the man whom thou awakest to life-consuming labor,
He, O ancient Youth, O Youth eternal,

Still thoughtful admires thee, even as on the mountain
The Aryan Fathers adored thee, standing amid their white oxen.

Again upon the wing of the fresh morning flies forth
The hymn which to thee they sang over their heaped-up spears:--

"Shepherdess thou of heaven! from the stalls of thy jealous sister
Thou loosest the rosy kine, and leadest them back to the skies;

"Thou leadest the rosy kine, and the white herds, and the horses
With the blond flowing manes dear to the brothers Asvini."

Like the youthful bride who goes from her bath to her spouse,
Reflecting in her eyes the love of him her lover,

So dost thou smiling let fall the light garments that veil thee,
And serene to the heavens thy virgin figure reveal.

Flushed thy cheeks, with white breast panting, thou runnest
To the sovereign of worlds, to the fair flaming Suria.

And he joins, and, in a bow, stretches around his mighty neck
Thy rosy arms; but at his terrible glances thou fleest.

'Tis then the Asvinian Twins, the cavaliers of heaven,
Welcome thee rosily trembling in thy chariot of gold,

And thither thou turnest where, measured the road of glory,
Wearied, the god awaits thee in the dull gloaming of eve.

"Gracious thy flight be above us! so invoked thee the fathers;
Gracious the going of thy radiant car over our houses!

"Come from the coasts of the East with thy good fortune,
Come with thy flowering oats and thy foaming milk;

"And in the midst of the calves, dancing, with yellow locks,
All offspring shall adore thee, O Shepherdess of heaven!"

So sang the Aryans. But better pleased thee Hymettus,
Fresh with the twenty brooks whose banks smelt to heaven of thyme;

Better pleased thee on Hymettus the nimble-limbed, mortal huntsman,
Who with the buskined foot pressed the first dews of the morn.

The heavens bent down. A sweet blush tinged the forest and the hills
When thou, O Goddess, didst descend.

But thou descendedst not; rather did Cephalus, drawn by thy kiss,
Mount all alert through the air, fair as a beautiful god,--

Mount on the amorous winds and amid the sweet odors,
While all around were the nuptials of flowers and the marriage of
streams.

Wet lies upon his neck the heavy tress of gold, and the golden quiver
Reaches above his white shoulder, held by the belt of vermilion.

O fragrant kisses of a goddess among the dews!
O ambrosia of love in the world's youth-time!

Dost thou also love, O Goddess? But ours is a wearied race;
Sad is thy face, O Aurora, when thou risest over our towers.

The dim street-lamps go out; and without even glancing at thee,
A pale-faced troop go home, imagining they have been happy.

Angrily at his door is pounding the ill-tempered laborer,
Cursing the dawn that only calls him back to his bondage.

Only the lover, perhaps, fresh from the dreams of the loved one,
His blood still warm from her kisses, salutes with joy,

Beholds with delight thy face, and feels thy cool breathing upon him:
Then cries, "O bear me, Aurora, upon thy swift courser of flame;

"Bear me up into the fields of the stars, that there, looking down,
I may behold the earth beneath thy rosy light smiling;

"Behold my fair one, in the face of the rising day,
Let fall her black tresses down over her blushing bosom."

RUIT HORA

O green and silent solitudes, far from the rumors of men
Hither come to meet us true friends divine, O Lidia,
Wine and love.

O tell me why the sea, far under the flaming Hesperus
Sends such mysterious moanings; and what songs are these, O Lidia,
The pines are chanting.

See with what longing the hills stretch their arms to the setting sun.
The shadow lengthens and holds them; they seem to be asking
A last kiss, O Lidia!

THE MOTHER

(A GROUP BY ADRIAN CECIONI)

Surely admired her the rosy day-dawn, when,
summoning the farmers to the still gray fields,
it saw her barefooted, with quick step passing
among the dewy odors of the hay.

Heard her at mid-day the elm-trees white with dust,
as, with broad shoulders bent o'er the yellow winrows,
she challenges in cheery song the grasshoppers,
whose hoarse chirping rings from the hot hillsides.

And when from her toil she lifted her turgid bosom,
her sun-browned face with glossy curls surrounded,
how then thy vesper fires, O Tuscany,
did richly tinge with color her bold figure!

'Tis then the strong mother plays at ball with her infant,
the lusty child whom her naked breasts have just sated;
tosses him on high and prattles sweetly with him,
while he, with eye fixed on the shining eyes of his mother,

His little body trembling all over with fear, holds out
his tiny fingers imploring; then loud laughs the mother,
and into the one great embrace of love
lets him fall, clasped close to her bosom.

Around her smiles the scene of homely labor;
tremulous nod the oats on the green hillsides;
one hears the distant mooing of the ox,
and on the barn-roof the gay plumed cock is crowing.

* * * * *

Nature has her brave ones, who for her despise
the masks of glory dear to the vulgar throng.
'Tis thus, O Adrian, with holy visions
thou comfortest the souls of fellow-men.

'Tis thus, O artist, with thy blows severe
thou putt'st in stone the ages' ancient hope,
the lofty hope that cries, "Oh, when shall labor
be happy, and faithful love secure from harm?

"When shall a mighty nation of freemen
say in the face of the sun, 'Shine no more
on the idle ease and the selfish wars of tyrants,
but on the pious justice of labor?'"

THOMAS CAREW

(1598?-1639)

Thomas Carew is deservedly placed among the most brilliant representatives of a class of lyrists who were not only courtiers but men of rank; who, varied in accomplishments, possessing culture and taste, expressed their play of fancy with elegance and ease. The lyre of these aristocratic poets had for its notes only love and beauty, disdain, despair, and love's bounty, sometimes frivolous in sound and sometimes serious; and their work may be regarded as the ancestor of the _vers de societe_, which has reached its perfection in Locker and Austin Dobson. To Carew's lyrics we may apply Izaak Walton's famous criticism: "They were old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good."