INDEX TO VOL. XLVI. A Leaf, 339 ORIGINAL PAPERS. Autobiography of an Adventurer, The, 196, 262 Battle of Benevento, The; an Historical Novel of the Thirteenth Century. Bernardo Perrone, 187 Both are Men. By Mrs. Edward Thomas, 213 Captive Monarch, The. By Mrs. Edward Thomas, 416 Classic Haunts and Ruins. By Nicholas Michell, 42, 336 Daybreak at Sea. By Mrs. Abdy, 414 Dead Mother's Summons, The. By Mrs. Charles Tinsley, 286 Departed Bards. By Mrs. Charles Tinsley, 68 Dialogues of the Statues. By Peter Orlando Hutchinson, 59, 215, 340, 439 Gambler's Last Stake, The. By Mr. Crawford, 172 Graves of Childhood, The. By Mrs. Charles Tinsley, 137 Hidden Things. By Annie, 86 Insane Courtier, The. By Mrs. Edward Thomas, 226 Les Anglais pour Rire; or, Parisian Adventures. A Passage in the Life of Lines written for the Hundredth Anniversary of the Battle of Culloden, April Recollections of Madeira during the Winter of 1844-5, 449 Released Captive's Lament, The. By Mrs. Charles Tinsley, 93 Reminiscences of the Childhood of Jeffrey Scapegrace, Esq. Written by Richard Biddulph; or, the Life and Adventures of a Schoolboy, 45 Second Series of the Light of Mental Science applied to Moral Training. Seducer, The. By Mrs. Crawford, 193 Similies. By Mrs. Charles Tinsley, 260 Sonnet. By C. E. N, 438 Sortes Scottianæ; or, Two Leap Years. By Mrs. Gordon, 22, 156 Stanzas. By Annie, 237 Stanzas to Evening, 462 Step-brothers, The, 455 Summer is come. By Nicholas Michell, 302 The Enduring and the Abiding. By Mrs. Charles Tinsley, 57 The Peer and the Mendicant, 88 To a Dying Girl. By Mrs. Charles Tinsley, 225 То my Departed Mother. By Mrs. Edward Thomas, 183 Victim of Calumny, The. By Mrs. Edward Thomas, 139 THE METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE. THE BATTLE OF BENEVENTO.1 AN HISTORICAL NOVEL OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. ABRIDGED FROM THE ITALIAN OF F. B. GUERAZZI, BY M. E. N. CHAPTER VII. THE plain was long, the night was dark, the steed flew with precipitancy, as if enabled to understand and fulfil the wishes of his master, who, however, kept his spurs fixed in his horse's flanks, yet unconscious what he did. The steed flew across that plain— another and yet another; he vaulted over thickets and over ditches; he forded rivers, immerging himself up to the head. His body was reeking with sweat and blood, yet he paused not on his way. This headlong career would have brought both horse and rider to certain ruin, if a speedy succour had not intervened. A man mounted on a nag, who was himself riding hastily at the time, saw this desperate career, and gallopped after Rogiero, crying, "Signor cavaliere! signor cavaliere! for the love of Heaven stop! At the edge of this plain there is a deep river. Signor cavaliere, stop! you will certainly be drowned." Rogiero did not hear the cry, but spurring, still spurring onwards, hastened forwards to destruction. The stranger, although he rode a sorry-looking nag, by animating it with his voice, and stimulating it with blows, was able, although with some difficulty, to come up with Rogiero, and to address him again. "Signor cavaliere! you are determined on death, by what I can see; at the end of this plain there is a torrent; you may hear the rushing sound it sends afar. Oh! do not thus destroy both soul and body; or at least kill yourself in some place where a priest may perform your obsequies. Do you hear what I say, signor cavaliere ?" Then seizing Rogiero's horse by the bridle he 1 Continued from page 269, vol. xlv. May, 1846.-VOL. XLVI.—NO. CLXXXI. B stopped him. The scudiero, thus suddenly changing from rapid motion to rest, recollected himself, looked round, passed his hand across his forehead, and said, "Where am I? Who are you?" "I am a poor Christian body, going from door to door to beg my bread for the love of Heaven. I have met with you, I have caught a glimpse of your danger, and I hastened to warn you that the torrent is near. You appear to me agitated, signor cavaliere; if you are not one of those renegades who renounce their Saviour for an agostaro, since such is the fashion these days; and if you like to do a little good in this world in order to have a great deal in the next, I will pray to St. Philip and to St. Gennaro for the repose of your soul and the soul of your kinsmen departed." 66 Away! and thank your saints that I do not take your life in reward for your saving mine." "Signor cavaliere, do not drive me away so rudely. If your law teaches you to love an enemy, how can you hate him who has succoured you?" "Did I seek your succour? If you did not leave me to die, it was a sign that it is more for your advantage that I should live; and if your brain has not conceived this thought, your heart has. In this obscurity I cannot see your face, but you must certainly be a villain. Are you not a man?" "You add to my poverty the oppression of your disdain. Oh! it was not thus with the cavalieri of the old time.” 66 Man! I do not disdain you because you are poor, but because you are of the human race; and I wish you to know that my disgust for mankind begins with myself." "But have you not received life from men ?" "Life? Is life a benefit?" "But maternal love-family affections." 66 "I know them not. I have no ties. I can hate without re morse, and I live hating. Hence with you, then, in an evil hour, and may you meet a death a hundred times more dreadful than that from which you have delivered me." "Oh, signor cavaliere! do not speak thus, I conjure you, by the holy sepulchre. If you will not give me a single burba* in charity, give me at least the benefit of your company till we leave this region, which, you must know, is full of robbers and ill-conditioned people, on account of the wars between the Holy See and King Manfred. Do not deny me this courtesy, and may the eyes of your fair lady be ever favourable to you." I do not want company. If you are weak, why do you put yourself in danger? Life must be nourished by suffering; why do you wish to avoid your portion, or to have another share it A Saracen coin of small value. with you? I think of myself. If your safety depended on a movement of my hand, a glance of my eye, do not expect it. Do you not know that the plaint of despair is as the dew of comfort to a soul in desperation? Away! Man is not fit company for man -rather the serpent of the desert." With these words he rode away. When he reached the river, not finding any boat to ferry him over, he proceeded along the bank, following the current, in hopes of coming to a bridge. The morning came. The sun rose in the majesty of his rays, and spread his light and heat over all things. The waters of the river seemed to rejoice at again beholding the sun, and the sun to behold the waters; these trembled in the matin breeze, and the sun shed his beams upon them, and they threw forth a brilliant, quick, incessant sparkling, which the eye could scarcely bear, and which yet was pleasant to look upon. It seemed like the rejoicing of two friends who embrace after many years of separation and of past dangers. The country was all one harmony of varied tints, of song, and of fragrance-the jubilee of nature. Perhaps there is thus one hour in the day in which earth displays itself to us such as it was in the primitive times of creation, before our first parents sinned; and this is certainly the hour in which the sun returns to illuminate it. God in his wisdom has granted this hour as a reward to the man of resignation, who rises with the dawn to follow out the penalty of labour laid upon the descendants of Adam, or rather as a recompense for his condition; for the labourer is poor, and his awaking at the rising of the sun is to toil for him who never sees that orb but when it is declining. Noonday came; the beautiful noon in the serene days of summer. What on this nether earth can equal in beauty the azure of the skies? The eye of beauty, says a gentle poet,* shows the way which conducts to heaven; but it cannot compare with it. The majesty of heaven is alone like the omnipotence of its Creator. The star of life, proud and rejoiceful of its youth, delights to shine upon that divine face, and that face offers a boundless field to the pomp of his rays-both beautiful, they love to reciprocate their beauties. Oh, son of earth! in that hour of comfort do not cast down thine eyes upon thy mother that sustains thee; men have despoiled the fields of the fruits of their labour to sustain a life of want and misery; do not cast down thine eyes upon the mother that sustains thee, or the illusion will vanish. Keep thy gaze fixed upon the firmament, it is by this the Creator comforts thee. Hail! hail! thou sun, that awakest, yet circumscribest life. Gentil donna i' veggio Nel muover dei vostri occhi un dolce lume Petrarca, Canz. 9. Gentle lady, I behold in the moving of your eyes a sweet light, which shows me the way that leads to heaven. |