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waiting below in the street with the crucifix, until the condemned should descend, an accident happened, which gave rise to such a tumult among the immense crowd there collected, that there was danger of much disorder. It thus happened; some foreign gentlemen, who were posted at a high window, inadvertently threw down a flower-pot which was outside the window, which falling on one of the brothers of the Order of Mercy, mortally wounded him. This caused a disturbance in the crowd; and those who were too far off to know the cause, took flight, and falling one over the other, several were wounded. When the tumult was calmed, the brothers Giacomo and Bernardo descended to the door of the prison, near which opportunely happened to be some fiscal officers, who, going up to Bernardo, told him that through the clemency of the sovereign pontiff, his life was spared to him, with this condition, that he should be present at the death of his relations. A scarlet mantle trimmed with gold, in which he had at first been conducted to prison, was given him, to envelope him. Giacomo was already on the car, when the placet of the Pope arrived, freeing him from the severer portion of the punishment added to the sentence, and ordering that it should be executed only by the hammer and quartering.

The funereal procession passed through the Via dell' Orso, by the Apollinara, thence through the Piazza Navona; from the church of S. Pantalio to the Piazza Pollarola, through the Campo di Fiori, S. Carlo a Castinari, to the Arco de' Conte Cenci; proceeding, it stopped under the Palace Cenci, and then finally rested at the Corte Savella, to take the two ladies. When these arrived, Lucretia remained last, dressed in black, as has been described, with a veil of the same colour, which covered her as far as her girdle: Beatrice was beside her, also covered by a veil: they wore velvet slippers, with silk roses and gold fastenings; and, instead of manacles, their wrists were bound by a silk cord, which was fastened to their girdles in such a manner as to give them almost the free use of their hands. Each had in her left hand the holy sign of benediction, and in the right a handkerchief, with which Lucretia wiped her tears, and Beatrice the perspiration from her forehead. Being arrived at the place of punishment, Bernardo was left on the scaffold, and the others were conducted to the chapel. During this dreadful separation, this unfortunate youth, reflecting that he was soon going to behold the decapitation of his nearest relatives, fell down in a deadly swoon, from which, however, he was at last recovered, and seated opposite the block. The first that came forth to die was Lucretia, who, being fat, found difficulty in placing herself to receive the blow. The executioner taking off her handkerchief, her neck was discovered, which was still handsome, although she was fifty years of age. Blushing deeply, she cast her eyes down, and then, casting them up to heaven, full of tears, she exclaimed, "Behold, dearest Jesus, this guilty soul about to appear before thee-to give an account of its acts, mingled with many crimes. When it shall appear before thy Godhead, I pray

thee to look on it with an eye of mercy, and not of justice." She then began to recite the psalm Miserere mei Deus, and placing her neck under the axe, the head was struck from her body while she was repeating the second verse of this psalm, at the words et secundum multitudinem. When the executioner raised the head, the populace saw with wonder that the countenance long retained its vivacity, until it was wrapt up in a black handkerchief, and placed in a corner of the scaffold. While the scaffold was being arranged for Beatrice, and whilst the Brotherhood returned to the chapel for her, the balcony of a shop filled with spectators fell, and five of those underneath were wounded, so that two died a few days after. Beatrice, hearing the noise, asked the executioner if her mother had died well, and being replied that she had, she knelt before the crucifix, and spoke thus:-" Be thou everlastingly thanked, O my most gracious Saviour, since, by the good death of my mother, thou hast given me assurance of thy mercy towards me." Then, rising, she courageously and devoutly walked towards the scaffold, repeating by the way several prayers, with so much fervour of spirit, that all who heard her shed tears of compassion. Ascending the scaffold, while she arranged herself, she also turned her eyes to heaven, and thus prayed:-Most beloved Jesus, who, relinquishing thy divinity, becamest a man; and didst through love purge my sinful soul also of its original sin with thy precious blood; deign, I beseech thee, to accept that which I am about to shed at thy most merciful tribunal, as a penalty which may cancel my many crimes, and spare me a part of that punishment justly due to me." Then she placed her head under the axe, which at one blow was divided from her body, as she was repeating the second verse of the psalm De profundis, at the words fiant aures tuæ; the blow gave a violent motion to her body, and discomposed her dress. The executioner raised the head to the view of the people, and in placing it in the coffin placed underneath. the cord by which it was suspended slipped from his hold, and the head fell to the ground, shedding a great deal of blood, which was wiped up with. water and sponges.

On the death of his sister, Bernardo aguin fainted the most efficacious remedies were for some time uselessly employed upon hun; and it was believed by all that his second swoon, having found him already overcome and without strength, had deprived him of life. At length, after the lapse of a quarter of an hour, he cane to himself, and by slow degrees recovered the use of his senses Giacomo was then conducted to the scaffold, and the executioner took from him the mourning cloak which enveloped him. He fixed his eyes on Bernardo, and then, turning, addressed the people with a loud voice; "Now that I am about to present myself before the Tribunal of infallible Truth, I swear that if my Saviour, pardoning me my faults, shall place in the road to salvation, I will incessently pray for the preservation of his Holiness, who has spared me the aggravation of punishment but too much due to my enormous crime, and

has granted life to my brother Bernardo, who is most innocent of the guilt of parricide, as I have constantly declared in all my examinations. It only afflicts me in these my last moments, that he should have been obliged to be present at so fatal a scene: but since, O my God, it has so pleased thee, fiat voluntas tua." After speaking thus, he knelt down the executioner blinded his eyes, and tied his legs to the scaffold, gave him a blow on the temple with a leaded hammer, cut off his head, and cut his body into four pieces, which were fixed on the hooks of the scaffolding.

When the last penalty of justice was over, Bernardo was reconducted to the prison of the Tordinona, where he was soon attacked by a burning fever; he was bled and received other remedies, so that in the end he recovered his health, though not without great suffering. The bodies of Lucretia and Beatrice were left at the end of the bridge until the evening, illuminated by two torches, and surrounded by so great a concourse of people, that it was impossible to cross the bridge. An hour after dark, the body of Beatrice was placed in a coffin, covered by a black velvet pall, richly adorned with gold garlands of flowers were placed, one at her head, and another at her feet; and the body was strewed with flowers. It was accompanied to the church of S. Peter in Montorio by the Brotherhood of the Order of Mercy, and followed by many Franciscan monks, with great pomp and innumerable torches; she was there buried before the high altar, after the customary ceremony had been performed. By reason of the distance of the church from the bridge, it was four hours after dark before the ceremony was finished. Afterwards the body of Lucretia, accompanied in the same manner, was carried to the church of S. Gregorio upon the Celian Hill; where, after the ceremony, it was honourably buried.

Beatrice was rather tall, of a fair complexion; and she had a dimple on each cheek, which especially when she smiled, added a grace to her lovely countenance that transported every one who beheld her. Her hair appeared like threads of gold; and because they were extremely long, she

used to tie it up, and when afterwards she loosened it, the splendid ringlets dazzled the eyes of the spectator. Her eyes were of a deep blue, pleasing and full of fire. To all these beauties she added, both in words and actions, a spirit and a majestic vivacity that captivated every one. She was twenty years of age when she died.

Lucretia was as tall as Beatrice, but her full make made her appear less: she was also fair, and so fresh complexioned, that at fifty, which was her age when she died, she did not appear above thirty. Her hair was black, and her teeth regular and white to an extraordinary degree.

Giacomo was of a middle age; fair but ruddy; and with black eyebrows: affable in his nature, of good address, and well skilled in every science, and in all knightly exercises. He was not more than twenty-eight years of age when he died.

Lastly, Bernardo so closely resembled Beatrice in complexion, features, and every thing else, that if they had changed clothes the one might easily have been taken for the other. His mind also seemed formed in the same model as that of his sister; and at the time of her death he was six-andtwenty years old.

He remained in the prison of Tordinona until the month of September of the same year, after which time, at the intercession of the Most Venerable Grand Brotherhood of the Most Holy Crucifix of St. Marcellus, he obtained the favour of his liberty upon paying the sum of 25,000 crowns to the Hospital of the Most Holy Trinity of Pilgrims. Thus he, as the sole remnant of the Cenci family, became heir to all their possessions. He is now married, and has a son named Cristofero.

The most faithful portrait of Beatrice exists in the Palace of the Villa Pamfili, without the gate of San Pancrazio: if any other is to be found in the Palazza Cenci, it is not shown to any one; so as not to renew the memory of so horrible an event.

This was the end of this family and until the time when this account is put together it has not been possible to find the Marquis Paolo Santa Croce; but there is a rumour that he dwells in Brescia, a city of the Venetian states.

END OF THE CENCI.

HELLAS:

A Lyrical Drama.

ΜΑΝΤΙΣ ΕΙΜ' ΕΣΘΛΩΝ ΑΓΩΝΩΝ.

EDIP. COLON.

TO HIS EXCELLENCY,

PRINCE ALEXANDER MAVROCORDATO,

LATE SECRETARY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS TO THE HOSPODAR OF WALLACHIA, THE DRAMA OF HELLAS

IS INSCRIBED,

AS AN IMPERFECT TOKEN OF THE ADMIRATION, SYMPATHY, AND FRIENDSHIP OF

PISA, November 1, 1821.

PREFACE.

THE Poem of " Hellas," written at the suggestion of the events of the moment, is a mere improvise, and derives its interest (should it be found to possess any) solely from the intense sympathy which the Author feels with the cause he would celebrate.

The subject, in its present state, is insusceptible of being treated otherwise than lyrically, and if I have called this poem a drama, from the circumstance of its being composed in dialogue, the license is not greater than that which has been assumed by other poets, who have called their productions epics, only because they have been divided into twelve or twenty-four books.

The Persæ of Eschylus afforded me the first model of my conception, although the decision of the glorious contest now waging in Greece being yet suspended, forbids a catastrophe parallel to the return of Xerxes and the desolation of the Persians. I have, therefore, contented myself with exhibiting a series of lyric pictures, and with having wrought upon the curtain of futurity, which falls upon the unfinished scene, such figures of indistinct and visionary delineation as suggest the final triumph of the Greek cause as a portion of the cause of civilization and social improvement.

The drama (if drama it must be called) is, however, so inartificial that I doubt whether, if recited on the Thespian wagon to an Athenian village at the Dionysiaca, it would have obtained the prize of the goat. I shall bear with equanimity any punishment greater than the loss of such a reward which the Aristarchi of the hour may think fit to inflict.

THE AUTHOR.

The only goat-song which I have yet attempted has, I confess, in spite of the unfavourable nature of the subject, received a greater and a more valuable portion of applause than I expected, or than it deserved.

Common fame is the only authority which I can allege for the details which form the basis of the poem, and I must trespass upon the forgiveness of my readers for the display of newspaper erudition to which I have been reduced. Undoubtedly, until the conclusion of the war, it will be impossible to obtain an account of it sufficiently authentic for historical material; but poets have their privilege, and it is unquestionable that actions of the most exalted courage have been performed by the Greeks -that they have gained more than one naval victory, and that their defeat in Wallachia was signalized by circumstances of heroism more glorious even than victory.

The apathy of the rulers of the civilized world, to the astonishing circumstance of the descendants of that nation to which they owe their civilization

rising as it were from the ashes of their ruin, is something perfectly inexplicable to a mere spectator of the shows of this mortal scene. We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts, have their root in Greece. But for Greece -Rome the instructer, the conqueror, or the metropolis of our ancestors, would have spread no illumination with her arms, and we might still have been savages and idolaters; or, what is worse, might have arrived at such a stagnant and miserable state of social institutions as China and Japan possess.

The human form and the human mind attained to a perfection in Greece which has impressed its image on those faultless productions, whose very

fragments are the despair of modern art, and has propagated impulses which cannot cease, through a thousand channels of manifest or imperceptible operation, to enoble and delight mankind until the extinction of the race.

The modern Greek is the descendant of those glorious beings whom the imagination almost refuses to figure to itself as belonging to our kind; and he inherits much of their sensibility, and their rapidity of conception, their enthusiasm, and their courage. If in many instances he is degraded by moral and political slavery to the practice of the basest vices it engenders and that below the level of ordinary degradation; let us reflect that the corruption of the best produces the worst, and that habits which subsist only in relation to a peculiar state of social institutions may be expected to cease, as soon as that relation is dissolved. In fact, the Greeks, since the admirable novel of "Anastatius" could have been a faithful picture of their manners, have undergone most important changes; the flower of their youth, returning to their country from the universities of Italy, Germany, and France, have communicated to their fellow-citizens the latest results of that social perfection of which their ancestors were the original source. The university of Chios contained before the breaking out of the revolution, eight hundred students, and among them several Germans and Americans. The munificence and energy of many of the Greek princes and merchants, directed to the renovation of their country, with a spirit and a wisdom which has few examples, is above all praise.

The English permit their own oppressors to act according to their natural sympathy with the Turkish tyrant, and to brand upon their name the indelible blot of an alliance with the enemies of domestic happiness, of Christianity, and civilization.

Russia desires to possess, not to liberate Greece; and is contented to see the Turks, its natural enemies, and the Greeks, its intended slaves, enfeeble each other, until one or both fall into its net. The wise and generous policy of England would have consisted in establishing the independence of Greece, and in maintaining it both against Russia and the Turks;-but when was the oppressor generous or just?

The Spanish Peninsula is already free. France is tranquil in the enjoyment of a partial exemption from the abuses which its unnatural and feeble government are vainly attempting to revive. The seed of blood and misery has been sown in Italy, and a more vigorous race is arising to go forth to the harvest. The world waits only the news of a revolution of Germany, to see the tyrants who have pinnacled themselves on its supineness, precipitated into the ruin from which they shall never arise. Well do these destroyers of mankind know their enemy, when they impute the insurrection in Greece to the same spirit before which they tremble throughout the rest of Europe; and that enemy well knows the power and cunning of its opponents, and watches the moment of their approaching weakness and inevitable division, to wrest the bloody sceptres from their grasp.

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Who now keep

That calm sleep

Whence none may wake where none shall weep.

INDIAN.

I touch thy temples pale!

I breathe my soul on thee! And could my prayers avail, All my joy should be

Dead, and I would live to weep,

So thou might'st win one hour of quiet sleep.

CHORUS.

Breathe low, low,

The spell of the mighty mistress now!
When Conscience lulls her sated snake,
And Tyrants sleep, let Freedom wake.
Breathe low, low,

The words, which, like secret fire, shall flow
Through the veins of the frozen earth-low, low!

SEMICHORUS I.

Life may change, but it may fly not; Hope may vanish, but it can die not; Truth be veiled, but still it burneth; Love repulsed, but it returneth!

SEMICHORUS II.

Yet were life a charnel, where Hope lay coffined with Despair; Yet were truth a sacred lie, Love were lust

SEMICHORUS I.

If Liberty

Lent not life its soul of light,
Hope its iris of delight,

Truth its prophet's robe to wear,
Love its power to give and bear.

CHORUS.

In the great morning of the world,
The spirit of God with might unfurled
The flag of Freedom over Chaos,

And all its banded anarchs fled,
Like vultures frighted from Imaus,

Before an earthquake's tread.-
So from Time's tempestuous dawn
Freedom's splendour burst and shone:-
Thermopyle and Marathon

Caught, like mountains beacon-lighted,

The springing Fire.-The winged glory On Philippi half-alighted,

Like an eagle on a promontory.
Its unwearied wings could fan
The quenchless ashes of Milan.
From age to age, from man to man
It lived; and lit from land to land
Florence, Albion, Switzerland.
Then night fell; and, as from night,
Re-assuming fiery flight,

From the West swift Freedom came,

Against the course of Heaven and doom,

A second sun arrayed in flame,
To burn, to kindle, to illume.
From far Atlantis its young beams
Chased the shadows and the dreams.
France, with all her sanguine streams,

Hid, but quenched it not; again
Through clouds its shafts of glory rain
From utmost Germany to Spain.
As an eagle fed with morning
Scorns the embattled tempest's warning,
When she seeks her aerie hanging
In the mountain-cedar's hair,
And her brood expect the clanging

Of her wings through the wild air,
Sick with famine;-Freedom, so
To what of Greece remaineth now
Returns; her hoary ruins glow
Like orient mountains lost in day;
Beneath the safety of her wings
Her renovated nurslings play,

And in the naked lightnings
Of truth they purge their dazzled eyes.
Let Freedom leave, where'er she flies,
A Desert, or a Paradise;

Let the beautiful and the brave
Share her glory, or a grave.

SEMICHORUS I.

With the gifts of gladness

Greece did thy cradle strew;

SEMICHORUS II.

With the tears of sadness

Greece did thy shroud bedew;

SEMICHORUS I.

With an orphan's affection

She followed thy bier through time!

SEMICHORUS II.

And at thy resurrection

Re-appeareth, like thou, sublime!

SEMICHORUS 1.

If Heaven should resume thee,
To Heaven shall her spirit ascend;

SEMICHORUS II.

If Hell should entomb thee,

To Hell shall her high hearts bend.

SEMICHORUS I.

If Annihilation

SEMICHORUS II.

Dust let her glories be;
And a name and a nation

Be forgotten, Freedom, with thee!

INDIAN.

His brow grows darker-breathe not-move not! He starts-he shudders;--ye that love not, With your panting loud and fast

Have awakened him at last.

MAHMUD (starting from his sleep.)

Man the Seraglio-guard! make fast the gate.
What! from a cannonade of three short hours?
"Tis false! that breach towards the Bosphorus
Cannot be practicable yet-Who stirs ?
Stand to the match; that when the foe prevails,
One spark may mix in reconciling ruin
The conqueror and the conquered! Heave the tower
Into the gap-wrench off the roof.

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