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THERE has always been to my mind a something hallowed and mysterious-a strange shadowy hue which seems not of this world, cast over the period of the history of Europe, generally designated "the dark ages." The minds of the nations seemed then to have sunk beneath the terrible and undermining convulsions which they had undergone, (ere the barbarian banners were triumphantly unfurled, and waved over the conquests of the Hun, the Vandal, and the Goth,) into a long, dark, dismal night of heavy and restless slumber. Their greatest efforts, inconsiderable though always daring, resembled the misdirected starts of a troubled rest. Their in

telligence seems to have been as a dream to themselves, and is ever so now to us. Yet then there was the soul of bold enterprise and watchful prowess; the mailed knight and lady fair-the castle, the warden, and the armed retainersthe sternest encounters relieved by the brightness of soft eyes, and the stoniest hearts refined and purified beneath the tender influence of woman's love. Then too there were the name of Petrarch and

his Laura, the wild and flashing light of Ariosto's muse, and the shadowy, unearthly inspiration of the patriot poet Dante. All, and much more than all this, is circled in our eyes within a halo which shades to softer loveliness, while

it does not obscure, those days of old romance; elating the mind to a fond enthusiasm for its brighter, while it steeps it into a willing forgetfulness of its darker and more repugnant shapes.

I remember hearing, some years ago, in the neighbourhood of Pisa, a legend of those dark yet fondly recollected times. I tell it, because it is of them, and this must be its only merit.

Every one knows, or at least ought to know the wretched condition to which the city of Pisa was reduced about the end of the fifteenth century. Then it was that this little state almost fell a victim to the ambition, or causeless vengeance, of the Florentines; and but for a spark of high independence, her only and best inheritance of the great republic, which still lingered among the petty communities of Italy, together with a fixed and rooted hatred towards the invaders of her liberty, she would have been swept from her existence as a nation and a people.

Just on the eve of the breaking out of that concealed and bitter enmity which had long rankled in the bosoms of the two states, Florence and Pisa, before the wild invasion of Charles the Eighth of France upon the liberties of Naples had roused their animosity to its full and reckless strength, their inhabitants lived in a sort of society together, restrained and suspicious it is true, yet not without the traces of apparent friendship at least. Many Florentines were to be seen in the streets of Pisa, and some Pisans in the streets of Florence. Still the collisions, when they happened to come into collision, was far from friendly. Each scowled on the other, as if he would have given way at once to open enmity; but both were equally afraid to begin the attack. The heart's wish of the one was to have spit in the face of the other, and cried "villain;" but somehow or other there existed for several years a sort of courtesy and restraint on both sides, which prevented this generally taking place, though sometimes it did occur.

As always happens in cases of this kind, the fair sex were sure to catch up and perpetuate the spirit of their lords. Withered matrons and spinster ladies had their national "likes and dislikes," and along with these their feuds and bitter hostilities. In spite of all this, however, there were often little love affairs between the youth of the two cities, genial and fond, though at times burning into madness, the same as love has always appeared and now appears under the sun of Italy;

"Where fiercest passion riots unconfined, And in its madness fires the softest mind."

About this time there lived in Pisa a rich Florentine merchant, by name Jacopo. He had retired many years from trade, living quietly and contentedly on his gains. Pisa had become his place of residence, not so much from choice as from the strong associations with which it was connected in his mindreminiscences of his early love, which his business-life and business-habits had all been unable to efface. Pisa had been the birthplace of his wife, and the first scene of the first and fondest affection he had ever known. There too the curtain had dropped, and left him widowed in heart and life. It was to him therefore as the enchanter's palace of light and darkness, which he would gladly have avoided, but which he found it impossible to tear himself from. He clung to it, as the spirit of an injured maid is said, in the old legends, to linger round the scene of her ruin. Those who have had the links of earliest and consequently most powerful love snapt asunder ere well united, alone know the feelings which still through life attach themselves to the scene of its first raptures, even though its original brightness may afterwards have been dimmed by, becoming the scene of its bitterest desolation.

His wife died little more than a year after they had been united, leaving Jacopo a daughter. On this solitary pledge of his wedded love, all his attention had

been lavished, and no expense spared; so that when Maddelena attained the age of womanhood, there was scarcely a more accomplished, and not a more beautiful and gentle maiden to be found in the whole of Pisa. She was the image of her mother in figure, mind, and temper; and this had bound, if possible, more closely the ties of paternal affection. Jacopo, in the warmth of his love had never allowed her to leave his sight, or at least to be far from him. She was seldom to be met with in the public places, to which, in those days, the youth of her age so generally resorted. The lists, the dance, and the marriage-feast were seldom graced by her presence; and even when she did make her appearance there, it was more as a spectator than a partaker in their gaieties; for Jacopo, though he lived in that dissolute age, knew and dreaded the danger to which youth and beauty are exposed to in their communion with the world.

Under the protection and guidance of this fatherly solicitude, Maddalena had arrived at the age of seventeen, and her heart was still her own. Many of the richest nobles of Pisa had made proposals for her hand, which Jacopo had deemed it prudent to refuse. Nay, scarce was there a finger in all Pisa that could touch the lute, which was not, some night or other of the year, sweeping its chords beneath her latticed window. She used to smile as she heard the serenades to her own beauty, at times admiring the musician's skill, and sometimes blushing as she heard herself, in the same stanza, compared to the rose, the lily, and the morning star.

One night in December-it was a cold and silent night, and the moon was up, which steeped, as it were, the pure white marble of Pisa in her own still purer and whiter light-Maddalena sat alone in her panelled chamber, in anxious expectation of the return of her father, who had been absent for some hours. The moonlight, streaming through the casement at which she sat, fell full

and bright on the picture of an old crusader, giving a shadowy and unusual look to the countenance. This, togegether with the wild imagery of one of the Provençal ballads she had been reading, deeply embued her mind with a melancholy and tender feeling. She threw down the ballad-she gazed on the bold and rugged outlines of the warrior's face she attempted again to read

she desisted-and her eyes were rivetted on the dark contour of the warrior's countenance, made more striking by the moonlight which rested upon it. Her mind could not settle. The hour and the scene altogether had wrought her up into that feverish feeling of romance which all young hearts have known, and they the most who have held least intercourse with the world,

While she continued in this state, half in pleasure, half in pain, the tones of a lute, in a slow and solemn Italian air, softly arose from below the casement at which she sat. At first the musician's fingers seemed scarcely to touch the chords. A single note was only now and then heard, like the distant murmur of a stream in the desert; then it gradually rose, and rose, and swelled into deeper softness, till the music at length burst into all the voluptuousness of perfect melody. Love could not have fixed upon a better hour to insinuate himself into the most impenetrable heart. A maid alone and in moonlight, with her senses floating on the lovely sounds of music, and her heart steeped in romantic feeling, rather woos than shuns his approaches; and we need scarcely inform our readers of either sex that so it was with Maddalena.-While the stranger sung in a clear and manly voice the words of a plaintive canzonetta, she drew back the casement, and half afraid, yet anxious to catch a glimpse of the musician, she leant herself timidly over it. The minstrel's eyes were fixed intently on the spot where she was; and when he saw her gently open the lattice, the notes of his lute seemed to swell into greater rap

ture, continuing on the air even after the musician had ceased. Maddalena could perceive, standing in a shadow of the moonlight, occasioned by a projecting part of the building, a young cavalier, wrapt in a loose cloak, and underneath it and across his breast one of 2 those old fashioned lutes which we may see every day represented in the prints of the wandering Troubadours. The youth sighed, looked fondly, knelt, and talked of love. She spoke not, but she listened.

We write not for the stupid elf, squire, or dame, who has yet to be told that love needs but a beginning; or who cannot guess, till they have it staring them out of countenance in black and white, that Borgiano (for so the youth was called) and Maddalena were lovers before a week had past. It is time, however, to inform our readers that the youth was of Florentine extraction; that he had come to Pisa to avail himself of her schools, which had even then obtained great celebrity throughout Europe; and that he was in the middle of his studies when the incident which we have related took place.

Love, more perhaps in Italy than in any other country, has always had free liberty to run its own course. Plant it but in two bosoms, and they are sure, in spite of the keenest vigilance, to have their meetings, their sighs, and their oaths. Jacopo knew no more of what was going on between his daughter and Borgiano than the nightingale which sat and sang above the bower, the scene of their earliest and only interview. Women, if the truth must be told, were then the same as they are now; daughters, in love matters, cheated their grayhaired fathers, and wives not unfrequently their fatherly husbands.

Jacopo had been invited one evening to the house of the nobles, where several of the principal men of Pisa were assembled. Meali Lanfranchi, one of these, had paid court to the old gentleman, and completely cheated him out of his affection. A proposal was made

by him for the hand of Maddalena, which was readily enough agreed to by Jacopo, who saw no reason, nor did he rack his brain for any, why he should not unite himself in the person of his daughter with the first of the Pisan nobility. Meali was a branch of the Lanfranchi family, one of the oldest and most powerful in the state. He had lived but little in his native place, and having newly returned to it after a long absence, he was, of course, the theme of much and general observation. His faults were either altogether unknown, or glossed over in the novelty of his return; and whether it was that Jacopo was dazzled with his rank, or captivated by his address, it was agreed before they parted that an interview should take place on the following day. Lanfranchi, satisfied with the progress he had made, went exulting to his palace, and Jacopo, musing and chuckling all the way over the elevation which he fondly anticipated for his daughter. He found her in a thoughtful mood, and waiting his return.

Borgiano had that evening made a more open avowal of his love than he had hitherto done. He had sworn his plighted faith, and had entreated a return from her; but however pleasing the request might be, it had distressed Maddalena. It was true she loved him, yet she had scarcely ever dared to own it to herself. With the strange caprice of

every maiden who loves for the first time, she had dwelt with fond delight on her affection, and every thing connected with it, when alone, and when it was seen only in the lights and shadows which fancy chose to bestow. Yet when her lover made the avowal, which she could not but expect, she was strangely disconcerted, and even depressed in spirits. In this state Jacopo found her on his arrival at home.

"Maddalena," he said, patting her at the same time under the chin, "what would you say, Maddalena, if you were now to become a wife ?"

"A wife, father?"

.

"Aye, a wife, Maddalena; and a wife to the first noble in Pisa. What think you of that, my girl"

"I think, father; I only think I would rather be your child than wife to the first noble in all the world."

"Well, well, Maddalena, your affection is not unreturned, and I like you not the worse for this coyness; 'tis your sex's best failing. But we shall talk more of it to-morrow, when your lover comes. And then, my girl, when he is here, there will be soft words and stolen glances. You will be gay as a lark in a May morning, and your lover -But good night, good night," he said, suddenly stopping when he saw that his daughter took little heed of the rhapsody he was pouring upon her ears; and imprinting a paternal kiss upon her cheek, which had flushed into a burning crimson when she heard him talk of the morrow and a lover, he left her to herself.

Next morning Lanfranchi, punctual to a moment, was at the house of his new friend Jacopo, who of course received him with the kindest welcome.Maddalena stood with her arm leant upon the lattice, her eye turned to the broad expanse of field and vineyard, gradually lessening perspectively till they joined in with the blue towering Appenines in the distance: and, strange for a female in the immediate presence of an avowed lover to whom she had no heart to give, she looked all unconcern. But it was only the appearance of a command, and not a real mastery which she possessed over her feelings. And Lanfranchi, though a man of the world, and little accustomed to lay any restraint upon his inclinations, felt confused under the composed look and commanding beauty of Maddalena. She ventured to cast but one glance on her professed suitor. He was a man apparently about thirty years of age, with a keen grey eye, whose expression, though subdued at present, seemed rather of command than of entreaty, and suited well with the dark and oversha

dowing mass of his eyebrows. A green silk doublet, bespangled with gold, hung down from his shoulder, and in his hand he bore a round cap of the same colour, which was ornamented with an eagle's feather.

When Jacopo, in order to give him an opportunity of declaring himself, had left the apartment, Lanfranchi changed immediately his former awkwardness and want of confidence for the manner and freedom of a man who had only to speak in order to be obeyed. Gazing on Maddalena with the licentious look of a professed libertine, he seized her by the hand, and poured forth a torrent of vows and protestations. The maid gave a sort of involuntary shudder, and started back, but Lanfranchi still pressing his suit, attempted to put his arm round her waist.

"Is this the manner, Sir, you repay my father's kindness, by insult to his daughter?" she said; and she accompanied these words with a look of offended dignity, which for a moment confused Lanfranchi, and ere he could recover from his surprise, she left the apartment.

Jacopo, as he entered the room, smiling, smirking, and looking sufficiently wise, found Lanfranchi standing as if a spell had hardened every limb of him to stone. But whatever the old man's thoughts were, he determined to remain silent on the subject till the other should inform him of what had passed. Lanfranchi, however, bade him adieu, without adverting even to the object of his visit, but not without many invitations from Jacopo to return on the morrow. The morrow came, and so did Lanfranchi; but Maddalena remained inflexible in never leaving her apartment as long as his visits lasted. She was convinced that her father would never force her into a marriage so much against her inclination. All this time (what will not love effect?) Borgiano and the maiden had their stolen interviews, and surely not the less delightful that they were stolen. Often, when all were at rest,

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