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ed by a party of armed knights, commanding the prisoners to be immediately released. Among the number of miserable prisons which the monarch visited in person, was the one into which Maddalena had been thrown the evening before. Accompanied by two knights of his retinue, he entered the cell where she sat, or rather lay, on the stone bench which was formed out of the body of the wall. The lower part of her garment was soaked in blood, her face was as pale as ashes, and her eyes being closed, it seemed as if she was in sound untroubled sleep.

"A pretty chaffinch this," whispered one of his attendants in the ear of the king; "is't not a shame to see so pretty a bird in so rascally a cage ?"

"By my knighthood, 'tis," replied the monarch in an equally low tone of voice.

"Methinks these white lips," replied the other, "would grow redder beneath a kiss-shall I taste them out of courtety to your majesty ?"

"Out upon thee for a recreant knight-can I not taste them, think. ye, myself?"

As he spoke, the monarch leaning forward imprinted a kiss on Maddalena's cheek. She started up, and looked wildly round her-her large blue eyes were dim, but even then not without expression.

Ha! there's blood upon thee!" the poor girl exclaimed; "see-there, you have murdered Jacopo-go wash thyself-thou hast too gay a look!"

The monarch spoke some words of comfort to her, taking her at the same time by the hand.

"Let me see thee," said Maddalena, in a hollow disconnected voice, and looking closely into his face. I'faith, a sprightly executioner to kill an old man and then his daughter. There's an old song-but I've forgot it now: I used to sing it long ago, and Borgiano liked it -no, no, I don't mean Borgiano-Jacopo liked it; but-they're all dead! all dead!

"With crimson drops his grey hairs dripp'd,

For they murdered the good old man! The knights they danced, the ladies tripp'd, As they murdered the poor old man! Then sadly sing, heigh ho! sweetheart! They've murdered the poor old man." "A sad song for so lovely a songstress!" said one of the attendants to the monarch.

"Some love-go-mad girl," said the other, "some Florent"

"Hush!" interrupted the king, "this is no subject for ribald mirth."

"Mirth!" said the broken-spirited girl, casting her body at the same time into a sort of capricious bend, and smiling; "mirth, my love-a-lady-aye, there shall be mirth, and laughter, and smiles, when this poor heart shall have broken utterly. We shall sing, and be happy, and free from care, when all of us meet again, Jacopo, Borgiano, and I. Nay, look not so dull-your bride is not dead. Hark! there she sings, light o' heart-she is beckoning you.Go !"

Less, probably, than those of any other man of his day, had Charles's feelings been exposed to the appeals of human misery. The pitiable condition of this wretched girl roused his deepest commiseration; and "albeit unused to the melting mood," he turned away from the melancholy spectacle, and fairly wept.

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Nay, weep not for me," she said in a more connected tone than she had hitherto used; "all, all are gone who loved me, or whom I loved-and I must weep when I would often sing."

She spoke in such a note of settled sorrow, and such a look of placid composure still seemed to float over her destitution, that the monarch could not command his feelings enough to speak. While he stood thus mute and pitying, his eyes intently fixed on the still beautiful face and form of the unfortunate maniac, Jacopo rushed into the apartment. He ran to his daughter, but she started wildly back from his embrace.

"Do you not know your father?” said the old man; "I am your father

-speak to me Maddalena !"-" You! you cannot be my father," exclaimed the girl, "his hair was as white as snow, and yours is red with blood! look how the blood drips from it-my old father's blood and Borgiano's."

"My child! my child!" the old man cried in an agony of heart.

"This is indeed too much for him to bear!" said the monarch, supporting at the same time Jacopo, whose inward feeling had completely overpowered his strength. Maddalena came up to him as he lay fainting in the arms of the king.

"Sad heart, he has lost his father too; perhaps they have murdered his lady-love, as they did my Borgiano. We shall weep together over our misfortunes; aye, and sing to ease our hearts."

By the order of the monarch, the still insensible Jacopo was borne out of the apartment. From this state of lethargy he never totally recovered, lingering on in the same miserable condition for several days till at length he expired. Once only, immediately before his death, when his soul, as it were, found a resting place between light and darkness, he recovered for a moment to a sense of his afflictions. In this brief period, he had called frequently on the name of his daughter, and accused Lanfranchi as the murderer of himself and her.

Charles himself assisted in conveying Maddalena from her dungeon; and, save that her cheek was pale, and her eye was at one time moveless, and at another rolled wildly, she was still as beautiful as ever. A weeping fit, which had succeeded in the capriciousness of her mind's disorder, the wilder ebullitions of the moment before, had tamed her look into that state of meaningless quiescence, the most distressful condition in which any one can witness a fellow creature, especially as it was in the present instance, in the case of a beautiful young woman.

As they were slowly conducting her

along, they were met at the prison-door by Borgiano, who having been freed along with the other Florentines, took the earliest opportunity of enquiring after the fate of Maddalena.

We shall not attempt to describe their meeting. Even he was unrecognized. All may imagine, though none can adequately describe the utter loneliness of heart, the agony and the despair which fell upon Borgiano, as he saw his fondest hopes blighted; and when he beheld the face upon which in happier hours he had delighted to gaze, now causelessly brightening into a smile, and now clouded with a tear, giving him the maddening assurance that her mind was gone for ever.

In the retirement to which she was conducted, her frenzy gradually subsided from its first turbulence, and at times she had even a dim recollection of the miseries which had befallen her. But these intervals were always brief, and she again, after a few minutes' apparent coherence, relapsed into the dull sombre melancholy, which ever marks the victims of her distemper. Borgiano, though he strove, when she was gay, to assume in her presence a gaiety which his heart knew not, was in secret tormented with a thousand passions. Pity, and love, and sorrow at times melted his very heart within him; at others, a sort of undirected rage swept away every softer feeling: till at length his whole soul settled in a burning and wreckless desire of vengeance, and Lanfranchi was its object. He had been present when Jacopo had uttered his last words. They had sunk deep into his heart at the time, and weighed heavily on his recollection now. last he waited only for a fitting opportunity to hurl destruction on the head of a wretch whom the lips of a dying man had cursed.

Till at

As he walked one evening moody and melancholy along a quiet and retired quarter of the Lang' darno, he met with the object of his hate; swords were mutually drawn; and however

Lanfranchi might have the advantage of his adversary in skill, Borgiano pressed upon him so furiously, that he rushed within his guard, and stabbed him to the heart. The weapon broke as the dying man staggered to the ground; and sheathing the remainder of his sword, the Florentine retired hastily from the spot. A crowd was speedily gathered to the scene. At first the name of Lanfranchi was on the lips of every one; but when Florence was decyphered in the faint light on the fragment of the weapon, which some one had extracted, still reeking and warm with blood, the sorrow of the people burst forth into tumultuous rage. "Some accursed Florentine !" passed from man to man.- "Down with the Florentine curs!" was next their cry; and when their minds were more settled, and they knew their own object, a search was commenced in the house of every Florentine family within the city. Borgiano, with that infatuation which seems ever to haunt men when engaged in the most desperate enterprises, had carried home with him the handle of the blade. It was stained with blood -the fragment corresponded with it exactly. These were damning proofs of guilt to the minds of the outrageous populace, to whom even more superficial evidence would have sufficed to convict any Florentine in their present ebullition of fury. They hurried him before judges who were not less prejudiced against him than his accusers; and as in those days proceedings against a criminal were brief in proportion as they were unjust ;-his trial was concluded ere it was well begun. Death by the wheel was the sentence.

Maddalena, even in her lowliness and retirement, could distinguish the nanie of Borgiano uttered in curses from Pisan tongues from every corner of the city. Roused by this into a state of excitement, restless, yet without an object, she escaped into the street; her dress in careless disarray, her hair untied, and her eye fixed in the wildness of

unsettled thought. She wandered on through the people, an object of pity to some, of derision to others. She came, whether by instinct or chance, to the very spot where the whole circumstance of death was going on. Already had Borgiano's slow and terrible death been begun. He had endured the agonies of their most refined torture without gratifying their cruelty by uttering a single groan; and even the executioners, in spite of their hatred to his race, began almost to pity him, when they beheld one so young surrendering his life without a murmur.

Maddalena saw and recognised Borgiano as his limbs were writhing on the wheel. She rushed into the middle of the crowd-most of whom made way for her, as if unconsciously; others she tore aside, till she stood on the very spot where Borgiano was expiring on the rack; his eyes were then almost closed for ever-another turn of the wheel, and life was fled. Had Maddalena really recognised in him the companion of her moonlight wandering, the gentle wooer, whom even in her madness her soul had ceaselessly clung to? -For a while she stood motionless, as if gazing on the terrific sight before her, then fell to the ground stiff and moveless. Her heart had leapt for ever from its seat; and there she lay a cold and lifeless corpse, within a foot or two of Borgiano's mangled remains.

They were buried in the same grave by the kindness, or it may have been, by the derision of the Pisans. It was immediately under the hanging tower; and upon it some friend had placed a slab of polished marble, upon which the words "Borgiano and Maddalena" were engraved. At the beginning of the last century it was still to be seen, though the ground had then gradually risen around it, and it was in some degree

hid beneath a profusion of luxuriant wild flowers. Now it is completely lost to the sight, and no record remains to tell of their ill-fated love.

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The following tale is extracted from that admirable Collection of desultory papers "The Sketch Book," by Geoffry Crayon-and appears to have been suggested to the author by a little German superstition concerning the Emperor Frederick der Rothbart, and the Kyffhausen Mountain, which has been already incorporated in our Volume (Vide Peter Klaus, page 31), where we have observed that the whole of the Legends. on this subject appear to have their origin from that of the "Seven Sleepers ;"---only disfigured by the lapse of ages and by the introduction of other superstitions.

Mr. Knickerbocker (among whose papers the tale of Rip Van Winkle was found) appears, however, to disclaim the idea of his having attempted a second hand version-and the subjoined note which he appended to the tale shews that it is an absolute fact narrated with his usual fidelity and ability.

"The story of Rip Van Winkle may seem incredible to many, but nevertheless I give it my full belief, for I know the vicinity of our old Dutch settlements to have been very subject to marvellous events and appearances. Indeed, I have heard many stranger stories than this, in the villages along the Hudson; all of which were too well au thenticated to admit of a doubt. I have even talked with Rip Van Winkle myself, who, when last I saw him, was a very venerable old man, and so perfectly rational and consistent on every other point, that I think no conscientious person could refuse to take this into the bargain; nay, I have seen a certificate on the subject taken before a country justice, and signed with a cross, in the justice's own hand writing. The story, therefore, is beyond the possibility of doubt."

We now present our readers with the story itself, and leave them to judge of its authenticity.

mounted with ancient weathercocks.

WHOEVER has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Kaat-In that same village, and in one of skill mountains. They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed every hour of the day produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but sometimes when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of grey vapours about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory.

At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyager may have descried a light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little village of great antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists, in the early times of the province, just about the beginning of the government of the good Peter Stuyvesant, (may he rest in peace!) and there were some of the houses of the original settlers standing within a few years, built of some yellow bricks brought from Holland, having laticed windows and gable fronts, sur

In

these very houses, (which, to tell the
precise truth, was sadly time-worn and
weather-beaten), there lived many years
since, while the country was yet a pro-
vince of Great Britain, a simple good-
natured fellow, of the name of Rip Van
Winkle. He was a descendant of the
Van Winkles, who figured so gallantly
in the chivalrous days of Peter Stuyve-
sant, and accompanied him to the siege
of Fort Christiana. He inherited, how-
ever, but little of the martial character
of his ancestors. I have observed that
he was a simple, good-natured man; he
was, moreover, a kind neighbour, and
an obedient henpecked husband.
deed, to the latter circumstance might
be owing that meekness of spirit which
gained him such universal popularity;
for these men are more apt to be obse-
quious and conciliating abroad, who are
under the discipline of shrews at home.
Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered
pliant and malleable in the fiery furnace
of domestic tribulation, and a curtain
lecture is worth all the sermons in the
world for teaching the virtues of patience
and long suffering. A termagant wife
may therefore, in some degree, be con-
sidered a tolerable blessing; and if so,
Rip Van Winkle was thrice blessed.

Certain it is, that he was a great favourite among all the good wives of the village, who, as usual with the amiable sex, took his part in all family squabbles; and never failed, whenever they talked those matters over in their even

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