Space and eternity-and consciousness,

With the fierce thirst of death-and still unslaked!
C. Hun. Why, on thy brow the seal of middle age
Hath scarce been set; I am thine elder far.

Man. Think'st thou existence doth depend on time?
It doth; but actions are our epochs: mine
Have made my days and nights imperishable,
Endless, and all alike, as sands on the shore,
Innumerable atoms; and one desert,

Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break,
But nothing rests, save carcasses and wrecks,

Rocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitterness.

C. Hun. Alas! he 's mad-but yet I must not leave him. Man. I would I were-for then the things I see

Would be but a distemper'd dream.

C. Hun.

What is it

That thou dost see, or think thou look'st upon?

Man. Myself, and thee-a peasant of the AlpsThy humble virtues, hospitable home,

And spirit patient, pious, proud, and free;

Thy self-respect, grafted on innocent thoughts;

Thy days of health, and nights of sleep; thy toils,
By danger dignified, yet guiltless; hopes
Of cheerful old age, and a quiet grave,
With cross and garland over its green turf,
And thy grandchildren's love for epitaph;
This do I see-and then I look within--

It matters not-my soul was scorched already!

C. Hun. And wouldst thou then exchange thy lot for mine? Man. No, friend! I would not wrong thee, nor exchange

My lot with human being: I can bear

However wretchedly, 'tis still to bear

In life what others could not brook to dream,

But perish in their slumber.

This cautious feeling for another's pain,

Canst thou be black with evil?-say not so.

Can one of gentle thoughts have wreak'd revenge
Upon his enemies?

My injuries came down on those who loved me-
On those whom I best loved: I never quell'd
An enemy, save in my just defence-

But my embrace was fatal.

C. Hun.

Heaven give thee rest!

And penitence restore thee to thyself;
My prayers shall be for thee.

Man.

I need them not,

But can endure thy pity. I depart―

'Tis time-farewell!—Here's gold, and thanks for thee-
No words-it is thy due.-Follow me not-

I know my path-the mountain peril's past:
And once again I charge thee, follow not!

FAZIO.

MILMAN.

[MR. MILMAN'S 'Fazio' had a singular fate. It was written while he was at Oxford, and was published soon after he had taken his first degree. One of the Minor Theatres seized upon it, and brought it out with success under the name of "The Italian Wife." The robbery was repeated at Covent Garden; and the managers had not even the decency to consult the author upon the matter, or to show him the slightest courtesy when it was crowned with the highest success in the performance of Miss O'Neill. These things are better regulated now. The story of Fazio is that of a poor man discovering and appropriating the treasure of one who is murdered. The possession of riches corrupts him; he leaves his wife, Bianca, for the caresses of a profligate woman; the wife, in the distraction of her wrongs, betrays to the Duke of Florence the appropriation of the hoarded gold; he is unjustly accused of the murder, and dies on the scaffold. The following scene exhibits Bianca's agony before she rushes to impeach her husband, in the sole idea that, being deprived of his fatal riches, he will be restored to her affections.]

Bianca. Not all the night, not all the long, long night, Not come to me! not send to me! not think on me!

Like an unrighteous and unburied ghost

I wander

up and down these long arcades;

Oh, in our old poor narrow home, if haply
He linger'd late abroad, domestic things
Close and familiar crowded all around me;
The ticking of the clock, the flapping motion
Of the green lattice, the gray curtains' folds,
The hangings of the bed myself had wrought,
Yea, e'en his black and iron crucibles,
Were to me as my friends. But here, oh, here,
Where all is coldly, comfortlessly costly,
All strange, all new in uncouth gorgeousness,
Lofty and long, a wider space for misery—
E'en my own footsteps on these marble floors
Are unaccustom'd, unfamiliar sounds.-
Oh, I am here so wearily miserable,
That I should welcome my apostate Fazio,
Though he were fresh from Aldabella's arms.
Her arms! her viper coil!—I had forsworn
That thought; lest he should come, and find me mad,
And so go back again, and I not know it.
Oh that I were a child to play with toys,
Fix my whole soul upon a cup and ball-
On any pitiful poor subterfuge,

À moment to distract my busy spirit

From its dark dalliance with that cursed image!
I have tried all, all vainly-now, but now
I went in to my children. The first sounds
They murmured in their evil-dreaming sleep
Was a faint mimicry of the name of father.
I could not kiss them, my lips were so hot.
The very household slaves are leagued against me,
And do beset me with their wicked floutings,

"Comes my lord home to-night?"—and when I say,

"I know not," their coarse pity makes my heartstrings

Throb with the agony.-[Enter PIERO.]-Well, what of my lord?

Nay, tell it with thy lips, not with thy visage.

Thou raven, croack it out if it be evil :

If it be good, I'll fall and worship thee;

"Tis the office and the ministry of gods
To speak good tidings to distracted spirits.
Piero. Last night my lord did feast-
Bianca.

Speak it at once

Where? where ?-I'll wring it from thy lips-Where? where? Piero. Lady, at the Marchesa Aldabella's.

Bianca. Thou liest, false slave: 't was at the Ducal Palace,

"T was at the arsenal with the officers,

"T was with the old rich senator-him-him-him

The man with a brief name: 't was gaming, dicing,
Riotously drinking.-Oh, it was not there;

"T was anywhere but there—or, if it was,
Why like a sly and creeping adder sting me

With thy black tidings?-Nay, nay: good my friend;
Here's money for those harsh intemperate words-
But he's not there: 't was some one of the gallants,
With dress and stature like my Fazio.

Thou wert mistaken :-no, no; 't was not Fazio.

Piero. It grieves me much; but, lady, 't is my fear Thou 'lt find it but too true.

Bianca.

Hence! hence!

Avaunt,

With thy cold courteous face! Thou seest I'm wretched :
Doth it content thee? Gaze-gaze-gaze !-perchance
Ye would behold the bare and bleeding heart,

With all its throbs, its agonies.-Oh Fazio!

Oh Fazio !

339.-OF MYSELF.

COWLEY.

Ir is a hard and nice subject for a man to write of himself; it grates his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and the reader's ear to hear anything of praise from him. There is no danger from me of offending him in this kind; neither my mind, nor my body, nor my fortune, allow me any materials for that vanity. It is sufficient, for my own contentment, that they have preserved me from being scandalous, or remarkable on the defect

ive side. But, besides that, I shall here speak of myself only in relation to the subject of these precedent discourses, and shall be likelier thereby to fall into the contempt, than rise up to the estimation of most people. As far as my memory can return back into my past life, before I knew, or was capable of guessing, what the world, or glories, or business of it were, the natural affections of my soul gave a secret bent of aversion from them as some plants are said to turn away from others, by an antipathy imperceptible to themselves, and inscrutable to man's understanding. Even when I was a very young boy at school, instead of running about on holidays, and playing with my fellows, I was wont to steal from them, and walk into the fields, either alone with a book, or with some one companion, if I could find any of the same temper. I was then, too, so much an enemy to constraint, that my masters could never prevail on me, by any persuasions or encouragements, to learn, without book, the common rules of grammar, in which they dispensed with me alone, because they found I made a shift to do the usual exercise out of my own reading and observation. That I was then of the same mind as I am now (which I confess I wonder at myself), may appear at the latter end of an ode, which I made when I was but thirteen years old, and which was then printed, with many other verses. The beginning of it is boyish; but of this part which I here set down (if a very little were corrected) I should hardly now be much ashamed.

IX.

This only grant me, that my means may lie
Too low for envy, for contempt too high,
Some honor I would have,

Not from great deeds, but good alone;
Th' unknown are better than ill known.
Rumor can ope' the grave:

Acquaintance I would have; but when 't depends
Not on the number, but the choice of friends.

X.

Books should, not business, entertain the light,
And sleep, as undisturb'd as death, the night.