A Jay of Italy

ated the whole city from the north-east. This room, buried like a captivating lust in the heart of the Rocca, or inner citadel of the castello, swarmed with those deft procurers to t

hoice, to the prosperous charity; he will lay his gifts at the opulent shrine. The worldling, says Shakespeare, makes his testament of more to much. 'Ah! c'est le plus grand roi du monde!' once cried Madame de Sévigné of Louis XIV., who had danced with her. 'He is the finest gentleman I have ever seen!' cried Johnson enthusiastically at a later date, after an intervie

eivable. If, emulating Caligula's treatment of frail vestals, he had buried alive some too-accommodating virgin of the cloister, whom he had first debauched, he could quote the Visconti precedent of carnality indulged till it became a very ecstasy of fiend-possession. Between old Rome and modern Milan, indeed, there was little to prefer. Caligula used to throw spectators in the theatres to the beasts, having first torn out the tongues

ths with filth, was a pet sport with Galeazzo. Once, for a wretch who had killed a hare, a crime unpardonable, h

e of incest, power unquestioned, unbridled self-indulgences-these are no progenitors of temperance and liberality. Amongst savages, generations of inter-marryings will but refine exquisitely on savagery; and the despots of this era were little more than the last expressions of a decadent barbarism. Galeazzo, and

etween Paganism and Christianity. He worshipped God and the devil, as if his arrogance halted at nothing short of reconciling two equal but antagonistic powers. He surrounded himself with monks and infidels; acclaimed impartially an illuminated psalter or a painting for a bagnio, a Roman canticle or a hymn to the Paphian Venus; sobbed in the soft throbbings of a lute, and went sobbing to witness a captive's torturing; conceived himself an enlightened patron of the arts, and, in a mad caprice, ordered his craftsmen, under penalty of instant death, to paint and hang with portraits of the ducal family in a single night a hall of the castello. He groped and grovelled in bestiality; founded a library and peopled a university with erudition; encouraged profligacy and printing; was covetous

all and deep-seated under gloomy thatches, his forehead narrow and receding, his cheeks ravenous, his nose was hooked. But in contrast with this pinched hunger of feature were the bagging chin and sensual neck, as well as the gros

leated at the waist within a gem-encrusted girdle, was of Damascene silk, rose-coloured and lined with costliest fur. His hose were of white satin; his slippers, of crimson velvet

e Pharaoh, to expound him his dreams. For he was subject to evil dreams, was this Galeazzo-hauntings and visions which wrought in him that state that he would become a very madman

of white marble carved into bas-reliefs filled the inter-columniations of this approach; while the pillars themselves, of dark green panels inlaid on white, were sprayed and flowered with exquisite mouldings in gold. The capitals, blossoming crowns of gilt foliage and marble faces, su

uch as a misdirected glance, even, would venture to appropriate to the company's cynic merriment the figure of a solitary captive, who stood bound and

falsehood without loving truth, a face the mouthpiece of dead languages for dead languages' sake, a face the contemner of the present just because it was the present and alive. As he stood, loweringly phlegmatic as any caged hate, his peering eyes and snarling lip w

culate blasphemies. His knee peevishly dismissing the hound, he gripped an arm of t

ppishly crimped and snooded, was wafted to the Sforza nostrils, offending their delicacy. Galeazzo, momentarily repelled, rallied

unoffended, and, caressing hi

it not sometimes happen that two particles, or two thousand particles, or two billion particles, out of the sum of particles which were that eye, shall chance together again, and recover, because of that meeting, some very ancient, very remote impression which they once absorbed in common? These, Theosutos, be the ghosts, haphazard, ind

ushed scarcely perceptibly. The Duke took no more notice of man or sound than he would have of a whimpering dog. Once or twice h

ow, by the Host! To reconcile to this

on the bench arm, as if he were about to sprin

invokes these shadows, as

zzo s

ft. God! it will be the mood of the mood next

nd panting. The sleek olive mask of the fa

nt smile relaxed his features. He yawned, it was because, the soul horror being temporarily withdrawn, the inconti

itution or a man's-'tis the word's the thing. Ye woo not the truth, but her

ntano himself) gasped slightly, and shot one

need no reminding while the m

e prisoner. Galeazzo, hunched on his

ber him, a midwife to the wind-as ye a

is won

ave in so far as your Magnificence

connection? Empty words, was it n

. Add it theret

l of all the virtues. Discontent? Why, hath he not risen to that i

hou standest in hi

cont

be twitted with havi

to score a lesson with a scou

did h

as a fellow of

d dare m

ha

lic, so

he man for visions-

lustrious. The man cannot see

e far. I would

self-control, turned on the Greek a

ough thee, thou loat

ipped upon

Genoa, Milan, and Venice; Florence, Sienna, and Bologna. One rampart to the rolling Alps, one wall on which barbarian hordes might burst and waste themselves in foam. Northwards, a baffled sea;

sive as if he were deaf, t

f republics, as who should say, An army all serfs. Wo

gled the Greek, 'who burs

, 'the frog-ox: see us

e of Montano. His eyes opened wide i

s! the very man! Come hither, old fr

tood facing the tyrant. His arms hung very plainly fettered before h

make an example; I submit myself. It is the despot's part to lay hands on order and sobriety. Despatch,

ed to him as if

e exclaimed. 'O, surely t

r his leaden eyes. He set his teeth, breathing

aught o

is head ineffably

d to that meaner scourge. Jesu! for one of his learning and condition to incur the fate of t

Illust

couplets scored in steel

Illust

ever at hatching those winged epigrams'-he turned smoothly again to

hateful smile; then, sighing su

I am troubled, and, since

e explanation

of my symptoms, thou'-and he su

eyes refusing to encounter the h

d threatening. And still, if he turns to challenge it, it is behind him; and

oner, as if, through all his mockery, the h

he whispered hoarsely, 'or

no gr

altimbanco braying in a doctor's skin! Less licence, Galeazzo, and more exer

eemed to listen reassured, then slowly rose, and, with

t spoken as one might expect. Bile, is it-bile? and little wonder in this u

to the chief of

dre

ng smile. The officer brought up his men

nto his captive's surprised, splenetic face-'and have him soundly fl

writhing lips; he was dragged away struggling and screaming. As he disappeared Galeazzo descended mincingly to the hall, bent on pursuing the show. A cloud of courtiers, male and female flocked, like rooks following a plough, in his wake. As he left the citadel and was crossing the outer wa

little sweetest b

eboding madness in his eyes. He made as if he would have struck her

hither sportest thou

n of his hand and flipp

. 'There is a frolic toward

nd followed him, as did th

almost on an equality with the master herald himself. Immobile and voiceless, he stood there like a model in an armoury. A short shirt of mail, and over it a scarlet jerkin with a plain dagger at the waist; hose of sober grey; a bonnet and shoes of black velvet, the first adorned with a red quill, the second with red rosettes; gorget and steel gauntlets-such was the whole of Messer Jacopo, save for the wooden, inessential detail of his face and its fixed eyes of glas

among the crowd. What proportion would the scourging of a prince's tutor bear to the punishment it avenged? It surely would not be allowed to lose by procrastination. They crane

d boisterously. 'In a moment tho

eyes, stood by their lord. The girl Catherine, petted

looks from here! I could fancy we were all L