And just when out of her soft fifty changes [PIPPA passes. within there! Gag this villain tie him SCENE. PIPPA's chamber again. She enters it. -- The bee with his comb, The mouse at her dray, Wile winter away; 240 But the fire-fly and hedge-shrew and lob-worm, I pray, How fare they? Ha, ha, thanks for your counsel, my Zanze! what did Zanze say 250 ? No bidding me then to "Pare your nails pearlwise, get your small feet shoes More like " like canoes! (what said she?) " and less How pert that girl was! would I be those pert To learn his name who passed that jest upon me: No foreigner, that I can recollect, Came, as she says, a month since, to inspect Our silk-mills 260 none with blue eyes and thick rings Of raw-silk-colored hair, at all events. Well, if old Luca keep his good intents, We shall do better, see what next year brings. Το carry that exalted air; Best people are not angels quite : While not the worst of people's doings scare I have just been the holy Monsignor : And I was you too, Luigi's gentle mother, On some good errand or another, For he passed just now in a traveller's trim, About his path, I noticed, scowled And now what am I?. tired of fooling. Day for folly, night for schooling! 270 280 290 New Year's day is over and spent, ; here's a friend I've plucked you: . . name there's no pronouncing! See this heightened color too, For she swilled Breganze wine Till her nose turned deep carmine; 'T was but white when wild she grew. And only by this Zanze's eyes Otherwise, may be perceived." 300 310 Oh what a drear dark close to my poor day! 320 How could that red sun drop in that black cloud? Ah Pippa, morning's rule is moved away, Dispensed with, never more to be allowed! To mavis, merle and throstle, Bid them their betters jostle From day and its delights! But at night, brother howlet, over the woods, Sing to the bats' sleek sisterhoods Full complines with gallantry: Cowls and twats, Monks and nuns, in a cloister's moods, Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry! 330 [After she has begun to undress herself. Now, one thing I should like to really know : Approach, I mean, so as to touch them, so As to .. in some way please, move them Do good or evil to them some slight way. Silk to-morrow, my silk may bind [Sitting on the bedside. And border Ottima's cloak's hem. Ah me, and my important part with them, This morning's hymn half promised when I rose! [As she lies down. God bless me! I can pray no more to-night. No doubt, some way or other, hymns say right. 350 All service ranks the same with God- [She sleeps. KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES; A TRAGEDY. 1842. NOTE. So far as I know, this Tragedy is the first artistic consequence of what Voltaire termed "a terrible event without consequences; and although it professes to be historical, I have taken more pains to arrive at the history than most readers would thank me for particularizing: since acquainted, as I will hope them to be, with the chief circumstances of Victor's remarkable European career nor quite ignorant of the sad and surprising facts I am about to reproduce (a tolerable account of which is to be found, for instance, in Abbé Roman's Récit, or even the fifth of Lord Orrery's Letters from Italy) · I cannot expect them to be versed, nor desirous of becoming so, in all the detail of the memoirs, correspondence, and relations of the time. From these only may be obtained a knowledge of the fiery and audacious temper, unscrupulous selfishness, profound dissimulation, and singular fertility in resources, of Victor the extreme and painful sensibility, prolonged immaturity of powers, earnest good purpose and vacillating will of Charles right woman's manliness of his wife and the illconsidered rascality and subsequent better-advised rectitude of D'Ormea. When I say, therefore, that I cannot but believe my statement (combining as it does what appears correct in Voltaire and plausible in Condorcet) more true to person and thing than any it has hitherto been my the noble and |