Impudent staring women! It had done me,
However, surely no such mighty hurt

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

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!

I may buy shoes, my Zanze, not appear

More destitute than you perhaps next year!

Bluph . . something! I had caught the uncouth name
But for Monsignor's people's sudden clatter
Above us
bound to spoil such idle chatter
As ours it were indeed a serious matter
If silly talk like ours should put to shame
The pious man, the man devoid of blame,
The... ah but ah but, all the same,
No mere mortal has a right

To carry that exalted air;

Best people are not angels quite:

While not the worst of people's doings scare
The devil; so there's that proud look to spare !
Which is mere counsel to myself, mind! for
I have just been the holy Monsignor :
And I was you too, Luigi's gentle mother,
And you too, Luigi!-how that Luigi started
Out of the turret-doubtlessly departed
On some good errand or another,

For he passed just now in a traveller's trim,
And the sullen company that prowled
About his path, I noticed, scowled
As if they had lost a prey in him.
And I was Jules the sculptor's bride,
And I was Ottima beside,

And now what am I? — tired of fooling.
Day for folly, night for schooling!
New year's day is over and spent,
Ill or well, I must be content.
Even my lily's asleep, I vow:
Wake

up here's a friend I've plucked you,

Call this flower a heart's-ease now!
Something rare, let me instruct you,
Is this, with petals triply swollen,
Three times spotted, thrice the pollen;
While the leaves and parts that witness

Old proportions and their fitness,
Here remain unchanged, unmoved now;
Call this pampered thing improved now!
Suppose there's a king of the flowers
And a girl-show held in his bowers-
"Look ye, buds, this growth of ours,"
Says he, "Zanze from the Brenta,
I have made her gorge polenta

Till both cheeks are near as bouncing
As her. . . 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

Of which we could not change the size,
The magnitude of all achieved
Otherwise, may be perceived."

Oh what a drear dark close to my poor day!
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!
Day's turn is over, now arrives the night's.
Oh lark, be day's apostle

To mavis, merle and throstle,
Bid them their betters jostle
From day and its delights!

But at night, brother owlet, over the woods,
Toll the world to thy chantry;

Sing to the bats' sleek sisterhoods

Full complines with gallantry:

Then, owls and bats,

Cowls and twats,

Monks and nuns, in a cloister's moods,

Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry!

[After she has begun to undress herself.

Now, one thing I should like to really know:
How near I ever might approach all these
I only fancied being, this long day:

Approach, I mean, so as to touch them, so
As to

in some way

move them

Do good or evil to them some slight way.
For instance, if I wind

Silk to-morrow, my silk may bind

if you please,

[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 !
True in some sense or other, I

suppose.

[As she lies down.

God bless me ! I can pray no more to-night.
No doubt, some way or other, hymns say right.

All service ranks the same with God -
With God, whose puppets, best and worst,
Are we; there is no last nor first.

[She sleeps.

KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES

A TRAGEDY

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- the noble and right woman's manliness of his wife and the ill-considered 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 fortune to meet with, no doubt my word will be taken, and my evidence spared as readily. R. B.

LONDON, 1842.

SCENE.

PERSONS.

VICTOR AMADEUS, First King of Sardinia.

CHARLES EMMANUEL, his Son, Prince of Piedmont.
POLYXENA, Wife of Charles.

D'ORMEA, Minister.

The Council Chamber of Rivoli Palace, near Turin, communicating with a Hall at the back, an Apartment to the left and another to the right of the stage.

TIME, 1730-1.

FIRST YEAR, 1730.

KING VICTOR.

PART I.

CHARLES, POLYXENA.

My beloved,

Cha. You think so? Well, I do not.

Pol.
All must clear up; we shall be happy yet:
This cannot last forever-oh, may change
To-day or any day!