The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 340, Supplementary Number (1828). Various

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СКАЧАТЬ instantly dropped him at the sight of the bayonets, and knowing the value of life in the most delicious climate of the world, took to their heels. The guard took possession of their prisoner, and were leading him rather roughly to the governor's house, when he requested them to stop for a moment beside a convent gate, that he might get a cup of wine. But the Dominicans would not give the satirist of their illustrious order a cup of water.

      "If you will not give me refreshment," exclaimed he, in an angry tone, "give me wherewithal to buy it. I demand a hundred sequins."

      The prior himself was at the window above his head; and the only answer was a sneer, which was loyally echoed through every cloister.

      "Let me have your bayonet for a moment," said the stranger to one of his guard. He received it; and striking away a projecting stone in the wall, out rushed the hundred sequins. The prior clasped his hands in agony, that so much money should have been so near, and yet have escaped his pious purposes, The soldiers took off their caps for the discoverer, and bowed them still lower when he threw every sequin of it into the shakos of those polite warriors. The officer, to whom he had given a double share, showed his gratitude by a whisper, offering to assist his escape for as much more. But the stranger declined the civility, and walked boldly into the presence-chamber of the sublime podesta.

      The Signer Dominico Castello-Grande Tremamondo was a little Venetian noble, descended in a right line from Aeneas, with a palazzo on the Canale Regio of Venice, which he let for a coffee-house; and living in the pomp and pride of a magnifico on something more than the wages of an English groom. The intelligence of this extraordinary stranger's discoveries had flown like a spark through a magazine, and the illustrissimo longed to be a partaker in the secret. He interrogated the prisoner with official fierceness, but could obtain no other reply than the general declaration, that he was a traveller come to see the captivations of Italy. In the course of the inquiry the podesta dropped a significant hint about money.

      "As to money," was the reply, "I seldom carry any about me; it is so likely to tempt rascals to dip deeper in roguery. I have it whenever I choose to call for it."

      "I should like to see the experiment made, merely for its curiosity," said the governor.

      "You shall be obeyed," was the answer; "but I never ask for more than a sum for present expenses. Here, you fellow!" said he, turning to one of the half-naked soldiery, "lend me five hundred sequins!"

      The whole guard burst into laughter. The sum would have been a severe demand on the military chest of the army. The handsome stranger advanced to him, and, seizing his musket, said, loftily, "Fellow, if you won't give the money, this must." He struck the butt-end of the musket thrice upon the floor. At the third blow a burst of gold poured out, and sequins ran in every direction. The soldiery and the officers of the court were in utter astonishment. All wondered, many began to cross themselves, and several of the most celebrated swearers in the regiment dropped upon their knees. But their devotions were not long, for the sublime podesta ordered the hall to be cleared, and himself, the stranger, and the sequins, left alone.

      For three days nothing more was heard of any of the three, and the Vicenzese scarcely ate, drank, or slept, through anxiety to know what was become of the man in the scarlet cloak, and cap striped green and vermilion. Jealousy, politics, and piety, at length put their heads together, and, by the evening of the third day, the cavalieri had agreed that he was some rambling actor, or Alpine thief, the statesmen, that he was a spy; and the Dominicans that he was Satan in person. The women, partly through the contradiction natural to the lovely sex, and partly through the novelty of not having the world in their own way, were silent; a phenomenon which the Italian philosophers still consider the true wonder of the whole affair.

      On the evening of the third day a new Venetian governor, with a stately cortege, was seen entering at the Water Gate, full gallop, from Venice: he drove straight to the podesta's house, and, after an audience, was provided with apartments in the town-house, one of the finest in Italy, and looking out upon the Piazza Grande, in which are the two famous columns, one then surmounted by the winged lion of St. Mark, as the other still is by a statue of the founder of our faith.

      The night was furiously stormy, and the torrents of rain and perpetual roaring of the thunder drove the people out of the streets. But between the tempest and curiosity not an eye was closed that night in the city. Towards morning the tempest lulled, and in the intervals of the wind, strange sounds were heard, like the rushing of horses and rattling of carriages. At length the sounds grew so loud that curiosity could be restrained no longer, and the crowd gathered towards the entrance of the Piazza. The night was dark beyond description, and the first knowledge of the hazard that they were incurring was communicated to the shivering mob by the kicks of several platoons of French soldiery, who let them pass within their lines, but prohibited escape. The square was filled with cavalry, escorting wagons loaded with the archives, plate, and pictures, of the government. The old podesta was seen entering a carriage, into which his very handsome daughter, the betrothed of the proudest of the proud Venetian senators, was handed by the stranger. The procession then moved, and last, and most surprising of all, the stranger, mounting a charger, put himself at the head of the cavalry, and, making a profound adieu to the new governor, who stood shivering at the window in care of a file of grenadiers, dashed forward on the road to Milan.

      Day rose, and the multitude rushed out to see what was become of the city. Every thing was as it had been, but the column of the lion: its famous emblem of the Venetian republic was gone, wings and all. They exclaimed that the world had come to an end. But the wheel of fortune is round, let politicians say what they will. In twelve months from that day the old podesta was again sitting in the government-house—yet a podesta no more, but a French prefect; the Signora Maria, his lovely daughter, was sitting beside him, with an infant, the image of her own beauty, and beside her the stranger, no longer the man of magic in the scarlet cloak and green and vermilion striped cap with a topaz clasp, but a French general of division, in blue and silver, her husband, as handsome as ever, and, if not altogether a professed Diavolo, quite as successful in finding money whenever he wanted it. His first entree into Vicenza had been a little theatrical, for such is the genius of his country. The blowing-up of his little steam-boat, which had nearly furnished his drama with a tragic catastrophe, added to its effect; and his discovery of the sequins was managed by three of his countrymen. As an inquirer into the nakedness of the land, he might have been shot as a spy. As half-charlatan and half-madman, he was sure of national sympathy. During the three days of his stay the old podesta had found himself accessible to reason, the podesta's daughter to the tender passion, and the treasures of the state to the locomotive skill of the French detachment, that waited in the mountains the result of their officer's diplomacy. The lion of St. Mark, having nothing else to do, probably disdained to remain, and in the same night took wing from the column, to which he has never returned.

      As we love to "march in good order," we begin with the plates, the most striking of which is the Frontispiece, Marcus Curtius, by Le Keux, from a design by Martin, which we are at a loss to describe. It requires a microscopic eye to fully appreciate all its beauties—yet the thousands of figures and the architectural background, are so clear and intelligible as to make our optic nerve sympathize with the labour of the artist. The next is a View on the Ganges, by Finden, after Daniell; Constancy, by Portbury, after Stephanoff, in which the female figure is loveliness personified; Eddystone during a Storm; the Proposal, a beautiful family group; the Cottage Kitchen, by Romney, after Witherington; and the Blind Piper, from a painting by Clennell, who, from too great anxiety in the pursuit of his profession, was some years since deprived of reason, which he has never recovered.

      In the poetical department we notice the Retreat, some beautiful lines by J. Montgomery; Ellen Strathallan, a pathetic legend, by Mrs. Pickersgill; St. Mary of the Lows, by the Ettrick Shepherd; Xerxes, a beautiful composition, by C. Swain, Esq.; the Banks of the Ganges, a descriptive poem, by Capt. McNaghten; Lydford Bridge, a fearful incident, by the author of Dartmoor; Alice, a СКАЧАТЬ