of his father, in which he is to be joined by the rest of the family. The plot, after one unlucky attempt, succeeds; and at the moment of its accomplishment, is discovered by a messenger, who is despatched to the lonely castle of Petrella (one of the Count's family residences), with a summons of attendance from the Pope. We need hardly say that the criminals are condemned; and not even the lovely Beatrice is able to escape the punishment of the law. The agitation she experiences after the commission of the incest, is powerfully descriptive.

"How comes this hair undone?

Its wandering strings must be what blind me so,
And yet I tied it fast.-O, horrible!

The pavement sinks under my feet! The walls
Spin round! I see a woman weeping there,
And standing calm and motionless, whilst I
Slide giddily as the world reels-My God!
The beautiful blue heaven is flecked with blood!
The sunshine on the floor is black! The air
Is changed to vapours such as the dead breathe
In charnel pits! Pah! I am choaked! There creeps
A clinging, black, contaminating mist
About me 'tis substantial, heavy, thick,
I cannot pluck it from me, for it glues
My fingers and my limbs to one another,
And eats into my sinews, and dissolves
My flesh to a pollution, poisoning

The subtle, pure, and inmost spirit of life!"

At first she concludes that she is mad; but then pathetically checks herself by saying, "No, I am dead." Lucretia naturally enough inquires into the cause of her disquietude, and but too soon discovers, by the broken hints of the victim, the source of her mental agitation. Terrified at their defenceless state, they then mutually. conspire with Orsino against the Count; and Beatrice pro

poses to way-lay him (a plot, however, which fails) in a deep and dark ravine, as he journeys to Petrella.

"But I remember

Two miles on this side of the fort, the road
Crosses a deep ravine; 'tis rough and narrow,
And winds with short turns down the precipice;
And in its depth there is a mighty rock,
Which has, from unimaginable years,
Sustained itself with terror and with toil
Over a gulph, and with the agony

With which it clings seems slowly coming down;
Even as a wretched soul hour after hour,
Clings to the mass of life; yet clinging, leans;
And leaning, makes more dark the dread abyss
In which it fears to fall: beneath this crag
Huge as despair, as if in weariness,
The melancholy mountain yawns—below,
You hear but see not an impetuous torrent
Raging among the caverns, and a bridge
Crosses the chasm; and high above there grow,
With intersecting trunks, from crag to crag,
Cedars, and yews, and pines; whose tangled hair
Is matted in one solid roof of shade

By the dark ivy's twine. At noon day here

'Tis twilight, and at sunset blackest night."

Giacomo, meanwhile, who was privy to the transaction, awaits the arrival of Orsino, with intelligence of the murder, in a state of the most fearful torture and suspence.

"Tis midnight, and Orsino comes not yet.

(Thunder, and the sound of a storm.)

What! can the everlasting elements

Feel with a worm like man? If so, the shaft

Of mercy-winged lightning would not fall

On stones and trees. My wife and children sleep:

They are now living in unmeaning dreams:

But I must wake, still doubting if that deed

Be just which was most necessary. O,

Thou unreplenished lamp! whose narrow fire
Is shaken by the wind, and on whose edge
Devouring darkness hovers! Thou small flame,
Which, as a dying pulse rises and falls,

Still flickerest up and down, how very soon,
Did I not feed thee, thou wouldst fail and be
As thou hadst never been! So wastes and sinks
Even now, perhaps, the life that kindled mine:
But that no power can fill with vital oil
That broken lamp of flesh. Ha! 'tis the blood
Which fed these veins that ebbs till all is cold:
It is the form that moulded mine that sinks
Into the white and yellow spasms of death:
It is the soul by which mine was arrayed
In God's immortal likeness which now stands
Naked before Heaven's judgment seat!

(a bell strikes)

One! Two!

The hours crawl on; and when my hairs are white
My son will then perhaps be waiting thus.
Tortured between just hate and vain remorse;

Chiding the tardy messenger of news

Like those which I expect. I almost wish

He be not dead, although my wrongs are great;

Yet 'tis Orsino's step."

We envy not the feelings of any one who can read the curses that Cenci invokes on his daughter, when she refuses to repeat her guilt, without the strongest disgust, notwithstanding the intense vigor of the imprecations

"Cen. (Kneeling) God!

Hear me! If this most specious mass of flesh,
Which thou hast made my daughter; this my blood,

This particle of my divided being;

Or rather, this my bane and my disease,

Whose sight infects and poisons me; this devil

Which sprung from me as from a hell, was meant

To aught good use; if her bright loveliness

Was kindled to illumine this dark world;

If nursed by thy selectest dew of love

Such virtues blossom in her as should make
The peace of life, I pray thee for my sake
As thou the common God and Father art
Of her, and me, and all; reverse that doom!
Earth, in the name of God, let her food be
Poison, until she be encrusted round

With leprous stains! Heaven, rain upon her head
The blistering drops of the Maremma's dew,
Till she be speckled like a toad; parch up
Those love-enkindled lips, warp those fine limbs
To loathed lameness! All beholding sun,
Strike in thine envy those life darting eyes
With thine own blinding beams!

Lucr. Peace! Peace!

For thine own sake unsay those dreadful words.

When high God grants he punishes such prayers.

Cen. (Leaping up, and throwing his right hand toward Heaven)

He does his will, I mine! This in addition,

That if she have a child

Lucr. Horrible thought!

Cen. That if she ever have a child; and thou,

Quick Nature! I adjure thee by thy God,

That thou be fruitful in her, and encrease
And multiply, fulfilling his command,
And my deep imprecation! May it be
A hideous likeness of herself, that as
From a distorting mirror, she may see
Her image mixed with what she most abhors,
Smiling upon her from her nursing breast.
And that the child may from its infancy
Grow, day by day, more wicked and deformed,
Turning her mother's love to misery:

And that both she and it may live until

It shall repay her care and pain with hate,
Or what may else be more unnatural.
So he may hunt her thro' the clamorous scoffs
Of the loud world to a dishonoured grave.
Shall I revoke this curse? Go, bid her come,
Before my words are chronicled in Heaven.

(Exit LUCRETIA.)

I do not feel as if I were a man,

But like a fiend appointed to chastise

The offences of some unremembered world.
My blood is running up and down my veins;
A fearful pleasure makes it prick and tingle:
I feel a giddy sickness of strange awe;

My heart is beating with an expectation

Of horrid joy."

Ohé! jam satis est!!-The minutia of this affectionate parent's curses forcibly remind us of the equally minute excommunication so admirably recorded in Tristram Shandy. But Sterne has the start of him; for though Percy Bysshe Shell [e]y, Esquire, has contrived to include in the imprecations of Cenci, the eyes, head, lips, and limbs of his daughter, the other has anticipated his measures, in formally and specifically anathematizing the lights, lungs, liver, and all odd joints, without excepting even the great toe of his victim.-To proceed in our review; the dying expostulations of poor Beatrice, are beautiful and affecting, though occasionally tinged with the Cockney style of burlesque; for instance, Bernado asks, when they tear him from the embraces of his sister,

"Would ye divide body from soul?”

On which the judge sturdily replies-" That is the headsman's business." The idea of approaching execution paralyses the soul of Beatrice, and she thus frantically expresses her horror.

"Beatr. (Wildly) Oh,

My God! Can it be possible I have
To die so suddenly? So young to go

Under the obscure, cold, rotting, wormy ground!

To be nailed down into a narrow place;

To see no more sweet sunshine; hear no more