up to heaven, in a kind of trance, a-tasting of the poetry; but whiles she was a-looking up to heaven, for the meaning of that there sing-song, blest if her little white fingers wasn't twisting the ends of that there beard into little ringlets, without seeming to know what they was doing. Soon as I saw that, I said, "Here's a go. It is all up with Captain Greaves. He have limed her, this here cockney sailor." For if ever a woman plays with a man's curls, or his whiskers, or his beard, she is netted like a partridge; it is a sure sign. So should we be, if the women's hair was loose; but they has so much mercy as to tie it up, and make it as hugly as they can, and full o' pins; and that saves many a man from being netted, and caged, and all. So soon arter that she named the day.' Greaves sat dead silent under this flow of envenomed twaddle, like a Spartan under the knife. But at last he could bear it no longer. He groaned aloud, and buried his contorted face in his hands.

Confound my chattering tongue!' said honest Dewar, and ran to the side-board, and forced a glass of brandy on him. He thanked him, and drank it, and told him not to mind him; but to tell him where she was settled with the fellow.

Settled, sir?' said Dewar. No such luck. She writes to her papa every week; but it is always from some fresh place. "Dewar," says his worship to me, "I've married my girl to the Wandering Jew." Oh, he don't hide his mind from me; he tells me that this Laxton have had a ship built in the north, a thundering big ship-for he's as rich as Croses-and he have launched her to sail round the world. My fear is, he will sail her to the bottom of the ocean.'

'Poor Ellen!'

'Captain-Captain-don't fret your heart out for her; she is right. She loves the man, and she loves hexcitement; which he will give it her. She'd have had a ball here every week, if she could; and now she will see a new port every week. She is all right. Let her go her own road. She broke her troth to do it; and we don't think much, in Wales, of girls as do that, be they gentle, or be they simple, look you.'

Greaves looked up, and said, sternly, 'Not one word against her, before me. I have borne all I can.'

6

Old Dewar wasn't a bit offended. Ah! you are a man, you are,' said he. Then, in a cordial way, 'Captain Greaves, sir, you will stay with us, now you are come.'

'Me stay here!'

'Ay; why not? Ye musn't bear spite against the old man. He stood out for you, longer than I ever knowed him stand out

against her: but she could always talk him over; she could talk anybody over. It is all haccident my standing so true to you. It wasn't worth her while to talk old Dewar over; that is the reason. Do ye stay now. You'll be like a son to the old man, look you. He is sadly changed since she went; quite melancholly; and keeps a-blaming of hisself, for letting her be master.'

'Dewar,' said the young man, I cannot. The sight of the places where I walked with her, and loved her, and she seemed to love me-Oh no!-to London by the first train-and then to sea. Thank God for the sea. The sea cannot change into lying land. My heart has been broken ashore. Perhaps it may recover in a few years, at sea. Give him my love, Dewar, and God bless you!

He almost ran out of the house, and fixed his eyes on the ground, to see no more objects embittered by recollections of happiness fled. He made his way to his uncle, in London, reported himself to the Admiralty, and asked for a berth in the first ship bound to China. He was told, in reply, he could go out in any merchant ship; but as his pay would not be interrupted, the Government could not be chargeable for his expenses.

In spite of a dizzy headache, he went into the city, next day, to arrange for his voyage.

But, at night, he was taken with violent shivering, and before morning was light-headed.

A doctor was sent for, in the morning.

Next day the case was so serious that a second was called in. The case declared itself-gastric fever and jaundice. They administered medicines, which, as usual in these cases, did the stomach a little harm, and the system no good.

His uncle sent for a third physician; a rough, but very able man. He approved all the others had done-and did the very reverse; ordered him a milk diet, tepid aspersions, frequent change of bed, and linen, and no medicine at all, but a little bark; and old Scotch whisky in moderation.

'Tell me the truth,' said his sorrowful uncle.

'I always do,' said the doctor, that is why they call me a brute. Well, sir, the case is not hopeless yet. But I will not deceive you; I fear he is going a longer voyage than China.'

So may the mind destroy the body, and the Samson, who can conquer a host, be laid low by a woman.

(To be continued.)

Lisa.

I WANDER through a fragrant land
To see one blossom of the isle,
To feel the magic of one hand,

To read the meaning of one smile.

No laughter in the twilight hours,

No song of lark has theme more gay; No maiden spirit of the flow'rs

Has sweeter dreams before the day.

Her songs are softer than the wind
Love-making to the summer leaves;
Her murmurs golden loops to bind
Heart-harvests of the summer eves.

Rare light of dawn is in her eyes,
A regal pledge of perfect day,
When secrets now that speak in sighs
Will find the words that lovers say.

Her heart is like a grove of song;

In ev'ry glade new music dwells,

Till concord of melodious throng

Seems mellow-throated marriage-bells.

And when the moon and nightingale

Disrobe the world of care and thought,

Her presence lifts a final veil,

And rapture pauses, wonder-wrought.

RICHARD DOWLING.

The Homes and Haunts of the Italian Poets.

I. DANTE.

BY T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE.

Ir is impossible to speak or think of the Italian poets' without placing at the head of the list the name prefixed to this page. Not even Shakespeare himself, the facile princeps of all poets of every time and every clime, stands so pre-eminently above every other name of his countrymen as Dante above all other Italians. Chronology, which also marks his place as the first, might perhaps, for our present purpose, have been disregarded. But it is noteworthy that Italy and the Italian language reached the highest point they were destined to reach (so far, at least, as the history of the subsequent six hundred years has gone) at the first bound! Vigorous and grand leaps were made subsequently, but the mark touched by that first spring has never been reached again!

It is of the Home and the Haunts of Dante, then, that these pages will treat. But it seems to strike a sad key-note to speak

of the home of him who had no home-the home of Dante the exile, Dante the wanderer, who in the bitterness of his heart wrote those pathetic lines:

Tu proverai si come sa di sale

Lo pane altrui, e com è duro calle

Lo scendere e 'l salir l' altrui scale!1

Though the home of Dante was, as has been said, nowhere, the haunts of the poet were, to his great unhappiness, extremely numerous. There is hardly any district of Italy in which the minute and never-wearied industry of his commentators and biographers has not succeeded in finding traces of his footsteps. He was to the end a wanderer, and one whose heart never ceased to turn to, and to long for, his only true home.

Nel bello ovile, cv' io dormii agnello.

Let us endeavour, then, to catch such a glimpse of him as we

Thou shalt experience how salt is the savour of another's bread; how hard a path the climbing and descending of another's stair!'

I have preferred in this and other quotations to give the literal translation of Dante's words in prose, rather than borrow the necessarily less accurate rendering of any one of his innumerable poetical translators.

26 In the beautiful fold, where I slept when a lamb.'-Paradiso, canto 25, v. 7.

may across the mists of six hundred years, as he was in that wellloved fold, while he had yet a home.

Durante familiarly, after old Florentine fashion, called Dante, a form he always himself uses-was born in 1265, of the old patrician Florentine family Alighieri, which probably was an offshoot from the more ancient Frangipani of Rome. Much patient learning and much midnight oil have been expended in showing that the name ought to be written Alighieri, and not Allighieri. And we outsiders can but in such a matter follow the latest and now received practice. But the controversy seems to prove, as many another controversy in similar matters, that the old chroniclers and notaries and drawers up of documents wrote the name either way without giving themselves the smallest trouble about the correctness of their spelling. But, as all agree that the name was originally Aldighieri, it might seem probable that the earliest corruption of it was to Allighieri, by a substitution of the harder d.

for the

On a mid-May day in the year 1265, that wonderful human soul first saw the light of day-six centuries and eleven years ago! Sturdy little Florence, proud of her independence, lord of herself within her narrow walls, and of but a few acres beyond them, was still in that period of her growth when the poet could regret the mixing of the pure blood of her citizens with that of foreigners from the neighbouring villages some four or five miles from her walls. But the simplicity of life, which the poet celebrates when

Fiorenza dentro della cerchia antica,

Si stava in pace sobria e pudica,1

did not preserve its inhabitants from constant civil war ; and, however sobria and pudica the old life may have been, it was only that illusion, which makes all times seem good when old,' that could lead to the statement that Dante's fellow citizens lived in peace, either among themselves or with the communities, their more immediate neighbours. There is no need to recall the neverending feuds of Guelphs and Ghibellines-of Bianchi and Neri. The story is too well known. But it may be as well to remind the reader that, in a general way, the Guelphs were the Whigs of those days, and held for national, i.e., communal, independence under the general protection of the Pope; while the Tory Ghibellines were for admitting the suzerainty of the Empire; and the more far-sighted

Florence, within her ancient circle of wall, remained in peace, sober and modest. -Paradiso, canto 15, v. 97. The whole passage, in which the poet describes the ancient manners, is well worth referring to.