herdess: the woman holding a crook also, and modestly returning his look, with a gipsy-hat jerked up behind, a very slender waist, with petticoat and hips to counteract, and the petticoat pulled up through the pocket-holes, in order to show the trimness of her ancles. But these patterns, of course, are various. The toilet is ancient, carved at the edges, and tied about with a snow white drapery of muslin. Beside it are various boxes, mostly japan; and the set of drawers are exquisite things for a little girl to rummage, if ever little girl be so bold,-containing ribbons and laces of various kinds; linen smelling of lavender, of the flowers of which there is always dust in the corners; a heap of pocket-books for a series of years; and pieces of dress long gone by, such as head fronts, stomachers, and flowered satin shoes, with enormous heels. The stock of letters are under especial lock and key. So much for the bed-room. In the sitting room is rather a spare assortment of shining old mahogany furniture, or carved arm-chairs equally old, with chintz draperies down to the ground; a folding or other screen, with Chinese figures, their round, little-eyed, meek faces perking sideways; a stuffed bird, perhaps in a glass case (a living one is too much for her); a portrait of her husband over the mantel-piece, in a coat with frog-buttons, and a delicate frilled hand lightly inserted in the waistcoat; and opposite him on the wall, is a piece of embroidered literature, framed and glazed, containing some moral distich or maxim, worked in angular capital letters, with two trees or parrots below, in their proper colors; the whole concluding with an ABC and numerals, and the name of the fair industrious, expressing it to be "her work, Jan. 14, 1762." The rest of the furniture consists of a looking-glass with carved edges, perhaps a settee, a hassock for the feet, a mat for the little dog, and a small set of shelves, in which are the Spectator and Guardian, the Turkish Spy, a Bible and Prayer Book, Young's Night Thoughts with a piece of lace in it to flatten, Mrs. Rowe's Devout Exercises of the Heart, Mrs. Glasse's Cookery and perhaps Sir Charles Grandison, and Clarissa. John Buncle is in the closet The clock is on the landing

among the pickles and preserves. place between the two room doors, where it ticks audibly but quietly; and the landing-place is carpeted to a nicety. The

house is most in character, and properly coeval, if it is in a re. tired suburb, and strongly built, with wainscot rather than paper inside, and lockers in the windows. Before the windows should be some quivering poplars. Here the Old Lady receives a few quiet visitors to tea, and perhaps an early game at cards: or you may see her going out on the same kind of visit herself, with a light umbrella running up into a stick and crooked ivory handle, and her little dog, equally famous for his love to her and captious antipathy to strangers. Her grand-children dislike him on holidays, and the boldest sometimes ventures to give him a sly kick under the table. When she returns at night, she appears, if the weather happens to be doubtful, in a calash; and her servant in pattens follows half behind and half at her side, with a lantern.

Her opinions are not many nor new. She thinks the clergyman a nice man. The duke of Wellington, in her opinion, is a very great man; but she has a secret preference for the Marquis of Granby. She thinks the young women of the present day too forward, and the men not respectful enough; but hopes her grandchildren will be better; though she differs with her daughter in several points respecting their management. She sets little value on the new accomplishments; is a great though delicate connoisseur in butcher's meat and all sorts of housewifery; and if you mention waltzes, expatiates on the grace and fine breeding of the minuet. She longs to have seen one danced by Sir Charles Grandison, whom she almost considers as a real person. She likes a walk of a summer's evening, but avoids the new streets, canals, &c., and sometimes goes through the churchyard, where her children and her husband lie buried, serious, but not melancholy. She has had three great epochs in her life her marriage-her having been at court, to see the King and Queen and Royal Family-and a compliment on her figure she once received, in passing, from Mr. Wilkes, whom she describes as a sad, loose man, but engaging. His plainness she thinks much exaggerated. If anything takes her at a distance from home, it is still the court; but she seldom stirs, even for that. The last time but one that she went, was to see the Duke of Wirtemburg; and most probably for the last time of all, to

see the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold. From this beatific vision she returned with the same admiration as ever for the fine comely appearance of the Duke of York and the rest of the family, and great delight at having had a near view of the Princess, whom she speaks of with smiling pomp and lifted mittens, clasping them as passionately as she can together, and call. ing her, in a transport of mixed loyalty and self-love, a fine royal young creature, and "Daughter of England."

CHAPTER LXII.

Pulci.

We present our readers with a prose abridgment of the beginning of the Morgante Maggiore of Pulci, the father of Italian romance. We would rather have given it them in verse; put it would have taken more time and attention than we can just now afford. Besides, a prose specimen of this author is a less unjust one, than it would be of any of his successors; because though a real poet, he is not so eminent as a versifier, and deals less in poetical abstractions. He has less of the oracular or voiceful part of his art, conversing almost exclusively with the social feelings in their most familiar language.

Luigi Pulci, the younger of three literary brothers, was born the 15th of December (3d. O. S.), 1431. His family was noble, and probably gave their name to the district of Monte Pulciano, famous for the supereminence of its wine. It was a fit soil for him to grow in. He had an enviable lot, with nothing to interrupt his vivacity; passing his life in the shades of ease and retirement, and "warbling his native wood-notes wild," without fear of hawks from above, or lurking reptiles from below. Among his principal friends were Politian, Lorenzo de Medici, and the latter's mother, Lucrezia Tornabuona. He speaks affectionately of her memory at the close of his work. At Lorenzo's table he was a constant guest; and at this table, where it is possible that the future pope, Leo the Tenth, was present as a little boy, he is said to have read, as he produced it, that remarkable poem, which the old Italian critics were not agreed whether to think pious or profane.*

* Leo was born in 1475, forty-four years after the death of Pulci; so thaí, supposing the latter to have arrived at anything like length of days, he may have had the young father of the faithful for an auditor.

The reader, at this time of day, will be inclined to think it the latter; nor will the reputation of Leo himself, who is said to have made use of the word "fable" on a very remarkable occasion, be against their verdict. Undoubtedly there was much scepti cism in those days, as there always must be where there is great vivacity of mind, with great demands upon its credulity. But we must take care how we pronounce upon the real spirit of manners unlike our own, when we consider the extraordinary mixture of reverence and familiarity with which the most bigoted periods of Catholicism have been accustomed to treat the objects of their faith. They elbow them, till they treat them like their earthly kindred, expecting most from them, and behaving worse by them. Popish sailors have scourged the idols, whom they have prayed to the minute before for a fair wind. The most laughable exposure of the tricks of Roman Catholics in our own language is by old Heywood the epigrammatist, who died abroad "in consequence of his devotion to the Roman Catholic cause."—" The bigotry of any age," says Mr. Hazlitt, "is by no means a test of its piety, or even sincerity. Men seemed to make themselves amends for the enormity of their faith by levity of feeling, as well as by laxity of principle; and in the indifference or ridicule with which they treated the wilful absurdities and extravagances to which they hoodwinked their understandings, almost resembled children playing at blindman's buff, who grope their way in the dark, and make blunders on purpose to laugh at their idleness and folly."-Lectures on the Literature of the age of Elizabeth, p. 192. It may be added, that they are sometimes like children playing and laughing at ghosts in daylight, but afraid of them at night time. There have not been wanting readers to take all Pulci's levity in good religious part. This does not seem possible; but it is possible that he may have had a certain conventional faith in religion, or even regarded it as a sentiment and a general truth, while the goodness of his disposition led him to be ironical upon particular dogmas. We must judge him in charity, giving him the benefit of our doubts.

The specimen now laid before the reader is perhaps as good a one, for prose, as could have been selected. The characteristics of our poet are wildness of fancy, pithiness of humor, sprightliness