'Myself that friend; Liguria's shores who left,
To good Rambaldo bearing store of gold
And weighty letters; now of both bereft

By robber bands that in your marshes hold.
'Drink ye whilst your kind lord must suffer theft!
The fates conspire against Rambaldo bold,
'Tho' from yon Pisan rebels to ensure

My precious charge, I sought a track obscure.

'Or tremble at the vengeance of thy lord!'"

The seneschal is fairly frightened from his jollification by the threats of the pretended knight, and sets out with his men to seek the supposititious robbers, leaving at home his wife and a single old ruffian in addition. But Elisa, it should seem, had arranged only the first half of her stratagem, trusting further operations to chance; and she is pondering how to profit by the brief absence of the garrison, when the seneschal's kind-hearted wife comes to implore her good offices with Rambaldo, in behalf of a noble captive recently brought to the castle, and for whose fate she is under great apprehension. Elisa does not reveal her own deep interest in the matter, but quietly promises mediation, and inquires into the possibility of enabling the prisoner to escape, lest her intervention should prove too late. She learns that the castle is supposed to be haunted by the ghost of Rambaldo's wife, who had been murdered there, and that her companion can communicate with Ugo from a balcony immediately above his dungeon. Our heroine thereupon intrusts her humble friend with a silk ladder by which Ugo is to get out of the castle, and instructions for his course when he shall have thus regained his liberty. This commission is scarcely given when a noise, announcing the seneschal's return, warns his wife to retire to her chamber; whilst Elisa lying down upon a bench pretends sleep, and thus overhears a proposal for her own assassination, postponed by the seneschal until they shall have made another search next morning for the invisible robbers.

"The night advances, and the castle bell

Tolls slowly, solemnly, the midnight hour;

Then rings a rapid peal, designed to tell

Th' appointed watchers they must wake, and scour
The purlieus of the castle, bill and dell,

Lest foemen in the dark surprise the tow'r.

Groping, scarce half awake, from bed they creep,
And curse the summons that forbids to sleep.

"Now heavy and reluctant steps are heard

Along the narrow passages and stairs,
Grumbling, and oaths, and many a muttered word;
A court-yard lanthorn on th' assemblage flares,
Each on his halberd leans, with face unstirred.

The draw-bridge falls, and forth one party fares,
To range the ground; the rest within the yard
Replace the draw-bridge and remain on guard.
"Scarce half an hour since forth they went hath past,
And hark! the word is given, and the reply:
Now over the lower'd bridge come trampling fast
The scouts, full certain that no danger's nigh;
When lo! a strange alarm !—all stand aghast,
For issuing from the portal all descry

A tall white phantom, that, amidst their fears,
Crossing court-yard and draw-bridge, disappears.
"The guards all trembling stood; then raised a yell

Of fear, and shrouded with their hands their eyes;
But when they heard their shrieks re-echoing swell,
For shelter swift each hurrying dastard flies;
Jostling and dashing at the gate, some fell,

Borne down and trampled on with groans and cries;
Pale, livid, icy-cold, some fainting lay;

Some, as their feet were winged, fled fast away.
"The bridge is lowered, the postern-gate set wide,
Raised the portcullis! It behoves that quick
I venture forth, to learn, did spectre glide

Through the scared band, or was it boyish trick,
Or daring stratagem? On every side

The dazzling snowdrifts on the ground lie thick.
Ay, but yon marsh and all those rustling reeds?-
There sure some mortal wight concealment needs.

Was then the phantom only flesh and blood!

For footsteps hurrying thence I plainly hear.
Elisa thus exclaims in merry mood-

'Oh goblin spectres, and oh slaves of fear!
I leave ye, purblind guards, for scorn meet food!'
And loud her laugh, as memory painted clear
The frolic pranks that erst, in childhood played,
Full oft her home a house of mourning made."

We now proceed to a writer who, already enjoying a very considerable share of celebrity, is entitled to more attention than Carcano or Montanari. Grossi is well known in this country as the author of Marco Visconte, an historical novel, the best perhaps that the Italian, we could almost say the continental, school has yet produced; but many of his warmest English admirers may possibly be unaware that even prior to the appearance of that

tale, Grossi's reputation as a poet stood high in Italy. His great work, I Lombardi alla Prima Crocciata, is a portion of the first crusade, and should perhaps have been noticed before; but he has now given the world another narrative poem, depicting the early days of Italy, and has laid his scene further back than either of the writers just noticed, and, it seems to us, in a more interesting age; namely, the beginning of the 12th century. His tale of Ulrico e Lida is an episode of the fierce war provoked by the murder of a Milanese noble in a Comasian sedition, and which raged for ten years between the neighbouring Lombard cities of Milan and Como. Grossi designates it simply a novella, or tale, and it is nothing more. The heroine, Lida, is the daughter of Ottone, whose murder occasioned the war; whilst her lover, Ulrico, is a noble Comasian, the former playmate of herself and her elder brother Richelmo, when Ottone with his family resided at Como. The poem opens with Richelmo's entrance into Milan, escorting a party of Comasian prisoners of war, amongst whom is his early friend Ulrico; and the two are conversing amicably together as they ride towards the city.

"The warder at the gate had marked from far

Th' approaching troop, and banner friendly white;

The bolts withdrawn by force of lever-bar,

The barriers raised, the arch grown black as night

With lapse of ages that all beauty mar,

Admits the warrior band, in armour bright.
Entering they pass the church, that near the gate
Stands, to St. Marcellino consecrate.

"Thither, for sacred to that saint the day,

From every street and lane the people swarm;
But pausing as the sight arrests their way,
Around th' advancing troop a wall they form.
Insulting words and gestures first betray

Their frantic hate, which deepens to a storm;
Even on the guard they close, that rabble rout—
And Death to those of Como ! Death!' they shout.

"Richelmo bade his warriors draw their swords

And in their midst their menaced captives take;

With such protection as his band affords

Full slowly through the press their way they make.”

Notwithstanding their precautions, Ulrico is wounded, and Richelmo seizes the fiercest of the crowd:--

And the wild outcries of the caitiff loon

Their fickle minds from rage to laughter draw,
As on his back and shoulders falls each blow
Dealt by the sword-hilt of his vigorous foe."

The mob being thus unexpectedly brought into good humour by the sound drubbing bestowed upon one of themselves, Richelmo delivers up to the authorities all his prisoners except Ulrico, whom he takes home. There, however, he finds his mother considerably less manageable than the mob. She is vindictively inconsolable for the murder of her husband, and for a long time positively insists upon leaving the mansion that shall harbour a Comasian, even though her former favourite, and innocent of the crime her two daughters, Lida and the child Odalinda, are equally implacable. Richelmo, however, ultimately extorts acquiescence in favour of his wounded friend, and, the domiciliation accomplished, time and intercourse produce their accustomed effect, Ulrico and Lida falling in love with each other. Negociations for peace and an exchange of prisoners are set on foot between the belligerents; whereupon Ulrico declares his passion, obtains every requisite consent in Milan to his marriage, and returns to Como to solicit his father's approbation. Lida and her family remove, in the mean time, to the castle of Bellano, on the lake of Como.

But time rolls on; peace is not concluded, and no tidings are received from Ulrico; at length a rumour arises that he is on the point of marriage with Eurosa, the daughter of Azzo di Rumo, a powerful ally of Como. Richelmo is furious at such treatment, which he leaves home to avenge: Lida is distressed; but one evening it is whispered in her ear that, next morning, Ulrico, with six vessels, will be on his way to Dongo, on the other side of the lake, from whence he purposes immediately to repair to Bellano. Lida looks round, but the messenger has vanished. She is early on the watch :-

"Pure azure is the sky in morning's prime ;

The rising sun with roseate vapours dyed;
White with fresh snows and with nocturnal rime
Show mountain, vale, and bank, the lake beside:
All veiled except its breast; outspread sublime,
Dark midst the white expanse, its waters glide;
Beneath whose glassy surface, still and clear,
Rock, castle, tree, and hut, reversed appear.

"Seest thou how, bowed beneath their load of snow

Thrown from each neighbouring mountain's lofty crest,

Albeit yet green their leafy tresses show,

Dark olive, cypress, laurel, bend oppressed?

While birds, that deeply taste of famine's woe,

Sweep downward from each native crag-built nest,
Searching the boughs, whence every touch of wings,
The gathered snows in showery powder flings."

At length she descries the promised vessels, closely pursued by a superior force.

"But, mark ye, where around yon loftiest peak,

In the far north, a gathering tempest lowers;
Thence one small, round, grey cloud appears to seek,
Outstarting from the mass, Legnone's towers.
The fisher plies his oar to reach the creek,

Hauls up his boat, and safe beneath it cowers.
The sportive swallows screaming, swoop from high,
And dip their wings, so near the lake they fly.
"Hark to the sullen murmur, rising now

Remote; from crag to crag that louder grows:
See heaped in pillars 'gainst each mountain's brow
Upwhirled by hurricanes, the gathered snows;
The watery plain as yet no furrows plough;
Alone the murmuring roar that deepening goes
Forth from yon dark horizon, Boreas' reign,
Heralds the tempest to th' adjacent plain.
"Lida, who gazes from a turret's height,

Beholds the surges swell beyond the strait;

Sees waves, now white with foam, now black as night,
Roll menacingly onward, big with fate.

But yet with hope she views the threatening sight,
Trusting the storm man's fury may abate.

At length the tempest comes with horrid crash
Ship forced on ship the foaming billows dash.

"Madly the wind amidst the vessels raves,

And takes their broadside—whirling round and round.

No longer raging foe his foeman braves,

The gusts, commingling all things, all confound;

While by the fierce concussion of the waves

Resistless tossing, barks from barks rebound,
Or, by the billows 'gainst each other driven,
One by another's brazen beak is riven."

The tempest so far answers to Lida's hopes, that it puts an end to the fight; but the object of her anxiety derives little advantage from this interruption of hostilities, his vessels being driven by the storm upon the inimical shore of Bellano, to encounter, as may be supposed, little hospitality.

"Meanwhile, through town and village, far and near,

The pealing bells give notice of th' affray;

Signal of war, to summon all who hear;

Thither they flock, though armed in uncouth way;