ology by the hour, dream aloud, and at the same time preserve so meek and patient a demeanor, that it appeared cruel to interrupt or thwart him. Yet Placido had an excitable vein; he was vulnerable at one point; his lymph could be pierced and his blood stirred by the tender passion. He was always falling in love with his fair pupils, always interpreting kindness into affection, nonsense into romance; and took especial comfort in making me the repository of his hopes deferred, his unaccountable rejections, and his amorous despair. At last the pupils began to drop off; not because he encroached upon the limits of his position, or wearied them by sentimental advances, but, because he grew so languishing with "concealment like a worm in the bud," that the gentle creatures feared some dreadful result, and, as a matter of conscience, removed him from the dangerous sphere of their attractions. In the few cases where he ventured to be explicit, they were overwhelmed with astonishment, so unprepared were they, at the moment, for the declaration; he asked for a moment's interview when the lesson was completed, and mentioned his love with the same matter-offact air as he did an error in accentuation; when the negative was pronounced, he took his hat, bowed sadly, and said, "Good-by, Miss, forever;" but the next day he appeared as usual, gave the hour's instruction, made no reference to the climax of the preceding day, but, as I was assured by his wondering idols, kept up that indescribable, yet most aggravating behavior, so well defined by Arthur Helps, as "playing the injured," that a few weeks exhausted their capacity of endurance, and poor Placido came, a shade paler and more subdued than usual, to pour out before me his tale of "despised love." It was a curious illustration of the awkward waking of that enforced slumber of the heart induced by monachism-susceptibility without earnestness, desire unsustained by will -like the imbecile out-reaching of the blighted tendrils of a subterranean plant toward light, air, and something vital whereon to cling.

My great object, therefore, was to get Placido married, and at length his innamorata was of an age, a position and a character, which seemed to me to justify his addresses; but, this time, he

was as procrastinating in coming to the point as he had been premature before; he advanced only at the rate of an inch a day, which dilatory progress was tediously reported to me, with the request that I would "give an opinion," or take an observation and calculate distances in this slow and dubious navigation on the sea of love. One day he was elated by a glance, another discouraged by what he called a sorriso fredo, now she leaned towards him over the book, and he compared their situation to that of Paolo and Francesca, and, again, though she gave him her hand at parting, there was no lingering pressure. This game or rather pantomine lasted all winter, and I began to despair of any matrimonial result, when Placido entered one morning with unwonted alacrity, a slight tinge of red was visible on his cheek, and a little sparkle in his tranquil eye; this time he came not to ask advice, but to announce a triumph; things were coming to a point, he was nearly ammogliato, he would not be a giovane long-he had but to stretch forth his hand and " raccogliere la palma de vittoria;" this vivacious mood was very becoming to Placido. I began to think that at length "Young America" had superseded the frate, and anxiously inquired what had happened. The previous evening he had read one of Petrarch's sonnets, to his “bene," as he poetically denominated Miss Sarah Mehitable Tompkins, of the Ninth Avenue, and, at the most rapturous line of Laura's lover, he had encircled "with one permitted arm her gentle waist;" at which unwonted liberty she smiled, and when he rose to depart, invited him to visit her in the country, whither the family were about to proceed. Herein the ex-monk found encouragement enough to warrant his most daring hopes; he knew she would have returned his embrace, had it not been for a sprained arm, under which the povera angiola had suffered since his first acquaintance. But in the campagna at this primavera season, with birds, and trees, and zephyrs, and violets, he should pour out his feelings with irresistible eloquence-she would be his cara sposa Americana-he was of it. And so, in excellent spirits, Placido finished his spring lessons, bought a new coat and a fancy cravat, and hastened to the country in pursuit of his bride. Her father was rich, and

sure

already, in imagination, I saw another and the most amiable of my Italian protégés comfortably settled. A week elapsed, Placido reappeared; his languid step in the hall, and his discomfited air at the door, announced misfortune. He bowed sadly, sighed wearily, and exclaimed, "Signor mio, sono desperato!" His campaign had opened prosperously; he had been warmly received, both by the maiden and her parents; they walked together through verdant lanes, watched the budding crocus and the twittering swallow, sought four-leaved clovers and were sprinkled with apple-blossoms, all the time looking unutterable things. These were the happiest days of his life, and a secret presentiment led him to postpone the word that trembled on his lips, and thus to prolong an illusive dream of felicity. At length, on a moonlight night, wandering through the paternal orchard, he spoke and was answered by a flood of tears. At first he imagined this was the modo Americano of accepting an offer of marriage, but as the sobs continued and the twilight prevented sight of la signorina's expression, he demanded "the occasion of these tears?" and was answered, "un segreto terribile!" Ah, suggested the Italian jealous instinct, there is another lover-dead, absent, perhaps murdered. "No, by all that is sacred, she had never loved before;"-then, in the saint's name, what mystery is this? She would not deceive so unsophisticated a suitor-no, not for worlds. The fact is, she has a wooden arm! "Un braccio di legno," repeated the miserable Placido-"una moglie con un braccio di legno-oh Dio-non posso!" It appears that the female arm was to him a peculiar attraction; he cared not for eyes nor even lips in comparison, but he could not compromise about arms; they must be round, and long, and gracefully moulded. "Un braccio di legno!" he again muttered, "mai! mai!" And so ended Placido's romance. He abandoned Gotham in disgust, taught the next winter in Maine, and the last time I saw him was, when he called, on his way to the West, with a hard-visaged female of about fifty, whom he had met at a Sunday-school teachers' meeting, and been induced to marry, on her promising to mend his shirts, translate his lectures on the "relation between theology and metaphysios," and otherwise promote his temporal and spiritual

interests. poor Placido on taking leave, “ma ha molta energia e due braccie forte e di carne pure:"-" She is not beautiful, but she has much energy and two strong arms--of flesh, too."

"Non é bella," whispered

It is, indeed, wonderful to note the arcana of the tragic, the beautiful, and the adventurous supplied by this land of sunshine and volcanoes, a tideless sea and an intense humanity, whence literature and art have so long drawn their inspiration. Interwoven into the drama and the life of other nationalities, reproduced continually in fiction, on the lyric stage, in poetry and in the looks, tones, and words of the exile or the vocalist the Italian element, in some form, permeates the life of more prosperous countries-now appearing in the bloody episode of Mary Stuart's illfated career, the stains of which are yet pointed out to the traveler at Holyrood-now asserting its subtle arrogance in the magnificent deceptions of Cagliostro-breathing of voluptuous and elegiac sentiment in the writings and the London harem of Foscolo; again, exhibiting the duplicity which is the miserable expedient of weakness, in the non mi ricordo of the Italian witness on Queen Caroline's trial; its amiable philosophy incarnated in the exile of Bulwer's last and most natural fiction; its demoniac phase brought out in the current opera of Lucrezia Borgia, and embodied with horror and pity in Shelley's "Cenci." From Napoleon's victories to Rossini's musical drama; from Pozzo de Borgo's diplomacy to Paoli's republican virtue; from Marco Polo's travels to Mezzofanti's philological achievements; from Milton's praise of Galileo to Ruskin's "Stones of Venice," from the splendid patronage of a Medici to the private saintliness of Vittoria Colonna-poets, princes, churchmen, doges, composers, bandits, improvisatori-Savonarola, Masaniello, Salvator, Bellini, Fra Diavolo-names that excite romantic sympathy, enthusiasm, adiniration, distrust, and love; tales, melodies, forms, and utterance, that serve as a talisman to the imagination, and an appeal to the sympathies-the picturesque, the adventurous, the sublime, the perfidious, the impassioned, the graceful associations of our travel, our reading, our senses, and our observation, are, more or less, identified with, or illustrated by, that "fatal gift of

beauty" to which Filicaja ascribes at once the misfortunes and the fascinations of his country.

These casual impressions, even to the untraveled, attain local significance through the warm and diversified records of more recent and popular writers; and we all learn to share the enthusiasm or discrimination of Childe Harold and Rogers, De Stael and Lady Morgan, Forsyth and Brydone, Shelley and Hans Andersen, Goethe and Eustace, Gell and Browning, as we follow the footsteps of genius across the Apennines and along the Mediterranean. Whoso is untouched by the eloquence of Corinne, may be won by the political economy of Sismondi, and the mind which is insensible to the muse of Laura's lover, may ponder with zest the historical novels of Guerazzi-so that, through a favorite picture, tale, poem, character, or melody, scarce one intelligent soul escapes the charm of the syren. Her mosaic temples and classic cameos adorn fair bosoms; her accents are the universal tongue of music; her trophies everywhere the standard and inspiration of art.

Whence, then, the anomaly of AngloSaxon indifference? Is it that the abstract Italian element in history, culture, and refined enjoyment, is wholly unidentified with the actual people who now represent the nation to which our intellectual obligations are so vast? that the genius of her palmy days is thought quite unrelated to the race whose gesticulations and volubility repulse the executive mind of England and America-as the reverse of what is efficient, manly, and, above all, respectable? It will not do to refer our negative sympathy to what is superficially called the effete condition of Italy. A country, any region of which can send forth such troops as Sardinia contributed to the allied army in the Crimea, and where such radical ameliorations in church and state have been realized without bloodshed, as in that progressive constitutional monarchy -a country, whose fresh roll of eminent names includes such a scholar as Mai, such a chemist as Segato, such a soldier

as Garibaldi, such statesmen as D' Azeglio and Cavour, such a philosophic writer as Gioberti, such a poet as Leopardi, such an actress as Ristori, and such masters of English prose as the exiles Rufini and Mariotti--to say nothing of the world of imprisoned genius and baffled aspiration languishing in the dungeons of Naples, silenced by papal hirelings or kept down by the sanguinary talons and craven vigilance of the Austrian eagle-is a living vindication of the indomitable and fervent life, individuality and supremacy of the national mind, before which the skepticism, induced by the fanaticism of a Mazzini, the blind and hopeless spirit of local insurrection, the fear of Austria and the jealousy of France, should vanish like mist before the sun, to the practical and sympathetic vision of England and America. The last summer's exodus of foreign travel included an Italian dear to many of our best citizens. He returned to his native land, after twenty years' residence among us. Raised from a law student to judicial rank in early youth, by virtue of a singular union of attainment and mental vigor, he was one of the noble band reprieved, by a new Austrian Emperor, from the scaffold at Venice, to be consigned for years to the dungeons of Spielberg, there to expiate the crime of patriotism, and, after long and cruel captivity, emerge, with broken health but untamed soul, and find an asylum in the New World. The candid simplicity, manly resolution, gentle sympathies, and brave ardor of Foresti gained him the friendship and the respect of some of the choicest spirits of our country, and should redeem the character of his less gifted compatriots; when infirmities, at last, prevented him from obtaining the bread of independence by the daily labor of a teacher, and cut him off from his great solace in exile, social intercourse and useful activity, he yearned for the air and sky familiar to his youth, and, with the scanty savings of a too generous life, returned to Italy, and finds in Piedmont a safe and honored retreat. Dio lo benedica!