BOOK VIII., DOMINUS HYACINTHUS DE ARCHANGELIS, PAUPERUM PROCURATOR.--In

this book we have the counsel on behalf of Count Guido at work in his study, preparing the defence which he is to make on behalf of his client. He is a family man, and his life is bound up in that of his son, whose birthday it is, the lad being eight years old. He will devote himself to his case, and when his work is done will enjoy the yearly lovesome frolic feast with little Cinuolo. "Commend me," says the man of law, "to home joy, the family board, altar and hearth!" He is very anxious to make a good figure in the courts over this case, his opponent, old bachelor Bottinius, shall be made to bite his thumb; and he expresses his gratitude to God that he has Guido to defend just when his boy is eight years old, and needs a stimulus to study from his sire. He chuckles at his good fortune: a noble to defend, a man who has almost with parade killed three persons; it is really too much luck to befall him, and on his son's birthday too! he prays God to keep him humble, and mutters "_Non nobis Domine!_" as he turns over his papers. He determines to beat the other side, if only for love, as a tribute to little Cinotto's natal day (the boy was called by half a dozen pet names). He will astonish the Pope himself with his eloquence and skill; and the day shall be remembered when his son becomes of age. Then he bethinks himself of the night's feast: the wine, the minced herbs with the liver, goose-foot, and cock's-comb, cemented with cheese; he rubs his hands again, as he thinks of all the good things getting ready. But now to work: he must puzzle out this case. He is particular about the Latin he will use; he would like to bring in Vergil, but that will not do well in prose. His son shall attack him with Terence on the morrow. Then he curbs his ardour, and sets himself to deal in earnest with the case. Bottinius will deny that Pompilia wrote any letter at all. Anticipating what his opponent will say, he says he had rather lose his case than miss the chance of ridiculing his Latin and making the judge laugh, who will so enjoy the joke. If it comes to law, why, he is afraid he cannot "level the fellow": he sees him even now in his study, working up thrusts that will be hard to parry, he is sure to deliver a bowl from some unguessed standpoint. And now he stops to rub some life into his frozen fingers, hopes his boy will take care of his throat this cold day, and reflects how chilly Guido must be in his dungeon, despite his straw. Carnival time too: what a providence, with the city full of strangers! He will do his best to edify and amuse them: they may remember Cintino some day! But to the case. "Where are we weak?" he asks. The killing is confessed: they tortured Guido, and so got it out of him,--he shall object to that; nobles are exempt from torture. A certain kind of torture like that called _Vigiliarum_, is excellent for extracting confession; he has never known any prisoner stand it for ten hours; they "touched their ten," 'tis true, "but, bah! they died!" If the Count had not confessed, he should have set up the defence that Caponsacchi really murdered the three, and fled just as Guido, touched by grace,--consequent upon having been a good deal at church at the holy season--hastened to the house to pardon his wife, and so arrived just in time--to be charged with the murders. Yes, he could have done very well on this line, he thinks; but the confession has spoiled all that. Wonderful that a nobleman could not stand torture better! Why, he has known several brave young fellows keep a rack in their back garden, and take a turn at it for an hour or two at a time, just to see how much pain they could stand without flinching: he thinks men are degenerating. And so he meanders on, pulling himself up in the midst of a nice point to wonder whether his cook has remembered how excellently well some chopped fennel-root goes with fried liver. "But no; she cannot have been so obtuse as to forget!" He shall begin his speech with a pretty compliment to His Holiness, then he shall quote St. Jerome, St. Gregory, Solomon, and St. Bernard, who all say that a man must not be touched in his honour. Our Lord Himself said, "My honour I to nobody will give!" (He stops to reflect that a melon would have improved the soup, but that the boy wanted the rind to make a boat with.) He shall continue, that a husband who has a faithless wife _must_ raise hue and cry,--the law is not for such cases,--these are for gentlemen to deal with themselves. Of course the other side will object that Guido allowed too long an interval to elapse between the capture of the fugitives and the killing; but he shall show that there really was no interval between the inn and the Comparinis' villa at Rome: Pompilia was inaccessible between these places. If they object that Guido, when he arrived at Rome on Christmas Eve, should have sought his vengeance at once, he shall ask, "Is no religion left?" A man with all those Feasts of the Nativity to occupy his mind could not be expected to go about his private business. (He pauses to reflect that a little lamb's fry will be very toothsome in an hour's time.) The charge is that "we killed three innocents"; as to the manner of the killing, that matters nothing, granted we had the right to kill. Eight months since they would have been held to blame if they had let this bad pair escape: true, that was the time to have killed them, but the Count had not the proper weapons handy. He shall say, too, that he did not instruct his confederates to kill any one of the three, but merely to disfigure them; they had been too zealous. He next proceeds to dispose of a number of points in which it is charged the offence was aggravated,--such as slaying the family in their own house, and lastly that the majesty of the sovereign has received a wound. (Here he fervently hopes the devil will not instigate his cook to stew the rabbit instead of roasting him: he will have to go and see after things himself--he really must.) But, if the end be lawful, the means are allowed. (The Cardinal has promised to go and read the speech to the Pope, and point its beauties out, so he must be adroit in his words.) As he stands forth as the advocate of the poor, he must put in a word or two for the four assassins who did the deed. On their behalf he pleads that, as the husband was in the right in what he did, those who helped him could not be in the wrong. (On which more Latin and neat phrases.) He will be reminded that Guido went off without paying the men the stipulated fee for the murders. "What fact," he shall ask, "could better illustrate the perfect rectitude of the Count?" The men were not actuated by malice, but by a simple desire to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. As for the Count, so absorbed was he in vindicating his honour, that paltry, vulgar questions of money wholly escaped him; "he spared them the pollution of the pay." In conclusion, he shall urge that Guido killed his wife in defence of the marriage vow, that he might creditably live. "There's my speech," he cries, as he dashes down the pen; "where's my fry, and family, and friends? What an evening have I earned to-day!" And off he goes to supper, singing "Tra-la-la, lambkins, we must live!"

NOTES.--Line 8, "_And chews Corderius with his morning crust_": the _Colloquies of Corderius_ were used in every school of any consequence in the time of Shakespeare's boyhood. It was the most popular Latin book for boys of the time. l. 14, _Papinianian pulp_: Papinian was the most celebrated of Roman jurists, and an intimate friend of the Emperor Septimius Severus. l. 58, _Flaccus_: Horace, whose full name was Quintus Horatius Flaccus. l. 94, "_Non nobis, Domine, sed Tibi laus_": "Not unto us, Lord, but to Thee be the praise!" l. 101, _Pro Milone_: the celebrated oration of Cicero on behalf of Milo, a friend of his. l. 115, _Hortensius Redivivus_: Hortensius, the Roman orator. l. 117, "_The Est-est_": a wine so called because a nobleman once sent his servant in advance to write "Est," _it is!_ on any inn where the wine was particularly good; at one place the man wrote "Est-est," _It is! it is!_ in token of its superlative excellence, and the vintage has ever since gone by this designation. l. 329, "_Questions_," tortures; _Vigiliarum_: torture by incessant jerking of the body and limbs. l. 482, _Theodoric_: king of the Ostrogoths (_c._ A.D. 454-526); he caused the celebrated Boethius to be put to death. l. 483, _Cassiodorus_: a Roman historian, statesman, and monk, who lived about 468 A.D.; he was raised by Theodoric to the highest offices. He was one of the first of literary monks, and his books were much used in the middle ages. l. 498, _Scaliger_: Julius Cæsar Scaliger (1484-1558), a man of the greatest eminence in the world of letters, and as a man of science, and a philosopher. He had a son, _Joseph Justus Scaliger_, not less eminent, who wrote the work referred to. l. 503, _The Idyllist_ is Theocritus, the Sicilian poet. l. 513, _Ælian_: a Roman, in the reign of Adrian, surnamed the honey-tongued, from the sweetness of his style; he wrote seventeen treatises on animals. l. 948, _Valerius Maximus_, a Latin writer, who made a collection of historical anecdotes, and published his work in the reign of Tiberius. It was called _Books of Memorable Deeds and Utterances_. Most of the tales are from Roman history. _Cyriacus_: patriarch of the Jacobites, monk of the convent of Bizona, in Syria; died at Mosul in 817 A.D. He wrote homilies, canons, and epistles. l. 1542, _Castrensis_: a distinguished professor of civil and canon law; he died in 1441. He was a professor at Vienna, Avignon, Padua, Florence, Bologna, and Perugia. His most complete work is his readings on the _Digest_. _Butringarius_: a jurisconsult (1274-1348). [I have not considered it necessary to translate the many Latin lines in this and the following section of the work, because in nearly every case their sense is given in the context, and therefore those who do not read Latin will lose nothing, as practically they have it all englished in the text.]