BOOK XI., GUIDO--is now in the prison cell awaiting execution. He is

visited by Cardinal Acciaiuoli and Abate Panciatichi, who are to remain with him till the fatal moment. He is pleading with them for their aid; he reminds them of his noble blood, too pure to leak away into the drains of Rome from the headsman's engine. He protests his innocence; he has only twelve hours to live, and is as innocent as Mary herself. He denounces the Pope, who could have cast around him the protection of the Church, whose son he is. His tonsure should have saved him. It was the Pope's duty to have shown him mercy, but he supposes he is sick of his life, and must vent his spleen on him. He asks the Abate if he can do nothing? They used to enjoy life together, but he concludes that his companions have hearts of stone. He wishes he had never entangled himself with a wife; he was a fool to slay her. Why must he die? It need not be if men were good. If the Pope is Peter's successor, he should act like Peter. Would Peter have ordered him to death when there was his soul to save? What though half Rome condemned him? the other half took his part. The shepherd of the flock should use the crumpled end of his staff to rescue his sheep, not the pointed end wherewith to thrust them. The law proclaims him guiltless, but the Pope says he is guilty; and he supposes he ought to acquiesce and say that he deserves his fate. Repent? not he! What would be the good of that? If he fall at their feet and gnash and foam, will that put back the death engine to its hiding-place? He reflects that old Pietro cried to him for respite when he chased him about his room. He asked for time to save his soul: Guido gave him none. Why grant respite to him if he deserves his doom? Then he reproaches his companions: had they not sinned with him if he had done wrong? had they ever warned him, not by words, but by their own good deeds? He declares that he does not and cannot repent one particle of his past life. How should he have treated his wife? Ought he to have loved or hated her? When he offered her his love, had she not recoiled with loathing from him? Had she not acted as a victim at the sacrifice? Was it not her desire to be anywhere apart from him? What was called his wife was but "a nullity in female shape"--a plague mixed up with the "abominable nondescripts" she called her father and her mother. It was intended that he should be fooled; it happened that he had anticipated those who wished to fool him: yet this boast was premature. All Rome knows that the dowry was a derision, the wife a nameless bastard; his ancient name had been bespattered with filth, and those who planned the wrong had revealed it to the world. Yes, he had punished those who fooled him so. He had punished his wife, too, who had no part in their crime; and why? Her cold, pale, mute obedience was so hateful to him. "Speak!" he had demanded, and she obeyed; "Be silent!" and she obeyed also, with just the selfsame white despair. Things were better when her parents were present; when they left she ran to the Commissary and the Archbishop to beg their interference, and then committed the "worst offence of not offending any more." Her look of martyr-like endurance was worse than all: it reminded him of the "terrible patience of God." All that meant she did not love him;--she might have shammed the love. As it was, his wife was a true stumbling-block in his way. Everything, too, went against him. It was so unlucky for him that he did not catch the pair at the inn under circumstances when he could lawfully have slain them both together. There is always some--

"Devil, whose task it is To trip the all-but-at perfection."

Unhappily, he had just missed his chance of appearing grandly right before the world. When he took his assassins to the villa he was fortunate, it is true, in finding all at home--the three to kill; but he had been unlucky in not escaping, as he had arranged. Then, when he thought he had killed his wife (with his knowledge of anatomy too!), she must linger for four whole days, the surgeon keeping her alive that every soul in Rome might learn her story. All the world could listen then. Had it not been for that he would have had a tale to tell that would have saved his head: he would have sworn he had caught Pompilia in the embraces of the priest, who had escaped in the darkness. And now she has lived to forgive him, commend him to the mercies of God, while fixing his head upon the block. And then at his trial all was against him: the dice were loaded, and the lawyers of no service to him. Yet he is sure that the Roman people approve his deed, though the mob is in love with his murdered wife. He says "there was no touch in her of hate." The angels would not be able to make a heaven for her if she knew he were in hell, she would pray him into heaven against his will; for it is hell which he demands, so heartily does he hate the good! Yes, he is impenitent,--no spark of contrition. Would the Church slay the impenitent? He passionately tells the Cardinal that he knows he is wronged, yet will not help him. As he sees no chance of their relenting, he tries to influence them by suggesting how he could have helped their chances at the next election of a Pope, which cannot be long delayed. Then he falls to entreaty again: "Save my life, Cardinal; I adjure you in God's name!" begs him go, fall at the Pope's feet, tell him he is innocent; and if that serve him not, say he is an atheist, and implore him not to send his soul to perdition. "Take your crucifix away!" he cries. Then, when all seems hopeless, he begins to abuse the Pope, the Cardinals, and all. He hates his victims too, he protests, as much as when he slew them; and while he curses, impenitent, scornful and full of malice, he hears the chant of the Brotherhood of Mercy, who sing the Office of the Dying at his cell-door. Then he shrieks that all he had been saying was false; he was mad:

"Don't open! Hold me from them! I am yours, I am the Grand Duke's--no, I am the Pope's! Abate,--Cardinal,--Christ,--Maria,--God, ... Pompilia, will you let them murder me?"

NOTES.--Line 13, _Certosa_: a Carthusian monastery, La Certosa, in Val' Emo, is situated about four miles from Florence. It was founded about 1341. It is Gothic, and is built in a grand style, like that of a castle. l. 186, _mannaia_: an instrument for beheading criminals, much like the guillotine. l. 188, _"Mouth-of-Truth"--Bocca della Verità_: S. Maria in Cosmedin, in ancient Rome. From the mouth of a fountain to the left is the portico, into which, according to a mediæval belief, the ancient Romans thrust their right hands when taking an oath. l. 261, "_Merry Tales_": the novels and tales of Franco Sacchetti (1335-1400). He wrote some three hundred _novelle_ in pure Tuscan. l. 272, _Albano_, or _Albani, Francesco_ (1578-1660): a celebrated Italian painter, who was born at Bologna. He lived and taught in Rome for many years. Among the best of his sacred pictures are a "St. Sebastian" and an "Assumption of the Virgin," both in the church of St. Sebastian at Rome. l. 274, "_Europa and the bull_": Europa was the daughter of Agenor, king of Phoenicia. Jupiter became enamoured of her, and assumed the form of a beautiful bull. When Europa mounted on his back he carried her off. l. 291, _Atlas_ and _axis_ are bones of the neck on which the head turns: the _atlas_ is the first cervical vertebra, the _axis_ is the second cervical vertebra; _symphyses_, the union of bones with each other. l. 327, "_Petrus, quo vadis?_" "Peter, whither goest thou?" On the Appian Way at Rome there is a small church called Domine Quo Vadis, so named from the legend that St. Peter, fleeing from the death of a martyr, here met his Master, and inquired of Him, "Domine, quo vadis?" ("Lord, whither goest Thou?") to which he received the reply, "Venio iterum crucifigi" ("I come to be crucified again")--whereupon the apostle, ashamed of his weakness, returned. l. 569, _King Cophetua_: an imaginary king of Africa, who fell in love with a beggar girl. He married her, and lived happily with her for many years. l. 683, "_and tinkle near_": at the mass, when the priest consecrates the elements, a small bell is rung by the server to acquaint the worshippers with the fact that the consecration has taken place. This, of course, is the most solemn part of the mass, when the worshippers are most attentive. l. 685, _Trebbian_: from Trevi, in the valley of the Clitumnus. l. 786, "_Hocus-pocus_"; Nares says these words represent Ochus Bochus, an Italian magician invoked by jugglers; but there are other explanations. _Vallombrosa Convent_: a famous convent near Florence. Milton says, "Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallombrosa" (_Paradise Lost_, i. 302). But the trees are pines, and _not deciduous_. l. 1119, "_the Etruscan monster_": Mr. Browning was a student of Etruscan art and archæology. The Etruscans were the nation conquered by the Romans, and their antiquities are abundant in the district between Rome and Florence. The monster is the Chimæra, represented with three heads--those of a lion, a goat, and a dragon. Bellerophon, mounted on the horse Pegasus, attacked and overcame it. l. 1413, _Armida_: a beautiful sorceress, a prominent character in Tasso's _Jerusalem Delivered_. l. 1416, _Rinaldo_, in the same poem, was the Achilles of the Crusaders' army. He ran away from home at the age of fifteen, and was enrolled in the adventurers' squadron. Rinaldo fell in love with Armida, and wasted his time in voluptuous pleasures. l. 1420, _zecchines_, or _sequins_: Venetian gold coins, worth about 9_s._ 6_d._ l. 1669, _stinche_: a prison. l. 1808, "_Helping Vienna_": this refers to the second siege of Vienna by the Turks in 1683, when 150,000 Turks sat down before the city, Cara Mustapha being their leader. Pope Innocent XI. and John Sobieski, king of Poland, entered into a league to oppose the common enemy of Christian Europe. The whole Turkish army was defeated, and fled in the utmost disorder after the great battle fought under the walls of Vienna on Sept. 12th, 1683. l. 1850, _Gaudeamus_, "let us be glad." l. 1925, _Jove Ægiochus_: Jupiter was surnamed Ægiochus because, according to some authors, he was brought up by a goat. Properly the name is from the _ægis_ which the god bore. l. 1928, "_Seventh Æneid_": Virgil's great poem was the "Æneis," which has for its subject the settlement of Æneas in Italy. The passage referred to is in the _Eighth Book_ (426), and begins "His informatum, manibus jam parte politâ." l. 2034, "_Romano vivitur more_": Life goes on in the Roman way. l. 2051, "_Byblis in fluvius_": Byblis fell in love with her brother, and was changed into a fountain. l. 2052, "_sed Lycaon in lupum_": a cruel king of Arcadia, named Lycaon, was changed into a wolf by Jupiter, because he offered human sacrifices on the altar of the god Pan. l. 2144, _Paynimrie_, heathendom. l. 2184, _Olimpia_, in _Orlando Furioso_: Countess of Holland and wife of Bireno: when her husband deserted her she was bound naked to a rock by pirates, but Orlando delivered her and took her to Ireland. _Bianca_: wife of Fazio. She tried to save her husband from death; failed, went mad, and died of a broken heart. l. 2185, _Ormuz wealth_: the island Ormuz, in the Persian Gulf, is a mart for diamonds. l. 2211, _Circe_: a sorceress, who turned the companions of Ulysses into swine. Ulysses resisted the metamorphosis by virtue of the herb _moly_, given him by Mercury. l. 2214, _Lucrezia di Borgia_: she was thrice married, her last husband being Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara. Through her influence many persons were put to death. Her natural son Gennaro having been poisoned, she died herself as he expired. l. 2414, "_Who are these you have let descend my stair?_" They were the Brothers of Mercy, whose duty it was to attend criminals on the scaffold. Their chant was the Office of the Dying.