grandeur which you have perhaps contemplated even with admiration in the world of the powerful! Fleshless skulls, withered and broken human bones, tears, drops of blood-these are the signification of your armorial bearings, if your fathers have bequeated to you the blot of patricianship; this is what should be represented as the escutcheon of those princes whom you have served, or whom you aspire to serve, if you have sprung from the people. Yes, here is the foundation of all titles of nobility; here the source of the hereditary glories and riches of this world; it is thus that a class has arisen and been preserved whom all other classes dread, yet flatter and caress. Behold here what men have invented to raise themselves from father to son above their fellows!"

Having read this inscription while thrice making the tour of the dungeon, Consuelo, overwhelmed with grief and terror, placed her lamp upon the ground, and kneeled down to rest herself. A profound silence reigned in this gloomy place, and frightful reflections crowded upon her. The lively imagination of Consuelo evoked around her gloomy visions. She thought she saw livid shadows covered with hideous wounds gliding about the walls or crawling on the ground by her side. She thought she heard their lamentable sighs, their groans of agony, their feeble breathings, the rattling of their chains. She resuscitated in her thought the life of the past, such as it must have been in the middle ages-such as it had been even of late in the religious wars. She thought she heard above her, in the guard-house, the heavy and ominous steps of iron-shod men; the sound of their pikes on the pavement; their brutal laughter; their drunken songs; their threats and oaths when the lamentations of their victims, ascending even to them, interrupted their horrible sleep, for they had slept, these jailors; they were obliged to sleep; they had been able to sleep over this dungeon, over this abyss of infection, whence exhaled the miasma of the tomb, and the groans and howlings of the infernal regions. Pale, her eyes fixed, and her hair standing on end with horror, Consuelo no longer heard or saw anything. When she returned to the consciousness of existence, and strove to shake off the chill which was gaining upon her, she perceived that a stone in the pavement had been raised during her painful trance, and that a new path was open before her. She approached, and saw a narrow and abrupt flight of stairs, which she descended with difficulty, and which conducted her into a fresh cave, more confined than the first. As she touched the ground, which was soft and damp beneath her feet, Consuelo lowered her lamp to see if she were not sinking in the mud. But she found only a grey dust, finer than the finest sand, and here and there showing, like flint-stones, the top of a thigh-bone, the remains of a skull, a jaw still furnished with white and solid teeth, in evidence of the youth and strength suddenly destroyed by a violent death. Some few skeletons, almost entire, had been drawn from this dust and ranged against the wall. There was one in perfect preservation, standing chained by the middle of the body, as if it had been condemned to perish there without being able to lie down. The body, instead of yielding and falling forward, bent and dislocated, had stiffened, and was thrown back in an attitude of superb pride and implacable disdain. The ligaments of the frame and members were ossified. The head, upraised, appeared to be looking at the vaulted roof; and the teeth, clenched by a final contraction of the jaws, appeared to laugh with a terrible laugh, or in a transport of sublime fanaticism.

Above him, his name and history were written in large red characters upon the wall. It was some unknown martyr of religious persecution, and the last of the victims immolated in that place. At his feet was kneeling a skeleton, whose head, detached from the vertebræ, lay upon the pavement, but whose stiffened arms still embraced the knees of the martyr: this was his wife.

Among other details, the inscription set forth:

"N- perished here with his wife, his three brothers, and his two children, because he refused to abjure the faith of Luther, and because he persisted, even under torture, to deny the infallibility of the pope. He died standing and withered-petrified, as it were-and unable to look upon his family dying at his feet on the ashes of his friends and forefathers."

Opposite this inscription was to be seen the following:

"Neophyte, the friable soil you tread is twenty feet deep. It is neither sand nor earth; it is human dust. This spot was the ossuary of the château. It was here they threw those who expired in the dungeon above, when there was no more room for fresh comers. This is the dust of twenty generations of victims. Happy and fortunate the patricians who can count among their ancestors twenty generations of assassins and executioners!"

Consuelo was less terrified with the appearance of these funereal objects than she had been in the dungeon by the suggestions of her own fancy. There is something too grave and too solemn in the aspect of death itself, to allow the weakness of fear and the heartrendings of pity to obscure the enthusiasm or the serenity of strong and believing souls. In the presence of these relics the noble adept of the religion of Albert felt more of respect and charity than terror and consternation. She kneeled before the remains of the martyr, and, feeling her moral courage returning, she cried, kissing that fleshless hand,

"Oh! it is not the august spectacle of a glorious destruction which can excite horror or pity! it is rather the idea of life struggling with the torments of agony. It is the thought of what must have passed in those desolate souls, which fills with bitterness and terror the thoughts of the living! But thou, unfortunate victim, didst die standing, thy head turned towards heaven; thou art not to be pitied, for thou didst not give way, and thy soul exhaled in a transport of fervour which fills me with veneration!"

Consuelo rose slowly, and with a kind of calmness detached the wedding veil which was fastened to the bones of the woman kneeling by her side. A low and narrow door opened before her. She took her lamp, and, careful not to turn, entered a dark and narrow passage with an abrupt descent. On her right and left she saw the entrances of dungeons, almost concealed beneath the mass of a truly sepulchral architecture. These prisons were too low to allow of any one standing upright within them, and scarcely long enough to admit of their lying down. They appeared to be the work of the Cyclops, so strongly were they constructed, and so skilfully managed in the massiveness of the masonry, as if to serve as dens for ferocious and dangerous animals. But Consuelo was not to be deceived: she had seen the arenas of Verona; she knew that the tigers and bears, formerly reserved for the amusements of the circus, for the combats of the gladiators, were a thousand times better lodged. Moreover, she read upon the iron doors that these dun

geons had been reserved for conquered princes, for valiant captains, for prisoners the most important and powerful, either from rank, intelligence, or energy. Such formidable precautions against their escape evinced the love or respect with which they had inspired their partisans. Here had been silenced the roaring of those lions which had caused the world to tremble at their challenge. Their power and fortitude had been crushed against an angle of the wall; their herculean breasts had become exhausted while searching for a breath of air through an almost imperceptible opening, cut in a slanting direction through twenty-four feet of stone. Their eagle glance had dimmed while seeking for a ray of light in the eternal gloom. Here had been buried alive those men whom they dared not destroy openly. Illustrious heads, magnanimous hearts, had here expiated the exercise, and doubtless also the abuse, of power.

Having wandered for some time in these damp and obscure galleries cut in the rock, Consuelo heard a noise of running water, which reminded her of the terrible subterranean torrent at Riesenburg; but she was too pre-occupied with the crimes and misfortunes of humanity to think long of herself. She was obliged to slacken her pace for a time while making the circuit of a well which was on a level with the surface, and lighted by a torch. Beneath the torch she read on a post these few words, which required no comment: "It was here they drowned them.” Consuelo leaned over to look at the inside of the well. The water of the rivulet, over which she had glided so peacefully but an hour before, was engulfed here at a frightful depth, and whirled roaring as though eager to seize a victim. The red light of the torch gave to these gloomy

waves the colour of blood.

At last Consuelo arrived before a massive door, which she vainly endeavoured to open. She asked herself whether, as in the initiations of the Egyptian pyramids, she was about to be raised into the air by invisible chains, while a gulf would open beneath her feet, and a sudden and violent wind would extinguish her lamp. Another fear more seriously affected her. Ever since entering the gallery, she had perceived that she was not alone: some one followed on her steps so softly, that she could not catch the slightest noise; but she thought she had felt the rustle of a dress against her own; and, as she had passed the well, the light of the torch behind had thrown on the wall two vacillating shadows instead of one. Who, then, was this formidable companion at whom she was forbidden to look, under penalty of losing the fruits of her labour, and of never crossing the threshold of the temple? Was it some frightful spectre, whose hideousness would have frozen her courage and disturbed her reason? She no longer saw the shadow, but she imagined that she heard the sound of breathing close to her. And this fatal door which refused to open! The two or three minutes which now passed appeared to her an age. This dumb acolyte terrified her she feared lest he should tempt her by speaking, or force her by some trick, to look at him. Her heart beat violently; at last she saw that an inscription still remained for her to read above the door:

:

Here the last trial awaits you, and it is the most cruel of all. If your courage is exhausted, strike two blows upon the left panel of this door; if not, strike three upon the right. Remember that the glory of your initiation will be proportioned to your efforts."

Consuelo did not hesitate, but struck three blows upon the right. The

door opened as if of itself, and she entered a vast hall lighted with numerous torches. There was no one in it; and at first she understood nothing of the strange objects symmetrically arranged around. They consisted of machines of wood, iron, and bronze, whose use was unknown to her; of strange arms spread upon tables or hung against the wall. For a moment she believed herself in an artillery museum, for there were indeed muskets, cannons, culverins, and a whole assemblage of instruments of war. All the means of destruction invented by men for the immolation of their fellow-beings appeared to be there gathered together. But when the neophyte had advanced a few steps across the arsenal, she saw other objects of a more refined barbarity-wheels, saws, melting-tubs, pulleys, hooks, a whole museum of instruments of torture; and upon a large board in the centre, surmounting a trophy formed of stakes, pincers, chisels, files, saws, and all the most abominable implements of torment, was written, "They are all precious, all authentic; they have all been used."

At this Consuelo felt her whole being sink. A cold sweat moistened the tresses of her hair. Her heart ceased to beat. Incapable of escaping from the horror of this spectacle and the cruel visions which crowded upon her, she examined what was before her with that stupid and fatal curiosity which takes possession of us in the excess of terror. Instead of closing her eyes, she contemplated a kind of bronze bell, with a monstrous head and a round helmet, placed upon a large misshapen body, without legs, and cut off upon a level with the knees. It resembled a colossal statue of rough workmanship, destined to ornament a tomb. By degrees, Consuelo, recovering from the torpor which had stolen over her, understood, as by involuntary intuition, that the sufferer was placed stooping beneath this bell. The weight was so terrible, that by no effort of human power could he raise it. The inward dimension was so exact as to forbid all movement. Still it was not with the design of stifling the victim that he was put there, for the visor of the helmet covered the place for the face, and the whole head was pierced with small holes, in some of which were still planted long stilettoes. By the assistance of these cruel darts they tormented the victim to draw from him the avowal of his real or imaginary crime, the confession of his religious or political faith. Upon the top of the helmet was to be seen, in characters engraved on the metal, these words in Spanish:

Long live the Holy Inquisition!

and below, a prayer which appeared to be dictated by a savage compassion, but which had perhaps flowed from the heart and hand of the poor workman condemned to fabricate this infamous machine:

Holy mother of God, pray for the poor sinner!

A tuft of hair, torn away in the agony, and glued, doubtless, with blood, had adhered beneath this prayer, as a frightful and indelible stigma. It issued from one of the holes opened by a stiletto. It was a lock of white hair!

Suddenly Consuelo saw no more, and ceased to suffer. Without receiving any warning of physical exhaustion, for her soul and body no longer existed but in the soul and body of violated and mutilated humanity, she fell to the ground stiff and cold as a statue from its pedestal; but as her head was about to strike the bronze of this infernal machine, she was received into the arms of a man whom she did not see. It was Liverani

VALDARNO; OR, THE ORDEAL OF ART-WORSHIP.

A BIOGRAPHY.

The Threshold.

CHAPTER I.

BORN at the commencement of a century when the intellect of men throughout the Italian peninsula was noted for its refinement; reared in circles of taste, and surviving the loss of what was illustrious in the age; the part which it fell to my lot to take in human affairs may not prove unworthy of being recorded for the good of posterity: I propose accordingly to write a full account of my past life.

With Cosimo, the Father of the Country, the happiness of Florence had passed away, and the end of her splendour drew nigh at Lorenzo's decease, with whose name her magnificence was allied. Thenceforward all was turned to strife! The expiring agony of good times boasted a Machiavelli, who still pursued the struggle of life, and of whom no eulogium was equal to so great a name: his poverty the witness of his honesty and faith. A Savonarola too survived; nor was he, as some deemed him, an impostor. I behold his large eyes now, brimming over with earnestness and superstition, qualities which are above deceit. The anniversary of his martyrdom was then undated; he yet lived to soothsay of troubles to come, and to be burnt in the midst upon a cross! Soderini also had to be exiled; Carnesecchi to be overcome, as well as the mighty Ferucci, whose grandeur of soul looked out unsullied as, already mortally wounded, he received his last stab, and was sepulchred in the visible future. Nor had Rucellai, Poliziano, and the intellectual Pico, the remaining pillars of the Platonic Academy, ceased to impinge divine thought upon the age; while Michael Angelo himself walked the immortal city.

And when these events were silent, their memory encouraged the better sort of men; a new race of heroes, scholars, and artists, not unequal to their predecessors. But what avails the highly-tempered mind without public praise and reward? The skilful and literate held together in small bands; but the new press, born to slavery, those whom it might best have served were compelled to leave their written works, guarded by farewell blessings, on the shelves of monasteries, and to die like the childless, with little chance of doing good to posterity, and none to themselves!

Platonism was the purest doctrine of those times. It had not shared the fate of Christianity in being at an early period diluted with idols. But Paul III. and Contarini, by merely dispelling the haze of superstition, caused religion to shine forth so vividly that philosophy itself faded in its light. This display was of brief duration: succeeding pontiffs, with ready wit as of old, persisted in affiliating themselves upon an Almighty. They felt answerable for a continuance of the Saviour's function throughout earth, and must fulfil it themselves. The main objection to their enterprise was human infirmity, not peculiar to them, but common to all. Indeed it was well known, be their intention what it might, that they pretended to a nearer affinity with the Anointed than they could substantiate to reason, or maintain in practice; while the Platonists arrogated to themselves no holy alliance, but contemplated the divine law, and with it made their morals congenial.