his leg, be sure flew after them. He found a room in a cottage just pitched like his former one. The orange-trees were removed, and he' recommenced his enamoured task, fully resolved besides to get intimate with Signor Stricca, and try what importunity could do in the country. "I think," said Madonna Minoccia, to her maid-servant, looking out of window, "I can never turn my eyes any where but I see beautiful orange-trees."-" Ah," sighed Galgano, "the turning of those eyes! They ought always to light upon what is beautiful." "I could swear," said Madonna, "if my husband would let me, that those were the very same oranges which belonged to our invisible neighbour at Sienna, only he must be too old a bachelor to change his quarters." And she began to sing a canzonet that was all over the country:

"Arancie, belle arancie,
"Pienotte come guancie,-

Here she suddenly stopped, and said "I am very giddy to day, to sing such lawless little rhymes; but the skies are so blue, and the leaves so green, they make me chaunt like a bird. I can see my husband now with a bird's eye. There he is, Lisetta, coming through the olive-trees. Go and get me my veil, and I'll walk and meet him like a fair unknown."-"The invisible neighbour!" thought Galgano:"is this coquetry now, or is it sheer innocence and vivacity! And the song of the oranges! I'll try however-I'll look at her above the leaves.?!

Now the reader must be informed that Galgano himself was the author of this canzonet, both words and music, and was generally known as such. Whether Minoccia knew it, we cannot determine; but Galgano thought that she could hardly have quite forgotten the adventure of the orange-tree, especially as the song was calculated to call it to mind. The whole of the words amounted to this :

Oh oranges, sweet oranges,

Plumpy cheeks that peep in trees,

The crabbed'st churl in all the south

Would hardly let a thirsty mouth

Gaze at ye, and long to taste,

Nor grant one golden kiss at last,

La, la, la-la sol fa mi

My lady looked through the orange-tree.

Yet cheeks there are, yet cheeks there are,

Sweeter-Oh good God, how far!

That make a thirst like very death

Down to the heart through lips and breath;
And if we asked a taste of those,

The kindest owners would turn foes,

Ola, la-la sol fa mi

My lady's gone from the orange-tree,

Galgano, full of this modest complaint against husbands and of Minoccia's knowledge of it, suddenly raised his head over the orange-pots, and made a very bold yet courteous bow full in Madonna's astonished face. For it was astonished :—there was, unfortunately, no doubt of that. She resumed herself however with the best grace she could, and staying just long enough to drop one of her kindest though gravest

courtseys, walked slowly from the window. After that he never saw her there again.

Galgano tried all the points of view about the house, but could only catch an occasional glimpse of her through the garden trees. He could not even meet with Signor Stricca, to whom he meant under some plausible pretext to introduce himself. At length however a favourable opportunity occurred. His dog, in scouring hither and thither, had darted into the front gate of the house, and seemed resolved not to be hunted out till he had made the full circuit of the grounds. My master, Sir," said one of the servants, "bade me ask you if you would chuse to walk in and call the dog out yourself?" "I thank you," answered Galgano, who seemed to feel that he could not go in, precisely because he had the best opportunity in the world; "I will whistle him to me over those palings there." He did so, and the dog presently appeared, followed by Signor Stricca and his household. The animal, in leaping to his master over the palings, hurt his leg; but nothing could induce Galgano to enter the house. "Minoccia, my love," ," cried the host, "why do you not come up, and entreat Signor Galgano to favour our home with his presence ?" The lady was approaching, when Galgano, lapping up the wounded dog in his cloak, hurried off, protesting that he had the rascalliest business in life to attend to, and that he would take the very earliest opportunity of repaying himself for his loss. "There now," said Stricca, to a little coxcombical looking fellow who was on a holiday visit to him, is one of the most accomplished gentlemen in all Italy, and yet he does not disdain to wrap up his bleeding dog in his silken coat. That," continued he, to his wife," is Signor Galgano, one of the finest wits in Sienna, and what is better, one of the most generous of men. you must have seen him before." "Yes," replied Madonna, "but I knew nothing of his generosity." Her husband, like one generous man speaking of another, related twenty different instances in which Galgano had manifested his friendship and liberality in the most delicate manner; so that Minoccia, at last, almost began to feel the kiss in the orange-tree stronger upon her eyelids, than she did when it was. stolen.

"there

But

Galgano soon made his appearance in Signor Stricca's house, and could not but perceive that the lady suffered herself to look kinder athim than when he bowed to her out of the cottage window. He was beginning to congratulate himself, after the fashion of the young gallants among whom he had been brought up; but what perplexed him was the extremely affectionate attention she paid her husband; and his perplexity was not diminished by the very great kindness shewn him by the husband himself. Indeed the kindness of both seemed to go hand in hand; so that our hero, having never yet been taught that a lady to whom a stranger had shewn attention could do any thing but favour him entirely, or laugh at or insult him, was more than ever bewildered between his respect for the husband and increasing passion for the wife.

Galgano, though not in so many words, pressed his suit in a manner that grew warmer every day. Minoccia seemed more and more dis

tressed at it; and yet her kindness appeared to increase in proportion. At length, one afternoon, as they sat together in a summer-house, Galgano seeing her stoop her face into an orange-tree, was so overcome with the recollection of the first meeting of their faces, that he repeated the kiss, changing it however from the eyelids to the lips; and it struck him that she did not withdraw as quickly as before, nor look by any means so calm and indifferent. He accordingly took her hand in order to kiss it with a passionate gratitude, when she laid her other hand upon his, and looking at him with a sort of appealing tenderness in the face, said, "Signor Galgano, I respect you for numberless generous things I have heard of you; and knowing as I do how little what is called gallantry is thought of, I cannot deny but that your present attentions to me and apparent wishes do not hinder me from letting my respect run into a kinder feeling towards you. Perhaps, so sweet to us is flattery from those we regard, they have even more effect upon me than I ought to allow. But, Sir, there are always persons, whether they act justly or unjustly themselves, who do think a great deal of this gallantry, and who, if the case applied to themselves, would be rendered very uncomfortable; and, Signor Galgano, I have one of the very best husbands in the world; and if I shew any weakness towards another unbecoming a grateful wife, I do beseech you, Sir, and I pay you one of the greatest and most affectionate compliments under heaven,-that rather than do or risk any thing the knowledge of which should pain him, you will help me with all the united strength of your generosity against my very self; otherwise" (here she fell into a blushing passion of tears) "it may be a hard struggle for me to call to mind what I ought respecting the happiness of others, while you are saying to me things that make me frightfully absorbed in the moment before me."

"Is it

We leave the reader to guess how Galgano's attention to the appealing part of this speech was divided and hurt by the tenderness it avowed, and the opportunity it seemed to offer him. He passionately kissed the hand of the gentle Minoccia, and she did not hinder him, only she looked another way, drying up her tears; and he thought the turn of her head and neck never looked so lovely. "And if it were possible," asked he, "that the opinions of good and generous men could be changed on this subject (not that it would become me to seek to change those of the man I allude to)-but if it were possible, and no bar were in the way of a small share of Minoccia's kindness, might I indeed then hope that she would not withdraw it?” fair, Signor Galgano," said Minoccia, in a low but kind voice, “to ask me such a question, after the words that have found their way out of my lips?" And who then was the kindest of men or women,next to yourself, dearest Minoccia, that told you so many handsome and over-coloured things of your worshipper?" "My husband himself," answered she;" he has long had a regard for your character, and at last he taught me to share it."-" Did he so!" exclaimed Galgano;" then by heavensHe broke off a moment, and resumed in a quieter tone :-" You, Madame Minoccia, who have a loving and affectionate heart, and who confess that you have been

moved to some regard for me by qualities which you know only by report, will guess what pangs that spirit must go through which has been made dizzy by looking upon your qualities day after day, and yet must tear itself from a happiness in which it would plunge headlong. But by the great and good God, which created all this beauty around us, and you the most beautiful of all beautiful things in the midst of it, I do love the generosity, and the sincerity, and the harmony, that keeps them beautiful, so much more than my own will, that although I think the happiness might be greater, it shall never be said that Galgano made it less; and that he made it less too, because the generosity trusted him, and the kind sincerity leaned on him for support.One embrace, or I shall die." And Galgano not only gave, but received an embrace almost as warm as what he gave; and Minoccia kissed his eyelids, and then putting her hand over them and pressing them as if not to let him see, suddenly took it off, and disappeared.

We know not how Signor Stricca received the account of this interview at the time; for Madame Minoccia certainly related it to him; but it is in the records of Sienna, that years afterwards, while she was yet alive, her husband became bound for Signor Galgano in a large sum of money, as security for an office which the latter held in the state; and it appears by the dates in the papers, that they were close neighbours as well as friends.*

ON THE SLOW RISE OF THE MOST RATIONAL OPINIONS.

It would be surprising to think by what slow degrees the most rational, and apparently the most obvious improvements take place in human opinion, did not habit, and self-love, and the fear of change, sufficiently account for them. Some find it as difficult to leave off a mere habit of opinion, however pernicious, as drunkards their drams. Others cannot bear a diminution in the respect which they have long entertained for themselves, as sensible and conclusive thinkers. Others are afraid of all innovation, in consequence of the shock it gives to society; and yet the next minute they would wage a dozen wars to preserve the old notions. Again, it is thought a triumphant argument with some, if the new opinion proposed be to the advantage of the proposer;-which is a very idle objection; because if it supposes the general good, it includes his among the rest.

Innovation, as mere innovation, is a want of reverence for antiquity; an insensibility to the accumulated habits of time, and to the comforts and consolations they have gathered by the way. But on the

This story (with the usual difference of detail) is from the Italian Novelists, and has been told in Painter's Palace of Pleasure, one of the store-houses of our great dramatic writers.

other hand, objection to it, as mere objection, is cowardice and selfishness; cowardice, for fear of responsibility; selfishness, for fear of losing a certain property in our self-respect, and having the notion of our own wisdom and sufficiency disturbed. You may know the goodness of either in proportion to it's enthusiasm, sincerity, gentleness, and wish to reason. You may know the badness, by a certain mixture of coldness and violence, by it's shuffling, it's petulance, and it's tendency to dismiss a subject at once with abuse. As to the innovator, it is his business to make up his mind to a certain portion of misrepresentation; for who was the innovator, great or small, that ever was without it? But it is his business also to examine narrowly into his own consciousness, and to be sure, from experiment, that he can deny himself for the good of others, what he would willingly enjoy with them in common.

There is not a liberal opinion now existing, which has not gone through heaps of ugly faces and yelling threats, like the saints in the old pictures. To differ in religious faith was once thought the height of undeniable villainy; and is so still by some ignorant sects. The Spaniards were taught to believe that all heretics had monster-like faces, till Lord Peterborough's officers persuaded the nuns otherwise. Milton says that he could not propose some new things even after an ancient fashion, (and indeed almost every proposition for human improvement is to be found in the ancient writers), but

-Straight a hideous noise environs me

Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes, and dogs;
As when those hinds that were transformed to frogs
Railed at Latona's twin-born progeny,

Which after held the sun and moon in fee.

It is lamentable to see such a man as Bacon trying to feel his way into popular persuasion, by smoothing the king's and people's prejudices as he goes, giving even into the superstitions about witchcraft. A friend was observing to us a short time since, that he was not aware of the existence of any denouncement of cruelty to animals, till Pope wrote a paper on it in the Guardian. Shakspeare, who says every thing, has said something about "the poor beetle whom we tread upon, feeling as great a pang as when a giant dies ;" but it is only in a cursory manner, and by way of illustration. His reflections upon the hunted stag, as if by way of excuse for the novelty of their sympathy, are put into the mouth of an eccentric and saturnine pbilosopher. His age indeed, so great and humane in many respects, was so insensible in this particular point, that one of the greatest and humanest of its ornaments, Sir Philip Sidney, describes his ladies and courtiers as laudably diverting themselves with sealing up a dove's eyes, to see it strain higher and higher into the light, with other "cunning" diversions too gross and cruel to repeat. Poor ignorant old beldams, whom their neighbours or themselves took for witches, were put to death at a later period, with great approbation, not only of the British Solomon," King James, but of a high legal Authority, and even the good old Sir Matthew Hale. The celebrated Robert Boyle, as our readers know, was accounted a sort of perfection of a man, especially in all respects intellectual, moral,