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For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage.

Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co.

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BALLADE OF THE FLIGHT OF NICOLETTE. "And the daisies which she crushed in passing looked dark against her feet; the girl was so white!"

(Cantefable d'Aucassin et Nicolette, 12**.)

ALL bathed in pearl and amber light
And leaned into the fragrant night
She rose to fling the lattice wide,

Where brown birds sang of summertide;
('Twas Love's own voice that called and
cried)

"Ah Sweet!" she said, "I'll seek thee yet, Though thorniest pathways should betide The fair white feet of Nicolette."

They slept, who would have stayed her flight; (Full fain were they the maid had died !) She sped adown her prison's height

On strands of linen featly tied. And so she passed the garden-side With loose-leaved roses sweetly set, And dainty daisies, dark beside The fair white feet of Nicolette!

Her love lay pent in evil plight: (So, many lovers still abide)

I would my lips could praise aright

Her name that should be glorified!. Those lovers, now, whom foes divide Do weep awhile-and soon forget. Ah, would through these chill souls might glide

The fair white feet of Nicolette !

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From Blackwood's Magazine.
MARCO POLO.

the commotions in Constantinople, and not some previously arranged expedition with milder motives, determined the period of their departure. At all events the dates coincide.

The two brothers set out in 1260, when the conflict was at its height, and all the horrors of siege and sack were near at hand. They left behind them, it would appear, an elder brother still at the head of

In the middle of the thirteenth century, two brothers of the Venetian family of Polo, established for a long time in the parish of S. Giovanni Chrisostomo, carrying on their business in the midst of all the tumults of the times as if there had been nothing but steady and peaceful commerce in the world were at the head of a mercantile house at Constanti- the family counting-house at Constantinonople, probably the branch establishment ple, and taking with them an easily carof some great counting-house at Venice. ried stock of jewels, went forth upon the These seem prosaic terms to use in a unknown but largely inhabited world of story so full of adventure and romance; central Asia, full, as they were aware, of yet no doubt they represent, as adequately wonders of primitive manufacture, carpets as the changed aspect of mercantile life and rich stuffs, ivory and spices, furs and allows, the condition of affairs under leather. The vast dim empires of the which Niccolo and Matteo Polo exercised East, where struggles and conquests had their vocation in the great Eastern capital been going on, more tremendous than all of the world. Many Venetian merchants the wars of Europe, though under the had established their warehouses and pur- veil of distance and barbarism uncompresued the operations of trade in Constan- hended by the civilized world had been tinople in the security which repeated vaguely revealed by the messengers of treaties and covenants had gained for Pope Innocent IV., and had helped the them, and which, under whatsoever risks Crusaders at various points against their of revolution and political convulsions, enemies the Saracens. But neither they they had held since the days when first a nor their countries were otherwise known Venetian bailo― an officer more powerful when these two merchants set out. They than a consul, with something like the plunged into the unknown from Soldachia, rights and privileges of a governor- was crossing the Sea of Azof, or travelling settled in Constantinople. But the ordi- along its eastern shores - and working nary risks were much increased at the their way slowly onward, sometimes lintime when the Latin dynasty was drawing gering in the tents of a great chief, somenear its last moments, and Palæologus times arrested by a bloody war which was thundering at the gates. The Vene- closed all passage, made their way at last tians were on the side of the falling race; to Bokhara, where all further progress their constant rivals the Genoese had seemed at an end, and where they retaken that of the rising; and no doubt the mained three years, unable either to adposition was irksome as well as dangerous vance or to go back. Here, however, they to those who had been the favored nation, had the good fortune to be picked up by and once the conquerors and all-potent certain envoys on their way to the court rulers of the great capital of the East. of "the great khan, the lord of all the Many of the bolder spirits would no doubt Tartars in the world"-envoys sent by be urged to take an active part in the the victorious prince who had become struggle which was going on; but its master of the Levant, to that distant and effect upon Niccolo and Matteo Polo was mysterious potentate. These ambassadifferent. The unsatisfactory state of af- dors, astonished to see the Frankish travfairs prompted them to carry their mer- ellers so far out of the usual track, invited chandise farther east, where they had, it the brothers to join them, assuring them is supposed, already the standing-ground that the great khan had never seen any of a small establishment at Soldachia, on Latins, and would give them an eager the Crimean peninsula. Perhaps, how- welcome. With this escort the two Veneever, it is going too far to suppose that tians travelled far into the depths of the

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unknown continent until they reached the | passed to serve and help them on their

way. Notwithstanding this, it took them three years of travel, painful and complicated, before they reached Acre on their homeward — or rather Rome-ward — jour

city of Kublai Khan, that great prince shrouded in distance and mystery, whose name has been appropriated by poets and dreamers, but who takes immediate form and shape in the brief and abrupt narra-ney. There they heard, to their constertive of his visitors, as a most courteous nation, that the pope was dead. This was and gentle human being, full of endless terrible news for the ambassadors, who curiosity and interest in all the wonders doubtless were fully sensible of the imwhich these sons of Western civilization portance of their mission, and expected to could tell him. The great khan received fill Christendom with wonder and 'admirathem with the most royal courtesy, ques- tion. In their trouble they appealed to tioning them closely about their laws and the highest ecclesiastic near, the pontifical rulers, and still more about their religion, legate in Egypt, who heard their story which seems to have excited the imagina- with great interest, but pointed out to tion and pleased the judgment of this them that the only thing they could do was calmly impartial inquirer. No doubt the to wait till a new pope was elected. This manners and demeanor of the Venetians, suggestion seems to have satisfied their devout Catholics in all the fervor habitual | judgment, although the conflicts over that to their age and city, recommended their election must have tried any but a very faith. So much interested, indeed, was robust faith. The Poli then concluded — the Tartar prince, that he determined to an idea which does not seem to have seek for himself and his people more au- struck them before-that having thus thoritative teaching, and to send back his certain time vacant on their hands, they merchant visitors with a petition to this might as well employ it by going to see effect addressed to the pope. No more their family in Venice. They had quitted important mission was ever intrusted to their home apparently some dozen years any ambassadors. They were commis- before, Niccolo having left his wife there, sioned to ask from the head of the Church who gave birth to a son shortly after his a hundred missionaries to convert the departure, and subsequently died. ColoTartar multitudes to Christianity. These nel Yule suggests that the wife was dead were to be wise persons acquainted with before Niccolo left Venice, which would "the seven arts," well qualified to discuss have given a certain explanation of the and convince all men by force of reason slight interest he showed in revisiting his that the idols whom they worshipped in native city. But at all events the brothers their houses were things of the devil, and went home; and Niccolo found his child, that the Christian law was better than whether born in his absence or left behind those all evil and false-which they an infant, grown into a sprightly and interfollowed. And above all, adds the simple esting boy of twelve, no doubt a delightful narrative, "he charged them to bring back discovery. They had abundant time to with them some of the oil from the lamp renew their acquaintance with all their anwhich burns before the sepulchre of Christ cient friends and associations, for months at Jerusalem." went by and still no pope was elected, The letters which were to be the cre- nor does there seem to have been any dentials of this embassy were drawn out ecclesiastical authority to whom they "in the Turkish language," in all likeli- could deliver their letters. Probably, in hood by the Venetians themselves; and a that time, any enthusiasm the two traders Tartar chief, "one of his barons," was may have had for the great work of concommissioned by the great khan to accom-verting those wild and wonderful regions pany them; he, however, soon shrank of the East had died away. Indeed the from the fatigues and perils of the jour-project does not seem to have moved ney. The Poli set out carrying with them any one save to a passing wonder; and a royal warrant, inscribed on a tablet of all ecclesiastical enterprises were appargold, commanding all men wherever they ently suspended while conclave after con

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clave assembled and no result was at perpetual fighting along their route, they tained.

went no farther than that port of Lagos beyond which lay the unknown. The let ters of privilege, indulgences no doubt, and grants of papal favor to be distributed among the Tartar multitude, they transferred hastily to the sturdy merchants who were used to fighting as to most other dangerous things, and had no fear and ignominiously took their flight back to the accustomed and known.

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At length the brothers began to tire of inaction, and to remember that through all these years of silence Kublai Khan was looking for them, wondering perhaps what delayed their coming, perhaps believing that their return home had driven all their promises from their memory, and that they had forgotten him and his evangelical desires. Stirred by this thought, they determined at last to return to their It is extraordinary, looking back upon prince, and setting out, accompanied by it, to think of the easy relinquishment of young Marco, Niccolo's son, they went such a wonderful chance as this would to Acre, where they betook themselves seem to have been. Pope and priests once more to the pious legate, Tebaldo di were all occupied with their own affairs. Piacenza, whom they had consulted on It was of more importance in their eyes to their arrival. They first asked his leave quell the Ghibellines than to convert and to go to Jerusalem to fetch the oil from civilize the Tartars. And perhaps, conthe holy lamp, the only one of the great sidering that even an infallible pope is but khan's commissions which it seemed pos- a man, this conclusion was less wonderful sible to carry out; and then, with some than it appears; for Kublai Khan was a fear apparently that their word might not long way off, and very dim and undiscernbe believed, asked him to give them let-ible in his unknown steppes and strange ters, certifying that they had done their primeval cities whereas the emperor best to fulfil their errand, and had failed and his supporters were close at hand, only in consequence of the strange fact that there was no pope to whom their letters could be delivered. Provided with these testimonials they started on their long journey, but had only got as far as Lagos on the Armenian coast, which was their point of entrance upon the wild and immense plains which they had to traverse, when the news followed them that the pope was at last elected, and was no other than their friend, the legate Tebaldo. A messenger, requesting their return to Acre, soon followed, and the brothers and young Marco returned with new hopes of a successful issue to their mission. But the new pope, Gregory X., though he received them with honor and great friendship, had not apparently a hundred wise men to give them, nor the means of sending out a little Christian army to the conquest of heathenism. All that he could do for them was to send with them two brothers of the order of St. Dominic, frati predicatori, to do what they could toward that vast work. But when the Dominicans heard that war had broken out in Armenia, and that they had to encounter not only a fatiguing journey, but all the perils of

and very sensible thorns in consecrated flesh. It seems somewhat extraordinary, however, that no young monk or eager preacher caught fire at the suggestion of such an undertaking. Some fifty years before, Fra Francisco from Assisi, leaving his new order and all its cares, insisted upon being sent to the soldan to see whether he could not forestall the Crusaders and make all the world one, by converting that noble infidel — which seemed to him the straightforward and simple thing to do. If Francis had but been there with his poor brothers, vowed to every humiliation, the lovers of poverty, what a mission for them!-a crusade of the finest kind, with every augury of success, though all the horrors of the steppes, wild winters and blazing summers, and swollen streams, and fighting tribes lay in their way. And had the hundred wise men ever been gathered together, what a pilgrimage for minstrel to celebrate and story-teller to write, a new expedition of the saints, a holier Israel in the desert! But nothing of the kind came about. The two papal envoys, who had been the first to throw light upon those kingdoms be

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