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Infant, lines to an, 259

Körner. My native land, 142

Lady, the, to her lover, 246
Lamb, Charles. Angel help, 59
Life and death, 310
Love scene, a, 222

Magdalen, to the, 58

Siamese twins, the, 560
Skylark, the, 514
Song, 347

Spaniards, yield not to despair, 371
Spirit's return, a, 40
Stanzas, horrible, 403
Sunset after rain, 166
Sunshine, 100

Tear, the, 316

Manrique, Don Jorge, on the death of his Tears, the use of, 347

father, 131

Maries, the three, 308

Mars disarmed, 476

Marseilles hymn, the, 75

Modern Pythagorean, the. The tear, 316

Monks of old, the, 221

My native land, 142

Nature, the God of, 58

Night in a city, 468

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Thomson's birthplace, 509
To a group of children, 197
To Albert, 259

To little Mary, 10
To the earth, 123

Truth, youth, and age, 499

Vale of pines, the, 117

Village queen, the, 484
Vision, a, 347

Waring, Samuel Miller. The God of Na-

ture, 58

Peter weeping, 59

The banner of heaven,

To the Magdalen, 58

58

Weep not for him that dieth, 347

Wild deer, address to a, 469

Wilson, Professor. Address to a sleeping

child, 470

Address to a wild deer, 469

Night in a city, 468

Signs of the plague, 466

The convict, 468

The return to port, 465

The plague in the city, 467
The ship, 464

The wreck, 464
Winter, the coming of, 345
Word, the careless, 281
Wreck, the, 464

OF THE

ENGLISH MAGAZINES.

VOL. 5.]

BOSTON, OCTOBER 1, 1830. [Nos. 1 AND 2.

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THE IRON SHROUD.

66
BY THE AUTHOR OF FIRST AND LAST."

THE castle of the Prince of Tolfi
was built on the summit of the tow-
ering and precipitous rock of Scylla,
and commanded a magnificent view
of Sicily in all its grandeur. Here,
during the wars of the middle ages,
when the fertile plains of Italy were
devastated by hostile factions, those
prisoners were confined, for whose
ransom a costly price was demand-
ed. Here, too, in a dungeon, exca-
vated deep in the solid rock, the
miserable victim was immured,
whom revenge pursued, the dark,
fierce, and unpitying revenge, of
an Italian heart.

VIVENZIO-the noble and the generous, the fearless in battle, and the pride of Naples in her sunny hours of peace-the young, the brave, the proud, Vivenzio, fell beneath this subtle and remorseless spirit. He was the prisoner of Tolfi, and he languished in that rock-encircled dungeon, which stood alone, and whose portals never opened twice upon a living captive. It had the semblance of a vast cage, for the roof, and floor, and sides, were of iron, solidly wrought, and spaciously constructed. High above there ran a range of seven grated windows, guarded with massy bars of the same metal, which admitted light and air. Save these, and the tall folding doors beneath them, which occupied the centre, no chink, or chasm, or projection, broke the smooth black surface of the walls. An iron bedstead, littered with straw, stood in one corner and beside it, a vessel with water, and a coarse dish filled with coarser food.

Even the intrepid soul of Vivenzio shrunk with dismay as he entered this abode, and heard the ponderous doors triple-locked by the silent ruffians who conducted him to it. Their silence seemed prophetic of his fate, of the living grave

that had been prepared for him. His menaces and his entreaties, his indignant appeals for justice, and his impatient questioning of their intentions, were alike vain. They listened, but spoke not. Fit ministers of a crime that should have no tongue!

How dismal was the sound of their retiring steps! And, as their faint echoes died along the winding passages, a fearful presage grew within him, that never more the face, or voice, or tread, of man, would greet his senses. He had seen human beings for the last time! And he had looked his last upon the bright sky, and upon the smiling earth, and upon a beautiful world he loved, and whose minion he had been! Here he was to end his life-a life he had just begun to revel in! And by what means? By secret poison? or by murderous assault? No-for then it had been needless to bring him thither. Famine, perhaps a thousand deaths in one! It was terrible to think of it but it was yet more terrible to picture long, long years of captivity, in a solitude so appalling, a loneliness so dreary, that thought, for want of fellowship, would lose itself in madness, or stagnate into idiocy.

He could not hope to escape, unless he had the power, with his bare hands, of rending asunder the solid iron walls of his prison. He could not hope for liberty from the relenting mercies of his enemy. His instant death, under any form of refined cruelty, was not the object of Tolfi, for he might have inflicted it, and he had not. It was too evident, therefore, he was reserved for some premeditated scheme of subtle vengeance; and what vengeance could transcend in fiendish malice, either the slow death of famine, or the still slower

one of solitary incarceration, till the last lingering spark of life expired, or till reason fled, and nothing should remain to perish but the brute functions of the body?

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It was evening when Vivenzio entered his dungeon, and the approaching shades of night wrapped it in total darkness, as he paced up and down, revolving in his mind these horrible forebodings. No tolling bell from the castle, or from any neighboring church or convent, struck upon his ear to tell how the hours passed. Frequently he would stop and listen for some sound that might betoken the vicinity of man; but the solitude of the desart, the silence of the tomb, are not so still and deep, as the oppressive desolation by which he was encompassed. His heart sunk within him, and he threw himself dejectedly upon his couch of straw. Here sleep gradually obliterated the conciousness of misery, and bland dreams wafted his delighted spirit to scenes which were once glowing realities for him, in whose ravishing illusions he soon lost the remembrance that he was Tolfi's prisoner. When he awoke, it was daylight; but how long he had slept he knew not. It might be early morning, or it might be sultry noon, for he could measure time by no other note of its progress than light and darkness. He had been so happy in his sleep, amid friends who loved him, and the sweeter endearments of those who loved him as friends could not, that in the first moments of waking, his startled mind seemed to admit the knowledge of his situation, as if it had burst upon him for the first time, fresh in all its appalling horrors. He gazed round with an air of doubt and amazement, and took up a handful of the straw upon which he lay, as though he would ask himself what it meant. But memory, too faithful to her office, soon unveiled the melancholy past, while reason, shuddering at the task, flashed before his eyes the tremendous future. The contrast over

powered him. He remained for some time lamenting, like a truth, the bright visious that had vanished; and recoiling from the present, which clung to him as a poisoned garment.

When he grew more calm, he surveyed his gloomy dungeon. Alas! the stronger light of day only served to confirm what the gloomy indistinctness of the preceding evening had partially disclosed, the utter impossibility of escape. As, however, his eyes wandered round and round, and from place to place, he noticed two circumstances which excited his surprise and curiosity. The one, he thought, might be fancy; but the other was positive. His pitcher of water, and the dish which contained his food, had been removed from his side while he slept, and now stood near the door. Were he even inclined to doubt this, by supposing he had mistaken the spot where he saw them over night, he could not; for the pitcher now in his dungeon was neither of the same form nor color as the other, while the food was changed for some other of better quality. He had been visited, therefore, during the night. But how had the person obtained entrance? Could he have slept so soundly that the unlocking and opening of those ponderous portals were effected without waking him ? He would have said this was not possible, but that, in doing so, he must admit a greater difficulty, an entrance by other means, of which he was convinced there existed none. It was not intended, then, that he should be left to perish from hunger. But the secret and mysterious mode of supplying him with food, seemed to indicate he was to have no opportunity of communicating with a human being.

The other circumstance which had attracted his notice, was the disappearance, as he believed, of one of the seven grated windows that ran along the top of his prison. He felt confident that he had ob

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