In the retirement to which she was conducted, her frenzy gradually subsided from its first turbulence, and at times she had even a dim recollection of the miseries which had befallen her. But these intervals were always brief, and she again, after a few minutes apparent coherence, relapsed into the dull sombre melancholy, which ever marks the victims of her distemper. Borgiano, though he strove, when she was gay, to assume in her presence a gaiety which his heart knew not, was in secret tormented with a thousand passions. Pity and love, and sorrow at times melted his very heart within him; at others, a sort of undirected rage swept away every softer feeling; till at length his whole soul settled in a burning and reckless desire of vengeance, and Lanfranchi was its object. He had been present when Jacopo had uttered his last words. They had sunk deep into his heart at the time, and weighed heavily on his recollection now. Till at last he waited only for a fitting opportunity to hurl destruction on the head of a wretch, whom the lips of a dying mau had cursed.

As he walked one evening, moody and melancholy along a quiet and retired quarter of the Lang' daruo, he met with the object of his hate, swords were mutually drawn; and however Lanfranchi might have the advantage of his adversary in skill, Borgiano pressed upon him so furiously, that he rushed within his guard and stabbed him to the heart. The weapon broke as the

dying man staggered to the ground; and sheathing the remainder of his sword, the Florentine retired hastily from the spot. A crowd was speedily gathered to the scene. At first the name of Lanfranchi was on the lips of every one; but when Florence was decyphered in the faint light on the fragment of the weapon, which some one had extracted still reeking and warm with blood, the sorrow of the people burst forth into tumultuous rage.

"Some accursed Florentine!" passed from man to

man.

"Down with the Florentine curs!" was next their cry; and when their minds were more settled, and knew their own object, a search was commenced in the house of every Florentine family within the city.

Borgiano, with that infatuation which seems ever to haunt men when engaged in the most desperate enterprises, had carried home with him the handle of the blade. It was stained with blood, the fragment corresponded with it exactly. These were damning proofs of guilt to the minds of the outrageous populace, to whom even more superficial evidence would have sufficed to convict any Florentine in their present ebullition of fury. They hurried him before judges who were not less prejudiced against him than his accusers; and as in those days proceedings against a criminal were brief, in proportion as they were unjust :-his

trial was concluded ere it was well begun. Death by the wheel was the sentence.

Maddalena, even in her lowliness and retirement, could distinguish the name of Borgiano uttered in curses from Pisan tongues from every corner of the city. Roused by this into a state of excitement, restless yet without an object, she escaped into the street; her dress in careless disarray, her hair untied, and her eye fixed in the wildness of unsettled thought. She wandered on through the people, an object of pity to some, of derision to others. She came, whether by instinct or by chance, to the very spot where the whole circumstance of death was going on. Already had Borgiano's slow and terrible death been begun. He had endured the agonies of their most refined torture without gratifying their cruelty by uttering a single groan; and even the executioners, in spite of their hatred to his race, began almost to pity him, when they beheld one so young surrendering his life without a murmur.

Maddalena saw and recognised Borgiano as his limbs were writhing on the wheel. She rushed into the middle of the crowd-most of them made way for her, as if unconsciously; others she tore aside, till she stood on the very spot where Borgiano was expiring on the rack: his eyes were then almost closed for ever-another turn of the wheel, and life was fled. Had Maddalena really recognised in him the companion of her moonlight wandering, the gentle wooer, whom even in her madness 2 D

VOL. VI.

her soul had ceaselessly clung to ?-For a while she stood motionless, as if gazing on the terrific sight before her, then fell to the ground stiff and moveless. Her heart had leapt for ever from its seat; and there she lay a cold and lifeless corpse, within a foot or two of Borgiano's mangled remains.

They were buried in the same grave by the kindness, or it may have been, by the derision of the Pisans. It was immediately under the hanging tower; and upon it some friend had placed a plain unornamented slab of polished marble, upon which the words " Borgiano and Maddalena" were engraved. This epitaph was all their memento. At the beginning of last century it was still to be seen, though the ground had then gradually risen around it, and it was in some degree hid beneath a profusion of luxuriant wild flowers. Now it is completely lost to the sight, and no record remains to tell of their ill-fated love.

G. E. K. I.

L

IA

THE MANIAC.

At the commencement of the eighteenth century, the Illuminati, or sect of Astrologers, had excited considerable sensation on the continent. Blending philosophy with enthusiasm, and uniting to a knowledge of every chemical process a profound acquaintance with astronomy, their influence over the superstitious feelings of their countrymen was prodigious. In one or two instances, the infatuation was attended with fatal consequences; but in no case was the result so dreadful as in the subsequent narrative :—

Reginald, sole heir of the illustrious family of Di Venoni, was remarkable, from his earliest infancy, for a wild enthusiastic disposition. His father, it was currently reported, had died of an hereditary insanity; and his friends, when they marked the wild mysterious intelligence of his eye, and the determined energy of his aspect, would often assert that the dreadful malady still lingered in the veins of young Reginald. Whether