patient must go to rest. Come now, then, and give me satisfaction with your sword."

"Very readily," said the sculptor aloud; "go first with me to Paris, for here I have only my dagger and pistol."" Most unwillingly should I return to Paris, that first of all cities in the world, without knowing my honour perfectly free from spot or blemish; and as my patient has heard of our dispute, though I meant he should not, he will perhaps be kind enough to lend the fine sword from yonder corner to his friend Maitre Cellini."-"Doctor," replied Benvenuto seriously, "bating your gossiping and your ignorance about travelling, you show yourself a sensible, honourable man, useful both to others and yourself. Indeed, Luigi, as this affair cannot be amicably settled, you must lend me your sword; I mean to do something formidable.". "Or perhaps undergo something formidable," interrupted the Doctor, "for our affair is not yet decided. Here I am ready for you."

But the sick Luigi arose in haste, stopped them at the door, and said with a melancholy smile, "Doctor, wilt thou slay my friend? or, friend, wilt thou slay my doctor? You are pair of strange people!"

Benvenuto looked feelingly at the pale face of his friend, and Doctor Petitpré exclaimed with admiration," Ah, parbleu! that is an excellent bon mot! That would do honour to a Frenchman! I would most willingly satisfy the wish of such an amiable clever young gentleman, but my honour won't permit it. I must have satisfaction."-" Well, Doctor," asked Benvenuto kindly," what horrible offence have I been guilty of?"-" You called my words beastly."-"Well, well, that does not mean much in my mouth. Beast, beastly; such words, my good Doctor, come as readily from my tongue as a cough from a sick man! I apply such words sometimes even to the highest and most esteemed of my friends and patrons !"—" That is the most singular custom I ever heard of," cried the Frenchman, laughing, though astonished; and then added, "So you meant to say to me, 'permit me to observe, sir, that in this instance I am not entirely of your opinion.' Did you mean that ?" "Yes, indeed, friend Petitpré, I meant nothing worse.""Let us be friends then," said the Doctor with great solemnity, and shook hands with the sculptor. They then bade Luigi good night, and left him to return to Paris together.

As they rode on slowly in the darkness, Benvenuto endeavoured to learn from the doctor something more about Sansone and his fair lady. But the doctor, to his own sincere regret, could tell him little or nothing. He had heard that the lawyer had been invited to Paris by the Marquise on account of a lawsuit, which involved nearly the whole property of the noble family of the Comminges: that this lawsuit had, in consequence of Sansone's skill, been decided in favour of the family, and that he lived since that time in the house of the Marquise, honoured and feasted like a conqueror; and that he had been prevailed upon, by her entreaties, to remain a few weeks longer in Paris to repose on his laurels.

In Benvenuto's mind there arose a hope that the beauteous Laura might have accompanied her lord to Paris; and that a few gentle forgiving words from her lips might restore health and vigour to the youthful artist. He hinted at this hope in his conversation with the physician; but from his evasive answers and mournful looks, and at VOL. VII. No. 39.-1824.

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length from the manner in which he expressed himself as to what he had observed to-day, Cellini became convinced that his young friend stood at the brink of the grave. This of course put a stop to his hopes, and suppressing his feelings, he requested that the physician would give him timely notice, if Luigi's last moments should perhaps come earlier than was expected. This Petitpré promised faithfully, and they parted.

A few days after this, on a beautiful sunny morning, Benvenuto was sitting in his workshop, busily employed in sketching a design he had just conceived, of which, as is sometimes the case with artists, he hardly knew the application. Yet the idea appeared to him interesting and lovely, and his pencil had soon fixed it on paper. A youth, to all appearance a Greek, as we see them on antique works of art as they ran or wrestled for the public prizes, was sinking down exhausted in the course, while a beautiful female figure, of whom Cellini himself did not know whether she was a Muse or one of the ladies who crowned the victors, touched his flowing locks with a wreath of palm.

The design was finished, and the artist whispered to himself, "What I shall do with it, God will show me some time or other!" when a loud and repeated knocking was heard at the gate. Benvenuto, always inclined to think of wild and extraordinary things, imagined he saw his enemies attack the gates of his castle; he immediately put on a coat of mail of the finest steel, buckled his long poniard round his waist, and seizing a partizan of monstrous size, hurried into the court, calling out to his workmen with a voice of thunder: "Open the gates and retire behind them. Though twenty enemies should stand outside, I am ready to meet them." He stood in an attitude of defiance, the gates were thrown open at his command, but nobody was seen outside in the street but Doctor Petitpré on his little horse, who cried angrily at sight of the warlike sculptor, "What the devil do you let me wait here for? And how comes it that your head is full of nothing but murder?"

Cellini answered in great wrath, "Do not ask that of me, but of the people in this fearful city, who surrounded this my castle daily and nightly with all sorts of persecutions; partly from envy at my immortal works of art, and partly because they intend to murder every Italian by the most abominable practices."

"Well," interrupted the Physician," you may act the Orlando Furioso when there is more time for such fooleries. Do not you see that my horse is covered with foam? I have yet to order some medicines at the apothecary's, and to give information to Madame la Marquise, to whom I also gave my word! Your friend is very very ill make haste if you wish to see him once more here below!" He spurred his horse, and was gone.

Cellini stood a few moments as if thunderstruck; then turned round in great haste, called half commanding, half intreating for his mule, threw his formidable weapon on the pavement, ran to the stables, and kicking with hands and feet at every one who came to help him, saddled and bridled his mule; without taking off his coat of mail, he mounted, and on the sheath of the poniard dropping from his baldrick, he seized the glittering weapon without the sheath, and rode in such fury through the streets of Paris, that every body who saw him thought he had just committed or was hurrying to commit a murder.

The

watch at the barrier endeavoured to detain him, but he galloped through like a madman, calling out, " Detain me not, I go to comfort a dying friend." The French soldiers laughed aloud at the sight of this gentle comforter, but he swore at them and hurried on.

The sick Luigi sat at the open window of the farmhouse, and enjoyed the enlivening sunbeams; but they dazzled his weak eyes so that he did not perceive Benvenuto till he stopped before the house, jumped from his mule, and hurried upstairs. Astonished at his furious appearance and drawn dagger, he said to him as he opened the door, "How unfortunate, my Benvenuto, that I should be so very weak to-day. You are going most likely to defend yourself or to attack some powerful enemy. And I am not able to share your peril and your victory. What else can your hurry and your warlike dress mean? Perhaps I may yet have strength sufficient to prove that my courage has not altogether departed from my expiring frame."

"It is nothing, nothing but another beastly trick of that Doctor Petitpré!" said Benvenuto highly delighted: "he sends me here on a fool's errand, as if it were the first of April! And yet I am quite pleased with him for sending me hither to see with my own eyes that all is well!"

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"Did he, then, tell thee that some enemies had attacked me, or why camest thou with thy weapons ?"—" No, no, I took my arms for another reason, and forgot to put them away again. But he told me you were dying."-"Indeed!" said Luigi gently, and bent his eyes to the ground. But soon a smile, more kind and heavenly than before, played on his handsome face, which shone with a brighter colour than when Benvenuto saw him last. He folded his hands and kept silent a few minutes, then looking up to his friend, he said—“When we look back on our past life, how odd it appears that the most cheerful and the most solemn moments should be mingled together in our memory. I felt just now as if the fair Laura Sansone were quite near me, and as if I heard her playful laugh; for she would have laughed, had she witnessed thy coming to visit the sick in arms and in a coat of mail. Oh! she laughed so lovely-spite of her noble and high demeanour ! And she could command all the powers of mimicry and disguise which belong to our countrywomen, whenever she wanted to play a frolicsume, cheerful trick! How often has she stood in the midst of our social circle without our knowing her! She even deceived my sympathetic perception by the most extraordinary disguises! the lovely fairy!" He then told his friend several anecdotes of this the blooming time of his life, till he talked himself to sleep like an innocent playful babe!

Motionless, like a strong man guarding against the approaching of some mighty enemy, sat the armed Benvenuto close to his sleeping friend, holding his glittering dagger in his hand, and contemplating with many thoughts the various shapes with which his own face was reflected from the uneven surface of the shining blade. He there saw the source of many of the grotesque conceptions of the ancient sculptors. He was, however, soon brought back from the ancient to the modern world by a coach rolling up to the farm house. Highly enraged at the thought of his Luigi being disturbed in his refreshing slumber, he stepped to the window, and saw Doctor Petitpré assisting

the lady Isabel out of the coach. Benvenuto tried to make them understand, by many angry signs, that Luigi was asleep, that they must not disturb him, and had better stay where they were. They took little notice of him, but came upstairs, with noiseless steps, towards the room-door, which Benvenuto opened with anxious care to make as little noise as possible. The lady Isabel walked up to Luigi's armchair without noticing Benvenuto, who said to the Doctor very angrily "Who the deuce bade you bring that old woman here?"—" Old woman," whispered Petitpré, quite shocked at this ungallant expression; "remember, Mr. Cellini, the respect you and we all owe to the ladies." This timely reproof checked Benvenuto's wrath, and he soon forgot every thing but his sick friend; for the lady Isabel turned suddenly to the physician, and asked with a trembling voice-"Oh, God! he will awaken once more, I hope ?"-"Yes," replied the physician, "but for an hour at most, and then all will be over with him!" The lady Isabel wept under her veil; but as it was impossible for Benvenuto to vent his grief in gentle accents, he left the room and hurried to the farthest corner of the garden, there to roar out his wild but honest grief. When the first violent storm had subsided, he wished to return to Luigi's death-bed; and scolding himself more severely even than he scolded others, and subduing his grief with all his power, returned to the house. At the door of the sick chamber he stopped; all was quiet within. He entered gently, but the Doctor, standing behind the door unexpected by Cellini, occasioned a slight noise by the lock touching him. The sculptor looked at him with a dreadful face which seemed to say "Why hide yourself there so foolishly?" The physician answered this look by simply pointing to an apparition near the sick man's couch, which struck Benvenuto in his turn with astonishment.

In the long mourning dress of the lady Isabel, but tall and stately, with her angelic face uncovered, stood a beautiful female beside the slumbering Luigi; sometimes anxiously listening to his breathing, and then again raising her beautiful eyes to Heaven in earnest prayer.

As Benvenuto, in dumb amazement, turned his inquiring eyes on the Doctor, the latter whispered-"I saw with my own eyes this unheardof metamorphosis! The veil fell back, she lifted up her head, and the lady Isabel was, by some magic power, transformed into an angel!"

"No angel," whispered the lady, "but Signora Laura Sansone, the wife of the Advocate Giovanni Sansone. I come here by my husband's permission. It is at his request that the grateful Marquise gave me, together with her friendship, the means of relieving the pain of this young artist's sick-bed. Now it has become a death-bed," she stopped, and a few precious tears rolled down her cheeks-" every deception must necessarily cease." She was silent, and soon relapsed into her former contemplation. After a little while the sick man moved, Laura bent over him. He opened his eyes with a cheerful smile, and seeing her, said-" An angel! how like my Laura! Art thou, then, gone before me?-and dost thou give me thy pardon?" He attempted to rise, but the pain in his breast made him fall back, and he said sighing "No, I am yet suffering on earth!"-"Not much longer," said Laura, consoling him; and kneeling down beside him, she added-" let us pray together." He nodded his assent, and folded his

hands; and during the fervid prayer, full of hope, which the beloved voice pronounced, he sunk quietly to sleep, never to wake again! Cellini knew now what to do with the sketch he had made in the morning. Over Luigi's grave was placed a basso-relievo, carved in the whitest marble by Benvenuto's masterhand. The victor in the race was sinking exhausted, while the judge of the contest, in the form of a beautiful female, was hastening towards him with a crown of palm in her hand. Around it stood, in letters of gold, these words"Death in the arms of Victory."

QUEEN ISABEL'S WISH.*

FROM the magic walls of her Santa-Fé
Queen Isabel parts at dawn of day,

While the dew-drop is on the earth:
Her lord, her court, and her knights attend;
In a brave procession their course they bend,
With soft music, pomp, and mirth.

O sweet is the breath of that rosy morn,
And sweet the sound of the martial horn,

As they march on their joyous way;
And the woods and the mountains hail the sight,
And the rivers sparkle with silver light,
And the sun gilds their rich array.

To Zubia they go, that the Queen may gaze
On Grenada fair, where the hallow'd blaze
Of past glory is lingering yet;
Where beauty, and love, and chivalry
In the Zambra shone, and the red war-cry
Woke deeds time can never forget.

To Zubia they're come; from its battlement
Queen Isabel looks on the wide extent

That outspreads upon either hand;
And before her lies, with its clear blue sky,
Grenada the city of gallantry,

With its high wall's circling band.

O bright is the scene and the view around;
'Tis a picture of heaven on earthly ground,
The rich tale of a minstrel's dream :
Queen Isabel longs for the glowing prize,
And to hail as her own that fair paradise,
Enlaced by the Daro's stream.

She sees the Alhambra before her there,
And its vermeil towers look out in the air

O'er minaret, crescent, and wall;

Where the kings of the Moors had reposed in pride,
When valour and pleasure, enthroned at their side,
Were the lords and directors of all.

The superb Alcaçava, with parapet strong,

And the fortresses stretching their white walls along,
Seem islands in seas of delight :-

* The original of much of this will be found in Gines Pérez.