July 23.

I’ve heard Bonvisi tell of a poor Italian girl who buried her murdered lover’s heart in a pot of basil, which she watered day and night with her tears, just as I do my coffer.  Will hath promised it shall be buried with me; layd upon my heart, and since then I’ve been easier.

He thinks he shall write father’s life, when we are settled in a new home.  We are to be cleared out o’ this in alle haste; for the king grutches at our lingering over father’s footsteps, and yet when the news of the bloody deed was taken to him, he scowled at Queen Anne, saying, “Thou art the cause of this man’s death!”

Flow on, bright shining Thames.  A good, brave man hath walked aforetime on your margent, himself as bright, and usefull, and delightsome as you, sweet river.  There’s a river whose streams make glad the city of our God.  He now rests beside it.  Good Christian folks, as they hereafter pass this spot, will, maybe, point this way and say, “There dwelt Sir Thomas More,” but whether they doe or not, Vox Populi is no very considerable matter.  Theire favourite of to-day may, for what they care, goe hang himself to-morrow in his surcingle.  Thus it must be while the world lasts; and the very racks and scrues wherewith they aim to overcome the nobler spiritt onlie lift and reveal its power of exaltation above the heaviest gloom of circumstance.

Interfecistis, interfecistis hominem omnium anglorum optimum.

* * * * *

ALESSANDRO MANZONI

The Betrothed

Poet, dramatist, and novelist, Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Manzoni was born at Milan on March 7, 1785.  In early manhood he became an ardent disciple of Voltairianism, but after marriage embraced the faith of the Church of Rome; and it was in reparation of his early lapse that he composed his first important literary work, which took the form of a treatise on Catholic morality, and a number of sacred lyrics.  Although Manzoni was perhaps surpassed as a poet by several of his own countrymen, his supreme position as novelist of the romantic school in Italy is indisputable.  His famous work, “The Betrothed” ("I Promessi Sposi"), completed in 1822 and published at the rate of a volume a year during 1825-27, was declared by Scott to be the finest novel ever written.  Manzoni died on May 22, 1873.

I.—­The Schemes of Don Rodrigo

Don Abbondio, cure of a little town near Como, was no hero.  It was, therefore, the less difficult for two armed bravos whom he encountered one evening in the year 1628 to convince him that the wedding of Renzo Tramaglino and Lucia Mondella must not take place, as it did not suit the designs of their master, Don Rodrigo.  Renzo, however, was by no means disposed to take this view of the matter, and was like to have taken some desperate steps to express his disapproval.  From this course he was dissuaded by Fra Cristoforo, a Capuchin, renowned for his wisdom and sanctity, who undertook to attempt to soften the heart of Don Rodrigo.