to restore;—­in the Courts of Barbarian Kings;—­and above all, on returning obscure and disguised, amidst the crowds of the Christian world, to the seat of his former power?  What elements of memory, and in what a wild and fiery brain!  What reflections to be conned in the dungeons of Avignon, by a man who had pushed into all the fervour of fanaticism—­four passions, a single one of which has, in excess, sufficed to wreck the strongest reason—­passions, which in themselves it is most difficult to combine,—­the dreamer—­the aspirant—­the very nympholept of Freedom, yet of Power—­of Knowledge, yet of Religion!

“Ay,” muttered the prisoner, “ay, these texts are comforting—­comforting.  The righteous are not alway oppressed.”  With a long sigh he deliberately put aside the Bible, kissed it with great reverence, remained silent, and musing for some minutes; and then as a slight noise was heard at one corner of the cell, said softly, “Ah, my friends, my comrades, the rats! it is their hour—­I am glad I put aside the bread for them!” His eye brightened as it now detected those strange and unsocial animals venturing forth through a hole in the wall, and, darkening the moonshine on the floor, steal fearlessly towards him.  He flung some fragments of bread to them, and for some moments watched their gambols with a smile.  “Manchino, the white-faced rascal! he beats all the rest—­ha, ha! he is a superior wretch—­he commands the tribe, and will venture the first into the trap.  How will he bite against the steel, the fine fellow! while all the ignobler herd will gaze at him afar off, and quake and fear, and never help.  Yet if united, they might gnaw the trap and release their leader!  Ah, ye are base vermin, ye eat my bread, yet if death came upon me, ye would riot on my carcass.  Away!” and clapping his hands, the chain round him clanked harshly, and the noisome co-mates of his dungeon vanished in an instant.

That singular and eccentric humour which marked Rienzi, and which had seemed a buffoonery to the stolid sullenness of the Roman nobles, still retained its old expression in his countenance, and he laughed loud as he saw the vermin hurry back to their hiding-place.

“A little noise and the clank of a chain—­fie, how ye imitate mankind!” Again he sank into silence, and then heavily and listlessly drawing towards him the animated tales of Livy, said, “An hour to midnight!—­waking dreams are better than sleep.  Well, history tells us how men have risen—­ay, and nations too—­after sadder falls than that of Rienzi or of Rome!”

In a few minutes, he was apparently absorbed in the lecture; so intent indeed, was he in the task, that he did not hear the steps which wound the spiral stairs that conducted to his cell, and it was not till the wards harshly grated beneath the huge key, and the door creaked on its hinges, that Rienzi, in amaze at intrusion at so unwonted an hour, lifted his eyes.  The door had reclosed on the dungeon, and by the lonely and pale lamp he beheld a figure leaning, as for support, against the wall.  The figure was wrapped from head to foot in the long cloak of the day, which, aided by a broad hat, shaded by plumes, concealed even the features of the visitor.