servants-a larger male establisment, I am told, | trust will be next year at farthest, unless especial than is kept at Sion House." "But all without breeches - think of that, Bridget," said the vexed father, who was in the strange and not infrequent mood of sporting with his own distress of mind. "La, you there again, brother! that, to be sure, as I distantly hinted to Mr Hill, is no subject for a lady's discussion. But, if Mr Makmukrandluk were to receive a hint of the excessive delicacy of English women-particularly those born and bred in Lon'on-I would not grudge out of my own pocket, before my niece goes to her estates, to put every man and boy of them in decent-you understand me, brother? Sarah, poor dear, has her little head so carried just now-and no wonder-such a man, and such a match!—that she cannot even think of her own wedding clothes, much less of -." The spinster hesitated. "Far less of clansmen's breeches, or want of breeches," interrupted Mr Bradshaw more peevishly than ever. "For heaven's sake, Bridget, don't make yourself ridiculous, nor worry a man whose heart is bruised enough already." "Ridiculous! Mr Bradshaw," said the indignant spinster; but she saw the muscles working and quivering about the usually firmly-compressed mouth of her brother as he hastily turned his back. 66 My dear brother!-Abram Bradshaw!" cried the kind-hearted sister, following him "ten thousand pardons-for heaven's sake, what is the matter?" "Is it nothing to lose Sarah, you foolish woman?" said Mr Bradshaw, gulping down his feelings, and disguising his real fears from his sister. "Our dear Sarah! surely it is, brother; but then so lost a husband so adoring." Old Bradshaw was about suffering a relapse into cross humour; but he checked himself, and let his goodhearted sister maunder on. "My niece shan't be lost to me, Mr Bradshaw, more than every married young person is lost to her family. I am not quite an easy-chair old woman yet, thank heaven!—and, if money and post-horses can do it, I'll visit my niece at her castle next season, and every season-ay, were it fifty miles beyond York city! I am pretty sureand that is not what every old aunt can say that I shall be extremely welcome to a slice of my nephew's salmon, and a cut of his venison. Don't you think so, Abram ?" "To a whole sheep-head, pluck, haggis, and all-I have no doubt of it, Bridget." "Nay, that is a stumbling-block, Abram; but, as my niece is but a puny eater at bestand a Lon'on girl bred and born-I hope she will be excused. Indeed, I think, Abram, I had better drop a few lines to the dowager, Mrs Makmukrandluk, about my management of poor dear Sarah's ways. I dare say she is a very motherly sort of body, and just the nice, chatty, experienced old lady, that, whatever may happen, will be such a comfort to our girl. I only wish I could induce her, when my nephew and niece return our visit—which I family reasons prevent our dear Sarah from undertaking the journey-to give us a few months; if she could put up with my little India chintz room, I would willingly give it up." "For God's sake, Bridget, spare me!" cried the unhappy father, rushing from the room, unable longer to restrain himself. If Sarah had nobly striven to conceal her feelings from her father, it was now his turn to try to deceive his child. He was more successful than she had been. His fears had been ever alive; while Sarah's eyes and mind were delightfully preoccupied. Her father was not remarkable at any time for blandness of manners; but he was civil and kind to her Highland Chief; to herself, when he did speak to her at all, more tenderly complacent than he had ever been ; until, at last, every look and tone vibrated to her heart; for "farewell" was in them all. Good Mistress Bridget could not, meanwhile, divine what had come over her brother. However, she at last settled that the gout had got into his head. "Sarah, my dear, a flying gout had got into my brother's head; but I sent for Dr Coddler. He is quite right this morning; and I must insist on your not allowing our dear unnamed to wait on you to-morrow, unless he choose to accompany us to the milliner's and the India shops. I do believe, child, but for me you would go to your castle without a tolerable gown or shift to your back. Now, coming from Lon'on, and an only girl, I trust you will, as must be expected, be able to show the ladies of your neighbourhood something like a decent wardrobe." "Ladies of my neighbourhood, my poor aunt," thought Sarah. But what cared Sarah for wardrobes, ladies, and neighbourhoods? Were there not Ranald's noble-minded mother-Ranald's kindred-Ranald's clan-Ranald's glens and lakes? She attended her aunt, however, to London; and for two days, two ages they seemed,-bought finery, and never once saw Ranald. If a day's absence did not lessen Lochnaveen's passion for his mistress, it ever produced conflict, or something like a revolution, in his feelings, and another manner of considering his approaching marriage. Alone with Sarah, his happiness was perfect; not from the mere egotism of love, but by the exclusion of those persons and things which, in reminding him of her birth and position, disturbed his self-complacency, fretted his pride, and alarmed his fears for the future. To Mr Hill, who might understand how very great a man and chief he was, Lochnaveen was frank and courteous; to Mistress Bridget, whose deference soothed his vanity, polite and attentive; but the London goldsmith and the northern Chief were, in spite of themselves, repellant qualities. He loved Sarah fondly; he was proud of her beauty, alive to all her fascinations of manner, and daily more and more sensible of her high and hidden qualities of mind, and inherent sweetness of disposition; but "old Bradshaw's daughter," the "city heiress," was a different being. Sarah could scarcely allow herself to be displeased with his impatience of ordinary society. It was a feeling she shared, though, in her breast, arising from very opposite tastes and motives. She already perceived that she was more admired, or in better accordance with the magnificent tastes of the chief, in the jewelled splendour and rich brocades of her afternoon costume, than in the plain linen gown and mob-cap of the morning. She also sometimes feared that Lochnaveen knew or recked little of women, in their most endearing character-as the faithful and sympathizing depositories of fears and hopes, the charmers and soothers of firesides. But this it would yet be her delight to teach him. Though his tastes might differ from her simple habits, what so natural as that her high-born mountain Chief should relish splendour and magnificence. Little airs of impatience and petulance shown to such of her friends and visiters, as from some caprice, he did not like, were readily pardoned. With his fine natural breeding and quick talents, how, indeed, could he be supposed to tolerate those worthy, kind, stupid, vulgar people! Sarah could love them all yet she could also see and pardon Ranald's coldness and impatience. What could not her love have pardoned? It could do every thing but wholly blind her understanding. When Sarah's marriage-settlements came to be arranged, fresh difficulties and mortifications arose, though not from the ordinary causes. Ten times rather, Ranald said, and well believed, would he have carried off his bride without a plack, to some of the lonely shielings in the sylvan glens, which she loved to picture, than have submitted to the exposure of his circumstances, and the torture to his pride occasioned by these endless questionings and arrangements. Mr Bradshaw, however, at last acknowledged to the peace-maker general, Aaron Hill, that his son-in-law elect had, though with abundant selfwill and superfluous pride, shown at this time something like generosity: "of an idiotic kind," he added, drily, as if he had praised overmuch. "This is ill-natured, Mr Bradshaw." "No, it is merely just. This map, with its tremendous muster-roll of Celtic names of places and touns, in our bashaw's dominions, no doubt includes many future capabilities. This list of Bhalie Hossack's-to whom, by the way, make my compliments, as to the only man with a rational idea in that country-includes I cannot tell how many mosses, moors, lochs, forests, grazings, ploughgates, and davochs of land, all of which might lie till doomsday under the original curse, before your chief of three tails would deign to cultivate even a kail-garden with the paltry gold of a London tradesman. But poor Sarah has made her election. I ought now to consider their interests as one; the son, if he shall ever come, may have more sense than the father." The settlements which Mr Bradshaw was left to arrange, at last, precisely as he liked, did equal honour to his liberality and intelligence. The whole debts of Lochnaveen were to be at once swept off; and the Chief, with ample power and means to improve his estates, was only restrained from completely ruining his family, to which many of his contemporaries, as Mr Bradshaw remarked, showed a happy predisposition. The Chief was now feasted and congratulated on all hands, till he became disposed to resent as insults attentions paid so exclusively to the accepted lover of the city heiress, and to remark that no such homage had been paid, in his own right, to the northern Chief. Lochnaveen even feared that some shade of envy mingled with the contempt he felt, or tried to feel, for the profuse dinners, costly wines, and superb beaufets of rich plate exhibited by those new connexions, of whose hospitalities he was invited, and in courtesy compelled to partake. He could have despised himself for the meanness of this feeling; but, under it, the wish daily grew stronger that he were away from London-from all those pompous vulgarities of wealth-with Sarah wholly his own. Even in his most jealous moments of watchfulness, he could not discover that she had any overweening pride of riches, or value for the costly luxuries to which she had been familiarized from her infancy. Among the numerous dinner parties, principally contrived and executed by Mistress Bridget, was one given to Mr Bradshaw's friend and patron, the favourite and powerful minister of the day. Sir Robert Walpole, on entering the room, heartily congratulated the handsome Highlander on the fair prize he was winning from England. "This is a new species of depredation," said the sagacious minister. "We have found out the way at last to make honest and loyal men of the most warlike of King George's subjects. My pretty goddaughter will, I know, be the bond of fealty for one brave clan. Ay, that you will, my sweet Sarah, make loyal George's men of half the wild Jacobites of the North. Say I commissioned you to receive their allegiance, and sealed the warrant." And Sir Robert took the bride elect in his arms, and kissed her cheek in the free manner of good-humoured godfathers of those days with pretty goddaughters; nor was Sarah violently offended. But the red streak, the fiery cross, kindled and burned on Ranald's brow, the hereditary badge of his ireful race. His scowling glance even rolled towards Sarah. "Desert my Prince, too!" was his bitter thought. "Would-nay, God forbid that my mother heard this! Am I longer worthy to be called her son? Who are those around me? Where am I, the chief of Clan Raonull? This crafty Whig slave of the Elector! Sarah, too, to permit the old fox to pollute her cheek!" Ranald looked unutterable displeasure and disgust; but he saw Sarah's timid, supplicating, brimful eyes, anxiously watching him, as if the day of maiden power were already past, the season of suffering and submission anticipated. That look instantly checked, if it did not disarm his wrath. He whispered an entreaty for pardon, and owned he could not bear to see any one salute her; no, not her father-not even Aunt Bridget. This was a weakness of his :-she must forgive it. And Sarah smiled sweetly though gravely, and gave him her hand in amity. (To be continued.) On the 21st of July 1840 there was discovered in the Capella del Potestà, at Florence, a portrait of Dante, as he was at the age of twenty-five, painted by his friend Giotto. Very different are the features it presents from those which the portraits of the poet in his later years had made familiar to us, graven into deep furrows by care and thought and the burning passion of the genius that won for him his simple chaplet of laurel, which sits so fitly on his brows, that we invariably associate it with his image. It is not till we have examined them narrowly, side by side, that, as in the face of a friend restored to us, after years of separation have written strange histories upon the smooth features which reflected back the sunshine of our own youth, we can trace in that so sad and worn visage the lineaments which marked its early years. In both portraits the leading characteristic is sensibility. The delicate nostril and tremulous lip of the youth, true to the indication of every deep and refined emotion, appear in the prematurely-old man in an expression of fixed sadness. The prominent eye lids of the young lover of Beatrice, that seem as though they drooped and trembled beneath her gaze, have indeed sunk back, and show in their dark splendour those eyes that have looked upon "that great vision of Hell, and Purgatory, and Heaven, in which his sorely-vexed spirit sought for a solution of the perplexities which beset his mortal life. There is more, ay, how much more of sorrow there more force, more sternness of purpose, -but of tenderness and gentle heart, there is no abatement. It is just the difference between the youth of finely-touched sympathies, to whom the yet untried riddle of the world and the dim yearnings of his own pure spirit have brought the haunting sadness of the prophet, and the man who has proved the worth that was in him by doing and suffering greatly ;—who has borne him, with heroic heart and a soul true to its immortal gifts, through exile, and poverty, and disgrace, through sorrows deepened by being shared by others that were most dear to him, and through those fiery conflicts of his own spirit, which are the penalties paid by genius for its greatness. These are things that burn their impress deep into cheek and brow; and, looking on this Dante, we exclaim, in the words of the people of Verona, when they saw him in their streets, "Eccovi l'uom ch'è stato all' Inferno!" Wrongly have these features been called, as they often are, harsh, and bitter, and unremorseful. Seared and sorrow-stricken they may be, all mirthfulness long gone out of them,-hope from aught in this world long dead in those eyes,and stern in the clear sense of right and rigorous scorn of wrong; but assuredly it is tenderness, not harshness-sadness, not bitterness, that are there. "I think," says Carlyle," it is the mournfullest face that ever was painted from reality; an altogether tragic, heart-affecting face. There is in it, as foundation of it, the softness, tenderness, gentle affection as of a child; but all this as if congealed into contradiction, into abnegation, isolation, and proud hopeless pain." Sad, sad is it, looked upon by itself; and when placed in contrast with that portrait of his youth, its melancholy interest is deepened in a tenfold degree. These two portraits are indeed the best biography of Dante. The interest of the early portrait is heightened by the fact, that it shows Dante to us as he was in that year when Beatrice died-that Beatrice whom he loved with a tenderness, and purity, and unselfishness of affection, which we do not say are unparalleled, but of which no such record exists as he has left-that Beatrice whom centuries have reverenced in his great poem, which she may truly be said to have inspired. Her presence it was, which first woke in him the love of the beautiful, that aspiration after inward purity and grace, which it is the peculiar office of woman to inspire. To her influence may be traced the reverence for woman which pervades his works, and speaks in pictures of affection and beauty, which Shakspeare alone-if he, indeed-has surpassed. She was the day-star of his ambition, while she lived; and when she died, and he recovered from the shock of that event, which nearly brought him to the grave, she became the guardian angel, in the light of whose pure eyes he ever walked. Death made her but dearer to his heart. From thenceforth, as he saw her in the beautifying light of memory and love, she seemed to surpass her former self in loveliness, as far as she had done her companions whilst on earth.* To live and speak in a manner worthy of her, to whom his whole love was given, was his ceaseless aim. The world reaps the harvest of that noble endeavour in his poem; and for the man Dante, doubt not that to him, as to many a man whom Heaven has blessed with a love pure and noble, *Sotto suo velo ed oltre la riviera though never, it may be, to be crowned with pos- sore-saddened heart! These longings of his tosession, it was -An inward light, wards his Beatrice; their meeting together in the Paradiso; his gazing in her pure transfigured eyes, her that had been purified by death so long, separated from him so far; ah! one likens it to the song of angels; it is among the purest utterances of affection, perhaps the very purest that ever came out of a human soul." Yet there have been critics, who have tried to show that no such person as Beatrice ever lived; and that this being was a mere personification of Philosophy or Religion! It is easy to understand that a strength and purity of affection like this of Dante's, this blending of the real with the ideal, this noblest idolatry, which bows-and never owns a higher link between earth and heaven,—this Making the path before him always bright; sustaining and guiding him through wrong, and struggle, and evil days; nerving his heart against its own weakness, and teaching him to look upwards and beyond this speck of time for that rest and solace which were denied to him here. Strange, and austere, and cold of heart must he often have appeared to those about him in those rapt communings of his with her who was his "soul's health." How it was with Gemma Donati, whom he afterwards married, and by whom he had seven children, the contradictions of biographers have left us to conjecture. That she loved him, and that, by kind-heart than when it so bows-to woman as the ness and devotion, he repaid her love, cannot be doubted. A nature like his could not do otherwise. And that she understood and respected his devotion to the memory of Beatrice, seems to be strongly confirmed by the fact that their youngest child was called by that name. But his inner heart never was hers. It was away with her to whom he surrendered it proudly in his boyhood, and who proudly claimed it as her own for ever, shining into it, in requital, with that pure and perfect light into which she had herself ascended. We hear of Gentucca of Lucca, and of Madonna di Pietra, as having for a time engaged his fancy; and he himself points at something of the kind in the reproach addressed to him by Beatrice in the "Purgatorio,"—that reproach where womanly pride in the superiority of her own personal charms is exquisitely mingled with rebuke for having allowed himself to stoop for a time to lower feelings, and to aught less noble than his first high aspirations towards herself. Nature or art ne'er showed thee aught so sweet, It not beseemed, that thou shouldst stoop thy wing Purgatorio, Canto xxxi.* These fancies, however, were but the rose-hued cloudlets of an hour. They passed; and there in the deep blue heaven shone Beatrice, the "bright particular star" of his affection. Never, without deepest shame, can such fallings away, for however brief a space, be reflected upon by a loving and noble nature like his. But he who gave so much for his love might surely be permitted something to be forgiven; and in that forgiveness be bound by an additional and dearer tie to the object of his love. Carlyle has said beautifully, "I know not in the world an affection equal to that of Dante. It is a tenderness, a trembling, longing, pitying love; like the wail of Eolian harps, soft, soft; like a child's young heart; and then that stern and * See also the previous canto. Devotion to something afar From the sphere of our sorrow, was too high a matter for the sympathies of emasculated churchmen and moping pedants. But that they should have maintained such a plea in the face both of the circumstantial narrative of Dante himself, and of the testimony of his contemporaries, is a piece of scholastic perversity more than usually absurd. The title Dante has presented the world with the story of Her present-hers alone- Ere her fair love infused a soul into me? "In that part of the book of my memory," he says "before which is little that can be read, standeth a rubric which says, Incipit Vita Nova.' Under which rubric I find written the words which it is my intention to record in this little book,-if not all of them, at least those which are of leading moment." Doubtless he felt with the prophetic instinct of genius, that the world would not be indisposed to know what inspiration it was, under which the energies of his soul awoke. Or he felt, at least, that in this transcript of his own feelings he offered what tribute then lay within his power of homage to his Beatrice, and in her to womanhood, for the ennobling influences of which to him she had been and was the ever-springing source. Of this little volume, which is comparatively little known, even among the readers of Dante, in this country, but which contains the key to Dante's character, it is proposed in the following pages to present as condensed a sketch as possible. It was at a festival, held in celebration of Mayday, in the year 1274, at the house of her father, Folcho Portinari, a leading and wealthy citizen of Florence, that Dante first saw the lady Bice. She had just completed her eighth year. He was then at the end of his ninth. Her complexion, he informs us, was brilliant and engaging, and she wore a girdle and other ornaments suitable to a girl of her tender years. The impression upon Dante was deep and instantaneous. After describing his emotions in the fantastic language of the schoolmen, he adds: among many words which I did not understand, I heard these-I am thy lord!' In his arms methought I saw the form of one asleep, and naked, saving a crimson scarf, which was thrown lightly round the figure; and, looking on it long and intently, I knew that it was the lady of my health, who had deigned to salute me that same day. In one of his hands, methought that he who bore her held something that was all on fire; and, turning to me, he said, Behold thy heart! And, after a space, methought he awoke the sleeper, and, with much persuasion, constrained her to eat the thing that was burning in his hand, which she did reluctantly and with hesitation. This done, his joy soon after dissolved into the most bitter lamenta. tion; and so, all in tears, he took up this lady again within his arms, and with her, as I thought, ascended towards heaven. Thereupon such an "From that time forth Love ruled my soul, which had submitted itself so readily to his com-guish seized me, that my fitful slumber was mand, and he assumed such imperious sway and masterdom over me, through the influence given to him by my imagination, that I could not choose but do his pleasure in all things. He oftentimes enjoined me to strive to obtain a sight of this young angel; and thus did I, in my boyhood, go many a time in quest of her; and I saw in her deportment so much that was noble and beautiful, that assuredly that saying of the poet Homer might be spoken of her: From heaven she had her birth, and not from mortal clay. "Her image, which was evermore present with me, placed me wholly under the thraldom of love; yet were her excellencies so noble, that, in yielding to his sway, I carried with me the full sanction of reason, in all those matters where it is of importance to listen to her counsel. Were I to dwell upon all the passionate acts of my youth, they would appear like fables. I shall not, therefore, linger upon these, but, passing over many things, which influenced me strongly at the time, I shall come to those words which are written in my memory, under more conspicuous titles." Dante, as we can read in his physiognomy, was a shy and bashful boy; but how distant and reverential must his admiration of Beatrice have been, when we find that nine years elapsed before he heard her voice. The occasion is thus described with all a lover's minuteness: "Her dress was snowy white, and with her were two ladies, older than herself; and, as she passed me, she turned her eyes towards the spot, where I stood in breathless trepidation; and, moved by that ineffable courtesy of nature, which has this day received its guerdon in a brighter world, she saluted me in words of such thrilling sweetness, that it seemed to me as though I had in that moment beheld the utmost limits of bliss. Like a drunken man, I rushed away from those about me to the solitude of my own chamber, and sate me down to muse upon her and her most gracious courtesy. And, as I mused, a sweet sleep came over me, in which a marvellous vision was presented to my eyes. Methought I saw within my chamber a flame-coloured cloud, and within it the figure of one whose imperious eye struck awe into my heart. His look was radiant with exultation; and broken, and I awoke. Musing upon what I had seen, I resolved to make it known to the many famous poets of that time; and, finding that I possessed the art of ordering words in rhyme, I wrote the following sonnet, in which, saluting all who were under fealty to love, and entreating them to give judgment upon my vision, I wrote to them that which I had seen in my sleep. THE VISION OF THE BURNING HEART. To every captive soul, and gentle heart, A Be greeting in Love's name, our master, sent! My heart; while in his arms, and calmly sleeping, The burning heart, as though she feared her prey; Many replies were made to this sonnet. Among others who sought to resolve the fantastic vision was the "young father of Italian song," Guido Cavalcanti, one of the noblest and most accomplished gentlemen of Italy, whom Dante warmly designates "the foremost of my friends." His sonnet, which, besides being graceful in itself, and strangely prophetic, is interesting, as having led to the formation of the friendship which ever afterwards subsisted between them, runs thus: CAVALCANTI'S REPLY. Thou hast, I ween, beheld whate'er of bright, Such visions as these are the fruits of a passion so absorbing as Dante's, which did not find its |