act of justice performed on this knight. His lady died shortly before him, of grief and disgust she was daily receiving from the life of her husband. This knight was a great talker, but never kept to his word." Such incidents and such persons were the prototypes of the main incidents and the chief personages in the romances of the middle ages; the deliverance of fair prisoners by the gal lantry of a few nobler minds, while the feudal lord or knight, whom no laws restrained and no sympathy could touch, only issued from his stronghold to commit the most devilish crimes, as the giant in romance. It sometimes happened that a public violator was led to the scaffold; but their conduct there was marked by the same ferocious resistance even to the executioner. When one of them was desired by the executioner to kneel to be beheaded, the sturdy knight refused, and would not suffer him to do his duty. "The executioner seeing this," says our chronicler, "struck the sword across his throat while the knight was standing, and sent his head over his shoulders; a thing which no man had ever seen. We turn away from scenes which only the necessity of exhibiting can plead for our having opened. To know man in society, it is indeed necessary to learn the evil and the good he is capable of reaching; to behold him destroying and destroyed in anarchy, crouching in terror under despotism, and only finding his balance in the moral order of regulated governments. On the banks of the Rhine may yet be viewed the Gothic ruins of the haunts and holds of these illustrious chevaliers voleurs, the ancestors of that proud nobility which constitutes the numerous little courts of Germany. The chivalry of these petty lords consisted, among other deeds, in pillaging the merchants who passed through their domains, or the towns in their neighbourhood. From this circumstance we derive a confederacy, formed by the merchants, of more than a hundred towns against these little princes and courts-the origin of the famous Hanseatic League which so greatly contributed to the commerce of Europe.* We are amused by an account of a new pilgrimage which was suddenly in vogue. In these times a sort of mania often broke out for some particular saint, and hurried away multitudes far and near, till the reputation of this new saint gave way in its turn to the rising celebrity of another. "In this year, 1458, about Lent, and after Easter, a great multitude of Germans and Brabanters, men, women, and children, in vast shoals poured down through the province of Artois to go in pilgrimage to Mount St. Michael, which they de clared was for miracles which Monsieur Saint Michel' had performed in their respective countries. Among other things they told of a man, who, beating his child, because the child would go to Mount St. Michael, dropped down dead; and they said, that 'Monsieur the excellent Saint' had caused the man to die. Some said, that usually this wish of visiting the saint came so suddenly on them, that they could not tell the cause, but certain they were, that if they did not gratify it, they had no rest day nor night, till they reached the holy spot, and thousands helter-skelter kept pour→ ing down." This restless desire for visiting the holy Mount of St. Michael, for which these good and simple souls could not account, might, at least with many, originate in that same tormenting passion for change of place which in the present day is so strongly experienced by others in their less saintly pilgrimages to Brighton and Margate. The St. Michael pilgrims as sembled in fair weather; had they proved themselves as zealous amidst the snows of December as among the buds and blossoms of spring, their tormenting desire" had been of a less suspicious nature. 66 Perhaps it may surprise, to discover a spirit of freedom which we could hardly suspect in this age-this broke out in the commercial city of Ghent, when the Duke of Burgundy assembled his states in Flanders, the cities of Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, and Courtray, and proposed to levy a new tax on salt, an article much consumed by the Gantois, who dealt largely in salted fish; and, "in return, he would compound with them for all future taxes. The smaller cities looked up to that of Ghent, to give their answer to their lord. The people of Ghent, imagining that if they agreed to this new tax it would not preserve them from future exactions, either by the present lord or his successor, and so that they should pay twice rather than once, would not consent to their duke's request, and replied, that they had consulted with the other states, and agreed among themselves, that they would not allow of this new tax till the last man in Ghent was destroyed." This republican fierceness induced the duke, Philip the Good, to break up the assembly instantly, without levying this tax. But the men of Ghent soon perceived that since their refusal, whenever they had any transactions with the duke or his councils, they were not so well received as formerly; and they began to murmur against their lord. This produced a war between the men of Ghent and the duke; which, after successes and reverses, ended in a great battle which the duke obtained, and which put the men of Ghent on their knees; two thousand of them dressed in black, with bare heads, ungirdled, and unshod, headed by an old abbot, bitterly crying for mercy thrice to the duke for his ill-advised subjects." All at Ghent seemed on a sudden struck with deep repentance, while the duke declared, if they were good subjects he would be to them a good prince, but ordered that all the banners of the Corporations of Ghent should be delivered up with their golden fleece (emblem of their woollen manufactory), to the king at arms, who in presence of the duke, heaped them all together in a sack, and hung them up afterwards, before the shrines of our Lady of Boulogne and our Lady of Haulx, where they remained in perpetual memory, to their last rag, of the republican fierceness of the drapers, the salters, the dyers, and the merchants of Ghent. Among the military brutes, and the brutified multitude of this period, such as we have shewn them, the mind reposes with delight on the useful life of Jacques Coeur, one of the great merchants of the fifteenth century; in his commercial character he combined all the virtues of the patriot and the intelligence of genius. A man so enlightened, and, by his intercourse with the East, so powerful in a dark age, suffered persecution from the general calumny of those feudal barbarians, who beheld with hatred the man who, says our chronicler, "drew his origin from a humble stock, without nobility, but from his youth became so expert in merchandise, which he sent all over the world, and even it is said to the Saracens, and had factors without numbers in strange countries, so that he became the argentier or financier of the king of France; and, by the means afforded by this Jacques Cœur, was the king enabled to reconquer the duchy of Normandy-and many a loan had he advanced to the timely aid of the king. He was so rich, that it was said he shod his riding-horses with silver, and built a house at Bourges, in Berry, as rich as any that was ever built. He bore for the device on his livery, "A CŒUR vaillant, riens impossible." To the brave HEART, nothing impossible! However, under the shade of certain accusations raised against him by the Demoiselle de Montagut and others, he was closely imprisoned, whence however he escap ed, and flew to Rome, where he lived honourably as in France; for notwithstanding that, all which he had in France, valued at a million of gold, had been seized on by the king, yet was Jacques Coeur rich, from the great merchandises which he possessed out of the kingdom." It was when Jacques Coeur was a merchant of Bourges that Charles VII. first knew him. The monarch owed to his advice the re-establishment of the finances and commerce of his distracted kingdom, and under the title of Conseiller-Argentier our merchant regulated his domestic expenditure, and was in the receipt of the royal revenues. Although his opulence was immense, he was accused of no illicit traffic, and he declared that he felt prouder of this honour than of that which the king betowed on him in ennobling him. He sent ten or twelve ships every year to the Levant, which was the true source of his wealth; but he had a mind and genius vast as the capital he traded on. It was the head and the purse of this merchant which enabled the generals of Charles VII. to reconquer France from the English; but the wisdom of the financier, more permanently active than the general's, cannot share in that glory which alone appears registered on the page of history. The wealth of Jacques Cœur seemed at length criminal, even to those who were participating in its benefit; the vultures of the court had long eyed their prey-they pursued him to confiscation, and interested judges pronounced his guilt to share in the ready spoil.* He was accused of having poisoned Agnes Sorel, the celebrated mistress of the monarch. Agnes had such little suspicion that he was to have been her poisoner that she had made him one of her executors. The Demoiselle who accused him was the daughter of It is now one of his greatest debtors. known that Agnes died in childbed. He was accused of a conspiracy against the king, but the plot appeared too absurd. Still he was doomed to fall, accused of an illicit trade with the enemies of Christianity, and secret connections with the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI., witnesses were suborned, and Charles VII. gradually alarmed and tormented with jealousy of his son, imagined his old and faithful subject was guilty. The virtuous Jacques Coeur stood amidst a people who owed the existence of their country to him, and to his labours, to perform the amende honorable, to hold a lighted torch in one hand, with his head bare, and his gown ungirdled, and then sent back to prison. In an age when moral feeling scarcely existed, and the worst passions raged, the pacific pursuits of Commerce had humanised two grateful beings, in two clerks of this merchant of the fifteenth century. The fortune they had de rived from him they returned. All they possessed they eagerly gave back to their persecuted master, while a third clerk, still more ingenious and adventurous, planned and effected the escape of his late master from prison. He died shortly afterwards at Rome; and his name remains as a monument of national ingratitude; at the request of his children, after his death, a new trial was obtained, and the sentence was reversed. The Demoiselle, his accuser, was condemned to die for calumny and perjury, but after performing the amende honorable to the memory of Jacques Coeur, her life was spared on condition of exile. This Chronicle preserves many anecdotes of the English in France during this period. But its historical curiosity consists of an ample narrative of a We have a memoir of the last years of the life of Jacques Cœur, by Mons. Bonamy, in the thirty-fourth volume of the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres. He treats, however, as fiction, the wealth this merchant was said to have retained, after the confiscation of his property in France. persecution for Witchcraft, and secret THE STORY OF PARASINA. VI. From Frizzi's History of Ferrara. THIS turned out a calamitous year for the people of Ferrara, for there occurred a very tragical event in the court of their sovereign. Our histories, both printed and in manuscript, with the exception of the unpolished and negligent work of Sardi, and one other, have given the fol lowing relation of it, from which, however, are rejected many details, and especially the narrative of Bandelli, who wrote a century afterwards, and who does not accord with the contemporary historians. By the above mentioned Stella der Assassino, the Marquis, in the year 1405, had a son called Ugo, who grew up to be a lovely and amiable youth. Parasina Malatesta, second wife of Niccolo, like the generality of stepmothers, treated him with little kindness, to the infinite regret of the Marquis, who regarded him with fond partiality. One day she requested of her husband permission to undertake a certain journey, to which he consented, but upon condition that Ugo should bear her company, for he hop ed by these means to induce her in the end to lay aside the obstinate aversion which she entertained for him. And, indeed, his intent was accomplished but too well, since, during the journey, she not only divested herself of all her hatred, but fell into the opposite extreme. After their return, the Marquis had no longer any occasion to renew his former reproofs. It happened one day, that a servant of the Marquis, named Zoese, or, as some call him, Giorgio, passing before the apartments of Parasina, saw going out from them one of her chambermaids, all terrified and in tears. Asking the reason, she told him that her mistress, for some slight offence, had been beating her; and, giving vent to her rage, she added, that she could easily be revenged, if she chose to make known the criminal familiarity which passed between Parasina and her stepson. The servant took note of the words, and related them to his master. He was astounded thereat, but scarcely believing his ears, he assured himself of the fact, alas! too clearly, on the 18th of May, by looking through a hole made in the ceiling of his wife's chamber. Instantly he burst into a furious rage, and arrested both the one and the other, together with Aldobrandini Rangoni of Modena, her gentleman, and also, as some say, two of her chambermaids, as abettors of this sinful act. He ordered them to be brought to a hasty trial, desiring the judges to pronounce sentence in the accustomed forms upon the culprits. This sentence was death.Some there were that bestirred themselves in favour of the delinquents, and, amongst others, Ugoccione Contrario, who was all powerful with Niccolo, and also his aged and much-deserving minister, Alberto dal Sale. Both of these, their tears flowing down their cheeks, and upon their knees, implored him for mercy, ad ducing whatever reasons they could suggest for sparing the offenders, besides those motives of honour and decency which might persuade him to conceal from the public so scandalous a deed. But his rage made him inflexible, and, on the instant, he commanded that the sentence should be put in execution. It was then in the prisons of the castle, and exactly in those frightful dungeons, which are seen at this day beneath the chamber called the Aurora, at the foot of the Lion's tower, at the top of the street Giovecca, that on the night of the 21st of May was (or were) beheaded, first, Ugo, and afterwards Parasina. Zoese, he that accused her, conducted the latter under his arm to the place of punishment. She, all along, fancied that she was to be thrown into a pit, and asked at every step, whether she was yet come to the spot. She was told that her punishment was the axe. She inquired what was become of Ugo, and received for answer that he was already dead; at the which, sighing grievously, she exclaimed, “Now, then, I wish not myself to live," and being come to the block, she stripped herself with her own hands of all her ornaments, and, wrapping a cloth round her head, submitted to the fatal stroke, which terminated the cruel scene. The same was done with Rangoni, who, together with the others, according to two calenders in the library of St Francesco, was buried in the cemetery of that convent.-Nothing else is known respecting the women. The Marquis kept watch the whole of that dreadful night, and as he was walking backwards and forwards, inquired of the captain of the castle if Ugo was dead yet, who answered him yes. He then gave himself up to the most desperate lamentations, exclaiming: "Oh! that I too were dead since I have been hurried on to resolve thus against my own Ugo;" and then gnawing with his teeth a cane which he had in his hand, he passed the rest of the night in sighs and in tears, calling frequently upon his own dear Ugo. On the following day, calling to mind that it would be necessary to make public his justification (seeing that the transaction could not be kept secret), he ordered the narrative to be drawn out upon paper, and sent it to all the courts of Italy. On receiving this advice, the Doge of Venice, Francesco Fascari, gave orders, but without publishing his reasons, that a stop should be put to the preparations for a tournament which, under the auspices of the Marquis, and at the expense of the city of Padua, was about to take place in the Square of St Mark, in order to celebrate his advancement to the dusal chair. The Marquis, in addition to what he had already done, from some unaccountable burst of vengeance, commanded that as many of the married women as were well known to him to be faithless like his Parasina, should, like her, be beheaded. Amongst others, Barberina, or, as some call her, Loadamia Romei, wife of the Court Judge, underwent this sentence, at the usual place of execution, that is to say, in the Borgo of St Giacomo, opposite the present fortress beyond St Paul's. It cannot be told how strange appeared this proceeding in a Prince, who, considering his own disposition, should, as it seemed, have been in such cases most indulgent. Some, however, there were who did not fail to commend him. SELECTIONS FROM ATHENEUS. "THE Athenians gave the right of citizenship to Aristonicus, whose office it was to play at ball before the King Alexander. For his great skill in that exercise, they likewise erected a statue to him; for the latter Grecians paid more respect to the mechanical arts than the cultivation of genius." "The Estians did the same honour to Theodorus the juggler, by erecting a brazen statue to him in the theatre; and the Milesians to Archelaus the harper. Pindar was not honoured with a statue at Thebes, but the musician Cleon had one erected to him with this inscription: Such Cleon was the son of Pytheas, Whom Thebes adorn'd with many a well earned crown For his sweet melody; whose glory reach'd The highest heaven-such we hail thee, Cleon, The pride and boast of thy much honour'd country." "Polemon relates, that when Alexander razed the city of Thebes, one of the citizens hid his gold in the folds of the mantle of the above statue, which, when the city was rebuilt twen ty years after, he found just as he had. placed it there." "Athenæus speaks of Memphis, an extraordinary serious dancer, who, by action alone, could explain the philosophy of Pythagoras with more accuracy than those professors who used their tongues." Sophocles, to a very handsome person, added the accomplishments of music and dancing, which he had learned in his youth at Lampsus. After the battle of Salamis, he is said to have danced naked, anointed with oil, and with his lyre in his hand, round the trophies erected by the conquerors, though others deny that he was naked. When he produced the tragedy of Thamyris, he accompanied it with the harp; and at the represen tation of Nausicäe he exhibited his skill and agility with the ball.” "The grave Socrates himself was fond of the Memphian dance, and when surprised by some of his friends in the act of dancing, he told them that it was to give him the free exercise of his limbs.' "Hermippus says, that Theophrastus was particularly attentive to the neatness of his person and dress when he entered his school, and that he accompanied his discourses with appro priate action." "Plato (in Thæoteto) censures those persons who were correct enough in other things, but totally neglected their dress, so as not to have the appearance of men of free and liberal manners, and knew not how to address either men or gods in fit and appropriate terms. Sapho, for this reason, speaks with contempt of Andromeda for not knowing how to manage her robe gracefully." Hermippus says that Theocritus of Chios treated Anaximenus as a mean person, because he was ill dres sed." Callistratus, a disciple of Aristo, phanes, censures Aristarchus for having no taste in dress, judging very properly that the outward appearance shows the man, and exhibits a proof of education and manners agreeably to the following lines of Alexis."* Alexis was a native of Thurium in Magna Grecia, a town celebrated for being the birth-place of Herodotus. He was greatuncle, by the father's side, to Menander, and was the first to discover and encourage |