"Give up the town!-Let Temeshvar
Be our's, or it shall burn!

Your strength is failing, the corpse-car
Is ever full-from disease and war,
Submission you must learn."

How proudly from his fortress walls
Rukawina to the foeman calls :
"Numantia, in the days of old,
Was willing death to greet,
No less a tale may once be told
Of us-our fate we'll meet.

Now hark to me, ye Honveds all,
'Tis true, from day to day

Our ranks are thinned-our force is small,

And coffins with human clay

Are filled, but were there heap on heap

Of dead, and did your flames surround
Up to our very throats, I'd keep
My post-I'd stand my ground!
The fortress never shall be your's,
Until within my pocket burns

My handkerchief.* Destruction pours
In vain its missiles round my head,
Beside me many another yearns
To take my place when I am dead,
And fall or conquer in my stead!"

And stout his actions as his words,
The old eagle bravely fights,

Pest, famine, death, from foeman's swords,
Assail the town-no chance affords

Of safety, yet success requites

Their valour: o'er that ghastly field
They reign, nor to the foeman yield.
One hundred and seven mortal days

The Honveds' camp beneath those walls,
Until fatigue their ardour stays,
And lazily their bombs and balls
From time to time, and here and there

Go groaning through the heavy air,
And horsemen ride to the fortress gate,

And knock and knock-seven times, or eight.

* Rukawina's own words.

"Sir General! come quickly forth-
For Haynau, with victory crowned,

To reward your truth and valiant worth,
Brings a Sword of Honour, all around
With Glory's verdant laurels bound!"

And they knock, and in knocking their time employ !
The Ancient Eagle had died of joy!

On the 1st of May of this year, an officer from Radetzky's staff brought to Baron Zedlitz, at his château in Styria, from the army of Italy, a splendidly wrought gold vase, on which was engraved the poet's name, and a few words, to say that it was a present of thanks from the Italian army to him, who had immortalized that army's deeds in song. The following letter from the Marshal accompanied it :-" For a long time past, the army under my orders has been desirous of presenting the poet who has sung its deeds, and often encouraged its ardour, with a token of its community of sentiment; of its unalterable gratitude. Unluckily, however, the sculptor's work does not, like the poet's, spring into being from the thought of the moment; and, accordingly, that which these few lines accompany, instead of reaching you as it should have done, last year, has only been completed in this, which marks the middle point of our momentous age. Accept it, however, I pray, with no less friendship, and receive from the mouth of the leader of our brave troops, our united wishes for the bright and happy future of a life so dear to us all."

There is something more in all this than the mere hommages respectueux with which such things are so often given and taken. It serves to shew the general tone that reigns through the Austrian army, and the sort of chival

rous enthusiasm which animates its troops, its commanders, and its admirers; therefore, to Radetzky's letter,* I will add the answer of Baron Zedlitz:

"The Austrian army in Italy has sent to me a magnificent cup of honour, which present the great commander of that army has deigned to accompany by some lines of priceless worth. Proud of a distinction such as but few poets have ever been fortunate enough to obtain, the expression of my thanks, which here flows forth from my inmost heart to the magnanimous army and its glorious leader, can give no just idea of the feelings which animate me towards both. From the very sun-bright centre of all honour and all truth, to be marked out as worthy to receive thanks in the face of the country at large, is beyond what the most ambitious could venture to desire; and to him who is the object of such a distinction, it remains as a satisfaction of conscience, which in the midst of party strife, resists the attacks alike of present or future enmity."

There is in the Marshal's letter a frank cordiality; in the Poet's reply a modest dignity: in both a depth of conviction, that in our days of presumption, frivolity, and want of truth, are refreshing to observe.

If M. de Zedlitz has sung the barditum for the warriors of modern Austria, he has gained what we are told is the most esteemed of all suffrages: the suffrage of arms; and after the expressions of esteem awarded him by Radetzky, we may say with Tacitus :

"Honoratissum assensús genus est, armis laudare."

* Grillparzer received a similar token of gratitude from the Italian army, with a letter from its chief, which was given to him by Prince Schwarzenberg in person.

CHAPTER XIX.

VENICE;-BYRON AND THE GONDOLIERS.

How Byron knew Venice! You may admire the fourth canto of Childe Harold at Hammerfest, or at Sant Iago de Cuba without ever having approached one inch nearer to the world in which we live, but you cannot appreciate its merits justly until you have been in Venice. Of all the countless numbers who have made their theme of the Adriatic wonder, none (and that is saying a great deal), none have known it, felt it, loved it, painted it like him. He is as it were penetrated by the very essence of Venetianism; and when you have once read Childe Harold, I defy you to go to Venice without his verses recurring at every instant to your memory-they stare at you from the curiously carved stonework of the dogal palace, from the Bridge of Sighs, from the burning Riva, from the worn

*

* The word is none of my coining; it is the invention of a writer, who, in our own immediate day, is one amongst the number of the most intelligent lovers of Venice, Madame Ida de Düringsfeld, a

pavement of the Piazzetta, from the walls of that giant chamber, wherein is perpetuated the dark sentence against Faliero; they wail in the night wind, and spring forth in every monotonous appeal of the Gondolieri upon the Traghetti.-No! believe me,-once in Venice, Byron is inseparable from you and from it-I am not a Byronian, never was one; I am of those who think that to Byron, as a man, injustice was done most wanton and absurd, but as a poet, I would unregrettingly sacrifice all he ever wrote save the following: first, the one work which is immortal, and which with every succeeding year must be more frankly recognized as being so; and next, with a very very few of his smaller fugitive pieces, the third, but above all the fourth canto of Childe Harold-beyond this, I do not think I should feel any considerable regret, if nothing of his had ever appeared in print. This I think it necessary to say, in order to ward off from myself the accusation of blind Byronism to which so many of my sex lay themselves open, and in order also that I may be believed to be impartial, when I repeat that in Venice his memory positively haunts you.

I was determined to scrutinize the feeling, d'en avoir raison, as the French say, and accordingly I went to what I conceived to be its very source: the Palazzo Mocenigo.A dark, lofty, dingy entrance hall at the top of the stairs opens into a long vast gallery, the windows of which look to the great canal-to the right is a large drawing-room furnished in crimson damask, and out of that a smaller saloon-both are as they were when he occupied them—

German author, of great talent, whose little work, entitled "Am Canal Grande," adds a brilliant leaf to her well-earned literary

crown.