The tainted branches of the tree,
If lopped with care, a strength may give, 580
By which the rest shall bloom and live
All greenly fresh and wildly free:
But if the lightning, in its wrath,
The waving boughs with fury scathe,
The massy trunk the ruin feels,
And never more a leaf reveals.

FOOTNOTES:

[411] {503} ["Ferrara is much decayed and depopulated; but the castle
still exists entire; and I saw the court where Parisina and Hugo were
beheaded, according to the annal of Gibbon."--_Vide_ Advertisement to
_Lament of Tasso_.]

[412] {505} "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 annals, both printed and in manuscript, with the
exception of the unpolished and negligent work of Sardi, and one other,
have given the following 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 dell' Assassino, the Marquis, in the year
1405, had a son called Ugo, a beautiful and ingenuous youth. Parisina
Malatesta, second wife of Niccolo, like the generality of step-mothers,
treated him with little kindness, to the infinite regret of the Marquis,
who regarded him with fond partiality. One day she asked leave of her
husband to undertake a certain journey, to which he consented, but upon
condition that Ugo should bear her company; for he hoped by these means
to induce her, in the end, to lay aside the obstinate aversion which she
had conceived against 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 Parisina, saw going
out from them one of her chamber-maids, 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 subsisted between Parisina and her step-son.
The servant too