the majesty of the law.

For Giacomo, the combat was what his blood boiled for. Would that he could
have fought single-handed--he alone--and perilled, and have lost his life!
But when he saw the respected form of the uncle of Constantia--when he
reflected that the experiment he had so long desired, _had been made and
failed_--that the cold virgin whom he had left up stairs was still
invincible, whoever else he might conquer or resist, and that he should be
exposing the lives of his companions in a combat where to him there was
now no victory--he lowered his sword, and made treaty of peace with the
Podesta. On consideration that none other but himself should suffer any
species of penalty for that day's transaction, he offered to resign
Constantia to her uncle, and himself to the pleasure of the Podesta. These
terms were very readily accepted; his companions alone seemed reluctant to
acquiesce in them.

CHAPTER III.

While all this tumult was raging round the house, and within the heart of
Giacomo, the student's lamp was burning, how calm, how still, in the
remote and secluded chamber of his friend Petrarch! To him, out of a kind
and considerate regard, and from no distrust in his zeal or attachment,
the ardent lover had concealed his perilous enterprise. Remote from the
whole scene, and remote from all the passions of it, sat the youthful
sage; not remote, however, from deep excitements of his own. Far from it.
Reflection has her emotions thrilling as those of passion. He who has not
closed his door upon the world, and sat down with books and his own
thoughts in a solitude like this--may have lived, we care not in how gay a
world, or how passionate an existence,--he has yet an excitement to
experience, which, if not so violent, is far more prolonged, deeper, and
more sustained than any he has known,--than any which the most brilliant
scenes, or the most clamorous triumphs of life, can furnish. What is all
the sparkling exhilaration of society, the wittiest and the fairest,--what
all the throbbings and perturbations of love itself, compared with the
intense feeling of the _youthful thinker_, who has man, and God, and
eternity for his fresh contemplations,--who, for the first time, perceives
in his solitude all the grand enigmas of human existence lying unsolved
about him? His brow is not corrugated, his eye is not inflamed: he sits
calm and serene--a child would look into his face and be drawn near to
him--but it see