visits, and prevailed
with Montoni to forbear the repetition of his name, in the expectation
that gratitude and generosity would prevail with her to give him the
consent, which he could not hope from love.

Thus passed the time in vain conjecture, and alternate hopes and fears,
till the day arrived when Montoni was to set out for the villa of
Miarenti, which, like the preceding ones, neither brought the Count, or
the mention of him.

Montoni having determined not to leave Venice, till towards evening,
that he might avoid the heats, and catch the cool breezes of night,
embarked about an hour before sun-set, with his family, in a barge, for
the Brenta. Emily sat alone near the stern of the vessel, and, as it
floated slowly on, watched the gay and lofty city lessening from her
view, till its palaces seemed to sink in the distant waves, while its
loftier towers and domes, illumined by the declining sun, appeared on
the horizon, like those far-seen clouds which, in more northern climes,
often linger on the western verge, and catch the last light of a
summer's evening. Soon after, even these grew dim, and faded in distance
from her sight; but she still sat gazing on the vast scene of
cloudless sky, and mighty waters, and listening in pleasing awe to
the deep-sounding waves, while, as her eyes glanced over the Adriatic,
towards the opposite shores, which were, however, far beyond the reach
of sight, she thought of Greece, and, a thousand classical remembrances
stealing to her mind, she experienced that pensive luxury which is felt
on viewing the scenes of ancient story, and on comparing their present
state of silence and solitude with that of their former grandeur and
animation. The scenes of the Illiad illapsed in glowing colours to her
fancy--scenes, once the haunt of heroes--now lonely, and in ruins;
but which still shone, in the poet's strain, in all their youthful
splendour.

As her imagination painted with melancholy touches, the deserted plains
of Troy, such as they appeared in this after-day, she reanimated the
landscape with the following little story.

STANZAS

O'er Ilion's plains, where once the warrior bled,
And once the poet rais'd his deathless strain,
O'er Ilion's plains a weary driver led
His stately camels: For the ruin'd fane

Wide round the lonely scene his glance he threw,
For now the red cloud faded in the west,
And twilight o'er the silent landscape drew
Her deep'ning veil; eastwa