e lamp light, as my spirits do,
To hear the death of my accursed sons!
Could I believe thou wert their mingled blood,
Then would I taste thee like a sacrament,
And pledge with thee the mighty Devil in Hell,
Who, if a father's curses, as men say,
Climb with swift wings after their children's souls,
And drag them from the very throne of Heaven,
Now triumphs in my triumph!--But thou art
Superfluous; I have drunken deep of joy
And I will taste no other wine tonight--"

their horror induces them to leave the room. Beatrice, in the meantime,
who has been rating her parent for his cruelty, is subjected to every
species of insult; and he sends her to her own apartment, with the
hellish intention of prostituting her innocence, and contaminating, as
he pithily expresses it, "both body and soul." The second act introduces
us to a tete-a-tete between Bernardo (another of Cenci's sons) and
Lucretia; when their conference is suddenly broken off, by the abrupt
entrance of Beatrice, who has escaped from the pursuit of the Count. She
recapitulates the injuries she has received from her father, the most
atrocious of which appear to be, that he has given them all "ditch
water" to drink, and "buffalos" to eat. But before we proceed further,
we have a word or two respecting this same ditch water, and buffalo's
flesh, which we shall mention, as a piece of advice to the author. It is
well known, we believe, in a case of lunacy, that the first thing
considered is, whether the patient has done any thing sufficiently
foolish, to induce his relatives to apply for a statute against him: now
any malicious, evil-minded person, were he so disposed, might make
successful application to the court against the luckless author of the
_Cenci, a tragedy in five acts_. Upon which the judge with all the
solemnity suitable to so melancholy a circumstance as the decay of the
mental faculties, would ask for proofs of the defendant's lunacy; upon
which the plaintiff would produce the affecting episode of the ditch
water and buffalo flesh; upon which the judge would shake his head, and
acknowledge the insanity; upon which the defendant would be incarcerated
in Bedlam.

To return from this digression, we are next introduced to Giacomo,
another of Cenci's hopeful progeny, who, like the rest, has a dreadful
tale to unfold of his father's cruelty towards him. Orsino, the favored
lover of Beatrice, enters at the moment of his