bleeding clay--we meet
no more!--your sister--God be with her!--between her and me flows a dark
gulf!" The young noble paused some moments, choked by his emotions,
and then continued, "These papers discharge me of my mission.
Standard-bearers, lay down the banner of the Republic. Tribune, speak
not--I would be calm--calm. And so farewell to Rome." With a hurried
glance towards the dead, he sprung upon his steed, and, followed by his
train, vanished through the arch.

The Tribune had not attempted to detain him--had not interrupted him.
He felt that the young noble had thought--acted as became him best. He
followed him with his eyes.

"And thus," said he gloomily, "Fate plucks from me my noblest friend and
my justest counsellor--better man Rome never lost!"

Such is the eternal doom of disordered states. The mediator between rank
and rank,--the kindly noble--the dispassionate patriot--the first to
act--the most hailed in action--darkly vanishes from the scene. Fiercer
and more unscrupulous spirits alone stalk the field; and no neutral and
harmonizing link remains between hate and hate,--until exhaustion, sick
with horrors, succeeds to frenzy, and despotism is welcomed as repose!

Chapter 5.IV. The Hollowness of the Base.

The rapid and busy march of state events has led us long away from
the sister of the Tribune and the betrothed of Adrian. And the sweet
thoughts and gentle day-dreams of that fair and enamoured girl, however
full to her of an interest beyond all the storms and perils of ambition,
are not so readily adapted to narration:--their soft monotony a few
words can paint. They knew but one image, they tended to but one
prospect. Shrinking from the glare of her brother's court, and eclipsed,
when she forced herself to appear, by the more matured and dazzling
beauty, and all-commanding presence, of Nina,--to her the pomp and
crowd seemed an unreal pageant, from which she retired to the truth of
life,--the hopes and musings of her own heart. Poor girl! with all the
soft and tender nature of her dead brother, and none of the stern genius
and the prodigal ambition,--the eye-fatiguing ostentation and fervour of
the living--she was but ill-fitted for the unquiet but splendid region
to which she was thus suddenly transferred.

With all her affection for Rienzi, she could not conquer a certain fear
which, conjoined with the difference of sex and age, forbade her to be
communicative with him upon the subject mo