intment that
saddened while it never destroyed the resolve of that great soul? Who
can say what must have been endured, what meditated, in the hermitage
of Maiella;--on the lonely hills of the perished empire it had been his
dream to restore;--in the Courts of Barbarian Kings;--and above all,
on returning obscure and disguised, amidst the crowds of the Christian
world, to the seat of his former power? What elements of memory, and
in what a wild and fiery brain! What reflections to be conned in the
dungeons of Avignon, by a man who had pushed into all the fervour
of fanaticism--four passions, a single one of which has, in excess,
sufficed to wreck the strongest reason--passions, which in themselves
it is most difficult to combine,--the dreamer--the aspirant--the very
nympholept of Freedom, yet of Power--of Knowledge, yet of Religion!

"Ay," muttered the prisoner, "ay, these texts are
comforting--comforting. The righteous are not alway oppressed." With
a long sigh he deliberately put aside the Bible, kissed it with great
reverence, remained silent, and musing for some minutes; and then as a
slight noise was heard at one corner of the cell, said softly, "Ah, my
friends, my comrades, the rats! it is their hour--I am glad I put aside
the bread for them!" His eye brightened as it now detected those strange
and unsocial animals venturing forth through a hole in the wall, and,
darkening the moonshine on the floor, steal fearlessly towards him.
He flung some fragments of bread to them, and for some moments watched
their gambols with a smile. "Manchino, the white-faced rascal! he beats
all the rest--ha, ha! he is a superior wretch--he commands the tribe,
and will venture the first into the trap. How will he bite against the
steel, the fine fellow! while all the ignobler herd will gaze at him
afar off, and quake and fear, and never help. Yet if united, they might
gnaw the trap and release their leader! Ah, ye are base vermin, ye eat
my bread, yet if death came upon me, ye would riot on my carcass. Away!"
and clapping his hands, the chain round him clanked harshly, and the
noisome co-mates of his dungeon vanished in an instant.

That singular and eccentric humour which marked Rienzi, and which had
seemed a buffoonery to the stolid sullenness of the Roman nobles, still
retained its old expression in his countenance, and he laughed loud as
he saw the vermin hurry back to their hiding-place.

"A little noise and the clank of a chain