e story of
Beatrice, and deepened their compassion for her undeserved misfortunes
by a statue so full of pathos and power.

Guerrazzi belongs to the extreme left of the school of historical
novelists. He is almost always at high pressure, and, in spite of
a certain force of thought and expression, is tinged decidedly and
sometimes unpleasantly with sentimentalism. He is so little of
an artist, that the story-teller is subordinated in him to the
propagandist, and his work is not so near his heart as the desire to
make a strong argument against the temporal power of the Papacy. He
interrupts his narrative too often with reflection and disquisition,
shows too much that fondness for the striking which is fatal to the
classic in expression, and rushes out of his way at a highly-colored
simile as certainly as a bull at scarlet. His characters talk much, and
yet develope themselves rather circumstantially than psychologically.

Yet, in spite of these defects, Guerrazzi has succeeded in so
intensifying the high lights and deep shadows of passion, pathos,
and horror in the story, as to make a very effective picture, of the
Caravaggio school. There is a curious parallel between the chapter where
Count Cenci is imprisoned in the cavern, and those scenes in Webster's
"Duchess of Malfy" where the Duchess is tortured by her brothers. The
resemblance is interesting on many accounts, and serves to confirm us in
a belief we have long entertained that Webster's peculiar power has been
overrated, and that the tendency to heap one nightmare horror on another
is something characteristic rather of the childhood than the maturity
of genius. There is no modern story which renews for us the woes of the
house of Tantalus so awfully as this of the Cenci, and it cannot fail
to be of absorbing interest, especially to those unfamiliar with its
ghastly details. Whether the theory which Guerrazzi assumes in order to
render probable the innocence of the Cenci be tenable or not we shall
not stop to discuss; it is enough that it serves to heighten the romance
and complicate the plot in a very effective manner.

We cannot leave the book without saying how much we were charmed with
the little episode of the old curate and his maid, and his ass Marco.
It seems to us that Guerrazzi in this chapter has come nearer to the
simplicity of nature than in any other part of the book, and we augur
favorably from it for his future escape from the perils of a too
am