Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

A

bear this denying of house and home no longer; she sunk on the ground" under the little terrace of St. Bartholomew," and fell as if she was now about to die in good earnest. thought of her first lover, Rondinelli, now crossed her mind. "Ah!" sighed she, "he surely would not have thus turned me away. The idea gave, happily, a reviving turn to her thoughts. "And why," said she, " may I not try whether he will receive me now, that every one else rejects me?" The way was long to his house; but, gathering strength from the new hopes which began to animate her, she gained his threshold, and knocked. Rondinelli himself opened the door. He also thought the figure before him some unearthly visitant, but, nothing dismayed, asked it calmly "Whose spirit it was?" and "What it wanted ?" Ginevra, tearing aside the shroud from her face, exclaimed with an agonized voice, "I am no spirit, Antonio! I am that Ginevra you once loved, but who was buried-buried alive!" She could say no more, but dropped senseless into his arms. Rondinelli, whom one moment had made the most astonished, delighted, and yet alarmed of human beings, soon brought the whole of his family around the fair sufferer by his cries and exclamations. She was instantly put into a warm bed, and, with the help of proper restoratives, was, next day, able to join the family circle of her lover, and in a few days more was as healthy and blooming as ever! What was now to be done? Was Ginevra to return to the husband from whom the grave had separated her, and to whom she had never been attached? or was she to find a new one in the man she had first and always loved, and who had received her into his arms when all the rest of the world had, as it were, cast her out? Love and gratitude decided the question; and, with the consent and privity of Rondinelli's nearest relations, the two lovers were made one. Unlike the hero and heroine of the French tale, they fled not, however, to a foreign land to conceal their loves; for, on the first Sunday after their nuptials, they appeared publicly together at the cathedral of Florence. The friends of Ginevra instantly recognizing her, were confounded with astonishment; they crowded around her, and, as curiosity and affection dictated, showered on her their questions and congratulations. She explained to them the various circumstances attending her resuscitation; reminded them how one after another they had turned her from their doors; and declared that when thus rejected and disowned by husband and kindred, she had found a protector (taking Rondinelli by the hand), in one to whom all her love and all her duty were now transferred. Her first husband, however, having no mind to be thus discarded, insisted strongly on his previous right, a right which, as he alleged,

nothing but death in earnest could dissolve. An appeal was made to the bishop, with whom it lay to decide in such matters. The case was solemnly argued before him; and, to conclude the striking differences between the Italian story and the French version of it,-neither did the lovers evade the decision, nor had they any occasion to evade it. The bishop (Oh! most excellent bishop!) decided, that, under all circumstances, the first husband had forfeited all right, not only to the person of Ginevra, but to the dowry he had received with her, which he was ordered to pay over to Rondinelli.

SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS.

THE earl of Portsmouth, at his seat in Hampshire, has a vast bulk of unpublished papers of Sir Isaac Newton. After Sir Isaac's death, they were examined by a committee of the Royal Society, and being found to consist for the most part of illustrations of the prophecies, and the book of Revelations, the productions of his old age, it was determined, in tenderness to his memory, not to allow any of them to be published. The following is a catalogue of them as annexed to a bond given by Mr. Conduit to the administrators of Sir Isaac, by which he obliges himself to account for any profit he shall make by any of the papers.

Dr. Pellet, by agreement of the executors entered into acts of the Prerogative Court, being appointed to peruse all papers, and decide which was proper for the press.

No. 1. Viaticum Nautarium; by Robert Wright.
2. Miscellanea; not in Sir Isaac's hand-writing.
3. Miscellanea; part in Sir Isaac's hand.
4. Trigonometria,-about five sheets.

5. Definitions.

6. Miscellanea; part in Sir Isaac's hand.

7. Forty sheets in 4to. relating to church history.

8 126 sheets written on one side, being foul draughts of
the Prophetic Style.

9. Eighty-eight sheets relating to church history.
10. About seventy loose sheets in small 4to. of chemical
papers; some of which are not in Sir Isaac's hand.
11. About sixty-two ditto in folio.

12. About fifteen large sheets doubled in 4to. chemical.
13. About eight sheets ditto, written on one side.

14. About five sheets of foul papers relating to chemistry.

15. Twelve half sheets of ditto.
16. 104 half sheets in 4to. ditto.

17. About twenty-two sheets in 4to. ditto.
18. Twenty-four sheets in 4to.

19. Twenty-nine half sheets, being an answer to Mr. Hooke on Sir Isaac's Theory of Colours.

20. Eighty-seven half sheets relating to the Optics; some of which are not in Sir Isaac's hand.

"From No. 1 to 20, examined on the 20th May, 1727, and judged not fit to be printed.

T. PELLET."

21. 328 half sheets in folio, and sixty-three in small 4to. being loose and foul papers relating to the Revelations and Prophecies.

22. Eight half sheets in small 4to. relating to church

matters.

23. Twenty-four half sheets in small 4to. being a discourse relating to the 2a (book of) Kings.

24. 353 half sheets in folio, and fifty-seven in small 4to. being foul and loose papers relating to figures and mathematics.

25. 201 half sheets in folio, and twenty-one in small 4to. loose and foul papers relating to the Commercium Epistolicum.

26. Ninety-one half sheets in small 4to. in Latin, on the Temple of Solomon.

27. Thirty-seven half sheets in folio, being of the host of heaven, the sanctuary, and other church matters. 28. Forty-four half sheets in folio, on ditto.

29. Twenty-five half sheets in folio, being a further ac- count of the host of heaven.

30. Fifty-one half sheets in folio, being an historical account of two notable corruptions of scripture. 31. Eighty-one half sheets in small 4to. being extracts from church history.

32. 116 half sheets in folio, being paradoxical questions concerning Athanasius, of which several leaves in the beginning are very much damaged.

33. Fifty-six half sheets in folio,-De Motio Corporum; the greatest part not in Sir Isaac's hand.

34. Sixty-one half sheets in small 4to. being various sections in the Apocalypse.

35. Twenty-five half sheets in folio of the working of the mystery of iniquity.

36. Twenty half sheets in folio, on the theology of the heathens.

37. Twenty-four half sheets in folio, being an account of the conquest between the host of heaven and the transgressors of the covenant.

38. Thirty-one half sheets in folio, being paradoxical questions concerning Athanasius.

39. 107 quarter sheets, in small 4to. on the Revelations. 40. Seventy-four half sheets in folio, being loose papers relating to church history.

"May 22, 1727, examined from No. 21 to 40 exclusive, and judged them not fit to be printed; only Nos. 33 and 38 should be re-considered. T. PELLET."

42.

41. 167 half sheets in folio, being loose and foul papers
relating to the Commercium Epistolicum.
Twenty-one half sheets in folio, being the third letter
on texts of scripture; very much damaged.
43. Thirty-one half sheets in folio, being foul papers
relating to church matters.

44. 495 half sheets in folio, being loose and foul papers
relating to calculations and mathematics.

45. 335 half sheets in folio, being loose and foul papers relating to chronology.

46. 112 sheets in small 4to. relating to the Revelations, and other church matters.

47. 126 half sheets in folio, being loose papers relating to the chronology; part in English and part in Latin. 48. 400 half sheets in folio, being loose mathematical

papers.

49. 109 sheets in 4to. relating to the prophecies and church matters.

50. 127 half sheets in folio, relating to the university; great part not in Sir Isaac's hand.

51. Eleven sheets in 4to. being chemical papers.

52. 255 quarter sheets, being chemical papers.

53. An account of the corruptions of Scripture; not in Sir Isaac's hand.

54. Thirty-one quarter sheets, being Flammell's explication of hieroglyphical figures.

55. About 350 half sheets, being miscellaneous papers. 56. Six half sheets, being an account of the empires, &c. represented, by St. John.

57. Nine half sheets folio, and seventy-one quarter sheets 4to. being mathematical papers.

58. 140 half sheets, in nine chapters, and two pieces in folio: titled "Concerning the Language of the Prophets."

59. 606 half sheets folio, relating to the Chronology. 60. 182 half sheets folio, being loose papers relating to the Chronology and Prophecies.

61. 144 quarter sheets, and ninety-five half sheets folio; being loose mathematical papers.

62. 137 half sheets folio, being loose papers relating to the disputes with Leibnitz.

63. A folio common-place book; part in Sir Isaac's hand. 64. A bundle of English letters to Sir Isaac, relating to mathematics.

65. Fifty-four half sheets, being loose papers found in the Principia.

66. A bundle of loose mathematical papers; not Sir

Isaac's.

67. A bundle of French and Latin letters to Sir Isaac. 68. 136 sheets folio, relating to Optics.

69. Twenty-two half sheets folio, De Rationibus Mortuum, &c.; not in Sir Isaac's hand.

70. Seventy half sheets folio, being loose mathematical papers.

71. Thirty-eight half sheets folio, being loose papers relating to optics.

72. Forty-seven sheets folio, being loose papers relating to the Chronology and Prophecies.

73. Forty half sheets folio, Procestus Mysterii, Magni Philosophicus, by W. Yworth; not in Sir Isaac's

hand.

74. Five half sheets, being a letter from Rizetto to Martine; in Sir Isaac's hand.

75. Forty-one half sheets, being loose papers of several kinds; part in Sir Isaac's hand.

76. Forty half sheets, being loose papers, foul and dirty, relating to calculations.

77. Ninety half sheets folio, being loose mathematical papers.

78. 176 half sheets folio, being loose papers relating to

chronology.

79. 176 half sheets folio, being loose papers relating to the Prophecies.

80. Twelve half sheets folio, an abstract of chronology. ** Ninety-two half sheets folio, the Chronology. 81. Forty half sheets folio, the history of the Prophecies, in ten chapters, and part of eleventh unfinished.

[ocr errors]
« VorigeDoorgaan »