The festival of St. Mark, the patron and protector of the republic, arrived; there is no authority, no political institution, which does not celebrate it with pomp; and the convents are not the last among the number. All Venice was soon informed that in the course of this solemnity, Signora Olympia, of the convent of Santa Trinita, would sing an anthem of her own composition, accompanied on the organ. Great was the concourse of people assembled on the occasion: in two hours the church of the Convent of Santa Trinita was filled, and at five the ceremony commenced. After the sermon, which was scarce attended to, so great was the impatience to hear the noble songstress, a finely executed prelude on the organ announced her presence: all were silent and every ear was rivetted with attention. Olympia sweetly touched the keys with her harmonious fingers, and drew forth most enchanting melody; but, when her voice accompanied the sounds of the instrument, it filled the vaulted roof of the temple with its ravishing harmony. The enthusiasm of the auditors exceeded all bounds, and, forgetting the sacredness of the place, they testified their gratification by loud and repeated plaudits. At the appointed time the nuns drew the curtains which concealed and delighted their eyes with the object that had enchanted their ears. Olympia advanced, full of grace and dignity, and sung without any accompaniment, a sacred hymn; but as she proceeded in the divine strain, her voice experienced a sensible alteration-she was seized with an universal tremor, and was unable to finish.This accident was attributed to her extreme sensibility and the effect of her exertions, but her weakness was to be ascribed to a different cause. Among the numerous and brilliant youths whose attention she attracted, she remarked a younglord whose eyes were more particularly fixed on her's. She could not resist the emotion she felt, and it increased as she observed the same eyes constantly rivetted on her. Love, which Olympia was as yet unacquainted with, at this moment took possession of her heart; it penetrated her soul; established its dominion, and reigned tyrant over her: an instant kindled the flames of desire in the young signora's breast, and the most terrible of passions devoured the soul of her who was destined to become the victim of each of them. From that time calmness and tranquillity left her; the pleasures derived from the study of the fine arts, and the exercise of her ta them from the eyes of the public,lents, became insipid to her. Wholly a andoned to her passion, and the irresistible impulse of love, Olympia forgot the duty she owed her rank descending from the dignity of a virtuous lady to the licentiousness of a woman of intrigue, she first solicited the heart of the cavalier who had conquered her's. He was a young Neapolitan Lord, named Laurentini, adorned with every gift of nature and of fortune, but whose principles were loose, and whose character was unsteady. The declaration of Olympia promised him an agreeable adventure, and the conquest of her heart added one name to the list of his successes; however, as the mind of Olympia was as cultivated as her love was ar dent, she failed not to make a deep impression on the heart of Laurentini. She kept him constant for some months by the attraction of her charms, and continued her conquest by the display of her accomplishments, But at the end of a certain period, while the passion of Olympia increased, that of Laurentini, satiated with the delights of love, became less ardent. One day upon a frivolous pretence, he wrote her a farewell letter, and prepared to leave Venice. Olympia for the moment abandoned herself to despair, but recalling all the energies of her soul, she formed the design of retaining by force a lover who bad deserted her thro' treachery. She had the liberty, whenever It was ustially in a cloister, not far from a little chapel, that these lovers held their place of meeting. Olympia had sworn that this place which had been the witness of her frailty, should likewise witness her courage, and had cetermined that where she had received an injury, she should find reparation. At ten in the evening the family of Giustiniani, acco. panied by a chaplain, and conducted by Olympia, repaired to the cloister ; they instantly formed their plan; but hearing the hasty steps of some one approaching, they concealed their lighted torches in the chapel. Olympia loaded her lover with the most bitter reproaches, and at the same time lavished on him the most tender caresses; then pretending she wished to retire from the damp of the evening, she persuaded him to enter the chapel, and embracing Laurentini, "My life," said she, with a most tender accent, "if you love me, as you have often sworn, why not, ere you leave me, honour me with the sacred title of wife? If I have granted you the favors, why not accord to me the rights of marri return, which would soon take. place, he would hasten to fulfil the wishes of his mistress as well as his own. "If such is thy intenti ons," added she, "why not do it immediately?" Laurentini objected, "that at 50%, late an hour it would be difficult to find a priest to unite them." "I have provided one," exclaimed Olympia; "you have only to consent, and the priest is ready." "But what will your father say?" resumed Laurentini. "I have," added she, "revealed our loves to him, and he consents to our happiness." The youth made no objection but preserved silence. To be continued] For the Lady's Miscellany. LUCUBRATIONS.-No. III. Though hypocrisy may a while conceal my guilt, at length it will be known, and public shame and ruin must ensue. In the mean time, what must be my life?-ever to speak a language foreign to my heart; hourly to add to the number of my crimes in order to conceal them. George Barnwell. No character can possibly be assumed by man, so calculated to excite the strongest abhorrence, as that of duplicity. The man of intemperate passions, and in whom exists every inordinate quality that dwelling by night, when sleep has designates the corruption and frail-deprived us of the power of de fence ! ty of human nature--as long as the possessor can keep those imperfections under proper controul, so as to render them harmless to individual injury, our veneration cannot but be excited at the fortitude and philosophy with which he struggles against such natural propensities; and it is well too, that his utmost is exerted to hide them from a scrutinizing and censorious world-but duplicity of conduct, by whom it may be possessed, so for whatever purpose it may be exerted, will ever deserve the reproach and detestation of every candid man. Its very object being deception, no means however dastard, is too ignoble to bring it into action, and to bear against the man designated as its victim. This vice becomes the more pernicious when confined to the circle of a few friends and how few of mankind can associate together, even for the most harmless of purposes, of passing the "social hour," or to perform the innumerable little avocations attached to society, but what the dæmon, duplicity, sculks in some sequestered corner and darts his malignant shafts upon the head of an unsuspecting mortal. It is here duplicity becomes doubly dangerous. Here it secretly strews those evils which in a little while burst into a confiagration, and discovers to the injured, the foul and unprincipled incendiary, infinitely more poiluted than the wretch that fires our bottom of his heart. He hated : Bellville and Claudio were remarked by their friends as being always together. Wherever the one was, the other was not far off. -To the world, these two young men appeared bound to each other by the most inviolable of all tiesthe bond of friendship.- -Arm in arm they were seen pacing the "lonely walk in sweet converse," or spending the winter eve by the fire-side of the father's of either of the friends. Claudio was some years older than Bellville, had mixed with the world, and consequently possessed considerable knowledge of mankind. His person was prepossessing, and a suavity of manners ever presented an exterior calculated to win a more suspecting man than his friend.— Bellville had not mingled enough with men to be tainted with their vices, nor had he imbibed a taste for that dissipation which so frequently destroys the fairest prospects of youth. Open, free, and unassuming, he despised an action that savored of meanness, and would loathingly turn from the blood-sucking sycophant, whose only avenue to creep into the good graces of another was by duplicity. Yet the man whom he thought of all others, had an unalloyed friend. ship for him was a villain of the deepest die! Claudio, in reality, secretly detested Bellville from the his virtues, because his own bosom was never else but the abode of malignity. Whenever the latter became the encomium of his friends, the former would take care to dilute the praise with a sufficiency of falsehood to turn the coloring against his friend! There are times when the body becomes relaxed after the strenuous exertion of its faculties, and the mind also partakes of the laxation of the animal economy. It is then, reason propelled by an easy flow of spirits, loses a momentary sway, and we abandon ourselves to levity. The companions of the reputed friends, after Bellville had retired from the convivial circle, would remark his uncommon good nature and the unu-sual flow of humor and pleasantry | he had evinced. The infamous Claudio lingered behind for no other purpose than to represent his friend as under the influence of › intoxication! Claudio and Bellville always visited their female acquaintances together. Here was an ample field for the slanderer to exert his forte to the greatest advantage, to blacken the reputation of Bellville, -to make impressions on the feImale mind of all others the most unfavourable towards admitting a young man into their society. He would represent him as an unprincipled libertine, associating with women for no other purpose but to ruin and unsap their virtue; or, if the more virtuous proved too resolute for his villainy, as a revenge, boast of liberties he had never been permitted to take. Hence it was that the countenance that had heretofore beamed with the mildest radiance upon him, after the third or fourth visit, wore the aspect of gloom and displeasure. The duplicity of Claudio did not stop here. In order to bring his base and infamous purposes to their climax, he entered into a conspiracy with a scoundrel, as black as himself, to destroy the happiness of Bellville, and ruin his peace forever!But the good genius of the latter, timely arrested the danger in its progression to his heart The interference of Providence unveiled to him the precipice, down which he was precipitately to be hurled.. Let the young and inexperien ced man, more especially him who has began the career of life, beware-beware how he accepts the too willingly proffered hand of sophisticated friendship.-Let them remember that it has a fellow capable of wielding the weapon that may pierce his generous bosom, and lay it open to all the corroding and heart-rending concomitants that will inevitably be the consequence of too indiscreetly choosing from among his fellow men, the one who is to be his companion and his friend. Cherry-Street. A. M. G. |