For Providence divine, in you and others,

Condemns the evil done my new acquaintance.
'Tis writ on high-your wrong must pay another's;
From Heaven itself is issued out this sentence:

Know then, that colder now than a pilaster

I left your Passamont and Alabaster.'
Morgante said, O gentle cavalier!

Now by thy God say me no villainy;
The favour of your name I fain would hear;
And if a Christian, speak for courtesy.'
Replied Orlando, 'So much to your ear
I by my faith disclose contentedly;
Christ I adore, who is the genuine Lord,
And, if you please, by you may be adored.'
The Saracen rejoined in humble tone,

I have had an extraordinary vision;
A savage serpent fell on me alone,

And Macon would not pity my condition;
Hence to thy God, who for ye did atone

Upon the cross, preferred I my petition;
His timely succour set me safe and free,
And I a Christian am disposed to be.'

Orlando carries his new convert to the monastery, to beg pardon of the abbot and the monks for the many wrongs he has done them; and, as a proof of the sincerity of his repentance, and of his abhorrence of his former evil course, he cuts off the hands of his dead brethren.

The abbot is frightened at first when he sees Morgante; but, being soon convinced of his devout intentions, he gives him a long exhortation to lead a godly life, which Morgante hears to his great edification.

There is a sad want of water in the convent, to supply which the giant takes an enormous tub on his shoulder, and goes to the fountain to fill it. This is, however, a service of some danger, the fountain being beset by a herd of wild boars, from whom any body but so tall a fellow as Morgante would have found it very difficult to save his bacon. He gives a good account of the boars :

Morgante at a venture shot an arrow,

Which pierced a pig precisely in the ear,
And passed unto the other side quite thorough,
So that the boar, defunct, lay tripped up near.

Another, to revenge his fellow farrow,

Against the giant rushed in fierce career,
And reached the passage with so swift a foot
Morgante was not now in time to shoot.

Perceiving that the pig was on him close,
He gave him such a punch upon the head
As floored him, so that he no more arose-
Smashing the very bone; and he fell dead
Next to the other. Having seen such blows,
The other pigs along the valley fled;
Morgante on his neck the bucket took,

Full from the spring, which neither swerved nor shook.

The ton was on one shoulder, and there were
The hogs on t'other, and he brushed apace
On to the abbey, though by no means near,
Nor spilt one drop of water in his race.
Orlando, seeing him so soon appear,

With the dead boars, and with that brimful vase,
Marvelled to see his strength so very great;—

So did the abbot, and set wide the gate.

Morgante becomes very popular among the almost famishing monks by the supplies which he thus brings them. The abbot, by way of rewarding him, gives him a horse; which, wholly unable to bear the monster's weight, bursts under him, to the great wonder and vexation of Morgante, who makes nothing of lifting the dead steed upon his shoulder, and carrying him out of sight into the wood.

Orlando is soon tired of the idle life at the monastery; and, having with great difficulty found some armour to fit Morgante, they proceed on their adventures; and thus ends the canto.

The business of translation was wholly beneath Lord Byron; and, but that it is our design to give our readers an account of all his lordship's literary productions, we should hardly have noticed this. The Liberal' only went to a fourth Number.

'Gli dette in sulla testa un gran punzone.' It is strange that Pulci should have literally anticipated the technical terms of my old friend and master Jackson and the art which he has carried to its highest pitch. 'A punch on the head,' or a punch in the head,'' un punzone in sulla testa,' is the exact and frequent phrase of our best pugilists, who little dream that they are talking the purest Tuscan.

1

CHAPTER XIV.

LORD BYRON permitted himself to indulge his ill temper so far as to write a satire-and not a good one-on the political affairs of the times. There is one passage in it which is really interesting and beautiful it is that in which the poet alludes to the imprisonment and death of Buonaparte. With this extract we shall dismiss the

• Age of Bronze :’

But where is he, the modern, mightier far,
Who, born no king, made monarchs draw his car;
The new Sesostris, whose unharnessed kings,
Freed from the bit, believe themselves with wings,
And spurn the dust o'er which they crawled of late,
Chained to the chariot of the chieftain's state?
Yes! where is he, the champion and the child

Of all that's great or little, wise or wild?

Whose game was empires, and whose stakes were thrones ?
Whose table earth-whose dice were human bones ?

Behold the grand result in yon lone isle,

And, as thy nature urges, weep or smile.
Sigh to behold the eagle's lofty rage
Reduced to nibble at his narrow cage;
Smile to survey the Queller of the Nations
Now daily squabbling o'er disputed rations;
Weep to perceive him mourning, as he dines,
O'er curtailed dishes and o'er stinted wines;
O'er petty quarrels upon petty things.

Is this the man who scourged or feasted kings?
Behold the scales in which his fortune hangs,
A surgeon's statement and an earl's harangues!
A bust delayed, a book refused, can shake
The sleep of him who kept the world awake.
Is this indeed the Tamer of the Great,
Now slave of all could tease or irritate-
The paltry gaoler and the prying spy,
The staring stranger with his note-book nigh?
Plunged in a dungeon, he had still been great;
How low, how little, was this middle state,