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before his mental vision, and struck on his senses; he had sat in some rugged cave,

hoary with time, and wondered how hearts could break in so fair a world, and how faith could fail, or love cease! Love!-mysterious word, which thrilled through his bosom ! - what was its delicious poison of which he read — its gentle pangs-its pleasing, yet arbitrary, thraldom?

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By degrees these musings began to assume a more definite shape, and a form of surpassing loveliness began to visit him in his day-dreams; it was no mortal form-nothing of earth had ever shone so fair; a halo of purity and sweetness was around it, and an angel smile on the lips and in the blue eyes.

The dreaming boy soon found a vent for his overwrought feelings in the soothing numbers. of poetry; his enthusiastic and panting heart poured forth verses breathing of passion and devotion, and eternal constancy-constancy even beyond the portals of the tomb, when the blessed shall re-awaken in heaven.

His strains, though wild, were of surpassing pathos and tenderness, and the stamp of genius and originality was on every line. He delighted, too, in descriptive poetry, and his productions teemed with exquisite imagery.

Bright visions of far-off countries visited his mind and shed a glow on his lines. The land of palm-trees and rivers with golden sands; the land of the diamond and ruby; the land of halfdiscovered wastes and primeval forests, where no axe has ever been heard to smite, and where birds of gorgeous hues and varied note hang on the gigantic trees like jewelled things glittering amid the dark foliage;—the island of freedom, and fair, stately matrons, and undaunted warriors; the land of hardy mountaineers, and heathy mountains, and dark glens; the land of the orange-grove and dark-eyed beauties, and sudden love, and dire revenge ;-all these were imaged in his varying page; but above all did he love to sing of his own beautiful, luxuriant, and most dear Italy;-fallen though she was from her high estate, the memory of

before his mental vision, and struck on his senses; he had sat in some rugged cave,

hoary with time, and wondered how hearts could break in so fair a world, and how faith could fail, or love cease! Love!-mysterious word, which thrilled through his bosom !-what was its delicious poison of which he read gentle pangs-its pleasing, yet arbitrary, thral

dom?

its

By degrees these musings began to assume a more definite shape, and a form of surpassing loveliness began to visit him in his day-dreams; it was no mortal form-nothing of earth had ever shone so fair; a halo of purity and sweetness was around it, and an angel smile on the lips and in the blue eyes.

The dreaming boy soon found a vent for his overwrought feelings in the soothing numbers of poetry;-his enthusiastic and panting heart poured forth verses breathing of passion and devotion, and eternal constancy-constancy even beyond the portals of the tomb, when the blessed shall re-awaken in heaven.

His strains, though wild, were of surpassing pathos and tenderness, and the stamp of genius and originality was on every line. He delighted, too, in descriptive poetry, and his productions teemed with exquisite imagery.

Bright visions of far-off countries visited his mind and shed a glow on his lines. The land of palm-trees and rivers with golden sands; the land of the diamond and ruby; the land of halfdiscovered wastes and primeval forests, where no axe has ever been heard to smite, and where birds of gorgeous hues and varied note hang on the gigantic trees like jewelled things glittering amid the dark foliage;-the island of freedom, and fair, stately matrons, and undaunted warriors; the land of hardy mountaineers, and heathy mountains, and dark glens; the land of the orange-grove and dark-eyed beauties, and sudden love, and dire revenge ;-all these were imaged in his varying page; but above all did he love to sing of his own beautiful, luxuriant, and most dear Italy;-fallen though she was from her high estate, the memory of

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her past grandeur and glory inflamed him, and the sight of her present loveliness engraved itself indelibly on his heart.

What then had brought this ardent and high-wrought soul into the prostration of misery we have described, as he lay sorrowing on the newly-made grave? It was that even on the very threshold of life, he had suddenly found himself alone in the world. A desolating and fearful storm had gathered over his young head and in its progress had swept from his path all that he held dear. He was an orphan, left in this cold world without one tie of kindred to share the solitude of his grief, or to soothe its violence.

In that grave slept his father, mother, and young sister, and Antonio who had never known other love, felt as though his heart and affections were irretrievably buried with those precious ones, and as though no grief had ever equalled his grief.

Alfonso Cellini, the father of our hero, was a man of such mild and endearing character,

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