"To be sure I forgot. Well, would you have acted as you now advise me to act if Miss Malbrook had lost all her money one day, and had been obliged to find refuge in some obscure London lodginghouse?"

"It is always difficult to say how one would act under imaginary circumstances," replied Lord Splint, with some uneasiness of manner. "I cannot say what I should have done. I suppose it would have depended very much on the lady. Had she expressed a desire not to see me again, I think I should have consulted her wishes."

"You are a good fellow at heart, Splint, I believe; but you do not talk like one now."

"What would you have me say? That poverty is easier for two persons to bear than for one? You are always reading Keats-do you remember what he says?—

'Love in a hut, with water and a crust, Is-Love forgive us !-cinders, ashes, dust.'

There you have, for once, sober fact from a poet. You see it agrees entirely with my view. Two persons in your position who marry without a comfortable provisionI do not mean wealth-are foredoomed to misery. The man will blame the woman for hindering him in his career; the woman will blame the man for not giving her the ample means to which she thinks herself entitled. Such are my opinions. They will be yours some day."

Reginald could scarcely restrain a smile at the portentous manner of the rising statesman. It almost seemed that he had abandoned his old model, Fox, and was paying the homage of imitation to Mr

came to an end. Both saw the uselessness of pursuing it further.

That evening, as Lord Splint was hurrying up-stairs to dress for dinner, Lady Tresham opened her door and beckoned him within. "Have you spoken to him?" she said, eagerly.

"I have; and I believe that his affections are more deeply involved than you seem to have supposed."

"Dear Lord Splint," she said, wringing her hands, "can nothing be done? Is he resolved upon this wretched marriage?"

"It is hard to say, but I am rather inclined to hope that I have made some impression upon him.”

"He is so obstinate-so difficult to move when he is set upon a purpose. His father was the same;" and the poor lady sighed, for she remembered how very difficult it had been to manage her husband.

"Well, we must hope for the best. I have urged him at least to wait, and I think he will do that. His manner gave me that impression."

"Then he has not written to her?"

"Evidently not; in fact he does not know her address."

"And you think he will take your advice and wait?"

"I am sure he will."

"My dear friend, how good you have been to me! I know Reginald; he will not promise anything, but he will not be carried away by impulse. You have indeed done well. The young lady will never be my son's wife."

She appeared at dinner radiant and delighted; but mothers cannot always read their sons' hearts. The next day the two officials returned to their duties without another word on a subject which both wished more than ever to shun.

THE title of this paper will unavoidably suggest a false idea to the reader's mind. He will expect from it a disquisition on the character of Rinaldo, the youthful hero of Tasso's 'Jerusalem Delivered'; an examination into the extent to which the Italian poet's brilliant copy of the Homeric Achilles falls short of the Hellenic delineation of the "divine wrath" of the son of Peleus; and a comparison of Armida with Dido, and of Eneas with Rinaldo, in that fine episode of his work in which Tasso owes so much to Virgil. It is desirable, therefore, to explain at once that the Rinaldo now to be treated of is not the creation of Tasso, but of the old romancers-not the son of Berthold and Sophia, but the son of Aymon and Beatrice; not the individual property, so to speak, of the singer of the Crusade, but the figure already made familiar to the Italian public in the pages of Boïardo and of Ariosto.

Of him Tasso, while yet a student at Padua, wrote, taking his hero's earliest youth as his theme; a theme congenial to his own age, which was then but eighteen. The poem in octaves which he indited in Rinaldo's honour, is more than half the length of the 'Jerusalem Delivered,' and is contained in twelve books. Forgotten now, so completely, that it is very probable that these words may give the first intimation to many readers that they ever had of its existence, -it was yet extremely popular at its first appearance, encircled its youthful author's head with a halo

of celebrity, and forged one of the earliest links in that chain-golden at first but afterwards of ironwhich drew him to Ferrara and to the Court of Alphonso of Este.

Although in itself lacking several of the attributes necessary to secure abiding popularity to so long a poem, the Rinaldo, alike for its own undoubted merits, and still more as the first essay of the yet immature genius which was afterwards to produce such great results, is not unworthy of attention; and it may be that a short account of it may win the gratitude of some reader curious in Italian literature, or succeed not unacceptably in occupying a vacant half-hour for some lover of the tales of chivalry.

The epoch of the Rinaldo, then, is, as has been already intimated, the time of Charlemagne,-whose great conflicts with the Saracens, so vigorously depicted by Ariosto, form only a background for Tasso's picture of a young champion who fights, in the first place, for lovein the second, for mere personal glory.

His hero is first exhibited to us as fired with generous emulation by the exploits of his cousin Orlando, the Roland of northern song; he laments in a secluded meadow near Paris the inglorious days which he has himself been spending. A kindred regret has been awakened likewise in the breast of another cousin of Rinaldo, that potent enchanter Malagigi, so familiar to readers of the

Orlando Furioso,' and he hastens to assist his young kinsman, who, attracted by the neighing of a

war-horse, sees a splendid suit of armour hanging ready for his use on the tree to which the courser is tethered, and knows that it is meant for him by seeing his ancestral crest, the panther, on the shield. Rinaldo has already received knighthood from the hands of Charlemagne on the day on which, a mere boy, he vindicated his mother's honour from unjust aspersions; but the vow which he then made, to wear no sword till he has taken some brave warrior's weapon by force, still binds him; and so, while putting on the arms provided for him by Malagigi's thoughtful care, he leaves the sword behind. Nor is the horse which he now mounts destined long to bear him. His sorcerer kinsman knows that the hour has come for him to win a nobler steed which the fates are reserving for him. In the forest of Ardennes roves, free and terrible to all who meet him, the mighty Bayard,brought there of old by Amadis of Gaul,1 and laid, after his death, under a spell which preserves him in perpetual youth for the use of a descendant of his former owner who shall be his equal in valour. Both these conditions are fulfilled by Rinaldo, and Malagigi impels him to the enterprise.

On his way to seek it, the knight has an encounter of vast influence on his future life. A sunshine is made in the shady places of the forest through which he rides by a beauteous lady, who is there chasing a milk-white hind. Her golden hair waves freely to the wind, a sweet light shines from her

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eyes, lilies and roses mingle on her cheeks, while from her brow of ivory there "descends a grace able to gladden any sorrowful soul." Rinaldo looks and loves at once, bursting forth into the reverent salutation "Lady or goddess, whichsoever you be, may heaven ever bring you safety and peace! and even as it has already made charming and beautiful, so may each star rain blessedness upon your head!". Then vowing himself to the damsel's service, he humbly asks her name. Thereupon the unknown beauty is disclosed to him as Clarice, sister of the Count of Gascony, and hears in return that she sees before her the descendant of Constantine, the son of Aymon, Count of Claremont. "Who has not heard of your ancestors, and of the exploits of your father, and of your cousin Orlando against the Moors?" rejoins the lady; "but as yet fame has reported to us none of yours." "With your fa

vour I would not fear to meet that paladin in arms, and would bring you a good account of him," answers Rinaldo, stung to the heart by the implied doubt. Just at this moment Clarice's own attendant knights ride up in search of her; and she, with the recklessness of consequences usual in the chivalric romances, smilingly bids Rinaldo prove himself on them—saying that he who is a match for Orlando can easily overthrow them all. The knight takes her at her word, challenges the whole troop to show who is worthiest to guard their lady, and a terrible, and, alas ! bloody combat follows-in which,

of each century, set there by the enchanter's art. After gazing on the shapes of departed loveliness, the king naturally turned to the fair ones of his own day in search of the Princess Clarinea's form. Alas! it was not to be found there; and a glance told him that, great as might be her charms, they were eclipsed by those of the ladies preferred to her; especially by those of Yvo of Gascony's sister, Clarice. Hereupon Francardo, resolving to make her his wife, sent Rinaldo's

informant, the Knight of the Siren, to demand her of the emperor in marriage, promising both to respect her religion and to bring up their children in the Christian faith; but threatening war if her hand is refused him. The answer the ambassador has received from the emperor has been not unfavourable; and he is now on his way to procure the assent of Clarice herself and of her mother. How Clarinea bears her desertion remains untold.

is Rinaldo's exclamation on hearing this tale. But after the Armenian knight has left him and proceeded on his errand, many fears disturb his mind; not that he doubts his own ability to defend Clarice against a world in arms, but that he dreads her being dazzled by the offer of an Eastern diadem.

This new-born jealousy must plead his excuse for an act of apparent discourtesy. For, coming shortly afterwards to the Seine, he sees a boat with sails of clothof-silver and awnings of cloth-ofgold, and on its flower-wreathed decks maidens who play sweet instruments and sing. It is an attendant satellite on the car of Galerana, Queen of France; a car with golden axles, on which blaze orient gems, and with pearl-embroidered purple coverings, drawn by ten milk-white stags with gold collars and azure bridles, and es

corted by a hundred knights in rich armour. Like the sun's fair sister amid the stars, like Thetis among her nymphs, sits the majestic queen on her raised seat in the chariot, surrounded by her damsels. One of them is Clarice. Rinaldo, at sight of the lady whose loss he has begun to dread, cannot restrain himself. He at once challenges the knights attendant, among whom the lance which Tristram used of old works great havoc. Having soon, ably seconded by Isolier, routed or slain her whole guard, he approaches the queen, and, with a show of courteous submission, begs her pardon for taking away one lady from her goodly company. But he brooks no refusal, lifts the pale and trembling Clarice on to a palfrey without asking her own consent, and leads her off, though her downcast eyes are full of tears at this rough method