CHAPTER I.—THE BATTLE OF THE BRIDGE. The time occupied by the events detailed in the three preceding chapters, had been passed by Antonio in a state of self-exile from his master's studio. Conscious of having disobeyed the earnest injunctions of Contarini, the weakness of his character withheld him alike from confessing his fault, and from encountering the penetrating gaze of the old painter.... more...

THE HERETIC. It is now about three centuries since Richard Chancellor, pilot-major of the fleet which, under the command of Sir Hugh Willoughby, and by the advice of Sebastian Cabot, set out to discover a north-east passage to China, carried his ship, the Edward Bonaventura, into Archangel. The rest of the fleet put into a haven on the coast of Lapland, where all their crews, with the gallant... more...

STATE PROSECUTIONS. The Englishman who, however well inclined to defer to the wisdom "of former ages," should throw a glance at the stern realities of the past, as connected with the history of his country, will be little disposed to yield an implicit assent to the opinions or assertions of those, who maintain the superiority of the past, to the disparagement and depreciation of the present... more...

ETHIOPIA From the various circumstances of our day, the impression is powerfully made upon intelligent men in Europe, that some extraordinary change is about to take place in the general condition of mankind. A new ardour of human intercourse seems to be spreading through all nations. Europe has laid aside her perpetual wars, and seems to be assuming a habit of peace. Even France, hitherto the most... more...

The Fairies’ Sabbath. What is a fairy? Read! [“A Wood near Athens.—Enter a Fairy on one side, and Puck on the other.]“Puck.How now, Spirit! whither wander you? Fairy.Over hill, over dale,Thorough bush, thorough brier,Over park, over pale,Thorough flood, thorough fire,I do wander ever where,Swifter than the moones sphere;And I serve the Fairy Queen,To dew her orbs upon the green:The cowslips... more...

THE O'CONNELL CASE—WAS THE JUDGMENT RIGHTLY REVERSED? The astounding issue of the Irish State trials will constitute a conspicuous and mortifying event in the history of the times. A gigantic conspiracy for the dismemberment of the empire was boldly encountered at its highest point of development by the energy of the common law of the land, as administered in the ordinary courts of justice. That... more...

THE LIFE OF A DIPLOMATIST. This is one of those curious memoirs which, from time to time, start forth from the family archives of public men, for the illustration of the past and the wisdom of the future. Nothing can be more important to either the man of office or the man of reflection. Avoiding all the theoretical portion of history, on which all men may be mistaken, they give us its facts, on which... more...

POEMS AND BALLADS OF GOETHE. No. I. It may be as well to state at the outset, that we have not the most distant intention of laying before the public the whole mass of poetry that flowed from the prolific pen of Goethe, betwixt the days of his student life at Leipsic and those of his final courtly residence at Weimar. It is of no use preserving the whole wardrobe of the dead; we do enough if we possess... more...

AFFGHANISTAN. There are those persons now living who would give their own weight in sovereigns, though drawing against thirteen to sixteen stone, that all of this dreadful subject might be swallowed up by Lethe; that darkness might settle for ever upon the insanities of Cabool; and the grave close finally over the carnage of Tezeen. But it will not be. Blood will have blood, they say. The madness which... more...

M. LOUIS BLANC M. Louis Blanc, a democratic journalist, with all, and perhaps more than the usual talents of the Parisian journalist—with all, and more than the usual faults of one—has undertaken to write the history of his country, during and since the revolution of 1830. What can we expect to be the result of such an undertaking? What can we expect from a man who sits down to a task of this... more...