Again was the Alberoni palace illumined by innumerable tapers; again were the glittering saloons filled with all the noble population of Florence. A second nuptial feast, more splendid and joyous than the first, was celebrated; again Giacinta, lovelier than ever, shone as the bride, and by her side a cavalier appeared, whose summer of life was better adapted to match with her tender years than the mature age of her late husband had been.
The Count Alberoni Gonzago was dead; and Francesco succeeding to his wealth, had obtained the hand of his widow. Beatrice, also a bride, followed in the train of the Countess, but followed more like a mourner at some funeral solemnity than as the newly wedded consort of the husband of her choice. Francesco all smiles and triumph, as he stood with the fairest hand in Florence hanging on his arm, proudly greeting the guests who crowded to pay him homage, turned frequently, and cast looks of piercing examination and reproach upon his pale and trembling sister, and, as if fascinated by his glance, she would rally her, failing spirits and smile languidly upon the bridegroom, who bent over her enamoured; and then, as if beguiled from some painful contemplation by the sweet accents of the man she loved, she became calm, and her quivering features resumed their wonted placidity. But these moments of tranquillity were of short duration; she started at every shadow; the flash of one of the jewels which broidered her satin robe would cause a fit of trembling; and at length, when seated at the banquet opposite her brother and his bride, a richly clad domestic offered wine in a golden goblet; for a moment she held it to her lips, and then dashed it away, exclaiming—"It is poison! Hide me,—save me. I see it every where; in those green leaves from whence it was distilled.—Oh! Francesco, Francesco, let us be poor and happy!" The guests shrunk aghast from the speaker, who, falling from her seat, expired in convulsions.
The power conferred by Gonzago's immense riches silenced the whispered murmurs of the assembly. No man rose to higher eminence in the state than the idolized husband of the beautiful Giacinta; but a dark cloud hung upon his house, his children were all cut off in their infancy, and, after a few brief years of outward felicity, struck from his horse by the fragment of a building which fell upon him as he rode in pomp through the city, he received a mortal wound, surviving the accident only long enough to unburthen his soul to his confessor.
His dying words were addressed to Alessandro, from whom since the hour of his nuptials he had been estranged; pressing his hand, he exclaimed—"She was innocent! she heard not of the murder until it had been accomplished."—London Weekly Review.
THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS.
RAFTS AND RHINE SCENERY.
Between Andernach and Bonn I saw two or three of those enormous rafts which are formed of the accumulated produce of the Swiss and German forests. One was anchored in the middle of the river, and looked like a floating island. These Krakens of the Rhine are composed of oak and fir floated in smaller rafts down the tributary streams, and, their size constantly increasing till they arrive hereabouts, they make platforms of from four hundred to seven hundred feet long, and one hundred and forty feet in breadth. When in motion, a dozen boats and more precede them, carrying anchors and cables to guide and arrest their course. The navigation of a raft down the Rhine to Dort, in Holland, which is the place of their destination,[4] is a work of great difficulty. The skill of the German and Dutch pilots who navigate them, in spite of the abrupt turnings, the eddies, the currents, rocks and shoals that oppose their progress, must indeed be of a very peculiar kind, and can be possessed but by few. It requires besides a vast deal of manual labour. The whole complement of rowers and workmen, together with their wives and children, on board one of the first-rates, amounts to the astonishing number of nine hundred or a thousand; a little village, containing from forty to sixty wooden houses, is erected upon each, which also is furnished with stalls for cattle, a magazine for provisions, &c. The dwelling appropriated to the use of the master of the raft and the principal super-cargoes was conspicuous for its size and commodiousness. It is curious to observe these rafts, on their passage, with their companies of rowers stationed at each end, making the shores ring again to the sound of their immense oars.
The succession of grand natural pictures, which I had been gazing upon since my departure from Mentz and the district of the Rheingau, are undoubtedly similar, but not the same; there is alternately the long noble reach, the sudden bend, the lake-like expanse, the shores on both sides lined with towns whose antique fortifications rise in distant view, and villages whose tapering spires of blue slate peer above the embosoming foliage; the mountains clothed with vines and forests, their sides bristled and their summits crowned with the relics of feudal residences,[5] or of cloistered fanes: but the varieties in the shape and character of all these are inexhaustible; it is this circumstance that enhances the pleasure of contemplating, scenery, in which there is, as Lord Byron says,