Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 383, September 1847

When to Heaven thy spirit fled?
Yes! that spirit then was winging
Upwards from its shell of clay,
Guardian angels round it singing —
"Welcome to the realms of day!"

IV

Less when Eve's low shadows darkling
Shut the wild flowers on the lea,
Than when Dawn's last Star is sparkling,
Silence draws our thoughts to thee —
Thee – who, robed in light excelling,
Stood'st a seraph by the hearth, —
Far too bright for mortal dwelling.
Far – by far, too good for earth!

V

Fare-thee-well! a track of glory
Shows where'er thy steps have been,
Making Life a lovely story,
Earth a rich, romantic scene:
Dim when Duty's way before us,
As the magnet charts the sea,
May thy pure star glowing o'er us
Point the path to Heaven and Thee!

GIACOMO DA VALENCIA; OR, THE STUDENT OF BOLOGNA

A TALE.[17 - See Sismondi's History of the Italian Republics, vol. iii. p. 58.]

CHAPTER I

Of all the students that assembled at Bologna, A.D. 1324, Giacomo da Valencia was the most popular and the most beloved. His wealth, his liberality, his noble spirit, his handsome person, his bravery, and his wit, gave him a just title to this pre-eminence.

Of all the beauties of the town of Bologna, whose mission it was in the same year of grace, 1324, to turn the heads and inflame the hearts of this assemblage of students, none could be compared to Constantia, niece of Giovanni D'Andrea, one of the most celebrated jurisconsults of his age.

Of course, then, they loved each other, this peerless couple. No. Only the student loved. The lady was fancy-free. The perverse god, having shot one arrow forth – buried it up to the very feather – "would not shoot his other." No prayers and no clamour could avail: he held it loosely in his hand, letting its golden point trail idly upon the sand.

In vain had Giacomo been the most constant attendant upon mass; in vain had he lingered hour after hour on the promenade to catch one look of recognition; in vain had he courted every family she visited, and for the last six months had selected his acquaintances on one principle only, – that they were hers, and might introduce him to her presence. All his efforts were fruitless – Constantia, so amiable to all others, so sweet, so gentle, was cold to him. She would not love. Why not? What was there wanting in our cavalier? Was it birth, or wealth, or nobility of spirit, or personal beauty? No, nothing was wanting – nothing in him. But, for her, the hour had not yet struck. It was summer all around, but the heart of the virgin – the rose of Bologna – was still sleeping in its coiled leaves, and not to day would it unfold itself.

But the passion of Giacomo was invincible: no coldness could repulse, no denial reduce him to despair. Love cannot exist, cannot endure, say reasonable people, without hope. True. But a great passion bears its own hope in its bosom. Neither was it in the nature or temperament of Giacomo lightly to relinquish any enterprise he had once undertaken. The following incident in his college life will serve to show the ardent, serious, and indomitable temper of the lover of Constantia. A French cavalier, lately emancipated from the university of Paris, who, while there, had borne off the prize from all – not, indeed, in scholarship, but for his unrivalled dexterity in the noble art of defence, – had visited Bologna, and challenged to a trial of skill the most renowned champion it could boast. They would cross their rapiers, the challenge said, for the honour of their respective universities. This proclamation of the Parisian, affixed, according to custom, to the college gates, was no sooner read than all eyes were turned to Giacomo. To him alone could the honour of the university be safely intrusted; indeed, if he should decline the challenge, it was doubtful whether any other would risk a trial of skill from which he had retreated. Thus pointed out by public opinion as the champion of the university, and solicited by his fellow students to sustain its reputation in the high and noble science of defence, he overcame the first repugnance which he felt to what seemed to him the boastful acceptance of a boastful challenge. He and the Frenchman met. The Frenchman manifested the greater skill; it seemed evident that the contest would end in the defeat of the Bolognese. "Let us try," said Giacomo, "with the naked rapier;" for hitherto the points had been guarded. That such a proposition should have come from him who was manifestly the least skilful of the two, seemed the result of passion, of blind anger at approaching defeat. Mere madness! cried some of his best friends. But it was not madness, it was not passion; it was deliberately done. He knew that the earnestness of the combat would call forth all his own skill and energy to the utmost; it might very probably have the opposite effect upon his adversary. His reasoning was justified by the event. His antagonist had no sooner accepted the proposition – no sooner had the pointed been substituted for the guarded rapier, than the rival fencers seemed to have changed characters. The French cavalier grew cautious; his rapid and brilliant attack gave place to defensive and more measured movements. While the Bolognese, whom his friends expected to see fall a sacrifice to his impetuosity of temper, became more rapid, more self-possessed, more bold and decisive in his play. He now very soon, and happily without any fatal result to his antagonist, established his superiority, and vindicated the honour of his university. When chidden for his rashness, and what was thought a freak of passion, he answered that he never acted in a more cool and calculating spirit in his life. "I did but burn the ships behind me that I might fight the better. I am never so calm," he added, "or so thoroughly master of myself, as when most in earnest; and this is not generally the character of a Parisian."

Such was the serious, brave, and resolute spirit of Giacomo. But he had other qualities than those which made him the most popular student bf the university; and as a proof of this, we need only mention that he was the intimate friend of Petrarch, at this time also a student at Bologna. Though despatched to this university by his father for the express purpose of prosecuting the study of the law, Petrarch was wrapt up in his Latin classics and his poetry; and it was precisely in our brave and handsome cavalier that he found the companion who most completely sympathised with him in his pursuits, and most correctly appreciated his nascent genius.

These two friends had been walking together in silence for some time under the long colonnades which then, as now, lined the streets of Bologna. A more noble pair have rarely traversed those colonnades. The poet, remarkable for his beauty, was in his youth very studious of elegance in his dress; and the short velvet cloak, with its border of gold or silver lace, was always thrown over his slight, but finely moulded figure, with a grace which would have satisfied the eye of a painter. From time to time he might be seen to brush away, or to shake off, the specks of dust which had settled on it, or to re-adjust, by a movement intended to appear unconscious, the folds of its drapery. His companion, taller, and of a somewhat larger build, and far more costly in his attire, though utterly unoccupied with it, walked "like one of the lions" by his side.

"My dear Giacomo," said Petrarch, breaking the long silence, "what has befallen you? Not a word – certainly not two in any coherent succession, have you uttered for the last hour."

"Neither to-day, nor yesterday!" muttered Giacomo to himself, certainly not in answer to his friend, – "Neither to-day, nor yesterday – perhaps, she means never to go to mass again."

"What are you talking, or rather, thinking of?"

"What I am always thinking of, my dear Petrarch, – what I shall never cease thinking of till it prove my destruction – which some spirit of divination tells me that it will."

"Really, really, Giacomo," said his friend, "you show in this a most insane pertinacity. Here are you, week after week, month after month – "

"I know it – know all you would say. – Good God! how beautiful she is!"

"Here are you – for I will speak." – continued his youthful but grave associate, "who are simply the most perfect cavalier in all Bologna – (one would not flatter, but this physic is, in some cases, absolutely necessary) – at once the boast and envy of the whole university – wasting, consuming yourself away, in a perpetual fever after the only woman, I take it upon me to declare – "

"Psha! psha! Tell me, if you would have me listen, what further can I do? I have wooed her in sonnets, which ought to have affected her, for Petrarch polished the verse. Nothing touches her. She is as obdurate as steel. Not a smile – not, at least, for me – and for all others she smiles how sweetly, how intelligently, how divinely! But by the Holy Cross! she shall love me! Petrarch, she shall! – she shall!"

"My dear Giacomo, you rave. Be a little reasonable. Lover as you are, stay on this side of madness. Love on – if it must be so – love her for ever; but do not for ever be striving for a return of your passion. Take home your unrequited love into your bosom – nourish it there – but do not exasperate it by a bootless and incessant struggle against fate. For my part, I can conceive there may be a strange sweet luxury in this solitary love that lives in one breast alone. It is all your own. It is fed, kindled, diversified, sustained by your own imagination. It is passion without the gross thraldom of circumstance. It is the pure relation of soul to soul, without the vast, intricate, unmanageable relationship of life to life."

"To you, a poet," replied Giacomo with a slight tone of sarcasm, "such a passion may be possible. Perhaps you care not for more heat than serves to animate and make fluent the verse. Pleased with the glow of fancy and of feeling, you can stop short of possession. I cannot! Oh, you poets! you fuse your passion with your genius: you describe, you do not feel."

"Not feel!" exclaimed Petrarch "we cannot then describe."

"Oh, yes! you can describe. You fling the golden light of imagination, like a light from heaven, round the object of your adoration; but, in return, the real woman is translated herself to the skyey region of imagination. She becomes the creature of your thoughts. You are conscious that the glory you have flung around her, you can re-assume. Petrarch, Petrarch! if you ever love, if you are constant to any woman from Springtime to the last leaf of Autumn, it will be to some fair creature who dwells for ever, and only, in your imagination, whom you will never press to your bosom. You poets love beauty, you love passion, you love all things fair and great, and you make a vision of them all. You sing them, and there's an end."

"Well, well," said the poet, warding off the attack with a smile, "I have brought down, it seems, a severe castigation on myself."

"Dear, dear Petrarch! let it teach you never again to give advice to a lover, unless it be to show him how, or where, he is to meet his mistress. Fool that I am! she is, perhaps, all this time in the Church of St Giovanni." And without another word he darted up a street that led to that same church, leaving his friend to follow or not, as he pleased.

CHAPTER II

There was, indeed, something like perversity, it must be allowed, in this firm refusal of Constantia to reward so devoted an attachment. Even her stern, grave uncle, whose judicial functions were not likely to give him much leisure or disposition to interfere with the love affairs of his niece, had dropt a hint that the suit of Giacomo da Valencia would not be displeasing to himself. Bologna could not have supplied a more fitting match; our lover, therefore, was not guilty of presumption, though of much obstinacy. It was his right, this blessed hand of Constantia – he felt it was his right, and he would win it.

Some one, some day, she must surely love, he argued to himself, and why not me? and why not now? Oh, could I but plead my passion, he would say, alone, – pour it out unrestrained at her feet, she would surely see how reasonable it was that she should love, that she ought, that she must! To his excited and impetuous mood of mind, it appeared that nothing but the artificial barrier which the customs of society interposed in their intercourse, prevented his success. He could never see her alone, never speak unreservedly and passionately. The presence of others imposed restraints on both; and if an opportunity occurred to speak without being overheard, the few moments were filled with embarrassment by reason of their brief and precarious tenure. Nay, what were a few moments to him who had so full a heart to utter? "Oh, could I place her there!" he would exclaim, pointing to the upper end of the spacious room he occupied, "and there kneel down, and pray before her, as men do to their saints! Oh Nature! Oh Heaven! you would not so desert me, that my prayer should be fruitless."

Yes! if she were there alone, no other mortal near! This thought so wrought within him, took so strong possession of his mind, that it led him to a thousand projects for its realisation. What if he carried her off by force from her uncle's residence, and brought her there? Surely the humility, the passionate devotion with which he would entreat her, would atone for the rash and violent means he had used to bring her within the scope of his supplications; and the utter submission, and profound respect of his manner, would immediately convince her that he had no design upon her freedom of will, and that she might confide with entire safety to his honour. And as to the feasibility of the project, popular and beloved as he was in the university, there were numbers of students quite ready to engage in any scheme he should propose, however hazardous it might be. It would be very easy for him to organise a little band of the most faithful and the boldest of his adherents, who, with a due mixture of stratagem and force, would accomplish this new and harmless species of abduction.

The uncle of Constantia held, as we have intimated, a high judicial post, and was sometimes absent from Bologna, administering justice amongst the several dependencies of the republic. On one of these occasions Constantia was sitting with a female friend, who had been invited to stay with her during his absence from home. The room they sat in was one of those fine old Gothic chambers, which the pencil of Haghe delights to reproduce and restore for us; and to his pencil we willingly leave the description of it. Constantia was seated on one of those tall arm-chairs, with straight high back, which beauty then made graceful to the eye, and leaned her little chin upon her doubled hand, as she listened to her friend, Leonora, who was reading her a lecture upon the very theme which makes the burden of our story, her coldness to Giacomo.

"What would you have? what do you expect?" was the triumphant close of her harangue.

"What would I have?" replied Constantia. "Myself! I would possess myself in peace and stillness – What do I expect? I do not live on expectation. I love my present life – its calm, its contentment, its freedom. Why would you help to rob me of these?"

"Freedom! So, then, you fear the tyrant in the husband. But, my dear Constantia, where there are only two in the society, there is an even chance for the tyranny."

"A pleasant prospect! But you mistake me, Leonora. It is not the husband in his tyranny I fear, – I have not come to think of that; it is the lover and his love! I would not be infected by the turmoil of his passion. I dread it. Friends let me have and cherish. Leonora, be you always one of them; but for this turbulent Love, may the lightest down upon his pinion never touch me! How soft it seems, how light, as light and soft as the down we rob the swan's neck of; but touch it, and it burns, and fans a fever into the veins. I do love my own calm life, and I will keep it."

As she spoke thus, she rose from her seat and advanced towards the window. The two friends stood looking together down the street, which, as the sun descended, began to be deserted of its usual crowd. Their attention was arrested by a numerous body of footmen, and other attendants, who were escorting apparently some lady in a sedan chair. They were rather surprised to observe that the sedan chair directed its course towards their own house. A knocking at the door was heard; and soon after their servant brought them word, that a certain Signora – desired urgently to speak with Constantia, but that she could not quit her chair. The person whose name was announced, was an old lady, one of Constantia's most intimate friends; she descended immediately into the hall to meet her. She precipitated herself towards the sedan chair, the door of which stood open; a slight impulse from some bystander, from a hand which trembled as it touched her, carried her forward, and she found herself seated in what indeed was an empty chair. Before she had time to raise an alarm, she found herself borne swiftly and softly along the street. Leonora, who had followed her friend down the stairs, and was a witness to her singular disappearance, called up all the servants of the establishment, and despatched them after their mistress. They followed, but to no purpose. The running footmen, on either side of the sedan, drew their swords. They were students in disguise. Giacomo had succeeded in his daring enterprise.

Constantia had hardly collected her thoughts, when she perceived that her chair was carried through a lofty archway up a broad flight of stairs, and deposited in a spacious apartment, once the proud saloon of a palatial residence, though the whole building, of which it formed a part, had since been constituted a portion of the university. All her attendants except one left the room. We need not say that it was Giacomo who handed her from her temporary imprisonment.

To judge from their bearing and attitude, you would have said that it was Giacomo who was the captive, bending before the mercy of Constantia. She stood there, upright, calm, inflexible. He was, indeed, at her mercy. He felt that his life depended on this present moment, and on the few words that should fall from her lips. He led her to the upper end of the room where his imagination had so often placed her. He knelt – he sued.