Here my discourse might recal the song which Dante heard in the region where spirits are made pure, that "Many a pair extoll'd, Who lived in virtue chastely, and the bonds Of wedded love*." Roger, king of Sicily, was reduced to such a state of bitter affliction on the death of his wife Alberia, that for a long time he shut himself up in his private rooms, and would see no one but his familiar servants, so that it became the general opinion of men, both far and near, that he had died, and some nobles made an insurrection; and whoever affirmed that he was still alive was laughed at↑. We cannot enter any of our ancient cathedral or monastic churches, without meeting some monument proclaiming, in terms more or less beautiful, the tenderness and constancy of the same affection during the middle ages. The love of the celebrated Balthazar Castiglione for his wife, is thus expressed in the inscription which he caused to be placed upon her tomb, in the church of S. Maria delle Grazie, near Mantua : "Non ego nunc vivo, conjux dulcissima; vitam I have recorded the affection of men; but what shall I say of the woman's love? Blanca Rubea, of Padua, having fallen into the hands of the tyrant Eccelino, when the fortress was taken, in defending which her husband had been slain, sought to escape by throwing herself from a window, but was reserved to give an example to all future ages of heroic perseverance; for when his crime was consummated, after all attempts to corrupt her mind had failed, dissembling her grief, she demanded permission to view once more the remains of her husband; and entering the sepulchre, where bloody and yet but green in earth he lay festering in his shroud, she resolved, as if unsubstantial death were amorous, and that the lean, abhorred monster kept him there in dark to be her para * Purg. XXV. † Alexand. Abbat. de reb. gestis Rogerii, Lib. III. c. 1. Rer. Italic. Scriptor. tom. V. mour, to stay with him, and never from that place of dim night depart again. Bidding her eyes to look their last, she cast herself with such force upon the corpse, now half dissolved upon the cold stone, that her arms took their last embrace, and with a kiss she died *. Veronica da Gambera, a poetess and patroness of learning, daughter of Count Gian-Francesco Gambera, was married to Gilberto, the tenth lord of Corregio, whom she lost nine years after their marriage, when she was scarcely thirty-three years of age. She caused to be engraven on the door of her apartment these beautiful lines: "Ille meos primus qui me sibi junxit amores Abstulit, ille habeat secum servetque sepulcro." Orlandini, gonfalonier of justice at Florence, meditated deadly vengeance against Balbaccio, a brave warrior of the republic, for having expressed indignation at his cowardice in flying from Marradi on the invasion of Piccinnino. The gonfalonier concealed the assassins in his chamber, where Balbaccio came every day to receive his orders. Orlandini conversing familiarly, walked with him to the fatal spot at the end of the room, then gave the signal, when the assassins rushed out and dispatched him. His body was thrown out of the window, and afterwards exposed to the people. His widow, Anne, devoted herself, from that moment, to a life of religion. She changed her house into a monastery, and shutting herself up there with many noble women, continued there till her death, which was in odour of sanctity. "This monastery," adds Machiavel, "which bears her name, will perpetuate her memory till the end of time+.” The horror which was inspired by every violation of this union, shows what was the general opinion and practice of those times. Many memorable scenes were the result of these contrasts. Let us imagine ourselves present at the Council of Rheims, at which Pope Calixtus the Second assisted, and mark what takes place on the third day. Hildegarde, countess of Poictiers, enters with a numerous suite of ladies and guards; she is a princess of great beauty, of about thirty years of age; tears stand in her eyes, which she wipes away from time to * Bernardini Scardeonii Hist. Patavinæ. Thesaur. Antiq. Ital. tom. VI. Hist. of Florence, Lib. VI. time. She makes an eloquent and feeling harangue, complaining that her husband has forsaken her, to the great scandal of the church. The whole assembly is moved to compassion. The Pope asks if the Count is present, conformable to the order sent to him to attend ; the bishop of Saintes explains the reason of his prince's absence, who has been delayed on his road by sickness. The Pope then fixes a time for him to appear to hear his sentence of excommunication, unless he should take back his countess. The love and respect of which women generally were the objects during the middle ages, might alone be deemed a sufficient proof of the eminent sense of virtue and justice which belongs to them. At the time of the Crusades, when the armies of Europe were to assist at the spectacle of Mahometan manners and of the religion of sense, there was reason to fear that their condition in that respect might suffer a sad reverse; but, as a French writer remarks, it was precisely at that epoch, when the sweet and persuasive voice of St. Bernard, celebrating the praise of Mary, furnished an antidote to the fascination of the ancient Oriental serpent, and offered to its impure seduction the enthusiasm of chivalrous love. There are single deeds which show the general spirit of these times, and which we find upon every tongue, as symbols of universal duty, where knightly or manly virtue was the theme. Such was the act of Bruce, to which Isabella alludes, in the poem of the Lord of the Isles. "Robert! I have seen Thou hast a woman's guardian been! When press'd on thee the Southern power, And safety, to all human sight, Was only found in rapid flight, Thou heard'st a wretched female plain In agony of travail pain, And thou didst bid thy little band Upon the instant turn and stand, And dare the worst the foe might do, A woman in her last distress*." • IV. While the Church protected women from injury, the laws of the state contributed to preserve in society the delicate impressions of respect which were their due, and punished any insult by severe penalties. When grave and austere magistrates came forward, like Stephen Pasquier, declaring that they would rather incur any censure than resemble John de Mehun, who, in his romance of the Rose, had professed expressly to despise women*, it cannot excite surprise to find knights and noblemen resisting as personal outrage, the publication of any thing that tended to weaken the faith in female virtue. The learned and amiable Antony Woodville, earl of Rivers, had translated from the French "The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers," in which he left out some strictures on women, that were in the original. These Caxton translated, inserting them as an appendix to his printed edition, with many apologies for the correction. "I did not presume," he says, "to put them in my said lord's book, but in the end apart, in the rehearsal of the works, that Lord Rivers, or any other person, if they be not pleased may erase it, or else rend the leaf out of the book, humbly beseeching my said lord to take no displeasure on me so presuming." Alas, reader, how strange, how extravagant and absurd, perhaps, will this sound in the ears of many at present, whom like deaf adders, the harmonious voice of exquisite sentiment can no longer charm? The leaf which our fathers would have torn out and trampled upon with indignation, would now be thought the sweetest and most attractive page that could be presented to any eye. Erase it, indeed, or else rend it out of the book! Such counsel is no longer in harmony with our opinions or our manners. It was for the gentle ones of Catholic times to follow it, who were taught nothing else in philosophy, in literature, in poetry, in painting, and in the whole development and order of society, but that from woman arose upon them the sun of justice,-Christ their God. It was for the men of the middle ages to feel that scorn, who beheld woman, angel-like, leading youth hand in hand to heaven, meanwhile distributing on earth the palms of virtue, as arbitress and judge. It * Recherches de la France, Lib. VI. 34. was for them to feel indignant, who could from experience and conviction say of woman, "All higher knowledge in her presence falls No, Caxton, thy book is safe at present, come what may hereafter. Onward let us pass. CHAPTER IV. THE shadowy forms that are now before us, indicate that we are come to a scene that may for me be termed the passage perilous, of which old fables speak. Love, that in gentle hearts is quickly learnt, pleased so passing well the heroic ages of which I tell the manners, that, as thou perceivest, reader, I cannot pursue my journey without beholding it; for the image is too intimately connected with the times I describe, to be excluded from any picture that would faithfully represent them. Nevertheless, though with downward looks, we have encouragement to proceed; for if, by sweet thoughts and fond desire many to an evil pass were destined, there were others, and doubtless not a few in these simple ages, whose smiles or sighs can be remembered without exciting grief or pity. In the vain fabling of the ancients, the distinctions of nature are often truly indicated. "Love," says Plato, “is not one person, but there are two loves, the one elder and born without a mother, the daughter of Ouranus, the most ancient of all the gods, and we call this Uranian love; but the other younger, daughter of Jupiter and Dione, which we call public or common, and this of itself is neither good nor evil, but it may be either, according as it is accompanied ; and thus all love is not fair or worthy to be praised. The common love is what |