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A PARTY AT HER HOUSE.

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porter, and shouting the names and titles of the Monsignori and Eminences, as they arrived ;-the house of La Tullia was frequented by the "best society" in Rome. Ludovico Domenichi of Piacenza, himself a poet and a curious specimen of a sixteenth century professional literary man, who must have known Tullia at Florence in the latter years of her life, has recorded some of the sayings and doings of a company assembled at her house in Rome.*

A party of "gentilhuomini virtuosi" there were discussing Petrarch; and the question was raised, how far he had availed himself of ideas suggested to him by ancient Tuscan and Provençal poets. While this was being debated, "L'Humore da Bologna" came in. This personage is mentioned frequently by Domenichi as a sayer and doer of eccentricities and droll things; but I have not succeeded in finding any account of him; and think it probable that "L'Humore" may may have been one of those nick-names which the Italians are so fond of bestowing on one another. He at once showed himself to be quite at home, says Ludovico, laid aside his cloak; and entering into the conversation, gave it as his opinion that Petrarch had served the verses of his predecessors as Spaniards serve the cloaks, which they steal in the night; put fresh ornaments and trimmings on them, so that when they appear in them the next day, they are no longer recognisable. Upon which a Spaniard, who chanced to be among the company, attempted to call "L'Humore" to account for this insulting mention of his countrymen. "What!" cried the wit, "is your Excellency a Spaniard? Boy, bring me my cloak

* Facetie, Motti, e Burle, Raccolte per M. L. Domenichi. Venetia, 1588.

VOL. II.

C

directly!" And so saying, he put it on, and wrapped it closely round him, as he sat, to the infinite amusement, says Domenichi, of the assembled company.

After the death of that mysterious phantom, her husband, says Zilioli, Tullia left Rome in search of "fresh fields and pastures new." We can only know that this was after 1540. But it must have been much after this that she took up her residence in Florence. For the same writer tells us, that she was then both in years and appearance pretty nearly an old woman. * In 1562 she was, according to the date we have assigned to her birth, only fifty-two or three, or thereabouts. And she must have resided in Florence several years prior to that date. For she lived there, we are told, under the patronage of Cosmo's Duchess Eleonora of Toledo, who died in that year. So that she could not have been much more than half-way between forty and fifty, when she appeared to be "half an old woman."

Supposing her to have gone to Florence about 1555, and to have left Rome not long after 1540, there is a space of some twelve or fifteen years, during which we very nearly lose all sight of her.

Very nearly, but not quite; for we hear of long residences at Venice and Ferrara; and can trace her to Bologna by a phrase in an epigram too coarsely abusive to be reproduced, which Pasquin fired after her when she quitted Rome. Little cared the brilliant poetesserrant for pasquinades let off behind her back, while her course from one pleasure-loving court to another was tracked, as Zilioli writes, by "an infinite number of lovers, especially among the poets, who pursued her

"Mezza Vecchia."

A SONNET BY HER.

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like a pack of greyhounds, striving to bring her down by volleys of odes and sonnets," to which our not insensible Sappho was ready enough to reply in similar strain.

Here, as a specimen of "her make," as the Italians say, is a sonnet addressed by her to Pietro Manelli, of Florence, who was one of her most devoted slaves: "Qual vaga Filomena, che fuggita

È dall' odiata gabbia, ed in superba
Vista sen va tra gli arboscelli e l'erba
Tornata in libertate, e lieta vita;
Ed io dagli amorosi lacci uscita,
Schernendo ogni martir, e pena acerba
Dell' incredibil duol, che in se riserba
Qual ha per troppo amar l'alma smarrita;
Ben avev' io ritolte, ahi stella fiera!

Dal tempio di Ciprigna le mie spoglie
E di lor premio me n'andava altera.
Quando a me Amor; le tue ritrose voglie
Muterò, disse; e femmi prigioniera

Di tua virtù, per rinovar mie doglie."

Which may be Englished as follows, without, it is to be hoped, any very cruel injury to the original:

"As when from her abhorr'd captivity

Fair Philomel hath fled, and proudly takes

Her way through grassy meads and bushy brakes
Restored to joyous life and liberty;

So I, from amorous bonds escaping free,

All torment scorning, and the poignant aches
Of grief untold, which too much loving makes
The doom of such, as love-bewilder'd be,
Had borne (alas! my hapless stars!) away
My garments from the Cyprian Goddess' shrine
Proud of the feat, when Love to me did say,
'I will transform that stubborn will of thine;'
And so he made me captive to thy power,

Renewing all my torments from that hour."

This sonnet is not worse than thousands of other such, which obtained for their fabricators the name and reputation of poets in that age of vaunted intel

lectual movement; and it is certainly better than the majority of them.

And thus our brilliant Aspasia of the renaissance fluttered from court to court, everywhere received with open arms, everywhere the cynosure of all eyes, everywhere the centre of a knot of poets and littérateurs; and flashing off her sonnets and canzonets right and left; now as offerings to be laid at the feet of some most illustrious duke or duchess, and now in loving or saucy requital of those addressed to her by her brethren of the guild.

But as

"All that's bright must fade,
The brightest still the fleetest,"

the inexorable years too soon brought poor Tullia to that period of "half old-womanhood," as Zilioli so uncourteously terms it, which must have nearly coincided with the date assigned by grave Mazzuchelli to that period of "flourishing," which, it is to be feared, the "half-old woman would have fixed some five-and

twenty years earlier.

And what was to be done by a brilliant Apollochartered Aspasia, when fallen into half old-womanhood?

CHAPTER III.

"ALL'S WELL, THAT ENDS WELL."

ONE of two alternatives only, according to the wellknown dictum of a judicious French philosopher, could be adopted by any Aspasia or other "charming woman" whatsoever, when brought to that pass. She must either take to cards, or "enter into devotion." Such would seem, according to the authority alluded to, to be the law of nature, which rules the destinies of charming women whose charms have gone from them. Tullia appears to have chosen the latter alternative, and established herself permanently at Florence under the special protection of the pious Duchess Eleonora di Toledo.

The times were changed, too, in Italy, since the days of Tullia's youth. Life in Rome, and hence in a somewhat less degree also in the other centres of the peninsula, was very different under Popes Paul IV. and Pius IV., from what it had been under Leo X., Clement VII., or Paul III. Devotion was now the mode, especially in courts. Princes had begun to

understand, that the cause of despotism was bound up with that of sacerdotal tyranny; and that reform in matters ecclesiastical went hand in hand with freedom in matters secular. Popes and kings had become aware, that their fight against mankind could only be carried

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