Antonina; Or, The Fall of Rome

by a visit to its shady walks, and by breathing its fragrant breezes? Amid the solemn mournfulness that reigns over declining Rome, this delightful elevation rises light, airy, and inv

es the mind as a place set apart by common consent for the presence of the innocent and the

restored them in all their pristine loveliness. The old Romans called it 'The Mount of Gardens'. Throughout the disasters of the Empire and the conv

s and its theatres, such a glowing prospect of artificial splendour, aided by natural beauty, might be spread before the reader as would tax his credulity, while it excited his astonishment. This task, however, it

mall but elegantly built house, surrounded by a little garden of its own, and protected at the back by the lofty groves and outbuildings of the pa

n determined to abandon his inheritance, and to sell it to another; but, at the repeated entreaties of his daughter, he at length consented to change his purpose, and sacrifice his antipathy to his luxurious neighbours to his child's youthful attachment to the beauties of Nature as displayed in his legacy on the Pincian Mount. In this instance only did the natural affec

ount. From the garden of Numerian the irregular buildings of the great suburbs of Rome, the rich undulating country beyond, and the long ranges of mountains in the distance, are now all visible in the soft and luxurious light. Near the spot which command

inate other objects. First they display a small, white arm; then a light, simple robe; then a fair, graceful neck; and finall

roduced, she glances anxiously around her, apparently fearful of being overheard. Her large, dark, lustrous eyes have in them an expression of apprehension; her delicate lips are half parted; a sudden flush rises in her soft, olive complexion as she examines every corner of the garden. Having completed her survey without discovering any cause for the suspicions she seems to entertain, she again employs herself over her instrument. Once more she strikes the chords, and now with a bolder hand. The notes she produces resolve themselves into a wild, plaintive, irregular melody, alternatel

IGIN O

hose domi

's thrilli

be thy di

empted the

listen:

ion's ea

mid the st

sic of th

hin the real

is mortal p

owards they

filled my

had watche

igh to sin

gression ne

my nativ

ternly ba

to the wo

I

re, I kne

darkness rou

heard me in

isteners wh

of the Sprin

ng round me,

mphs sported

ng Echo le

oe and wri

at my gen

y, with foo

estle at

used, deli

ss'd me f

I

e years of

ill to eart

ugh each di

come, ev

'd, my sola

st hopes are

et gift!-to c

ts other joy

withers a

ast me lov

at mortals

shake my g

mine all he

rnity

her, dwelling tenderly upon the fragrant flower-beds that were the work of her own hands, and looking forth with an expression half reverential, half ecstatic over the long, smooth, shining plains, and the still, glorious mountains, that had so long been the inspiration of her most cherished thoughts, and that now glowed before her eyes, soft and beautiful as her dreams on he

nce was to be one long acquaintance with mortal woe, one unvaried refusal of mortal pleasure, whose thoughts were to be only of sermons and fasts, whose action were to be confined to the bindi

, poetry, painting, and music, gold, silver, and precious stones, which the ancient fathers had composed for the benefit of the submissive congregations of former days; vainly did she imagine, during those long hours of theological instruction, that her heart's forbidden longings were banished and destroyed-that her patient and childlike disposition was bowed in complete subserviency to the most rigorous of her father's commands. No sooner were her interviews with Numerian concluded than the prompt

affections from pining in the solitude imposed on them, and which occupied her lei

an Mount, and received its rapturous gratification in the first audible sounds from the Roman senator's lute. How her possession of an instrument, and her skill in playing, were subsequently gained, the reader already knows from Vetranio's narrative at Ravenna. Could the frivolous senator have discovered the real intensity of the emotions his art was raising in his pupil's bosom while he taught her; could he have imagined how incessantly, during their lessons, her sense of duty struggled with her love for music-how completely she was absorbed, one moment by an agony of doubt and fear, another by an ecstasy of enjoyment and hope-he would have felt little of that astonishment at her coldness towards himself which he so warmly expressed at his interview with Julia in the gardens of the Court. In

hened-such is the creative power of human emotion-by that inestimable possession. She could speak to it, smile on it, caress it, and believe, in the ecstasy of her delight, in the carelessness of her self-delusion, that it sympathised with her joy. During her long solitudes, when she was silently watched in her father's absence by the brooding, melancholy stranger whom he had set over her, it became a companion dearer than the flower-garden, dearer even that the plains and mountains which formed her favourite view. When her father ret

uter world of passing interests and events by the appearances of another figure on the scene. We left Antonina in

s shrivelled cheeks. His dry, matted hair has been burnt by the sun into a strange tawny brown. His expression is one of fixed, stern, mournful thought. As he steps stealthily along, advancing towards Antonina, he mutters to himself, and clutches mechanica

to regain his accustomed post before his master's return, for he was the same individual mentioned by

few paces of the girl he stopped,

y-Numerian is

into her cheeks; she hastily covered the lute with her robe; paused an instant, as if

r in the hall. There was now no chance o

y, upon his beautiful daughter as she stood by his side. 'But what affects you?' he added, notici

ck eye discovered it immediately. He snatched the instrument from her feeble grasp. His astonishment on beholding it was too great f

libertines in my house-in my daughter's possession!'

of all her happiest expectations for future days. Then, as she began to estimate the reality of her depri

g convulsively, over those hapless fragments. 'To your cham

room that no lute was henceforth to occupy, as she thought on the morrow that no lute was henceforth to enliven, her grief almost overpowered h

terated sternly. 'Am I to

nstantly retired. As soon as she was out of sight, Ulpiu

I have so carefully cherished, whom I intended for

nfortunate lute; but Ulpius did not address to

l interrogate my disobedient child. In the meantime, do not imagine, Ulpius, that I connect you in any way wi

have remarked that a faint sinister smile was breaking forth upon his haggard countenance. But Numerian's indignation was s

my exhortations-on this night I am doomed to find her a player on a pagan lute, a possessor of the most wanton of the world's vanities! God give me patience to

k with a sudden recollection, he stopped abru

riend, over my house; for even now, on my return, I thought that two strangers were following my steps, and I forebode some evil in store f

e outrage that had been offered to his gloomy fanaticism, as the weak, ti

staircase near him which led to some subterranean apartments. He had not gone far when a slight noise became audible at an extremity of the corridor above. As he listened

rful of being overheard) until she gained the part of the floor still strewn with the ruins of the broken lute. Here she knelt down, and pressed each fragment that

gazing after her from his concealment as she disappeared; '