supplied with fresh flowers each day. Godfrid, becoming passionately in love, proposes marriage to Olympia, who consents on condition that Godfrid shall openly and actively renew the faith of his childhood. In the hope that some solution may be found for his spiritual doubts, Olympia, suggests that he shall visit Milan and consult a reverend father in that place who had once been her own spiritual instructor. They perform the journey together, but Godfrid is unable to overcome his conscientious scruples, and Olympia refuses to marry him except he comply absolutely with the conditions upon which she had insisted in the first instance. They then separate, and Godfrid visits Florence, where he becomes interested in the struggles of the 'Young Italy' party, and returning to Spiaggiascura finds that Olympia has joined the Sisters of Charity and left the place. On his return to Florence, he accidentally meets Olive, who informs him of the serious illness of her husband. Godfrid successfully nurses Gilbert into convalescence, when Olive suddenly dies. Gilbert and Godfrid become firm friends and spend some time together at Capri, where the former, under the tuition of the latter, begins to take an interest in Italian politics. Gilbert's interest in the Italian cause becomes intensified by a personal bias, as he has formed an ardent attachment for Miriam, an ultra-Republican, and christened 'The Orphan of the Isle.' They all three, Godfrid, Gilbert, and Miriam, link their fortunes with Garibaldi on his escape from the islet of Caprera in the latter part of 1867, and are present at the battle of Mentana. In that battle Gilbert is seriously wounded, and while in a dying condition, as it is supposed at the time, is married to Miriam in the church at Mentana, which has been extemporized into a hospital. Godfrid has been left for dead on the battle-field, where he is discovered by Olympia, who has visited it in the discharge of her duties as a Sister of Charity. He is secretly conveyed to a convent at Rome by Olympia, who nurses him back again to health. Gilbert, who recovered from his wounds, and Miriam seek Paris at the time of the formation of the Provisional Government after the surrender at Sedan, having tried in vain to persuade Godfrid to accompany them thither. Subsequently Olympia is assigned to Paris by her Supérieure, and Godfrid accompanies her as escort to the French capital. When there he tries in vain, after the city has fallen into the hands of the Commune, to persuade Gilbert and Miriam to abandon a lost and foolish cause. Gilbert refuses, insisting that it was cowardly to desert his Republican friends at such a juncture, in spite of the extremes of which they had been guilty. The knowledge that she is about to become a mother makes Miriam anxious to fly to some place of safety; but she carefully conceals her feelings from Gilbert, although making Godfrid acquainted with them. Godfrid then joins the Red Cross Legion, in

order that he may accompany Olympia on her errands of mercy, and at the same time keep a guard over his two friends. During the final sortie, in the latter part of May, 1871, when the French army succeeded in forcing an entrance into Paris, Godfrid informs Gilbert of Miriam's condition. This knowledge serves to overcome Gilbert's scruples about flight, and he accepts Godfrid's Red Cross badge, upon receiving his assurance that he is safe without it, and succeeds in making good his escape with Miriam. Godfrid, and Olympia who had accompanied him on his mission to persuade Gilbert to flee for Miriam's sake, are then killed by the final charge of the French army upon the insurgents.

NOTE II, PAGE 116. — Atalanta in Calydon is a tragedy modelled on the antique, and contains about two thousand five hundred lines. The following is the argument prefixed to the tragedy by the author.

'Althæa, daughter of Thestius and Eurythemis, Queen of Calydon, being with child of Meleager her first-born son, dreamed that she brought forth a brand burning; and upon his birth came the three Fates and prophesied of him three things, namely these: that he should have great strength of his hands, and good fortune in this life, and that he should live no longer when the brand then in the fire was consumed; wherefore his mother plucked it forth and kept it by her. And the child being a man grown sailed with Jason after the fleece of gold, and won himself great praise of all men living; and when the tribes of the north and west made war upon Ætolia, he fought against their army and scattered it. But Artemis, having at the first stirred up these tribes to war against Eneus, King of Calydon, because he had offered sacrifice to all the gods saving her alone, but her he had forgotten to honor, was yet more wroth because of the destruction of this army, and sent upon the land of Calydon a wild boar which slew many and wasted all their increase, but him could none slay, and many went against him and perished. Then were all the chief men of Greece gathered together, and among them Atalanta, daughter of Iasius, the Arcadian, a virgin; for whose sake Artemis let slay the boar, seeing she favored the maiden greatly; and Meleager having despatched it gave the spoil thereof to Atalanta, as one beyond measure enamoured of her; but the brethren of Althæa his mother, Toxeus and Plexippus, with such others as misliked that she only should bear off the praise whereas many had borne the labor, laid wait for her to take away her spoil; but Meleager fought against them and slew them: whom when Althea their sister beheld and knew to be slain of her son, she waxed for wrath and sorrow like as one mad, and taking the brand whereby the measure of her son's life was meted to him, she cast it upon a fire; and with the wasting thereof his life likewise wasted away, that

being brought back to his father's house he died in a brief space; and his mother also endured not long after for very sorrow; and this was his end, and the end of that hunting.'

NOTE 12, PAGE 121.- Memorial Verses on the death of Théophile Gautier. In this poem the author has appended the following notes explanatory of the allusions contained in the respective lines: page 28, verse 4, line 1, La Morte Amoureuse; Id., verse 5, line 1, Une Nuit de Cleopâtre; Id., verse 6, line 1, Mademoiselle de Maupin.

NOTE 13, PAGE 130.- The Prophecy of St. Oran is divided into four parts, of which Pt. I. contains forty-five stanzas, Pt. II. fortytwo, Pt. III. thirty-nine, Pt. IV. twenty-three, and is founded upon one of the legends of St. Columba, and has for its theme the Gælic proverb, Earth, earth on the mouth of Oran that he may blab no more.' The story as told in the poem is as follows: A Pictish Chieftain immediately after his baptism by St. Columba suddenly dies, and Mona, his granddaughter, is inconsolable at his loss. Oran, the youngest and most saintly of the brotherhood, tries to comfort her, but, becoming greatly fascinated with her beauty, flees from her in order to avoid temptation. St. Columba subsequently decides to build a church on the site of an ancient burying-ground in the island of Iona; but before the work is completed a Pict comes to the brotherhood with a tale of famine and fever among his people, and begs for aid. Oran is selected to accompany the Pict home, with the relief craved for, and in the course of his mission again meets Mona, and this time yields to temptation and breaks his vow. A series of accidents then retard the completion of the chapel, and St. Columba concludes that a curse rests upon the work on account of the secret sin of some member of the brotherhood. Each monk however strenuously denies that he is the guilty cause, when Mona suddenly appears in their midst and discloses her relations with Oran. In reply to the question of Columba, Oran insists that Mona's story is false, whereupon she is sentenced by Columba to be cast from a high cliff into the sea. Before the execution of the sentence Oran confesses his guilt, and he is sentenced by his Superior to be buried alive in the ancient burying-ground, on the site of which the chapel is in course of construction. Mona subsequently contrives to secretly remove the earth which covers Oran, and, when three days have elapsed since his interment, he rises from the grave and addresses the monks on their entrance into the chapel. He is then reinterred by order of Columba, and Mona in despair throws herself into the sea.

NOTE 14, PAGE 151. — Firdausi in Exile contains fifty-four stanzas, and was written as an introduction to Miss Helen Zimmern's prose para

phrase of the Shah Nameh, published as The Epic of Kings, 1883. The following is an outline of the story which is told in the poem: The Shah Mahmoud promised the Persian poet Firdausi a thousand drachms of gold for every thousand couplets which the poet should make in versifying the entire chronicles of the realm. When the task was completed, Mahmoud, at the suggestion of his cunning minister Hasan, substituted silver for gold in payment of the sixty thousand verses furnished. Firdausi, indignant at the theft involved in the substitution, distributes the silver among the persons who had brought it, although he knew that such an expression of contempt was an insult to the Shah punishable with death. Although Mahmoud overlooks the insult, Firdausi was privately warned that it would be wise to flee, and he follows the advice, having first placed in the hand of the Shah's chamberlain a sealed letter, which Mahmoud was not to open for a period of thirty days. At the expiration of that time Mahmoud opens the letter, and finds it contains a stinging satire in verse, which so enrages him that he resolves to kill the poet. Firdausi, in the mean time, having wandered from town to town, finally takes up his residence with the Caliph at Bagdad. Mahmoud, having learned of this, sends a demand to the Caliph for the immediate surrender of Firdausi, coupled with a threat of instant invasion of the Caliph's dominions in case of refusal. Firdausi, in order to avert the threatened warfare, voluntarily leaves Bagdad and seeks Tous, his native town. Mahmoud then repents of his niggardliness and anger, and sends the sixty thousand drachms in gold, as originally promised, to Firdausi, but his slaves do not reach Tous with the gold until after the poet is dead.

NOTE 15, PAGE 163. — The Disciples is a poetical history of Mazzini and his followers in their struggles for a free Italy, and was undertaken by the authoress at the suggestion of Mazzini himself. It consists of the overture and four books, as follows: The Overture contains some four hundred lines, and explains the purpose of the poem and history of its composition. Book I., Jacopo Ruffini, a monologue in rhyme of some three hundred lines, wherein the speaker is Jacopo Ruffini, one of the earliest of Mazzini's friends, and who committed suicide in his cell at Genoa in 1833, after the unsuccessful insurrection in that year of the Young Italy party, which is the theme of the monologue. Book II., Ugo Bassi, is the longest in the poem, and contains some six thousand lines. It is in form a monologue spoken by Antonio Letti, a peasant lad in an Alpine village, and the subject is the history of Ugo Bassi, a priest of the Order of Saint Barnabas. The book is divided into seven parts, and relates the various struggles of the Young Italy party from the time of the flight of Pius IX. to Gæta, shortly after the assassi

nation of his minister Rossi in November, 1848, to the capture of Rome, and overthrow of the short-lived Roman Republic by the treachery of the French General Oudinot, in July of the following year; and contains also a personal history of Ugo Bassi himself, and an account of his execution at Bologna in August, 1849, for participation in the Republican struggle at Rome. Book III., Agesilao Milano, a short monologue of twenty verses. Book IV., Baron Giovanni Nicotera, a short lyric of thirty-nine six-line verses, of which the theme is the trial and sentence of Baron Giovanni Nicotera and his followers at Salerno in 1858, for participation in the attempt undertaken at the command of Mazzini to liberate the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

NOTE 16, PAGE 189.-Sister Annunciata contains about fifteen hundred lines. It is a monologue wherein the speaker is a nun, who has been commanded by the Abbess to celebrate the first anniversary of her entrance into the Sisterhood, by an all-night vigil in the chapel of the convent.

NOTE 17, PAGE 211.-Jützi Schultheiss, a Medieval Mystic, loses her gift of trance and vision, because in a moment of anger she refuses to pray for some turbulent knights.' Author's Note.

NOTE 18, PAGE 232.-To a Young Murderess originally appeared as the prologue to Chaitivel; or, the Lays of Love Unfortunate, in the Lays of France.

NOTE 19, PAGE 237. - Lucile contains about seven thousand five hundred lines, and is divided into two parts each of which contains six cantos. The following is a brief outline of the story told in the poem : Lord Alfred Vargrave shortly before his marriage with Miss Matilda Darcy is requested by Lucile, Comtesse de Nevers, to whom he had been engaged for a short time, ten years previous, to return the letters written to him by the Comtesse during the period of their engagement. Lord Vargrave complies with the request in person, and in the course of his visit learns to regret the broken engagement and urges her to marry him. Lucile, although loving Vargrave sincerely, refuses on the ground that he is already plighted to another, and at the same time refuses another offer of marriage from a French lord, the Duke of Luvois, who attributes the refusal to Vargrave's influence over Lucile. After Vargrave's marriage with Matilda, he and his wife meet the Duke and Lucile at Ems, when Luvois, whose anger at Vargrave has not yet cooled, seeks to cause the unhappiness of Matilda by inspiring her with jealousy of Lucile, and at the same time offering to become her lover; but the plot is frustrated by