“Let their front windows at six dollars each:
“Anguisciola, that patron of the arts,
“Hired one; our Envoy Contarini too.
“Gone forth,—’tis four-and-twenty hours ago,—
“Than Acciaioli and Panciatichi, (120)
“Old friends, indeed compatriots of the man,
“Being pitched on as the couple properest
“To intimate the sentence yesternight,
“Were closeted ere cock-crow with the Count.
“They both report their efforts to dispose
“The unhappy nobleman for ending well,
“Despite the natural sense of injury,
“Were crowned at last with a complete success:
“And when the Company of Death arrived
“At twenty-hours,—the way they reckon here,— (130)
“We say, at sunset, after dinner-time,—
“The Count was led down, hoisted up on car,
“Last of the five, as heinousest, you know:
“Yet they allowed one whole car to each man.
“His intrepidity, nay, nonchalance,
“As up he stood and down he sat himself,
“Struck admiration into those who saw.
“Then the procession started, took the way
“From the New Prisons by the Pilgrim’s Street,
“The street of the Governo, Pasquin’s Street, (140)
“(Where was stuck up, ’mid other epigrams,
“A quatrain … but of all that, presently!)
“The Place Navona, the Pantheon’s Place,
“Place of the Column, last the Corso’s length,
“And so debouched thence at Mannaia’s foot
“I’ the Place o’ the People. As is evident,
“(Despite the malice,—plainly meant, I fear,
“By this abrupt change of locality,—
“The Square’s no such bad place to head and hang)
“We had the titillation as we sat (150)
“Assembled, (quality in conclave, ha?)
“Of, minute after minute, some report
“How the slow show was winding on its way.
“Now did a car run over, kill a man,
“Just opposite a pork-shop numbered Twelve:
“And bitter were the outcries of the mob
“Against the Pope: for, but that he forbids
“The Lottery, why, twelve were Tern Quatern!
“Now did a beggar by Saint Agnes, lame
“From his youth up, recover use of leg, (160)
“Through prayer of Guido as he glanced that way:
“So that the crowd near crammed his hat with coin.
“Thus was kept up excitement to the last,
“—Not an abrupt out-bolting, as of yore,
“From Castle, over Bridge and on to block,
“And so all ended ere you well could wink!
“Here also, as atrociousest in crime.
“We hardly noticed how the peasants died,
“They dangled somehow soon to right and left, (170)
“And we remained all ears and eyes, could give
“Ourselves to Guido undividedly,
“As he harangued the multitude beneath.
“He begged forgiveness on the part of God,
“And fair construction of his act from men,
“Whose suffrage he entreated for his soul,
“Suggesting that we should forthwith repeat
“A Pater and an Ave, with the hymn
“Salve Regina Cœli, for his sake.
“Which said, he turned to the confessor, crossed (180)
“And reconciled himself, with decency,
“Oft glancing at Saint Mary’s opposite
“Where they possess, and showed in shrine to-day,
“The Blessed Umbilicus of our Lord,
“(A relic ’tis believed no other church
“In Rome can boast of)—then rose up, as brisk
“Knelt down again, bent head, adapted neck,
“And, with the name of Jesus on his lips,
“Received the fatal blow.
“The head to the populace. Must I avouch
“We strangers own to disappointment here?
“Report pronounced him fully six feet high,
“Youngish, considering his fifty years,
“And, if not handsome, dignified at least.
“Indeed, it was no face to please a wife!
“His friends say, this was caused by the costume:
“He wore the dress he did the murder in,
“That is, a just-a-corps of russet serge,
“Black camisole, coarse cloak of baracan (200)
“(So they style here the garb of goat’s-hair cloth)
“White hat and cotton cap beneath, poor Count,
“Preservative against the evening dews
“During the journey from Arezzo. Well,
“So died the man, and so his end was peace;
“Whence many a moral were to meditate.
“Spada,—you may bet Dandolo,—is Pope!
“Now for the quatrain!”
You’ve sputtered into sparks. What streak comes next? (210)
A letter: Don Giacinto Arcangeli,
Doctor and Proctor, him I made you mark
Buckle to business in his study late,
The virtuous sire, the valiant for the truth,
Acquaints his correspondent,—Florentine,
By name Cencini, advocate as well,
Socius and brother-in-the-devil to match,—
A friend of Franceschini, anyhow,
And knit up with the bowels of the case,—
Acquaints him, (in this paper that I touch) (220)
How their joint effort to obtain reprieve
For Guido had so nearly nicked the nine
And ninety and one over,—he would say,
At Tarocs,—or succeeded,—in our phrase.
To this Cencini’s care I owe the Book,
The yellow thing I take and toss once more
—How will it be, my four-years’-intimate,
When thou and I part company anon?—
’Twas he, the “whole position of the case,”
Pleading and summary, were put before; (230)
Discreetly in my Book he bound them all,
Adding some three epistles to the point.
Here is the first of these, part fresh as penned,
The
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