There is every reason to feel satisfied, both from such records as we have of her life, and from the perfectly agreeing testimony of her contemporaries, that the tenour of her own life and conduct was not only blameless, but marked by the consistent exercise of many noble virtues. But, much as we hear from the lamentations of preachers of the habitual tendency of human conduct to fall short of human professions, the opposite phenomena exhibited by men, whose intuitive moral sense is superior to the teaching derivable from their creed, is perhaps quite as common. That band of eminent men, who were especially known as the maintainers and defenders of the peculiar tenets held by Vittoria, were unquestionably in all respects the best and noblest of their age and country. Yet their creed was assuredly an immoral one. And in the rare passages of our poetess's writings, in which a glimpse of moral theory can be discerned, the low and unenlightened nature of it is such, as to prove, that the heaven-taught heart reached purer heights than the creed-taught intelligence could attain. What could be worse, for instance, than the morality of the following conclusion of a sonnet, in which she has been lamenting the blindness of those who sacrifice eternal bliss for the sake of worldly pleasures. She writes:— "Poichè 'l mal per natura non gli annoia, E del ben per ragion piacer non hanno, Abbian almen di Dio giusto timore." In English:— "Since evil by its nature pains them not, Nor good for its own proper sake delights, Let them at least have righteous fear of God." She appears incapable of understanding, that no fear of God could in any wise avail to improve or profit him, who has no aversion from evil, and no love for good. She does not perceive, that to inculcate so godless a fear of God, is to make the Creator a mere bugbear for police purposes; and that a theory of Deity constructed on this basis would become a degrading demonolatry! Vittoria Colonna has survived in men's memory as a poetess. But she is far more interesting to the historical student, who would obtain a full understanding of that wonderful sixteenth century, as a Protestant. Her highly gifted and richly cultivated intelligence, her great social position, and above all, her close intimacy with the eminent men who strove to set on foot an Italian reformation which should not be incompatible with the Papacy, make the illustration of her religious opinions a matter of no slight historical interest. And the bulk of the citations from her works has accordingly been selected with this view. But it is fair to her reputation to give one sonnet at least, chosen for no other reason than its merit. The following, written apparently on the anniversary of our Saviour's crucifixion, is certainly one of the best, if not the best in the collection: