_Filippo._ But there knelt Lucrezia! there she knelt! first looking with devotion at the Madonna, then with admiring wonder and grateful delight at the artist. Could so little a heart be divided? 'Twere a pity! There was enough for me; there is never enough for the Madonna. Resolving on a sudden that the object of my love should be the object of adoration to thousands, born and unborn, I swept my brush across the maternal face, and left a blank in heaven. The little girl screamed; I pressed her to my bosom. _Eugenius._ In the chapel? _Filippo._ I knew not where I was; I thought I was in Paradise. _Eugenius._ If it was not in the chapel, the sin is venial. But a brush against a Madonna's mouth is worse than a beard against her votary's. _Filippo._ I thought so too, Holy Father! _Eugenius._ Thou sayest thou hast forty zecchins; I will try in due season to add forty more. The fisherman must not venture to measure forces with the pirate. Farewell! I pray God my son Filippo, to have thee alway in His holy keeping. FOOTNOTE: [9] Little boys, wearing clerical habits, are often called _abbati_. TASSO AND CORNELIA _Tasso._ She is dead, Cornelia! she is dead! _Cornelia._ Torquato! my Torquato! after so many years of separation do I bend once more your beloved head to my embrace? _Tasso._ She is dead! _Cornelia._ Tenderest of brothers! bravest and best and most unfortunate of men! What, in the name of heaven, so bewilders you? _Tasso._ Sister! sister! sister! I could not save her. _Cornelia._ Certainly it was a sad event; and they who are out of spirits may be ready to take it for an evil omen. At this season of the year the vintagers are joyous and negligent. _Tasso._ How! What is this? _Cornelia._ The little girl was crushed, they say, by a wheel of the car laden with grapes, as she held out a handful of vine-leaves to one of the oxen. And did you happen to be there at the moment? _Tasso._ So then the little too can suffer! the ignorant, the indigent, the unaspiring! Poor child! She was kind-hearted, else never would calamity have befallen her. _Cornelia._ I wish you had not seen the accident. _Tasso._ I see it? I? I saw it not. No other is crushed where I am. The little girl died for her kindness! Natural death! _Cornelia._ Be calm, be composed, my brother! _Tasso._ You would not require me to be composed or calm if you comprehended a thousandth part of my sufferings. _Cornelia._ Peace! peace! we know them all. _Tasso._ Who has dared to name them? Imprisonment, derision, madness. _Cornelia._ Hush! sweet Torquato! If ever these existed, they are past. _Tasso._ You do think they are sufferings? ay? _Cornelia._ Too surely. _Tasso._ No, not too surely: I will not have that answer. They would have been; but Leonora was then living. Unmanly as I am! did I complain of them? and while she was left me?