“‘So Gossip did its worst for these poor souls. The bishop made the priest appear before him, And, as a power who destiny controls, Informed him clearly he had hell before him, And if he would preserve the priestly stole, {203a} Must leave his woman—or else lose his soul! “‘Now had this man had money, or if he, Like many of his calling, had been bold With worldly air, then all this misery Might have been ’scaped as one escapes the cold By putting on a sheepskin, warm and fine; But then hypocrisy was not his line. “‘His love was now a mother, and the truth Woke in him such a deep and earnest love, That he would not have left her though in sooth He had been summoned by the Power above; And so the interdict was soon applied, But on that day both child and mother died. “‘She, poor weak thing, could not endure the strain, So flickered out, and all within a day; And then the priest, without apparent pain, Began mysteriously to waste away, And, shadow-like and silent as a mouse, Men saw him steal into, or from, the house. “‘And thinner still and paler yet he grew, With every day some life from him seemed gone, And all aghast, though living, men still knew He had become a literal skeleton; And so he died—in some world less severe Than this to join the one he held so dear. {203b} “‘Yet no one knew when ’twas he passed away Out of that shadowy form and ’scaped life’s power, For still ’twas seen beneath the moon’s pale ray, Or gliding through the court at twilight hour. But there it still is seen—and so it came The Via del Scheletro got its name.’” There is not a word of all this which is “Protestant invention,” for though I have poetised or written up a very rude text, the narrative is strictly as I received it. There is one point in it worth noticing, that it is a matter of very general conviction in Italy that in such matters of Church discipline as are involved in this story, it is the small flies who are caught in the web, while the great ones burst buzzing through it without harm, or that the weak and poor (who are very often those with the best hearts and principles) are most cruelly punished, where a bold, sensual, vulgar _frate_ makes light of and easily escapes all accusations. There is something sadly and strangely affecting in the conception of a simply good and loving nature borne down by the crush of the world and misapplied morality—or clerical celibacy—into total wretchedness—a diamond dissolved to air. One in reading this seems to hear the sad words of one who thought his own name was written in water: