"I am the sole survivor of one of the most illustrious families in Florence. My father was Leone di Montalto; and my mother was of the persecuted and noble race of the Albizi. They are both deceased; and I remain a solitary mourner, their first and only child. My mother died the day after my birth, and my father grieved for her long and sincerely; but the lapse of years, and frequent absences from Florence in the naval service of the state, healed his wounded spirit; and in an evil hour he became deeply enamoured of Isabella, third daughter of Cosmo de' Medici, the tyrant of unhappy Florence. She was the wife of Paul Orsini, the Roman, who, without any formal repudiation, had abandoned her, and resided entirely in Rome. This extraordinary woman was distinguished throughout Italy for personal beauty and rare intellectual accomplishment. Her conversation not only sparkled with wit, grace, and vivacity, but was full of knowledge and originality; and her great natural powers had been so highly cultivated, that she conversed with fluency in French, Spanish, and even in Latin. She performed with skill on various instruments--sang like a Siren, and was an admirable improvisatrice. Thus highly gifted and adorned by nature and education, she was the idol of Cosmo, and ruled his court like a presiding goddess. Her time and her affections being unoccupied, she did not discourage the attentions of my father, who was one of the most elegant and accomplished men of his time, and blended the grace of a courtier with the free and gallant bearing of a distinguished commander. The dormant sensibilities of Isabella were soon awakened by the enthusiastic fervour of his attachment; and their secret intelligence had subsisted some time, when it was discovered by the jealous and vindictive Cosmo. My unfortunate parent was immediately arrested and imprisoned, but effected his escape, fled to Venice, and from thence to the Levant. His estates were confiscated under the pretext of treasonable practices; and I found a refuge and a home under the roof of my widowed aunt, Veronica Della Torre. "The heartless and meretricious Isabella relinquished my father without a sigh, or a struggle to save him, and consoled herself with court-pageantry, and a succession of new lovers, many of whom were sacrificed by her cunning and ruthless father. As a selfish voluptuary, and the destroyer of his country's liberty, Cosmo has been compared with Augustus; but in gratuitous and deliberate cruelty, he far surpasses his prototype. "I was indebted to neglect and accident for the best of all XXXX educations. My father loved and cherished me; but his domestic calamity, his frequent absences from Florence, and, subsequently, his pursuit of Isabella, interfered with the customary course of education, and saved me from the despotism of a regular tutor, and from the debasing tyranny, the selfish and vulgar profligacy, of those institutions of monkery called public academies.