n go in the dramatic
form, and has written a pitiless play, wherein everybody goes into a
convent with the fall of the curtain. Till the reader has read this
play, he has never (properly speaking) been bored. For the happiness
of mankind, it has not been translated out of the original Italian.

From the time of the first Vincenzo's death, there are only two tragic
events which lift the character of Mantuan history above the quality
of _chronique scandaleuse_, namely, the Duke Ferdinand's repudiation
of Camilla Faa di Casale, and the sack of Mantua in 1630. The first of
these events followed close upon the demise of the splendid Vincenzo;
for his son Francesco reigned but a short time, and died, leaving a
little daughter of three years to the guardianship of her uncle,
the Cardinal Ferdinand. The law of the Mantuan succession excluded
females; and Ferdinand, dispensed from his ecclesiastical functions
by the Pope, ascended the ducal throne. In 1615, not long after his
accession, as the chronicles relate, in passing through a chamber
of the palace he saw a young girl playing upon a cithern, and being
himself young, and of the ardent temper of the Gonzagas, he fell in
love with the fair minstrel. She was the daughter of a noble servant
of the Duke, who had once been his ambassador to the court of the Duke
of Savoy, and was called Count Ardizzo Faa Monferrino di Casale; but
his Grace did not on that account hesitate to attempt corrupting her;
indeed, a courtly father of that day might well be supposed to have
few scruples that would interfere with a gracious sovereign's designs
upon his daughter. Singularly enough, the chastity of Camilla was
so well guarded that the ex-cardinal was at last forced to propose
marriage. It seems that the poor girl loved her ducal wooer; and
besides, the ducal crown was a glittering temptation, and she
consented to a marriage which, for state and family reasons, was made
secret. When the fact was bruited, it raised the wrath and ridicule
of Ferdinand's family, and the Duke's sister Margaret, Duchess of
Ferrara, had so lofty a disdain of his _mesalliance_ with an inferior,
that she drove him to desperation with her sarcasms. About this time
Camilla's father died, with strong evidences of poisoning; and the
wife being left helpless and friendless, her noble husband resorted to
the artifice of feigning that there had never been any marriage, and
thus sought to appease his family. Unhappily, howev