is popularity, which is his power, out of
mere compassion to one who has never courted nor applauded him, without
receiving, in return, some compensation. If you accept his benefits, you
must forward his counsels, you must promote his designs. Say, will you
swear?"

"Yes! yes! we swear!" was the general response.

"Students of Bologna!" he proceeded, elevating his voice. "I accept this
mark of your friendship. For my sake you have promised to swear. Now hear
the oath I propose, and to which I bind you. This man offers me my life,
and the price of it is--the liberty of Bologna! Fellow students, Romeo de'
Pepoli aims at the tyranny. Swear that you will never, on any condition,
for any boon, aid him in his flagitious enterprise; that you will thwart,
and resist, and combat it to the utmost. Swear that you will, at all
times, reject his mediation--as I now reject, utterly and with scorn, the
service that he proffers me. I unmask him to you ere I die. I, too, have
lived for one good purpose. This man, my friends, would be tyrant of
Bologna--swear, to me that he shall _not_!"

There was a pause of a few seconds. But it was soon evident that the noble
spirit--of patriotism and of self-sacrifice--of their admired friend, had
found a genuine response in all his hearers. He had touched the true
chord. Carried forward by his disinterested enthusiasm, and pledged by the
promise he, had somewhat artfully extorted from them, they rose, and with
one voice repeated the oath proposed to, them. Pepoli, pale and aghast,
and utterly confounded, and catching here and there the flashing of the
half-drawn steel, made a precipitate retreat. Of all the assembly,
Petrarch alone remained silent--he alone failed, or forgot, to take the
oath;--full of concern for the safety of his noble friend, full of
admiration for his greatness, he fell weeping upon his neck.

CONCLUSION.

After this, there was no more hope for the prisoner. If to the anger of
the Bolognese was added the determined enmity of Romeo de' Pepoli, now
resolved on his destruction, from what quarter could a ray of hope
proceed? He was even now removed--such was the influence which the new
enemy he had provoked possessed over the Podesta--to the common prison,
and treated in all respects like a condemned malefactor. The university
pleaded its privilege to judge a member of their own body, but the angry
feeling of the citizens would not permit them for a moment to listen to
this p