d to him, the old race
of Kings having perished out,--the last of them far too suddenly "at
Olmutz," as we saw lately! Some opposition there was, but much more
favor especially by the Bohemian People; and the point, after some small
"Siege of Prag" and the like, was definitely carried by the Kaiser. The
now Burggraf of Nurnberg, Friedrich IV., son of Rudolf's friend, was
present at this Siege of Prag; [1310 (Rentsch, p. 311).] a Burggraf much
attached to Kaiser Henry, as all good Germans were. But the Kaiser did
not live.

He went to Italy, our Burggraf of Nurnberg and many more along with him,
to pull the crooked Guelf-Ghibelline Facts and Avignon Pope a little
straight, if possible; and was vigorously doing it, when he died on
a sudden; "poisoned in sacramental wine," say the Germans! One of the
crowning summits of human scoundrelism, which painfully stick in the
mind. It is certain he arrived well at Buonconvento near Sienna, on
the 24th September, 1313, in full march towards the rebellious King of
Naples, whom the Pope much countenanced. At Buonconvento, Kaiser Henry
wished to enjoy the communion; and a Dominican monk, whose dark rat-eyed
look men afterwards bethought them of, administered it to him in both
species (Council of Trent not yet quite prohibiting the liquid species,
least of all to Kaisers, who are by theory a kind of "Deacons to the
Pope," or something else [Voltaire, _Essai sur les Moeurs,_ c. 67,??
Henri VII. _OEuvres,_ xxi. 184).]);--administered it in both species:
that is certain, and also that on the morrow Henry was dead. The
Dominicans endeavored afterwards to deny; which, for the credit of human
nature, one wishes they had done with effect. [Kohler, p. 281 (Ptolemy
of Lucca,) himself a Dominican, is one of the ACCUSING spirits: Muratori,
l. xi.?? _Ptolomaeus Lucensis,_ A.D. 1313).] But there was never any
trial had; the denial was considered lame; and German History continues
to shudder, in that passage, and assert. Poisoned in the wine of his
sacrament: the Florentines, it is said, were at the bottom of it, and
had hired the rat-eyed Dominican;--_"O Italia, O Firenze!"_ That is not
the way to achieve Italian Liberty, or Obedience to God; that is the way
to confirm, as by frightful stygian oath, Italian Slavery, or continual
Obedience, under varying forms, to the Other Party! The voice of Dante,
then alive among men, proclaims, sad and loving as a mother's voice,
and implacable as a voice of Do