ran riot, and yet only gave birth to beauty;--all its shapes, of
poetry,--all its airs, the melodies of Arcady and Olympus! The Golden
Age never leaves the world: it exists still, and shall exist, till love,
health, poetry, are no more; but only for the young!

If I now dwell, though but for a moment, on this interlude in a drama
calling forth more masculine passions than that of love, it is because
I foresee that the occasion will but rarely recur. If I linger on the
description of Irene and her hidden affection, rather than wait for
circumstances to portray them better than the author's words can, it is
because I foresee that that loving and lovely image must continue to the
last rather a shadow than a portrait,--thrown in the background, as is
the real destiny of such natures, by bolder figures and more gorgeous
colours; a something whose presence is rather felt than seen, and whose
very harmony with the whole consists in its retiring and subdued repose.

Chapter 1.VIII. The Enthusiastic Man Judged by the Discreet Man.

"Thou wrongest me," said Rienzi, warmly, to Adrian, as they sat alone,
towards the close of a long conference; "I do not play the part of a
mere demagogue; I wish not to stir the great deeps in order that my
lees of fortune may rise to the surface. So long have I brooded over the
past, that it seems to me as if I had become a part of it--as if I
had no separate existence. I have coined my whole soul into one master
passion,--and its end is the restoration of Rome."

"But by what means?"

"My Lord! my Lord! there is but one way to restore the greatness of a
people--it is an appeal to the people themselves. It is not in the power
of princes and barons to make a state permanently glorious; they
raise themselves, but they raise not the people with them. All great
regenerations are the universal movement of the mass."

"Nay," answered Adrian, "then have we read history differently. To
me, all great regenerations seem to have been the work of the few, and
tacitly accepted by the multitude. But let us not dispute after the
manner of the schools. Thou sayest loudly that a vast crisis is at hand;
that the Good Estate (buono stato) shall be established. How? where are
your arms?--your soldiers? Are the nobles less strong than heretofore?
Is the mob more bold, more constant? Heaven knows that I speak not with
the prejudices of my order--I weep for the debasement of my country! I
am a Roman, and in that