by patricians, not for the purpose of righting his
own order, but for playing the pander to the worst interests of theirs.
He who is of the people but makes himself a traitor to his birth, if he
furnishes the excuse for these tyrant hypocrites to lift up their hands
and cry--'See what liberty exists in Rome, when we, the patricians, thus
elevate a plebeian!' Did they ever elevate a plebeian if he sympathized
with plebeians? No, brother; should I be lifted above our condition, I
will be raised by the arms of my countrymen, and not upon their necks."

"All I hope, is, Cola, that you will not, in your zeal for your
fellow-citizens, forget how dear you are to us. No greatness could ever
reconcile me to the thought that it brought you danger."

"And I could laugh at all danger, if it led to greatness. But
greatness--greatness! Vain dream! Let us keep it for our night sleep.
Enough of my plans; now, dearest brother, of yours."

And, with the sanguine and cheerful elasticity which belonged to him,
the young Cola, dismissing all wilder thoughts, bent his mind to listen,
and to enter into, the humbler projects of his brother. The new boat and
the holiday dress, and the cot removed to a quarter more secure from the
oppression of the barons, and such distant pictures of love as a dark
eye and a merry lip conjure up to the vague sentiments of a boy;--to
schemes and aspirations of which such objects made the limit, did the
scholar listen, with a relaxed brow and a tender smile; and often, in
later life, did that conversation occur to him, when he shrank from
asking his own heart which ambition was the wiser.

"And then," continued the younger brother, "by degrees I might save
enough to purchase such a vessel as that which we now see, laden,
doubtless, with corn and merchandise, bringing--oh, such a good
return--that I could fill your room with books, and never hear you
complain that you were not rich enough to purchase some crumbling old
monkish manuscript. Ah, that would make me so happy!" Cola smiled as he
pressed his brother closer to his breast.

"Dear boy," said he, "may it rather be mine to provide for your wishes!
Yet methinks the masters of yon vessel have no enviable possession,
see how anxiously the men look round, and behind, and before: peaceful
traders though they be, they fear, it seems, even in this city (once the
emporium of the civilised world), some pirate in pursuit; and ere the
voyage be over, they may find t