f the
Italian noble were united. Passionately addicted to the cultivation
of letters, subtle and profound in policy, gentle and bland of manner,
dignifying a love of pleasure with a certain elevation of taste, he yet
possessed a gallantry of conduct, and purity of honour, and an
aversion from cruelty, which were then very rarely found in the Italian
temperament, and which even the Chivalry of the North, while maintaining
among themselves, usually abandoned the moment they came into contact
with the systematic craft and disdain of honesty, which made the
character of the ferocious, yet wily, South. With these qualities he
combined, indeed, the softer passions of his countrymen,--he adored
Beauty, and he made a deity of Love.

He had but a few weeks returned to his native city, whither his
reputation had already preceded him, and where his early affection for
letters and gentleness of bearing were still remembered. He returned to
find the position of Rienzi far more altered than his own. Adrian had
not yet sought the scholar. He wished first to judge with his own eyes,
and at a distance, of the motives and object of his conduct; for partly
he caught the suspicions which his own order entertained of Rienzi, and
partly he shared in the trustful enthusiasm of the people.

"Certainly," said he now to himself, as he walked musingly onward,
"certainly, no man has it more in his power to reform our diseased
state, to heal our divisions, to awaken our citizens to the
recollections of ancestral virtue. But that very power, how dangerous
is it! Have I not seen, in the free states of Italy, men, called into
authority for the sake of preserving the people, honest themselves at
first, and then, drunk with the sudden rank, betraying the very cause
which had exalted them? True, those men were chiefs and nobles; but are
plebeians less human? Howbeit I have heard and seen enough from afar,--I
will now approach, and examine the man himself."

While thus soliloquizing, Adrian but little noted the various
passengers, who, more and more rarely as the evening waned, hastened
homeward. Among these were two females, who now alone shared with Adrian
the long and gloomy street into which he had entered. The moon was
already bright in the heavens, and, as the women passed the cavalier
with a light and quick step, the younger one turned back and regarded
him by the clear light with an eager, yet timid glance.

"Why dost thou tremble, my pretty o