to the public. The spirit in which it is written is indeed that of a past age-the very title of the original work (Conjuration de Nicolas Gabrini, dit de Rienzi, tyran de Rome) denotes a foregone conclusion. But the reader who shall turn to it warm with enthusiasm from Mr. Bulwer's splendid prose epic, will be in a right temper to judge of the man by his actions, and not by the comments of a biographer.

THE

CONSPIRACY OF GABRINI.

BOOK I.

THE scenes which passed at Rome within the space of seven years, from 1347 to 1354, and which drew the attention of all Europe, formed by their continuity a sort of tragi-comedy so singular, as was never acted on the theatre of the world; none ever came up to it either in regard to its causes and courses, its circumstances and plot, or its success and discovery. Conspiracies bear in general an exact resemblance in history; every where the same foundation; every where the same passions, the same springs, and the same artifices; there is a still more perfect resemblance to be found in particular actions; all appear framed upon the same model. Boldness, ambition, and malecontent first occasion enterprises; rage and interest bind them; secrecy and activity conduct them; and circumstances joined to measures, well or ill undertaken, generally cause them to succeed or miscarry. The many revolutions occasioned by them are brought about underhand and gradually; it must be a work of time to undermine the foundation of lawful authority at length, when an infinity of causes, : almost unperceivable, hath brought this authority either to the brink of subversion, or to a more firm establishment, it is necessary that every enterprise of this nature be carried on with a coherence agreeable to the respective parts of the actors, The conspiracy of Rienzi was widely different; the se

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cret was a small part, the conduct still less; the motion was hasty and sudden; a chimera instantly became a reality; the success was happy for the rebel, and happy also during the time, for the Sovereign. A conspiracy thus extraordinary seemed to me deserving of being more known than it had hitherto been, and I often wondered that in less than four centuries it should in a manner be buried in oblivion. The pleasure which the reading an event of such variety affords, was not my sole inducement to call to remembrance the different passages of those authors who have wrote upon it; there was an advantage to be gathered from the moral and the politics. We have seen conspirators of different geniuses attempting to make themselves masters of their party and succeed; but I know of none who has engaged in an undertaking like our present subject; it must be acknowledged, that the irregularity of the means which he made use of to accomplish his ends, was alone capable of disconcerting the most refined policy and consummate wisdom.

The personage, whose history I attempt, was not one of those heroes whose births are accompanied with predictions; the obscurity of his birth hath prevented us from knowing any thing farther relating thereto, than that he was born at Rome, of low extraction, and that his father's name was Laurence Gabrini; his mother's Magdalen; the former was a mean vintner, the latter a laundress, and that they lived afterwards near the Tiber, opposite to the St. Thomas, under the Jews' Synagogue. These circumstances seemingly trifling, are not to be omitted. Nicolas Rienzi, or Renzo, (the name he always went by) formed not his sentiments agreeable to the meanness of his extraction: he became an excellent scholar; and as he had a spirit elevated as his ideas, in a very short time he obtained the character of an extraordinary person, and merited the esteem and friendship of the celebrated Petrarch, his cotemporary! As soon as he had learned grammar and rhetoric, which improved his natural eloquence, he studied antiquity with an uncommon assiduity. Every thing he read he compared with similar passages, that occurred within his own observation, from whence he made reflections, by which he regulated his whole conduct. To all this he added a great

knowledge in the laws and customs of nations. He had a vast memory; he retained all Cicero, Valeriu: Maximus, Livy, the two Senecas, and Cæsar's Commentaries, especially, which he read continually, and often quoted by application to the events of his own time. This fund of learning proved the basis and foundation of his rise. The desire he had to distinguish himself in the knowledge of monumental history drew him to another sort science, which few men at that time exerted themselves in. He passed whole days among the inscriptions which re to be found at Rome, and acquired soon the reputation & a great antiquary in that way. But his views were not to be confined to the empty name of scholar. Arrived at an age when the ways of the world make some part of ou, reflection, he began to form ideas of reanimating the Fomans with a love of Liberty. Young as he yet was, he ad an air of gravity, which obtained him a kind of veneration, and which gave weight to the most minute of his speeches. Whenever he walked amongst the ruins of ancient Rome, he affected an ecstacy over some bust or remains of a statue, and pretending that he perceived not the crowd who were round him, "Where," said he, "are the old Romans ?Where is all their grandeur? Why lived I not in those good times?" Sometimes he expressed himself in riddles, half sentences, and intricate phrases, and all without appearance of design; he discovered not the least notice he took of the impression which his speeches made on the people who followed him his advantageous stature, his countenance, and that air of a man of importance, which he well knew how to assume, deeply imprinted all he said in the minds of his audience. His frequent repetitions of the words justice, liberty, ancient grandeur, which were continually in his mouth, made him persuade himself, as well as the giddy mob his followers, that he should one day become the restorer of the Roman Republic. Not content with a name among the populace, he had the address to gain the familiarity among the most honourable, and insinuate himself into the favour of those who were at that time in the administration. He had a brother who happened to be assassinated; satisfaction was not given for his death, and he resolved to go to Avignon and apply to the pope.

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This journey on account of the death of his brother was mere preterce, his real motive was to endeavour to gain confidence with the pope, and represent to him in the most pathetic manner the situation of the affairs at Rome; he strove to procure a title that might render him more recommendable to the holy father, and to be appointed deputy, to engage (i' possible) his holiness to re-establish the court of Rome, and his see at the capital of the world. These deputation seemed so important to the Romans, that they let slip no opportunity of renewing them. Since the year 1342, the beginning of the pontificate of Clement VI., they had set a most solemn embassy to him composed of eighten deputies, six of each of the three states, all chosen out of the chief families in Rome. The little success they had in their first requests made them fix their eyes on Rienzi, and name him for this deputation, in the same manner they had a few years before named Petrarch, as a man of eloquence, and capable of making the holy father sensible how prejudicial his absence was to the interest of Rome, as well as his own. But before we relate in what manner he acquitted himself, it may not be improper to give an account of the situation of Rome at that time, and of the principal persons who open the scenes of this history; the interior we leave to come in their proper course.

When Cardinal Peter Roger Limousin was elected pope by the name of Clement VI., the pontifical see had been fixed at Avignon about thirty-seven years, by Bertrand d'Agoust, or De Goth, archbishop of Bordeaux, afterwards Pope Clement V., at the instigation of Philip the Handsome. This transmigration of the pope, which lasted near threescore and ten years, was fatal, if not to the church and christianity in general, at least to Rome, to the patrimony of St. Peter, and to all Italy. The cruel factions of the Guelfs and Gibrlines, not only regained strength to destroy each other, but raised new cabals; the one in aspiring by force to tyranny, the other in defending themselves, threw Italy into such convulsions, as rendered her difficult to be known again. Petrarch, among his letters (published without a title) wrote upon this subject to a friend the following:

"Hitherto we have gone through the sport only of fortune, at this day we feel her fury. O God! send us down