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been so se'dom separated. I pass the greater part of the night in thinking of you. In the day also, at those hours in which I have been accustomed to see you, my feet carry me spontaneously to your apartment, whence I constantly return out of humour and dejected, as if you had refused to admit me. There is one part of the day only that affords relief to my disquiet-the time dedicated to pleading the causes of my friends. Judge what a life mine must be, when labour is my rest, and when cares and perplexities are my only comforts. Adieu."

Biographium Famineum.

CALPURNIA.

CESAR, having been divorced from Pompeia, took, for his fourth wife, Calpurnia, daughter of Lucius Piso, of an ancient and honourable family, derived, according to Ovid, from Calpus, son to Numa Pompilius, second king of Rome. The family was divided into two branches; of which one was surnamed Frugi, signifying men of worth: the name of Piso was common to both. The father of Calpurnia was consul of Rome in 753, the year in which, by some writers, the birth of Christ is placed.

In Calpurnia, Cæsar found a wife such as he desired, the propriety of whose conduct preserved her even from suspicion. To her virtues were added beauty, talents, prudence, and an extraordinary eloquence; she possessed also a generosity, magnanimity, and greatness of mind, truly Roman. With a mind acute and comprehensive, she was enabled to enter into the great designs meditated by Cæsar, who aspired to universal empire. Calpurnia displayed both in adversity and in prosperity the same equanimity: the victories and triumphs of Cæsar inspired her with no presumption; while, in a reverse of fortunes, the firmness of her temper remained unshaken. Her mind was equal to her extraordinary fortune, and to the honours which she shared with the greatest monarch and conqueror in the world. Her modesty and moderation were, on all occasions, exemplary. No one could perceive any difference between Calpurnia wife to Cæsar senator of Rome, and Calpurnia consort to the master of the world. Mildness, gentleness, affability, and fortitude, were her distinguishing characteristics.

She exhibited the same steadiness when re

publican Rome, impatient of its sovereign dictator, struggled to emancipate itself by the fall of the usurper. The destiny of Cæsar drew near to its accomplishment: his assassination was resolved upon; while his dearest friends joined in the conspiracy. Calpurnia, it is related, felt, on this occasion, presages of the approaching fate of her husband. Her imagination probably impressed by the spirit and circumstances of the times, she dreamed that, by a solemn decree of the senate, the dome built upon the house of Cæsar fell, and crushed him beneath it in her arms. Starting from this terrible vision, her tenderness for her husband, added to apprehensions but too justly founded, seized upon her spirits.

Cæsar, had been warned of designs formed against his power and life by several anonymous advertisements, in which he was told to beware of the ides of March. He had on that day appointed to meet the senate for the business of proposing an expedition against the Parthians. The warnings he had received, the tears of Calpurnia, the entreaties of his friends, and an indisposition which he felt, combined to make him hesitate on the morning of the day, whether he should not adjourn the discussion and dismiss the assembly. To this purport he had even commis

sioned Mark Antony, when Decimus Brutus came to inform him, that the senate, which had met in pursuance of his orders, waited only his arrival to declare him king of all the provinces of the empire, and to authorise his assumption of the ensigns of imperial dignity. On observing him waver in his resolution, Brutus ridiculed the superstitions by which he suffered himself to be influenced, and remonstrated with him on the impropriety of frustrating, by his weakness, the liberal purposes of the senate in his favour. Cæsar yielded to the representations of his insidious friend, bound, as he believed, to his interest by numberless acts of favour and liberality. On repairing to the senate, he met his fate, and perished, a victim to public liberty and private jealousy, by the hands of those in whom he had confided.

Calpurnia was seized, on the fatal tidings, with a deep and sincere grief, which was testified by the conduct of her future life. Superior to the weakness of ordinary minds, she pronounced publicly, in the Rostra, the funeral eulogium of her husband, in which her affection for the deceased, her sense of his great qualities, her respect for his memory, and her sorrow for his loss, were eloquently expressed and displayed. Having declared, that a loss such as hers admitted of no reparation, in conformity to this sentiment, she passed the remainder of her life in mourning, secluded in the house of Mark Antony, to whom she entrusted the treasures and papers of Cæsar, that he might be the better enabled to avenge his death.

Lives of the Roman Empresses, by Monsieur de Serviez.

BIANCA CAPELLO.

BIANCA, descended from the noble house of the Capelli at Venice, and daughter of Bartolomeo Capello, was born in 1545. Her childhood and early youth passed in the retirement of her father's palace, where, according to the custom of the country, she conversed only with her family and relations.

The Florentines had, among other nations, formed, in the middle of the sixteenth century, a commercial establishment at Venice, which was held in great reputation. By several of the most noble and wealthy families of Florence, agents were appointed at Venice, who transacted in the mercantile houses the business of their employers. Among the most distinguished of these was that

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