PLAGUED. 9 



served, whether through the wrath or mercy of God I 

 know not 1 ." 



Thus environed by the plague-spots, physical and moral, 

 which belong to an unwholesome period of human- history, 

 began the life of which we are about to trace the current. 

 Out of the peace of our own homes let us look back with 

 pity on the child whose birth made no man happy, and 

 whose first gaze into the world was darkened by a mother's 

 frown. 



should have endeavoured to keep a knowledge of his birth from her 

 relations, or why she should, in expectation of a fourth child, desire 

 abortion, and resent the fact that Fazio was not known to the public as 

 her husband. (See note 1, p. 2.) Besides, if her relations with Eazio 

 were thus of some years' standing, how old was her widowhood ? and 

 could she still be "juvenis" when Jerome was a boy old enough to be 

 told of her unhappiness, and of her wish (DeConsolatlone, p. 41) that 

 she had died when he was born ? 



1 De Consolatione (ed. Ven. 1542), Lib. iii. p. 74. 



