CONTENTS

TO

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR, ESQ.,

THIS BOOK,

AS A FEEBLE TESTIMONY OF STRONG PERSONAL REGARD AND SINCERE ADMIRATION, IS DEDICATED, BY HIS FRIEND,

G. P. R. JAMES.

ADVERTISEMENT.

In giving this book to the public I have but little to explain. The reader who takes it up may expect to find something respecting the Princess Honoria. He will, however, find nothing. All that we know of her history is uninteresting, except to those who love to dwell upon the pruriencies of a degraded state of society: all that we know of her character is disgusting to such as love purity and dignity of mind. It would be tedious to the reader to explain why the author has thought fit to alter several names of the persons acting prominent parts in the story of Attila. In so doing he has consulted principally his own ear; and in a few other deviations which he has made from the course of that great monarch's history, he has consulted his own convenience. In regard, however, to the change which he has represented as taking place in the demeanour of Attila, his abandonment of the simple habits which at first distinguished him, and his dereliction from the calm equanimity which he displayed in his early intercourse with the Romans, the author believes that he is

justified by the records of history as well as the course of nature. He is inclined to think, also, that if, in regard to the facts of Attila's death, we could display the chameleon truth, in the broad light of day, without any of the shades and hues with which time and circumstances have surrounded her, we should find her colour such as he has represented it; but this, of course, must ever remain in doubt.

A T T I L A.

CHAPTER I.

A LANDSCAPE IN DALMATIA.

Music was in the air, and loveliness was spread out over the earth as a mantle.

There was a voice of many waters—the bland musical tone of mountain streams singing as they wend their way over the smooth round pebbles of their hilly bed towards the sea. And the song of life, too, was heard from every field, and every glade, and every valley; the trilling of innumerable birds, the hum of insect myriads, the lowing of distant cattle, winding down from the uplands to pen or fold, the plaintive, subdued bleating of the patient sheep, the merry voice of the light-hearted herd as he led home his flock from the hills, after a long warm southern day in the maturity of spring. Manifold sweet sounds—all blended into one happy harmony, softened by distance, rendered more melodious to the heart by associations felt but not defined, and made more touching by the soft evening hour—filled the whole air, and spread a calm, bright, contemplative charm over the listening senses.

The eye, too, could find the same delight as the ear, equal in depth, similar in character; for though sweet April had sunk in the warm arms of May, still, even in that land of the bright south, the reign of summer had not yet begun: not a leaf, not a flower, not a blade of grass had lost a hue under the beams of the sun, and many a balmy and refreshing shower, during a long and humid spring, had nourished the verdure and enlivened the bloom.

From the high round knoll upon the left, crowned with the five tall cypresses which perhaps flourished as seedlings on that spot in the young and palmy days of Greece, might be seen that unrivalled view which has never yet found eye to gaze on it uncharmed—that view which, of all prospects in the world, has greatest power, when suddenly beheld, to make the heart beat fast, and the breath come thick with mingled feelings of wonder and delight. On one side, at about a mile's distance, where the ground sloped gently down towards the sea, rose the palace of Diocletian, vast and extensive, massy without being heavy, and equally sublime from its beauty and its dimensions. Clear, upon the bright back-ground of the evening sky, cut the graceful lines of the architecture; and, though a sudden break in the outline of the frieze, with the massy form of a fallen capital rolled forward before the steps of the magnificent portico which fronted the sea, told that the busy, unceasing, unsparing hand of man's great enemy had already laid upon that splendid building the

crumbling touch of ruin; yet, as, it then stood, with the setting sun behind it, and the deep blue shadows of the evening involving all the minute parts of the side that met the eye, the effects of decay even added to the beauty of the object, by making the straight lines of the architecture at once contrast and harmonize with the graceful irregularities of nature whereby it was surrounded. Several groups of old and stately trees, too, still more diversified the prospect on that side; and through the pillars of the portico might be caught the glistening line of the bright sea where it met and mingled with the sky.

Behind, and to the right hand, stretching far away to the north, rose mountain upon mountain, in all the fanciful forms and positions into which those earth-born giants cast themselves in Greece, and over them all was thrown that lustrous purple which in those lands well deserves the name of the "magic light of evening."

Between the knoll of cypresses, however, and those far hills robed in their golden splendour, lay a wide tract of country, gently sloping upward in a thousand sweeping lines, with here and there an abrupt rock or insulated mound suddenly towering above the rest, while scattered clumps of tall old trees, rich rounded masses of forest, villas, farms, vineyards, and olive grounds, filled up the intervening space; and had all been as it seemed—had all those farms been tenanted, had none of those villas been in ruins—would have presented a scene of prosperity such as the world has never known but once.

Still decay had made no very great progress; still the land was richly cultivated; still the population, though not dense, was sufficient; and as the eye ran along the innumerable little promontories and headlands of the bay, might be seen, rising up above some slight irregularities of the ground, a part of the buildings of the small but prosperous town of Salona. Close by the side of that knoll of cypresses, breaking impetuously from a bank above, dashed on the bright and sparkling Hyader; now fretting and foaming with the large rocks amid which a part of its course was bound; now prattling playfully with the motley pebbles which in other parts strewed its bed; now dashing like a fierce steed all in foam where it leaped over the crag into the sunshine; and then, where its clear blue waters spread out uninterrupted under the cool shadow of a hill, seeming—like time to a young and happy heart—to stand still in calm and peaceful enjoyment, even while it was flowing away as quickly as ever.

The eye that followed the Hyader down its course—and there was an eye that did so—rested on the bright and glowing west, and on the fairest, the most entrancing object of all that magic scene; for there, stretched out beneath the setting sun, lay the gleaming waters of the Adriatic, studded all along its shores with a thousand purple islands which rose out of that golden sea like gems.

The air was calm and tranquil; the sky, the unrivalled deep blue sky, which hangs over that most lovely sea, was without a cloud, varying with one soft and equable declension from the intense purple zenith to the warm rosy hues that glowed in the far west. The sea, also, was smooth and peaceful, and would have seemed unbroken by a wave, had not here and there a sudden bending line of light darted over the bosom of the waters, and told that they were moved in the evening light by the breath of the breeze.

Thus appeared the whole scene, when, from the opposite side of the bay, a white sail was seen to glide forward, as if coming from Salona towards the palace of Diocletian, or the little village of Aspalathus. Slowly and peacefully it moved along, giving one more image of calm and tranquil enjoyment; and while it steered upon its way, four sweet voices, sometimes joined in chorus by several deeper tones, broke forth from the mound of cypresses, singing:—

A HYMN TO THE SETTING SUN.

I.

"Slow, slow, mighty wanderer, sink to thy rest,

Thy course of beneficence done;

As glorious go down to thy Thetis' warm breast

As when thy bright race was begun.

For all thou hast done

Since thy rising, oh sun!

May thou and thy Maker be bless'd!

Thou hast scatter'd the night from thy broad golden way,

Thou hast given us thy light through a long happy day,

Thou hast roused up the birds, thou hast waken'd the flowers.

To chant on thy path, and to perfume the hours—

Then slow, mighty wanderer, sink to thy rest,

And rise again beautiful, blessing, and bless'd!

II.

"Slow, slow, mighty wanderer, sink to thy rest,

Yet pause but a moment to shed

One warm look of love on the earth's dewy breast.

Ere the starr'd curtain fall round thy bed,

And to promise the time,

When, awaking sublime,

Thou shall rush all refresh'd from thy rest.

Warm hopes drop like dews from thy life-giving hand,

Teaching hearts closed in darkness like flowers to expand;

Dreams wake into joys when first touch'd by thy light,

As glow the dim waves of the sea at thy sight—

Then slow, mighty wanderer, sink to thy rest,

And rise again beautiful, blessing, and bless'd!

III.

"Slow, slow, mighty wanderer, sink to thy rest,

Prolonging the sweet evening hour;

Then robe again soon in the morn's golden vest,

To go forth in thy beauty and power.

Yet pause on thy way,

To the full height of day,

For thy rising and setting are bless'd!

When thou com'st after darkness to gladden our eyes,

Or departest in glory, in glory to rise,

May hope and may prayer still be woke by thy rays,

And thy going be mark'd by thanksgiving and praise![1]

Then slow, mighty wanderer, sink to thy rest,

And rise again beautiful, blessing, and bless'd!"

CHAPTER II.

THE ACTORS IN THE SCENE.

The voices that sung were sweet, thrillingly sweet, and the music to which the verse was wedded of that dreamy, wandering kind which approaches more nearly to the tones of an Æolian harp than to any regular composition. It was, indeed, full of a wild and delicious melody, which was sometimes solemn and sublime, sometimes low and plaintive, and the same general theme might be heard running through the whole; but often the air wandered wide, like a bird upon the wing, and caught a note or two of a gladder or more joyous character, which brightened the general solemnity of the strain, like hope breaking in upon a life of grief. Music had not then reached that perfection which it has since attained; but there was a touching beauty in its fresh simplicity which is now but seldom found. It possessed the free unfettered charms of a graceful nature, cultivated, but not stiffened, by art, and it still went hand in hand with the sister spirit of poetry, in the land where both had birth.

But the hymn which had just floated on the air derived peculiar sweetness from the fine harmony of the voices which sung it. It seemed the varied tones of one family, where each knew every note in the voice of the other, and modulated his own to suit it, with that spirit of love in the breasts of all, whereof the sweetest harmony that art can compose is but the musical image. In the chorus, however, there joined less cultivated singers; but, nevertheless, the voices were generally fine, and there was an enthusiastic eagerness on the tongues that repeated—

"Then slow, mighty wanderer, sink to thy rest,

And rise again beautiful, blessing, and bless'd!"

which spoke of that happiness under the bright sun that was then sinking slowly to the breast of ocean, which is the poetry and melody of life.

Under the five tall cypresses, and partly reclining on the bank that sloped to the bright Hyader, sat the group from which those sounds proceeded. It was separated, indeed, into two distinct parts; for—with a very short space of green turf between them and those they served—lay stretched out in various attitudes, some raising the head upon the hand, some reclining the chest upon the folded arms, some supported on the elbow, eight or nine slaves of both sexes.

There was nothing, however, in the countenances of any there which spoke of the bitterness of slavery. There were no signs in their faces or their demeanour of the iron entering into their soul; and though, perhaps, no portion of human nature is originally so debased, and no condition of bondage can be rendered so gentle, that the chain will not gall and the load will not oppress, yet the lot was then common, and the accursed name of slave comprehended nearly, if not fully, one half of the earth's denizens. In the faces of those who lay stretched easily but not intrusively beside those to whom they were bound by that inhuman tie, there might be traced a line of care—perhaps a shade, it might be, of melancholy—gathered by long-preserved and fruitless remembrances of scenes, and objects, and persons far away; and on none, but the countenance of one white-teethed Nubian girl, and a young glad boy, whose life was in the present hour, and to whose mind the past and the future were but a vapoury cloud, was seen the light and laughing merriment of a heart which has known no sorrows in

the past. With all the rest, contentment with their lot seemed chastened by griefs experienced and gone by. They could smile, they could sing when occasion called for mirth. Their minds were not irresponsive to sights or sounds of joy; but with them it was from the well, not the fountain, that the sweet waters of enjoyment sprung: they sparkled not up spontaneously, but required to be drawn forth by the hand of another.

Yet if one, remembering their bondage, turned to gaze upon the group near which they sat, the condition of their feelings was easily understood; for the forms and faces that were there—not in the outward lineaments alone, but in the beaming forth of the divine spirit, as much expressed in the air and movements of the whole body as in the heart's interpreter, the face—told that the taskmasters were of that kindly nobility of soul which, in after years, won for a whole class (that did not always merit the distinction) that most expressive name of gentle.

Under the cypresses, not exactly where the shade fell—for the sun, near the horizon, had lost his meridian heat, and the western breeze swept over the cool bright waters of the Adriatic—were seated three women and a boy of some fourteen years of age. They were evidently of the highest race of the land in which they lived; and had nothing else bespoken their rank, the broad deep border of purple, of triple die, which edged the snowy robe of the eldest of the party, would have distinguished her as a Roman lady of patrician blood. She was scarcely beyond the middle age; and time had treated her beauty leniently. Somewhat of the elastic grace, and all the slight pliant outline of early youth, was gone, but in contour and dignity much, too, had been gained; and the eye, more calm and fixed, was as bright and lustrous, the teeth as white and perfect, as ever. The hair, drawn up and knotted on the crown of the head, was still full and luxuriant; but, meandering through its dark and wavy masses, might here and there be seen a line of silver gray; while the cheek, which had once been as

warm and glowing as the morning dawn of her own radiant land, sorrows calmly borne, but not the less deeply felt, had rendered as pale as the twilight of the evening just ere night reigns supreme.

Her dress was plain and unadorned, of the finest materials and the purest hues; but the gems and ornaments then so common were altogether absent. The consciousness of beauty, which she might once have felt, was now altogether forgotten; its vanity she had never known. As much grace as health, perfect symmetry of form, and noble education from infancy could give, she displayed in every movement; but it was the calm and matronly grace, where all is ease, and tranquillity, and self-possession. The same placid charm reigned in the expression of her countenance. She seemed to look with benevolence on all. Nay, more, as if the sorrows which had reached her in her high station had taught her that in every bosom, however well concealed, there is, or will be, some store of grief, some memory, some regret, some disappointment, there mingled with the gentleness of her aspect an expression of pity, or, perhaps, its better name were sympathy, which existed really within, and formed a tie between her heart and that of every other human thing.

She was, indeed, to use the beautiful words of the poet, "kind as the sun's bless'd influence."[2] Yet the bright dark eye, the proud arching lip, and the expansive nostrils, seemed to speak of a nature originally less calm, of days when the spirit was less subdued. Time and grief, however, are mighty tamers of the most lion-like heart; and it was with that look of pity, mingling with tender pleasure, that she gazed down upon a beautiful girl of, perhaps, thirteen years of age, who, leaning fondly on her knees, as the hymn concluded, looked up in her face for sympathetic feelings, while the sweet sounds still trembled on her full rosy lips.

Between the matron and the girl there was little resemblance, except inasmuch as each was beautiful; and though the lineaments, perhaps, regarded as mere lines, took in some degree the same general form, yet there were too many shades of difference to admit the idea that those two fair beings stood in the dear relationship of mother and child, although the fond, relying, clinging affection displayed in the looks of the younger, and the tender anxiety of the matron's smile as she gazed down upon her companion's face, argued affections no less strong between them than such a tie might have produced.

Eudochia—for so was the younger called—offered a lovely specimen of that sort of beauty which, however rare in Italy even now, when the native blood of the children of the land has been mingled with that of many of the fair-haired nations of the north, we find from the writings of Petronius to have been not uncommon in his days. Her hair was of a light brown, with a golden gleam upon it, as if, wherever it bent in its rich wavy curls, it caught and shone in the bright rays of the sun. Her eyes were of a soft hazel, though the long, sweeping black lashes made them look darker than they were: but her skin was of that brilliant fairness which did indeed exceed the

"Expolitum ebur indicum;"

and the rose glowed through it on the cheeks, as pure and clear as in those lands where the veiled sun shines most soft and tenderly. Her features were, indeed, more Greek than Roman; but her complexion spoke, and not untruly, of a mixture in her veins of what was then called barbarian blood by the proud children of the empire. Her mother had been the daughter of a German prince in alliance with Rome; but the Romans of that day had learned to envy the noble Paulinus his success with the beautiful child of the wealthy and powerful barbarian chief. Too short a time, indeed, had their union lasted; for though Eudochia had drawn her first nourishment from her mother's bosom, yet, six months after her birth, the fair wife of Paulinus had left him to mourn her death with two motherless children. He had continued to hold her memory in solitary affection, filling up, as is so common with man, the vacant place left by love in the shrine of his heart with the darker and sterner form of ambition; and while he led forward his son Theodore in the same path, he left his daughter on the Dalmatian

shore, with one whose kindred blood and generous nature ensured to the fair girl all a mother's tenderness and a mother's care. For her alone the lips of Eudochia had learned to pronounce those sweetest of words, my mother—for her alone had her heart learned to feel the thrill of filial love.