cycle of modern history. Six hundred years later, a troop of German riders entered Florence again, to restore its Grand Duke; and our warmhearted and loving English poetess, looking on from Casa Guidi windows, gives the said Germans many hard words, and thinks her darling Florentines entirely innocent in the matter. But if she had had clear eyes, (yeux de lin[1] the Romance of the Rose calls them,) she would have seen that white-coated cavalry with its heavy guns to be nothing more than the rear-guard of young Frederick of Antioch; and that Florence's own Ghibellines had opened her gates to them. Destiny little regards cost of time; she does her justice at that telescopic distance just as easily and accurately as close at hand.
100. "Frederick of Antioch." Note the titular coincidence. The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch; here we have our lieutenant of Antichrist also named from that town. The anti-Christian Germans got into Florence upon Sunday morning; the Guelphs fought on till Wednesday, which was Candlemas;—the Tower of the Death-watch was thrown down next day. It was so called because
- ↑ Lynx.
