Bianca's picture of the two Sforzas, though often quoted, is too beautiful and striking to be here omitted:
'Mark the moral, Sir: An eagle once, from the Euganean hills, Soared bravely to the sky. In his giddy track, Scarce marked by them who gazed upon the first, Followed a new-fledged eaglet, fast and well. Upward they sped, and all eyes on their flight Gazed with admiring awe: when suddenly The parent bird, struck by a thunder-bolt, Dropped lifeless through the air. The eaglet paused And hung upon his wings; and as his sire Plashed in the far-down wave, men look'd to see him Flee to his nest affrighted!
_Bianca._ 'My noble lord, he had a monarch's heart! He wheeled a moment in mid air, and shook Proudly his royal wings, and then right on, With crest uplifted, and unwavering flight, Sped to the sun's eye, straight and gloriously!'
There is a fine opportunity for the display of the power of the actress, in the scene where news is brought to Bianca of her father's death. The struggle between the joy which this event produces, by giving a chance of the coronet to her husband, and the sorrow which affection for her parent should cause, one acting against the other, present a scene which calls for the highest powers of the histrionic art to portray faithfully; and it is but just to say, that Miss CLIFTON did it justice. There is a great deal of quaint humor, and many truths wittily delivered, in the part of _Pasquali_. His exposition of the true meaning of the word imagination, to the homely understanding of his pupil, is as ingenious as true. One of GOLDSMITH's characters, if we do not mistake, reasons not unlike the Milanese bard, upon the same or a similar theme:
_Pasquali._ Answer me once more, and I'll prove to thee in what I am richer. Thou'st ne'er heard, I dare swear, of imagination.
_Fiametta._ Is't a Pagan nation, or a Christian?
_Pasq._ Stay; I'll convey it to thee by a figure. What were the value of thy red stockings, over black, if it were always night?
_Pasq._ What were beauty, if it were always dark?
_Pasq._ What were green leaves better than brown, diamonds better than pebbles, gold better than brass, if it were always dark?
_Pasq._ Then the shining of the sun, in a manner, dyes your stockings, creates beauty, makes gold, and diamonds, and paints the leaves green?