Palermo, he accused himself, in a fit of despair, of a murder which had
been committed in that city. But while the trial was in progress,
Philomela, in order to shield her husband, appeared in court and
proclaimed herself guilty of the crime. The innocence of both was
discovered. Philippo, as he deserved, died immediately in an "ecstacy,"
and Philomela "returned home to Venice, and there lived the desolate
widow of Philippo Medici all her life; which constant chastity made her
so famous, that in her life she was honoured as the paragon of virtue,
and after her death, solemnly, and with wonderful honour, entombed in
St. Mark's Church, and her fame holden canonized until this day in
Venice."

The character of Philomela possesses strong traits of feminine virtue
and wifely fidelity. Philippo has little distinctiveness except in his
extreme susceptibility to jealousy--a fault which was exaggerated by
the author to set off the opposite qualities of Philomela. The story
has no little merit in regard to the construction and sequence of the
narrative, and holds up to admiration a high moral excellence. But its
interest is seriously impaired by the same defect which marks all the
fiction of the time. Philomela is almost the only tale which makes any
pretence to being a description of actual life, or which deals with
possible incidents. Yet the language, although it has some elegance, is
so affectedly formal, that all sense of reality is destroyed. When
Philippo's treachery to his wife is discovered, and he himself is
plunged in remorse, it is in such words as these that he speaks of his
exposure: "There is nothing so secret but the date of days will reveal;
that as oil, though it moist, quencheth not fire, so time, though ever
so long, is no sure covert for sin; but as a spark raked up in cinders
will at last begin to glow and manifest a flame, so treachery hidden in
silence will burst forth and cry for revenge."[64]