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ascertained that his prisoner was an old priest and an Italian; but muttered still, with indomitable wrath, " You may thank your stars, my boy, that you wern't that blackguard Nollekeus.". "Grazie tante!" was the ejaculation of the venerable captive, when he had sufficiently recovered from his affright: your mistake had well nigh had consequences which none would regret more than yourselves. You are foreigners, and, if 1 may judge from your idiom, English; I am a resident of the palace. No doubt a love for the arts has occa310ned your presence here at this unusual hour. 'Tis well. Follow me towards the sala di San Damuso." There was something authoritative, as well as conciliatory, in the tone of our new acquaintance; and as I shewed a disposition to accept the invitation of one whom I guessed to be a dignitary of the Papal court, Barry did not hesitate to accompany me.

We paused not, we spoke not. Onwards we went through the different corridors and antechambers that separate the Vatican gallery from that portion of the palace which our guide had mentioned. Each busola, each door, seemed to recognise the passage of a master, flying open at his touch. At length we entered what appeared to be a study. The walls were hung with Flemish tapestry; and a bronze lamp of antique fashion, dependent from the gilt oak ceiling, faintly illumined the apartment. In the centre, a table inlaid with exquisite mosaic was strewed with various documents, seemingly of an official character; amongst which a single book, though torn and disfigured, quickly attracted my eye. I knew at a glance the familiar folio. It was a copy of the standard regulations of my old tutors, "INSTITUTUM SOCIETATIS JESU." We were seated at the Italian prelate's request. A servant in the papal livery was summoned by a rapid ́signal from an aujoining room; a brief order to bring wine and refreshments was delivered, and executed with magic promptitude. Meantime Barry kept his eye on me to ascertain what I thought of our singular position. Our host left no space for reflection, but pressed us with genuine hospitality to partake of what lay before us. Wine is the great dissolvent of distrust, and generator of cordiality. Never was this more forcibly exemplified than in my friend's case, who, totally oblivious of the late awkward scuffle between

himself and the most reverend dignitary, launched out into a diversity of topics connected with the fine arts, of which our entertainer appeared to be a sincere and enlightened admirer.

Thinking it high time to mix in the conversation, "I am happy to find," said I, quaffing a glass of Malaga, "that the Jesuits have a friend at the court of Ganganelli."

"Speak you thus, abbatino?" rejoined our host. "You are then an admirer of Loyola's institute. Are there many such in France, where it appears you have studied ?"

I described the Gallican episcopal body as unanimously adverse to the proposed destruction of that society.

"The king of France, the kings of Spain and Portugal, think differently, young man," said the prelate with some warmth, and with a tone that only served to kindle my zeal in defence of my old professors.

"The Duc de Choiseul and Madame de Pompadour may have persuaded the imbecile Louis XV. to adopt the views of the writers in the Encyclopédie-the minister of his most Catholic Majesty of Spain may fancy the property of the Society, in the mother country, in South America, and in the East Indies, a fair object of plunder. Marquis de Pombal may entertain similar opinions at Lisbon; but surely the judgment of a knot of courtly conspirators, acting in unhallowed concert, should find its proper weight in the balance of the sanctuary. Catherine of Russia and the great Frederick of Prussia think differently of these men, and profess their readiness to offer them an asylum. But if it be true (as it is rumoured in the Piazza Colonna) that the restoration of Avignon, estreated by France during the late pontificate, is to be the reward of Ganganelli's subserviency to the court of Versailles, I must say, and I don't care who hears it, that a more flagrant case of simony and corruption never disgraced the annals of the Vatican. As to the wretched province regained by such means, it may well bear the denomination given of old to the Potter's field, HAKEL DAMA!"

A dismal scowl passed over the brow of my interlocutor. "Is it not the first duty of the supreme pastor," he hastily observed, "to conciliate the heads of the Christian flock? Your own country teaches a lesson on pontifical obstinacy.

Had Clement VII. shewn less rigour in refusing to your eighth Harry his demand, by insisting on the very doubtful canon law of the case, England would at this day be the most valuable ffeoff of St. Peter's domain. In bygone days, the request of Philippe Le Bel, backed by the emperor, the kings of England and Spain, was deemed sufficient, in the teeth of evidence, to condemn the noble brotherhood of the Temple. These "orders" are of human institution: the Jesuits must be yielded up to the exigency of the times. To calm the effervescence of the moment, the Pope may safely dismiss his 'Janissaries.'

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"Yet the day may come," I replied, "when Christianity may want the aid of science and of literature-when the paltry defence of ignorant bigotry will be no longer of any avail-when all the motley host of remaining monks and friars, white, black, and grey, will find their inability to fill the space left void by the suppression of that intellectual and redeeming ORDER which once destroyed can only re appear in a feeble and inefficient imitation."

Two hours had now elapsed since our midnight adventure; and the warning chime of the palace belfry gave me an opportunity, in accordance with Barry's repeated signals, to take leave. The prelate, having carefully ascertained our names and address, placed us under the guidance of the attendant in waiting, who led us by the cortile dei Suizzeri to the Scala regia; and we finally stood in front of St. Peter's Church. We paused there awhile, little dreaming that it was the last night we should pass in Rome. The moon was up, and the giant obelisk of Sesostris, that had measured the sands of Lybia with its shadow, now cast its gnomon to the very foot of that glorious portico. Gushing with perennial murmur, the two immense jets d'eau flung out their cataracts on each side of the sublime monument, and alone broke with monotonous sound the silence of the night.

Poor Marcella! those two hours had been a space of severe trial and sad suspense for thee; but we knew not till months had elapsed the fatal consequences that ensued. Barry, when he parted with her father, had promised to remain but a moment in the gallery; and old Centurioni bade his daughter wait up for his guests, while he himself sought his quiet pillow. Hours rolled on, and we came not. The

idea of nocturnal assassination, unfortunately too familiar to the Roman mind, awakened by the non-appearance of the Irish artist, took rapid possession of her kindling imagination, as she watched in the Torrione in vain for his return The transition from doubt to the certainty of some indefi nable danger was the work of an instant. Yielding to the bold impulse of hereditary instinct, she seized the bronze lamp that burned on the mantelpiece, grasped a Damascus blade, the weapon of some crusader in olden time, and gliding with the speed of thought, was soon far advanced in her searching progress through the corridors and galleries of the palace. Had the statue of Lucretia leaped from its pedestal it might present a similar appearance in gesture and deveportment. Alas, she was never to re-enter the parental dwelling! Ere the morning dawned the romantic girl was a prisoner in the Castle of St. Angelo, under suspicion of being employed by the Jesuits to assassinate Ganganelli!

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Strange whispers were current at break of day :-" An Irish painter and an Irish priest, both emissaries of the Society,' had been detected lurking in the Vatican: an assault had been committed on the sacred person of the pontiff: they had avowed all in a secret interview with his holiness, and had confessed that they were employed by Lawrence Ricci, the general of the order." At the English coffeehouse in the Piazza di Spagna, the morning's gossip was early circulated in Barry's hearing: the truth flashed on his mind at once. He ran to my apartments. I was thun

derstruck.

Nothing had as yet transpired concerning Marcella's imprisonment; and we, unfortunately, resolved on a step which gave a colourable pretext to accusation. In the hurry of our alarm, we agreed on quitting Rome at once. Barry took the road to Bologna; and I was by noon in the Pontine marshes, on my way to Naples. Our friends thought us safely immured in those cells which the "holy office" still keeps up at its head-quarters in the Dominican convent, called, ironically enough, "La Minerva."

Old Centurioni was debarred the privilege of seeing his daughter; in silent anguish he mourned over his child, and bemoaned the fate of the young foreigners, who, he doubted not, were equally in the hands of "justice." But the worst was to come. That angelic being, whose nature was toc

pure, and whose spirit was too lofty, to endure the disgrace and infamy imputed to her, remained haughtily and indignantly passive under the harsh and unmerited infliction. She gave no sign. An inflammatory fever, the combined result of her uncertainty concerning the fate of her lover, and irritation at the very thought of such heinous guilt thus laid to her charge, closed in less than a fortnight her earthly career. Her death set the seal to my friend's evil destiny.

A SERIES OF MODERN LATIN POETS.

CHAPTER I.—THE SILKWORM, A POEM. BY JEROMe Vida.

"Ecco Alessandro il mio signor Farnese;

O dotta compagnia che seco mena!
Blosio, Pierio, e VIDA Cremonese
D'alta facondia inessicabil vena."

ARIOSTO, Orl. Fur. cant. ult., st. xiii.

"Immortal VIDA! on whose honoured brow
The poet's bays and critic's ivy grow."

POPE'S Essay on Criticism.

Ar the southern extremity of the French metropolis there lieth an extensive burying-ground, which rejoiceth (if any such lugubrious concern can be said to rejoice) in the name of " Cimetière du Mont Parnasse." Some Cockney tourists have had the curiosity to visit this Parnassian grave-yard, under the impression that it was a kind of Gallican "Poets' Corner," or sepulchral "limbo," set apart for the deceased children of the muse, in the same national spirit that raised the "Hôtel des Invalides," and inscribed on the church of Ste. Genevieve, or 66 'Pantheon (where Marat and Mirabeau and Voltaire were entombed), that lapidary lampoon, "Aux grands hommes la patrie reconnaissante." No such object, however, appears to have been contemplated by the municipal authorities of Paris, when they inclosed the funereal field thus whimsically designated.

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