the postilion in an ecstacy of delight, as he pulled his foaming steeds back on their haunches, and cracked his long knotted whip, whirling the ponderous thong around and around his head, until a chorus of echoes and reverberations resounded through the pestilential wastes. A dozen men rushed forth from the gloomy den of thieves. Partly carried, partly forced along, I was borne into an inner chamber. The dirt which encrusted the brick pavement, had been the accumulation of centuries; and the removal of it would have defied the powers and the skill of the son of Alcmena. Mine host, in whose hands I was but a babe, deposited me in a ricketty and reed-bottomed chair, opposite to a huge open fire-place, wherein green sticks, mingled with damp reeds, frizzled, and fumed, and fretted, emitting volcanoes of smoke, which effectually annihilated my powers of vision for a season. When I recovered my sight, I perceived I was alone. My solitude, however, was but of brief duration, for soon after, in shuffled a shrivelled and withered hag, well fitted to enact one of the weird sisters of Macbeth; so weighed with age was she, not only in appearance but in reality; and so unnaturally hideous to boot. She spread a black and greasy cloth over a yet blacker and more greasy tablethrust under my very nose an earthen dish, reeking of abominations and unclean things, and bade me in a horrible patois, eat, drink, and be comforted; she then scuttled away; but returned again shortly, with two caraffes of suspiciouslooking liquor, and a brace of gigantic drinking-cups of horn, and completed the service de table by producing a mis-shapen lump of clay baked in the sunbeams, which would have puzzled a connoisseur to decide whether it were not originally destined for a tile. Lying upon it, wrapped up in a foul scrap of coarse dingy canvass, were a knife, a fork, and a spoon..... Bah! I shudder at the bare remembrance of those utensils, black and repulsive were they in appearance, and so foul and greasy to the touch. »

SO

"Loathsome as was the banquet, the ancient Hebe was infinitely more so. She grinned a ghastly grin, displaying her black jaw-bones, from which all teeth, tusks, and stumps had been exiled for some fifty years. The old hag chuckled,

and smirked, rubbing together her skinny hands, which resembled vulture's claws rather than attributes of humanitypatted me on the shoulder, asked if I were not a famosissimo cacciatore-passed her claws through my hair-swore that I was a bellissimo giovine, and indulged in many other playful demonstrations of tenderness. I did not swoon away with horror and disgust, as the horrible conviction flashed on my brain, that unwillingly I had inspired the old beldame with an unholy passion, and dreading every moment to be clasped in her foul embrace, I endeavoured to dispel my fearful anticipations, by recalling to memory the heroism and the indomitable firmness of the righteous Joseph, when he yielded. not to the wife of Potiphar; and I magnanimously resolved in emulation of his virtues, to sacrifice each and every garment to my enamoured Circe, rather than unresistingly submit to be her victim. Fortunately, however, the trial was spared me; for the hag perceiving the undisguised abhorrence with which I shrank from her caresses, became infuriated at my want of sympathy, and abandoned me to my own meditations. »

I was now alone. The suspicious-looking dish was before me sentiments of intense curiosity crept over my mind, a craving longing to taste; an unnatural desire to analyze the mysterious compound. I plunged my fork and spoon into a bowl of water, and cleansed the encrusted metal from accumulated impurities. I dived down to the bottom of the mysterious mess; I carefully extricated from the reeking mixture a small portion, closed my eyes, commended myself unto providence, and swallowed-ye gods! what did I not swallow? Bull's liver, garlic, and toad-stools were the least among the abominations! In an agony of loathing 1 seized the caraffe that stood nearest me, emptied it its contents into a horn, and frantic with desperation, took a long deep draught of red wine, in the vain hope of stifling the poisonous odours of the infernal bestiality which fatal curiosity had tempted me to taste. As I withdrew the horn from my lips, every tooth in my head chattered, and I was momentarily deprived of my breath, and paralyzed, by the indefinable sourness of the beverage. With more haste than caution, I had recourse to the other flask. Its

contents were vile corn brandy, as scorching as liquid fire. To fill the cup of my annoyances to overflowing, shouts of boisterous laughter and rude derision resounded through the hovel a loud noise and a scuffling of feet was heard in the passage, the door of the apartment was forced violently open, and in reeled my Swiss valet, as drunk as a fiddler, the poor devil having fallen into the hands of the barbarians below. They had inveigled him to their den, poisoned him with the vile bull's liver and garlic, and insisted on his pledging them in copious libations of the alcohol. Too much terrified to refuse, he was compelled to accept their savage hospitality, at the risk of losing his life, and with the certainty of losing his senses and with eyes blood-shot, and staring out of his head, his brain on fire, and a reeling gait, he staggered into the room, his tongue deprived of the faculties of utterance-his mind of the light of reason, and his limbs of power and strength. Never was a more pitiable object seen! I loosened the poor wretch's cravat, dragged him on to a straw palliasse, and left him in a state of insensibility, unconscious of the bloody onslaught of a dense cloud of venomous musquitos.

:

"I was seated by the bed-side in the vain attempt of infusing Promethean fire into the inanimate carcass of my scoundrelly Swiss, when another actor made his first appearance on the scene. A gigantic personnage, a very Goliah of Gath, strode through the open doorway, and contemplating my philanthropical occupation with unsuppressed astonishment and mirth, gave the reins to the latter in a burst of laughter which shook the frail house to its foundations, and aroused me from my humane labours, as instantaneously and effectually as if I had been smitten by an electrical shock. I started to my feet, and faced my visitor with conflicting feelings of awe and dismay.

"

'Ho! ho! ho!' was his abrupt salutation, bellowed forth in a voice as loud and clear as the blast of a trumpet. 'Ho! ho! ho! Felicissima sera, Eccellenza! Never mind that drunken beast he has fire enough in his veins now I'll warrant him, little as he had before. Such another bout to-morrow, and we'll make a man of him. Ho! ho! ho!' and he roared with

laughter until the walls trembled again. I am here, eccellenza, to learn what are your commands for the morrow; the lake abounds with wild-fowl, and the sport will be excellent. Is his eccellenza a keen sportsman ? '

"Very, very much so indeed', I stammered forth, scarcely knowing in fact what I responded; and my awe was in no degree diminished, by a scrutiny of my visitor's personal appearance. I have already mentioned that he was gigantic in stature; all the proportions also of his frame were herculean, and yet every limb was moulded in nature's most exquisite symmetry, and developed an extraordinary play of thews and muscles, which must have been forced into matured fulness by tremendous labour, severe exertions, and constant exercise. A dark handsome countenance, whose characteristic expression was reckless good humour blended with a mixture of resolution and ferocity, was shaded by a profusion of bushy locks, dark as the plumage of the raven's wing, huge shaggy whiskers, long curling mustachios,—and a peaked beard, after the fashion of the modern French Carlists. He resembled one of Salvator's heroes, arrayed as he was, in the fantastical costume in which the Cacciatori of the Maremme, and the Brigands of the Abruzzi, equally delight, and of a truth, a more picturesque costume cannot be devised; nor one more admirably adapted to display to advantage the grace and flexibility of limb for which the Italians are so deservedly celebrated.

Picture to your imagination a man of gigantic stature and athletic proportions, attired in a short jacket of green Genoa velvet, belted by a silken scarf of gaudy hues, containing some two or three pistols, a couteau de chasse, and the deadly stiletto. The folds of the jacket, rolled back towards the shoulders, revealed, reposing on the carefully-plaited shirt of fine linen, amulets and charms in abundance; a massive gold chain with a cluster of rings attached, and a small hand in white coral, as a preventive against the evil eye; the slashed breeches of stout broad-cloth, richly and gaudily embroidered, fell but just below the knees, and the faultless symmetry of the muscular limbs were displayed in all the perfection of nature. Top this worthy with a high-peaked hat, encircled

by a streamer of crimson ribbon-thrust a long-barrelled fowling-piece into his hands-and my excellent friend The Gran Cacciatore della Locanda dell' Aquila Nera in the Pontine Marshes stands before you.

Such was my unwelcome visitor, who stalked carelessly up to the table, poured half a pint of alcohol into, a horn mug, tossed off the fiery liquor at one draught, drew a long deep breath, and then taking possession of my ricketty chair, which creaked and trembled beneath his heavy pressure, with his peaked hat fanned the green wood and the damp reeds into a momentary blaze. He then drew forth a clay pipe, filled it with most noxious weed, and smoked and puffed away as if unconscious of my very existence, until his head was encircled by a wreath of dense vapour. Anon, he stalked up to the bed on which the victim of intemperance lay prostrated. With one hand he raised up his head, with the other forced open his mouth, and then vomiting in betwixt the poor devil's jaws a torrent of smoke and flame sufficient to annihilate a salamander, with careless nonchalance let his head drop, exclaiming, 'Drunkards are always protected by providence! The bloated herring will do well!' He then addressed himself to me with infinite politeness. 'An hour or two before dawn,' said he, I shall have the honour of waking his eccellenza. I will now send Rugorna to arrange his eccellenza's bed, and wish him felicissima notte.'

«He vanished. A few minutes, and Rugorna tottered in, staggering under the burthen of a heap of exceedingly foul linen, contrasted with which the contents of Falstaff's buckbasket would have been luxury. The old Hecate was in a state of unusual good humour and jocosity, and mumbled forth, with even more than usual garrulity, sundry witticisms on all the ideas that came uppermost in her mind. 'So! so! the capitano has been to pay your eccellenza a visit; he is delighted that your eccellenza is so keen a sportsman, and so capital a shot, and he anticipates grand sport. He has been examining your eccellenza's gun, but swears that it is not worth a spazzano-forno (hearth-rake), and that your eccellenza shall prove all his fowling-pieces to-morrow. What a fine man the