66 place. Thinkest thou that He of the double-headed black eagle would not amply reward the sword that cut this fading lily from the earth?" "No more, no more, De Saintefleur!" cried Gaspar; even from you who placed me where I might flourish beneath that lily's shade, will I not hear this treason. Rest secure that I will not betray thee to the King; my life shall sooner be given for thine; but I will watch thee with more vigilance than the wolf hath when he watcheth the night-fold, and your first step to the heart of Francis shall be over the body of Gaspar de Marcan ville." 66 Nay, then," said De Saintefleur, aside, he must be my first victim ;' and immediately drawing his sword, he cried aloud, "What ho! guards! treason!"-whilst Gaspar stood immoveable with astonishment and horror. The event is soon related; for Francis was but too easily persuaded that De Marcanville was in reality guilty of the act about to have been perpetrated by De Saintefleur; and the magnanimity of Gaspar was such, that not one word which might criminate his former friend could be drawn from him, even to save his own life. The kind hearted Francis, however, was unable to forget in a moment the favour with which for years he had been accustomed to look upon De Marcanville; and it was only at the earnest solicitation of the Courtiers, many of whom were rejoiced at the thoughts of a powerful rival's removal, that he could be prevailed on to pass upon him even the sentence of degradation and banishment. Gaspar hastened to his chateau, but the treasures which he was allowed to bear with him into exile, were little more than his Rosalie and his daughter Adele; with whom he immured himself in the dark, and almost boundless recesses of the Hanoverian Harz, where his fatigues and his sorrows soon rendered his gaunt and attenuated form altogether unknown. In this savage retirement, he drew up a faithful narration of De Saintefleur's treachery; and in confirmation of it's truth, procured a certificate from his confessor, Father Ægidius,-one of those holy men, who of old were dwellers in forests and deserts, and directing it "To the King," placed it in the hands of his wife, that if, in any of those hazardous excursions in which he was engaged to procure their daily subsistence, he should perish, it might be delivered to Francis, and his family thus be restored to their rank and estates, when his pledge to De Saintefleur could no longer be claimed. Years passed away, and, in the gloomy ; recesses of the Hercynian woods, Gaspar acquired considerable skill as a hunter had it been to preserve his own life only, he had laid him calmly down upon the sod, and resigned that life to famine, or to the hungry wolf; but he had still two objects which bound him to existence, and therefore in the chase the wild-buck was too slow to escape his spear, and the bear too weak to resist his attacks. His fate, notwithstanding, preyed heavily upon him, and often brake out in fits of vehement passion, and the most bitter lamentations; which at length so wrought upon the grief-worn frame of Rosalie de Marcanville, that about ten years after Gaspar's exile, her death left him a widower, when his daughter Adele was scarcely eighteen years of age. It was then, with a mixture of desperation and distress, that De Marcanville determined to rush forth from his solitude into France; and, careless of the fate which might await him for returning from exile unrecalled, to advance even to the Court, and laying his papers at the foot of the throne, to demand the Ordeal of Combat with De Saintefleur; but when he had arrived at the woody Province of the Upper Limousin, his purpose failed him, as he saw in the broad day-light, which rarely entered the Harz Forest, the afflicting changes which ten years of the severest labour, and the most heartfelt sorrow, had made upon his form. He might, indeed, so far as it regarded all recollections of his person, have safely gone even into the Court of Francis; but Gaspar also saw, that in the retired forest surrounding St. Yrieux, he might still reside unknown in his beloved France; that under the guise of a hunter, he could still provide for the support of his gentle Adele; and that, in the event of his death she would be considerably nearer to the Sovereign's abode. It was, then, in consequence of these reasons, that De Marcanville employed a part of his small remaining property, in securing a residence in the dilapidated Chateau, as it has been already mentioned. It was some time after their arrival, that the inhabitants of the Town of St. Yrieux were alarmed by the intelligence that a Wehr-Wolf, or perhaps a troop of them, certainly inhabited the woods of the Limousin. The most terrific howlings were heard in the night, and the wild rush of a chase swept through the deserted streets; yet the townspeople-according to the most approved rules for acting where Wehr-Wolves are concerned,never once thought of sallying forth in a body,-and with weapons, and lighted brands, to scare the monsters from their prey; but adding a more secure fastening to every window, which is the WehrWolf's usual entrance, they deserted such as had already fallen their victims, with one brief expression of pity for them, and many a "Dieu me benit!" for themselves. It was asserted, too, that some of the country people, whose dwellings came more immediately into contact with the Limousin forests, had lost their children; whose lacerated remains, afterwards discovered in the woods, only half devoured, plainly denoted them to have fallen the prey of some abandoned WehrWolf! It is not surprising, that in a retired town, where half the people were without employment, and all were through bred gossips, and lovers of wonders, that the inroads of the Wehr- Wolf formed too important an epoch in their history, to be passed over without a due discussion. Under pretence, therefore, of being a protection to each other, many of the people of St. Yrieux, and especially the worthy conclave mentioned at the begin ning of this history, were, almost eternally, convened at the Chevalier Bayard's Årms; talking over their nightly terrors, and filling each other with such affright, by the repetition of many a lying old tale upon the same subject, that, too much alarmed to part, they often agreed to pass the night over Nicole Bonvarlet's wine flask and blazing fagots. Upon a theme so intimately connected with magical lore as is the history of Wehr-Wolves, Dr. Antoine Du Pilon discoursed like a Solomon; citing, to the great edification and wonder of his hearers, such hosts of authors, both sacred and profane, that he who should have hinted, that the WehrWolves of St. Yrieux were simply like other Wolves, would have found as little gentleness in his hearers, as he would have experienced from the animals themselves. Well, my masters!" began Bonvarlet, one evening when they were met, "I would not, for a tun of malmsey wine now, be in the Limousin forest to-night; for do ye hear how it blusters and pours? By the Ship of St. Mildred! in a wild night like this, there's no place in the world like your hearth-side in a goodly auberge, with a merry host and good liquor; both of which, neighbours, ye have to admiration." "Ay, Nicole," replied Cuirbouilli, "it's a foul night, truly, either for man or cattle; and yet I'll warrant ye that the Wehr-Wolves will be out in 't, for their skin is said to be the same as that the Fiend himself wears! and that would shut you out water, and storm, and wind, like a castle-wall. Mass, now! but it would be simply the making of my fortune, an' I could but get one of their hides." "Truly, for a churl," began Dr. Du Pilon, "an unlettered artizan, thy wish sheweth a pretty wit; for a cloak made from the skin of a Wehr-Wolf, would for ever defend its wearer from all other Wolves, and all animals that your Wolves feed upon; even, as Pythagoras writeth, that one holding the eye of a Wolf in his hand, shall scare away from him all weaker creatures; for like as the sight of a Wolf doth terrify—' "Hark, neighbours! did ye hear that cry? it is a Wehr-Wolf's bark!" exclaimed Jerome Malbois starting from his settle. ; "Ay, by the Bull of St. Luke! did I, riend Jerome," returned Bonvarlet "surely the great Fiend himself can make no worse a howling; 1 even thought 't would split the very rafters last night, though I deem that they're of good seasoned fir." "There thou errest again," said the Doctor, in a pompous tene, to the last speaker; "Oh! ye rustics, whom I live with as Orpheus did with the savages of Thracia, whence is it that ye possess such boundless stupidity? Thou sayest, Jerome Malbois, that they bark; and could I imagine, that shooting in the dark, thou hadst hit on the Greekish phrase, which calls them Nuštegi voi Kaves, or Dogs of the Night, I could say thou had'st said wisely; but now I declare that thou hast spoken full ignorantly, right woodenly, Jerome Malbois; thou art beyond thy square, friend joiner; thou hast overstepped thy rule, good carpenter. Doth not the great Albertus bear testimony, Oh, most illiterate! that Wolves bark not, when he saith :— 'Ast Lupus ipse vlulat, frendit agrestis aper,' which for thine edification, is, in the vulgar tongue,— But the Wolf doth loudly howl, and the boar his teeth doth grind, Where the wildest plains are spread before, and forests rise behind. Et idem Auctor, and the same Author also saith, which maketh yet more against thee, O mentis inops ! 'Per noctem resonare Lapus, vlulantibus urbes,' which in the common is The wolf by night through si'ent cities prowls, And makes the streets resound with hideous howls. (To be Continued.) SUBJECT OF THE ILLUSTRATION PRESENTS the fight of Clorinda, a valiant maid on the side of the Pagans, with Tancred, a knight of Godfreys, who she opposes, full of revenge, caused by slighted love.* Tancred his name-O! grant some happier hour May yield him, Hving, prisoner to my power! So might my soul some secret comfort find, And sweet revenge appease my restless mind! She said, and ceased! the king the damsel heard, But to a different sense her speech referr'd; While, mingled with these artful words she spoke, A sigh spontaneous from her bosom broke. Meanwhile, her lance in rest, the warrior dame and shield, Astonish'd now her well-known face beheld. She, o'er her head disarm'd, the buckler threw, While from her face unarm'd she sends the dart, That rives, with surer aim, my bleeding heart! Book III. which for a long period had remained of a pure unstained Ausonian blue, became regularly clouded, as the sun neared his western declension; at which time also, a chill wind arose, attended with those marshy exhalations, so noted throughout the Campagna, as the pestilent source of the malaria. Nature was as yet, however, only half rifled of her sweets; for, in the delightful land of Italy, the natural spirit of life breathes with freedom and health. The vineyards groaned beneath their gushing and purpled clusters ;-the fruitage hung in ripeness throughout orchard latter blossomed in all their rich and and garden; and the flowers of the beautiful varieties. As if on purpose to disappoint the studious Pietro Giannone of his accustomed and favourite sunset walk, the dews descended almost in a shower; and every thing without doors looked so cheerless and uncomfortable, that he found himself compelled to occupy his twilight breathing time from research, by seating himself beside a window that overlooked one of the principal thoroughfares of the city of Pavia, and surveying the motley groups that were passing to and fro on the pavé. Here some noble Dama whirled along in her chariot to an evening coterie; and there a brawny porter bent under his Herculean load. In one corner stood a of water from the public fountain; and, patient girl, waiting her turn for a pitcher in another, a knot of noisy urchins had congregated for sportive pastime. As twilight deepened, the crowd were thrown into greater obscurity; but the occasional lighting up of the warehouses of the different merchants, cast, a transient gleam over the faces and garments of such as chanced' to cross the openings. One after another, in rapid succession, playing in a long vista, down the squares the street-lamps sparkled brilliantly, disand alleys, a far-off line of lights, gradually losing themselves in the distant haziness of night. The fruiterers had removed their linen-covered stalls; and, as the gathering stars began to glitter from on high, the bustle and the business of day gradually subsided into the quiet of evening. As Pietro sat musing, his mind naturally reverted to the theme of his philosophical researches; and they had that day lain among the intricacies of metaphysical speculation. He had turned from one philosopher to another. He had read and re-read, only to find doubt and perplexity. All was a labyrinth of intricacy-a chaos of contradiction-a maze of obscurity— a sea without a shore! One result, and one only, was obvious to him, and that was, the vigorous and unwearied aspiration of the soul after Truth, the deep interest of the mind in the knowledge of its own hidden nature and destiny. At the same time, he felt chagrined at the miserably narrow and circumscribed view which our human faculties allow us to take of the subject. Instead of a solution of those doubts, on account of which he had assiduously pored over the folios of a host of ethical sophists, he had ended in greater perplexity than he had set out; for what at first seemed only difficult and tangled, now appeared a maze without a plan; and his attention, fatigued with grasping at illusive theories, had sunk down into that state of dreamy listlessness, which so uniformly follows over-excitement. He did not allow his acquiescence in the noble belief of Socrates, or the profound speculations of Plato, concerning the soul's perpetuity, to be disturbed by the cold, hesitating calculations of the Stagyrite, or the apathetic scepticism of Lucre tius and Pliny. From the profane, he had turned altogether to the sacred writings, from the efforts of unassisted reason, to the illuminated pages of revelation; and he found that Scripture made that as clear as noonday, which had formerly been seen, but as through a glass darkly.' One point of his restless research, how ever, yet remained unexplained; and he had vainly puzzled himself with the curious, but somewhat idle doctrines concerning the intermediate state of the soul. Deeply aware of their unsatisfactory tendency, he had scarcely power to prevent his mind from indulging in those mystical trains of thought which had bewildered the Pneumatologists of the middle ages. However, though the reveries of Cardan, Psellus, Sprenger, and Iamblicus, were enough to dazzle and mislead the imaginations of romantic enthusiasts, they were insufficient to satisfy the judgment of one, so discriminating and logical as Pietro; and though the Gnostics of early Christian times, following Plato, had attempted to classify the different orders of angelic beings, and had thus, to their own satisfaction, formed a hierarchy of beatified spirits, according to their own whimsical superstitions, our inquirer after truth but too plainly saw, not only that their structure was raised on idle conjecture, but was in many respects repugnant to sound reason and common sense. "Yet," thought he, "it is a curious fact, corroborated by the traditions of all nations, and by all historians, however discordant, that a belief in disembodied spirits having power to revisit the glimpses of the moon,' and reveal themselves to earthly survivors, universally prevails. It is a matter of record, alike in the Talmud of the Jews-the Iliad of the Greeksthe Æneid of the Romans-and the Edda of the Scandinavians. Can such a point of belief, seemingly co-extensive with the dispersion of the human race, be other than an inherent principle in our nature?" Vividly did the recollection of that period awaken to memory, when some years before he had pursued the same speculations, in conjunction with his friend Vasco Cellini; and many deep feelings, interwoven with that remembrance, now obtruded themselves. Both were convinced that the soul was an immortal and imperishable essence, embodied for a season in a human and perishable frame; yet, where goes it on its immediate separation from the body? Lies it dormant for ages in the cold grave? Does death absolve all its ties to the earth? Is there an intermediate state between the confines of time and eternity? On some points of faith there existed a difference of belief between the two friends, and this, even in essentials. Truth is no Janus, it looks but one way; and mentally convinced as either was, how were they, between them, to elicit conviction? * / Their lodgings having been in the same street, they had been accustomed to enjoy each other's company in unceremonious evening visits, at which they talked over the subjects of their daily researches together. Once, it so chanced, that after much unavailing speculation on the subject alluded to, a colloquy to the following effect took place: "This subject, my dear Vasco, is not to be unravelled; for, how can we draw sound conclusions from a topic, which is at best conjectural?” "True," answered Vasco, "but it is not less on that account a subject of deep interest, and worthy of all the investigation that our limited powers enable us to bestow upon it. I would sacrifice onehalf of my paternal inheritance for a solution of my doubts." Pietro, who was perambulating the apartment with measured steps, stopped short opposite one of the windows; and having drawn aside the hangings, exclaimed-" How brightly you myriads of stars sparkle in the dark blue firmament! The idea may be foolish, but it has often struck me, that the soul may be transferred from one of those bodies to another, in long succession; continually in its progressive course, becoming more and more purified from the stains of its terrestrial pilgrimage; throwing off its acquired infirmities; and approximating to the nature of a pure and blessed spirit." "The idea," replied his companion, "is as novel as it is orthodox; but proof -proof-proof, Pietro. We toss as before in a sea of idle conjecture. Where is our assurance of such things? Hypothesis-suggestion-probability-are not certainty.' "True, my friend, such things are but idle fashionings out of the inquiring and unsatisfied spirit,-whims of excursive fancy, supported neither by revelation, nor logical deduction. These things lie ' within the veil,' and are shut out from the explorations of human intellect. Imagination may hover around; but, like Noah's dove, it brings no token of assurance. Provided, however, it be not a warring against the fixed laws of nature, one of us may at least be made aware of the truth, even before leaving this sublunary stage. Do you attend to me?" "I am all attention—————) -Proceed." "Well, then, my suggestion is this. Let which ever of us die first, return, in spirit, for the immediate information of the survivor." "Agreed, with all my heart," said Vasco, proffering his hand, which was cordially grasped by his friend ::-"But how know we that such things are allowed ?" "At all events," returned Pietro," one of us shall learn as much by the issue, in the accomplishment, or the non-fulfilment of this paction. If a disembodied soul may return to earth, and reveal the mystery, we are individually bound so to do." Pietro, sitting with his listless gaze fixed on the flickering fire, felt this conversation repass through his mind, with a vivid distinctness. Perhaps the same intensely renewed perception of the intangible na ture of the subject, which had occupied his mind on that memorable evening, by awakening trains of association, had now brought to recollection the ideas connected with such an unsatisfactory speculation more acutely. As Pietro laid him down to rest, the clock struck eleven. The night was calm; the city silent; and starry darkness reigned over the wide, silent, serene hemisphere. Contrary to his wonted habit, his sleep was dreamy, disturbed, and unrefreshing. The dim pageantries of by-past years flitted before his mind's eye in feverish and gloomy succession, and mixing up with the heavy, lethargic, leaden coinage of the brain, melted away in dim, shadowy indistinctness. In vain, turning from side to side, he courted the refreshing repose which eluded him. Still phantasmagorial crowds awaited the closing of The earliest morning was clouded, but silent; so that the twitter of the swallows which harboured beneath the eaves, was distinctly audible. Opposite were some tall poplars, whose summits stood motionless. From the thickness of the air, it was evident that a heavy dew was falling :-the silence felt almost unearthly :and sorely did Pietro miss his favourite blackbird, whose sweet, clear, thrilling song used to welcome in the dawn. The ticking of the old Venetian clock on the staircase, sounded to his painfully attentive ear like the audible pulse of time. Suddenly a violent knocking was heard at the street door, the portico over which almost shewed itself at his window sill. He started from his reverie, listening in anxious suspense ;-what could it be, this untimely summons? He did not bestir himself; but waited a little, in the hope that some one of the servants would answer. In a few seconds it was repeated, and more violently, yet not a foot was stirring. Pietro lost his self-possession, a sudden awe fell shadow-like over his heart, and almost deprived him of the power of motion. The third peal sounded, just as, recovering himself, his foot touched the carpet. He rushed forward to the window, the sash of which he was about to throw upwhen, lo! what meets his view? He beholds his friend, Vasco Cellini, galloping down the centre of the street, on a horse white as the falling snows of January. Behind him streamed a long white mantle; and once he reverted his head, and waved his arm, as if in token of farewell. Could it be real? Was it not a dream? He glanced round the apart ment, and then again after the figure; but the illusive pageant had vanished, like a shadow in the sunshine; and nought was seen but the voiceless and deserted street, under the sombre covering of a cloudy sky, and wet with the dews of morning. The perturbed and agitated student could not help exclaiming aloud to himself" And art thou, my friend, dead? -Hast thou left this earth for ever?Are we now separated by the gulph of |