formed a compact of interest and policy, that the tie which bound thee to me then, was in its nature alone sufficient to preclude all ideas of gratitude, or of tenderness: Thou wert then a murderer; and I, (whether by chance or by design,) was privy to the deed. That I was the deluder of thy youth, or the evil counsellor of thy conduct, that very deed denies: for, was it I who led thee to embrue thy hands in the blood of the virtuous de Cleance? No-thine own passions, thy vices, and thy treachery! Was it I who bade thee slay the good Bertoldo? Nothine own ambitious, jealous, envious hcart, which could not brook his happiness or superiority! Wert thou unschooled in crimes, unpractised in iniquity, when first I knew thee? NoI found thee, though young in

years,

yet old in wickedness, skilled in de

ception,

,,

29

ception, hackneyd in depravity: I viewed thee fitted to my purpose, and marked thee for my prey: the object of that purpose thou hast still to learn; but yet a few days, and all shall be completed; yet a few days, and thou. shalt know me for what I am for the preservation and protection which thou hast hitherto so generously afforded me," he added ironically, "I should have been bound to thee, had I not known, that in saving my life, thou didst regard it as the surest preservative of thine own. That I was unfriended, and unfortuned, is most true; but it is as true also, that friends I despised, and that wealth I disregarded; for know, Morano, though by Nature marked the jest of fortune, and the sport of circumstance, Art reared the foundling with a parent's care, and made mankind my victim and my prey.

HE

"

He now approached the door.Stay!" cried the frantic Marchese, yet a moment longer, and take a life of horror and despair; for once, Ubaldo, be merciful in thy vengeance, and save me from a public and disgraceful death: Oh! but for thee, he cried, after a short pause, striking in agony his bosom, Lorenzo yet were living! One word from thee had made me spare Bertoldo!

"POOR abject wretch!" replied Zánotti, regarding him with stern composure, "I will not take thy loathed and hated being, for that indeed were mercy; but I will reserve thee to such

ལ་

lingering miseries, such unheard of

sufferings, as only thou deservest! Peruse those papers," he continued,

they are not those you once saw; they were the records of my hidden

fate;

fate; these will teach you to curse yours! Mark them well, Morano,they cannot sink you lower than you are, or avert the blow, which now I haste to strike!"--Saying this, he wrapped his garments round him, past the door of the cell, and was seen no longer.

Ir is now requisite we should recur to incidents in the early life of Morano, not yet explained. When first emerging from the bosom of his family, and regardless of their entreaties, he threw off the yoke of parental authority, and became, by an early initiation into habits of profligacy and licentiousness, an abandoned and irreclaimable character, at an age when few men have any characters at all. It is possible, that the radical evil of

an

erroneous education might have had

had some influence in fixing his vicious propensities; and that weak indulgence, which failed in its ill effects on the natural good heart of Bertoldo, strengthened the perverse inclinations of Moraldi's disposition.

THE old Marchese di Albenza had, in the days of his youth, been a gay and dissipated man; yet, though not possessed of a very superior understanding, he had just sense enough to perceive its pernicious consequences, and to shrink from the dangers it threatened. Not, however, before his peace and constitution became severely impaired, did he awake from an infatuation, which left him the prey of disease, and the victim of unceasing regret; while a marriage, contracted at the instigation of his family, to re-establish a fortune his own impru dencies