ting, and, in an agony of rage and rapture, I grasped him by the throat, exclaiming, Wretch! what is this that you have done?'

In

His complexion, naturally pale, became of a gangrenous yellow, and, before I could master myself, he fainted. the course of a few minutes, however, he recovered, and, to the utter amazement of his companion, confessed his guilt.

It is impossible to describe the tumult of feelings with which this disclosure shook me. I embraced the mysterious felon with an emotion like gratitude for having redeemed me from an ignominious death. The noise brought in the jailer and several of his officers, to whom the discovery was announced; indeed the appearance of the assassin was almost sufficient of itself to attest the confession he had made; for he sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, with his head drooping on his breast, and his arms hanging listless.

The dungeon in which we then were belonged to one of the guard-houses of the Inquisition; and after Antonio had repeated his confession, the officers did not think it necessary to detain me; accordingly I returned to the hotel, and, exhausted by the intensity of my reflection, I felt myself so much fatigued that I went to bed, and slept upwards of twelve hours. Meanwhile Antonio had been carried before the tribunal, and having again acknowledged that he had administered the poison, was condemned to be executed next day..

This information, which I received on awakening, induced me to hasten to his prison. On approaching the door, a friar of a venerable aspect came out of the condemned cell. He held in his hand a lamp, which, flaring on his face, showed that he was profoundly affected by the result of his interview with the criminal. I bowed to him as he silently passed, and the jailer, who was at my side, said, 'He must have received some terrible confession; for, although he has attended the worst criminals, I never saw him so affected before.'

On entering the cell I beheld, with astonishment, Antonio seated on the ground, bearing the same mild and prepossessing countenance, and contentedly eating his supper. In that same easy, comfortable state, he had laid open the dreadful secrets of his conscience to the friar.

I sat down opposite to him under a grated aperture in the wall, which admitted light. The setting sun shone hori

zontally into the dungeon, and the beams tinted the head of the criminal in such a manner as to give to his flat sweaty hair (for such it was) the appearance of glistening with supernatural fire. His complexion was colourless, and his eyes dull and glassy.

In the name of Heaven,' said I, what tempted you to poison the Count?'

He laid down a piece of bread, which he was in the act of raising towards his mouth, and laying the back of his right hand on his knee, placed the left in its place with a sort of emphatic negligence.

'Did you never feel yourself,' said he, inclined to do any thing which you could not account for? Unless you have experienced that feeling, I can give you no explanation, nor why I feel no sorrow for what I have done.' Is this your first crime, Antonio?'

'It is the only murder that I have committed,' said he, looking at me with a smile expressive of the remembrance of enjoyment; and,' he added—' I have long desired to gratify myself in that way.'

I sickened with horror at the manner and the expression of the demoniacal sentiment, and could not continue the conversation.

One night, while I was sitting alone in the room, a stranger, in the uniform of the army of the Cisalpine republic, came in. He was a fine manly figure, of a noble cast of countenance, and in his whole air and deportment there was a Roman dignity that could not be seen without admiration. But he had not been above a minute or two in the room, when I felt myself fearfully affected, and the whole incident that had so powerfully agitated me in the island of Maddalena burst upon my mind. In the same moment the stranger began to hum the identical air which I had heard so exquisitely played on the flageolet. Suddenly he paused, and shuddered as with the emotion of some terrible recollection. I rose and went towards him, and, without being able to tell wherefore, said- Do not you come from the Island of Maddalena ?'

The look he gave me was terrific; but, subduing his feelings, he replied

No: I am a Corsican; but why do you ask if I am of Maddalena?' I then requested him to sit down with me;

and I began to recount to him the story which I have already told you, when he abruptly started up and quitted the room. I could be under no mistake, he was undoubtedly the son of the old and unfortunate baron.

Soon after this curious rencontre, I resolved to leave Paris and return to Italy. Of the money which I had received at Vienna for the journey, and a liberal present from the father of Count Waltzerstein, a considerable sum remained, but it could not last for ever; and in Paris I had no friends, while in Naples I was known to many persons who could assist me to obtain employment.

I preferred for my route the road through Savoy; and in the course of the journey, after quitting France, I fell in with two Franciscan friars going to Turin, and we joined company. One of them was an old man, who had been invited to become superior of a monastery in the neighbourhood of that city, and was then on his way to take possession. Urged by the entreaties of that respectable ecclesiastic, and partly by my own reflections on the friendlessness of my condition, I was induced, after we reached the monastery, to assume the Franciscan habit, and to become a novice for several months, with the intention of professing myself a monk. But this design had scarely been formed a week, when it began to be rumoured that Buonaparte intended to dissolve the monastic institutions of Italy. I, however, having been provided with the garb, continued to wear it.

One evening, as I was returning from Turin to the monastery, which stood at some distance from the city, I fell in with a numerous party of soldiers who had been wounded in a recent battle. This, with some general news that I had collected in the town, furnished topics in the refectory for conversation after supper; and while we were speaking, a message came from a house, not far from the convent, to request the superior to visit an officer whose wounds had suddenly assumed such an appearance, owing to the fatigues of his day's march, that it was feared he could not recover. My friendly old companion readily obeyed the summons, and I went with him.

The night was solemnly tranquil,-the slightest sound was distinctly heard,-the lights of the city seemed to shine with more than common brilliancy, and the stars sparkled as it were with the intelligence of life as well as light.

On reaching the door, it was opened softly. A superfluous number of lamps and candles were burning in almost

every apartment, and an unusual splendour, but dull and mysterious, appeared throughout the whole house. The family spoke in whispers, and were answered by signs. was evident that some catastrophe was going on.

It

We silently ascended the stairs. At the chamber-door of the dying man, a tall and venerable old lady stood listening; -she was wrapped in a white mantle over a black dress, and, the folds being loosely drawn over her head, it had the appearance of a winding sheet, and gave to her withered and cadaverous features something wildly charnel and characteristic of the tomb. On seeing us approach, she raised her hand, and motioned us to go into the room.

On entering, we heard the patient breathing laboriously. His servant sat at a table near his pillow, with a crystal goblet of water in his hand. Observing us, he placed it on the table, and resigned his chair to the superior; one of the domestics, who had followed us into the room, at the same time set down a lamp.

I took a seat at the bottom of the bed, and instinctively drew the capuchin of my habit over my head. The old friar, in the meantime, was gently addressing himself to the patient, who was suffering excessively, and breathing with great pain, urging him to make his peace with Heaven, by confessing his sins.

'Heaven,' exclaimed the officer, already knows my sins, and I will not gratify your curiosity.'

You will permit me to pray for you,' said the superior. 'Do as you please, but it is of no use.'

The good and venerable ecclesiastic began in a soft, low, and pathetic voice, the orisons for the dying. Before he concluded, the dead-rattle was heard in the officer's throat. When the service was finished, the patient, whose fortitude seemed to be invulnerable, requested a drink. I lifted the glass with the water from the table, at the same moment the old monk raised the lamp, and as we bent to administer the drink, I threw back my capuchin. The dying man gazed at me, and in that instant I discovered in him the mysterious son of the Corsican baron. He wildly stretched out his hand, and grasping the holy brother by the arm, cried, 'Save me!' and expired.

Soon after that affair, the monasteries being dissolved, I threw aside my Franciscan garb, and went to Rome.

For the causes and reasons already described, I had seen nothing of that famous city during my first visit. I now saw

every thing, and, among others, a curious collection of bones of the human leg, formed by a German doctor, for the purpose of instituting a new science, which he intended to call Skæliology. He had arranged them in what he denominated moral classes, and showed me the points by which they indicated the characters of the individuals to which they had belonged. The signs of the passions were plausibly pointed out; and he showed, on a thigh-joint, what he described as a most extraordinary development of the index of delight.

I was in the act of taking the bone in my hand to examine it, when I was seized with the same inexplicable sort of tremor which I had experienced in Paris, at the time I first saw the Corsican officer in the coffee-room, and the image of the murderer Antonio flashed upon my recollection.

This bone,' said I to the German, has been taken from a murderer's thigh. I knew the wretch, and his name was Antonio Scelerata.'

The doctor gazed at me with wonder and dread, and then exclaimed, How can you know that? no one has before seen that bone. I bought the leg, and cleaned it myself; but it is unique, and I have not ventured to show it before, because I could not assign that conformation to any determinate class. But it is, as you say, the bone of an assassin who was executed for the murder of his master.'