persed monkery, it is said to have held an hundred or more. At the time we entered its gates there were but ten monks, and a murderer who had taken refuge there, while, they said, the relatives of the man slain had been waiting a year at Vico-varo, to catch him outside the convent, and take their revenge. Here we were joined by another English gentleman and his servant.

One day taking the course of the river upwards, we were struck with the appearance of a small town among the hills, and I wished to sketch it from the opposite bank. I determined, therefore, to go there the following day; they told me at the convent it was not safe, and besides, that the path through the underwood was infested by small snakes, whose bite was dangerous. But I wanted to bag the town, and ventured. As they told me, the path was infested with a great number of copper-coloured snakes, but they hurt me not, and I arrived opposite the place I wanted to sketch. There was a large convent there, which on paper occupied as much space as the town; and if the citadel and garrison, thought I, make a warlike town, as there is here an Episcopal palace and a large convent, which seems to command the town, the inhabitants ought to be peaceful; so, in spite of evil report, when I had finished my sketch, and it was now evening, I crossed a bridge and entered the town-and what a place!! I saw no inhabitant till 1 entered a small square, and here to my astonishment, the beds laid at the doors, and the people all in bed, in the open air. They would have served for a plague scene in the hands of a Nicolo Poussin; and their bedding looked infested. I made the best of my way out (my friend was not with me on this excursion), and a few steps led me into a street, and here I encountered a finely-dressed livery servant, who appeared but ill to accord with the place. He started when he saw me, looked about him, and hastily made a motion with his hand, looking very earnestly and significantly that I should go straightforward and with speed, and make my way out of the place. I did so, passed a gate very soon, and found a path that led me down to the river, and thence made the best of my way back, a distance of some miles. On my return, the gentleman's servant, an

Englishman, met me, and said he wanted to speak to me; that he knew I was up late, and kept my door open; that he had some reason to think the murderer, who, as I told you, had taken refuge there, was most nights in my room, and he desired me to lock my door. My room lay at the end of a long gallery-the whole was in the form of a cross. I sat up late, and very distinctly hearing groans, I took my lamp to trace from whence they came; I found them, near the end of another long gallery, to proceed from a poor devil who was flogging himself, and praying and groaning between. Returning, at the end of this gallery I had to pass a tomb-like recess, very dark and hollow, in which lay a recumbent statue of a dead Christ. It looked very sombre, and as I held up my lamp to look at it, I saw something move behind the figure. I went closer and held my lamp higher, and then saw something glisten-it was an eye. I then discovered two boys, who had accompanied us as attendants to carry our things about. They had chosen this position, I suppose, to sleep in, or for other purposes. Whether they or the murderer entered my room that night or not, I do not know, but it was entered, my portmanteau opened, and my purse taken. These monks were very ignorant; if they could read, it was very badly, as one of them brought me a paper to make out for him.

I forgot to tell you, when speaking of the French gentlemen with whom we travelled from Capua to Naples, and who treated us with so much real civility, that on our return to Naples from our disastrous excursion to Pæstum, we met one of them. He appeared much depressed; upon our asking the cause, he told us that he had been most wofully plundered. It appears he had a well-furnished house at Mola di Gaeta-robbers had broken a way through the walls, brought cars, and had taken away all the house contained. So you see, my dear Eusebius, not only strangers and travellers on the highway are robbed, but residents, and that by wholesale. I believe in many parts of this overpraised country it is thought quite a thing to boast of if a few days pass without a robbery. A landlord of an inn between Naples and Rome told me with great glee there had been none for a long time; I asked how long, he said not these ten days. I was then travelling by veturino, and

as we were setting off, told the man that it was a dangerous country, and he had better make speed. Instead of urging on his horses, he turned round to me and offered me a paper to look at, saying, "pensa niente, pensa niente." I found it to be a printed paper, with a receipt of a money payment to a convent at Naples, as a charm against every ill. There were pictures of all sorts of dangers, and rescues from them, and a statement that, though the prayer might be under the knife of the assassin, the souls he had released from purgatory would intercede for him, and he would be perfectly safe. But alas, Eusebius, I was not insured, and I had no faith; and he might be considered by the saints, as in carrying heretics, to have contraband goods; so I had nothing to do but to pay him instanter the whole amount for my journey, that I might have the less to lose. This made my fellow-travellers laugh; but whether at my faithless folly or my wisdom, I do not know. I have no doubt the veturino had faithsome of these fellows believe the saints can do any thing. I recollect one of them, not being able to manage his horses to his satisfaction, flew into a violent rage; but how did he show it? not with a volley of vulgar oaths, as an Englishman might perhaps have done, nor with a tremendous whack, and "up, my darlings!" as I have known an Irish driver do; but he deliberately left his seat and got before his horses, and knelt down in the middle of the road, and held up his hands, and lifted up his eyes, and prayed fervently and eloquently to all the saints,"Tutti Santi," that they would instantly kill his master's horses. The miracle did not come, which, I dare say, he attributed to his own particular sins, and determined to do penance. Perhaps the beasts had often been on their knees before a "Tutti Santi," and of the three beasts they determined to disappoint the human. Now, as setting the Italians to put an end to these disgraceful robberies, would be very much like "setting a thief to catch a thief," the thing is not, or was not attempted; but Austrian soldiers had done and were doing something that way. And many of the soft and beautiful landscapes of Italy are adorned by a fore-ground of a pole with a brown mahogany-looking leg or arm of some robber on the very

spot of his villany, so that the "Knight of the Post," post mortem, still "shoulders his arms and shows how fields were won. To sketch, with a friend standing by you with a cocked pistol, as I was once obliged to do, must greatly enhance the soft enchantment of the scenery, especially with these lopt members of the Inhumane Society, festering in front. I am sure, Eusebius, you have had enough of the bandits, and the more dignified and romantic robberies; shall we descend to the minor cheateries and cheats, the "pickers up of unconsidered trifles?" Alas! there would be no loss-three thick octavo volumes at least could I give you-but leave me this for the labours of the Statistic Societies, who poke their noses every where (unhappy be their noses, indeed, when they do so in Italy!) And I will here just hint, or rather state the fact without entering into detail-and to one of your fine sense that way it will be quite enough—that in every quarter of Italy you can always smell a town a mile or two off at least; and it must have been in this country that the saying or direction was first made, to "follow your nose." The filth and indecencies of the country are really far beyond an untravelled Englishman's conception. Verbum sat. I do not wonder that foreigners take snuff and smoke tobacco-there is much to disguise; and thus have I thrown light upon this question of the why, obiter, not of design, so have I been lucky "ex fumo dare lucem." I told you I would not enter into the detail of these matters. But as I know, Eusebius, this paper will not reach you at a time to spoil your appetite, I will just mention what may be met with by telling you the following dietary anecdote. I lodged at a large hotel in Rome, kept by a German. We sat down, about forty persons every day, to dinner, hussar officers, gentlemen travellers, natives, &c. &c. I have seen the latter sit at table without their coats-shirt sleeves looked very cool-I have seen waiters wait in their nightcaps, and thought it not advisable to request them to take them off. But to the matter. One day in earnest conversation with my right-hand neighbour, just after dinner, as I was waiting rather impatiently to reply, I did what foolish people sometimes foolishly do, with my finger picked up the crumbs off the table; in

doing this, and with my eye fixed at the same time upon the spot, I saw, how shall I tell it, the crumbs running away from me. What became of the argument I know not. My antagonists in it had it all to themselves.

"Licito tandem sermone fruentur."

There was very little "comfort" in these "crumbs.” The next day I went off to Naples; but as I left my trunks and many things at Rome, and intended not to stay long in it again, and flattering myself that such an accidental license would not befall me a second time, on my return I was constrained to go to the same hotel. I could not sit down at the same side of the table I had sat before, and with a misgiving mind took a more distant place. Before I began to touch any thing I examined the cloth,

"Infandum, Regina, jubes renovare dolorem !"

Down dropt my knife and fork. It was the nature of the place and people. "Naturam expellas furcâ, tamen usque recurret ;" that is, you may throw down your fork, if you please, but you shall have the same dish for dinner tomorrow. The company at this hotel was sometimes very amusing. There was one timid gentleman, who appeared to have retired early from the business of the world, or to have escaped from it for the wisdom and polish to be acquired by travel, to have something of travelled knowledge to impart at his parties at Islington-for there was he, according to his own free communication, most comfortably domiciled, with a maiden sister who kept house for him. Quite delicious were the descriptions of his home happiness. Oh, if his sister did but know the dangers he was in! did he often say. Nothing frightened this poor gentleman so much as accounts of robbers; and I make no doubt his courier, for he had one, played upon his fears upon all occasions. He looked upon himself in Rome as in a robber's trap, and which way to get out of it he did not know. He had no conversation but about banditti, and Islington comforts-and they were in fearful contrast. I bantered him not a little, and by contradict