When Mr. Ticknor's books were accepted by the City Council of Boston and removed to the Library, in April last, the number of them was found to be three thousand seven hundred and sixty printed volumes, fourteen bound manuscript volumes, and five hundred and ninety-eight pamphlets, besides many unbound manuscripts.

The task, by no means a slight one, of arranging and classifying this collection is now completed, and the books are divided into sections, representing Spanish history, biography, geography, and the various departments of literature. The catalogue is in course of preparation, and it is expected that it will be ready within a year. It fell to the writer to pass recently several days making researches among these precious volumes, and although they were not yet ready for public use, he was able to consult them to advantage by the kindness of the superintendent and assistant-superintendent of the Public Library, and the courtesy of Mr. J. L. Whitney of the catalogue department. One takes in at a glance the fact that these books have been very carefully handled, and that they were the pets of their collector. Many of them contain important annotations on the fly-leaves and margins from Mr. Ticknor's pen, and, besides, there are numerous scraps laid within the volumes, which will be carefully preserved and fastened upon them, bearing references and notes of great literary value. There are many Elzevir editions of ancient authors, and rich old copies of the early dramatists and poets bound in calf and vellum. Here are numerous copies of the celebrated poem of "The Cid." Here also you may find Mr. Ticknor's copied extracts from the Escurial manuscript of the famous and venerable Jew, the "Rabbi Don Santob."

See how shrewdly in giving advice to the dissolute Peter the Cruel, on his accession to the throne, he warns the monarch not to despise his words because they come from a humble source:

"Por nacer en el espino,
La rosa ya non siento,
Que perde; ni el buen vino,
Por salir del sarmiento.
"Non vole el azor menos,

Porque en vil nido siga;
Nin los ejemplos buenos,
Porque Judio los diga."
"Because upon a thorn it grows,

The rose is not less fair;

And wine that from the vine-stock flows
Still flows untainted there.

"The goshawk, too, will proudly soar,
Although his nest sits low;

And gentle teachings have their power,

Though 'tis the Jew says so."

"But 'tis because the words I dread
Of men who speak me fair,
And ask within my whitened head
For wit that is not there."

On other shelves you may find the old "Royal Chronicles," and delve among them without stint, or spend many an hour amidst the "Religious Romances of Chivalry," or look through copy after copy of the famous dramatic story of "The Celestina." The "Provençal Literature" is in another portion, fully illustrated throughout its series of authors. Cervantes and Lope de Vega

are amply represented by numerous copies of each chef-d'œuvre; and an editor can now easily collate a revision of "Don Quixote" without going beyond Boston. The immortal Pedro Calderon de la Barca has on these shelves so many beautiful volumes to perpetuate his renown that, were he to meet their former owner in the land of spirits, he might appropriately address him with the poetic phrase that he puts into the lips of one of his heroes: "I saw and I loved thee so nearly together that I do not know if I saw thee before I loved thee, or loved thee before I saw thee."

Among the rarer curiosities of this unique collection are many valuable books that have been condemned by the judges of the Inquisition, some of which, if we may so speak, have themselves suffered its tortures, bearing visible marks of the cuttings and burnings and expurgations to which its agents subjected them. One of these is the "Varia Opuscula" of Mariana, a voluminous Jesuit writer. This book is referred to in Ticknor's "History of Spanish Literature," duodecimo edition, vol. iii., p. 179. It was published, not in Spain, but at Cologne, in 1569. It consists of seven Latin treatises on various subjects of theology and criticism. Most of these met with no animadversions; but one, No. VI., "De Morte et Immortalitate," concerning mortality and immortality, was seized upon for theological censure. Another, No. IV., "De Mutatione Monetæ," concerning the debasing of the currency, was assailed on political grounds. The Inquisition took cognizance of both, and the author, then aged seventy-three years, was confined and tortured. The worthy heads of the Inquisition have cut in pieces the copy in Mr. Ticknor's collection, and, after removing the fourth treatise, have bound it again together. The title-page is quite a monument of their skill in patching and piecing. They have cut out of it the title of the fourth treatise, and then prefixed a capital I to the next number, V., making it thus IV. From VI. and VII. the erasure of the final letter changes them

Another of his quaint poems may serve as to V. and VI. There is a little stain on the

an excuse for a modern fashion:

"My hoary locks I dye with care,

Not that I hate their hue,

Nor yet because I wish to seem

More youthful than is true.

left side of this page, where something, now gone, was once pasted, and Mr. Ticknor has written over it, " Here, I suppose, was the certificate of expurgation."

Other portions of this persecuted tome, that could not be easily cut out, have been blackened and blotted with unsightly daubs of ink. I took pains by holding up the leaves to the sunlight to discover what had so moved the ire of the Inquisitorial authorities. I found on page 103, second column, Scripture quotations from Hebrew and Greek codices, on page 49 statements as to the inspiration of the apostles, on page 104 arguments of St. Paul, on page 105 arguments of St. John and of Augustine, and on page 106 statements of Bible truth from Jerome. These passages were so badly defaced that the Inquisition expected no one would ever be influenced by their teachings.

dames, with parasols and many-colored costumes, walk up and down the plaza, or sit under a pink and white awning knitting and flirting in the shade.

But much of Cabrin keeps its old charmthat special charm of freshness which much contact with the outer world is sure to destroy both in persons and places. How strange it is that we take such pains to destroy all we value! In this age the old recipe of "a little wholesome neglect" seems forgotten.

Madame Robin's cottage has probably been standing since the days of Duke William. It has two stories, and a shingled roof which time has twisted up and down, and in its hollows shows a mass of brilliant color-yellow stone-crops and huge green houseleeks. Here and there vine branches strain up to the eaves and reach them. Madame Robin has had these trained round the upper windows; for she does not allow so much as a leaf to display itself on the bare brown stems that make a map of the whitewashed walls below. Dear me! no: out-door grapes are of no market value compared with the golden, downy-cheeked apricots, and the wealth of tawny, green, and crimson plums that lie basking there. It is not a mere straight wall, either: the parlor, with a bedroom atop, comes forward boldly from the rest of the house, and so leaves a snug corner on each side. The fragrance of mignonette comes from these cor

In the Ticknor collection may also be seen four of the official accounts of general autosda-fé, or public accusations and burnings under the direction of the Inquisition. The "Relacions del Autos-da-Fé" were regularly drawn up official reports of those awful sacrifices, and were generally printed, though not always. Several of them exist in the Bodleian Library. Mr. Ticknor's are those of the auto at Logroño, November 7 and 8, 1610, and of the autos of 1720, 1721, and 1756, the two former at Granada, the latter at Madrid. Upon a fly-leaf Mr. Ticknor writes, "These are the official accounts of three autos-da-fé that happened in 1720 and 1721 at Granada, and in 1756 at Madrid: the only accounts of the sort that I have ever seen." It might be interesting, were space allowed, to trace the sad contents of these in-ners, and overpowers the orange, star-like teresting volumes, and to bring to the light the cruel mysteries they contain. But we must pass them by, as also the many curious ancient inscriptions that are found in rare folios, the treatises of Quevedo on the "seven liberal sciences and the four cardinal virtues," and other celebrated authors. Enough specimens have been referred to to show the obligations under which our students lie to Mr. George Ticknor. May our useful public libraries enjoy the wealth of many such benefactors in all the sister branches of ancient and modern literature

THE CALVARY OF ST. SEBASTIAN.

BY KATHARINE S. MACQUOID.

I.

THE
HERE is on the coast of Normandy the
very charming fishing village of Cabrin.
There are many fishing villages dotted along
the coast between Honfleur and the mouth
of the river Vire; but some of these have
grown into fashion, and others are too squalid
to be called charming. Cabrin is already
beginning to lose some of its charm. Paris-
ians have discovered that the bathing is even
better than at Trouville, and in the autumn
months, instead of the pretty fisher-girls, in
their quaint striped petticoats, high-heeled

marigolds behind; rich dark red cloves hold their heads up over these, as if they found them unpleasant neighbors; and a bit of the wall below the apricots is covered with jasmine, gleaming out like silver among the dark green of its leaves. There is an entrance to the cottage on the left of this projecting bit-a door-way with osiers arched over it to form a porch. The lovely leaves and tendrils of an immense gourd lie lazily over this-so lazily that it seems as if they are basking in the sunshine-while the turban-like fruit, peeping out in scarlet and yellow gleams at scarce intervals, ripens.

Madame Robin sits in a high-backed wicker chair just outside this porch. She never sits beneath the gourd when the turbans have grown any size, though her factotum, Sophie Migneaud, ridicules her, and says that even if a gourd did fall on her head her skull would prove the toughest of the two.

"Sophie is almost always right," says Madame Robin; "but I can't trust my head to an almost: she may be wrong for once; so I sit outside."

She sits outside now, with her carpet shoes planted firmly on the slate-colored path, shredding lettuces into the wire basket on her knees. She is hot, for the sun shines full on her round, fat, red face, until he leaves

his reflection there. Presently she leaves off shredding, pushes a cap string over each shoulder, and says, "Pouf!"

"Aha!" Such a shrill, piping voice that, though she is used to it, fat Madame Robin gives a start that overturns the wire basket and scatters the green shreddings around. "Did I not tell thee it would be too much in the sun to sit there, my friend? The salad and thou will be baked together. Allons donc! what art thou about?"

already waddling down to the gate, with the reddest and happiest face imaginable.

Next minute she had flung both arms round Louise, of whom Madame Migneaud could just make out a flounced white skirt with black edgings, and a straw hat lying on the grandmother's ample shoulder.

The grimace on Madame Migneaud's face was not pleasant to look at.

"Bah!" she said at last, and she looked smoother as she said it. "What a coward I am! I am a match for any one. Is it, then, likely that an imbecile old woman and a silly, simpering school-girl can thwart my will? They shall pay for it if they try. Chattering fool!"

Almost with the last word there came suddenly around the corner of the cottage a tiny old woman, with a face like that of a brown monkey; the small black restless eyes and skinny claw-like hands were in a perpetual quiver of motion; a dark brown This was comment on the shower of tengown fitted her closely, and a brown gauze cap der, petting names which Madame Robin came forward so as almost to touch the black was lavishing on the young girl. Louise velvet band across her wrinkled brown fore-hugged her grandmother in return; but she head. She pointed to the scattered lettuce got free at last, and ran up to Madame leaves and laughed. Migneaud.

Madame Robin looked uneasy. "Pick up the salad, Sophie. Thou knowest that I sit here to wait for the child. She may come any minute."

A tall, sunburned girl, with a saucy nose and a wide mouth, a few dark freckles on her clear skin, and bright, laughing, dark eyes, she came laughing to the old woman, holding out both hands.

"Eh bien, Sophie, here I am again, come to torment thee; and this time I am not going away, and I am too big to be whipped or locked up; so we must be friends, thou seest." She kissed the old wrinkled face, but there was no answering smile there.

II.

Madame Migneaud put her head on one side and smiled-at least the wrinkles round her mouth deepened, and her small black restless beads of eyes winked repeatedly. Her old friend and patroness was a perpetual amusement to Sophie Migneaud. "It is natural that she should this day try to appear dignified and wise," said her sarcastic companion, "when she is going to commit so great a folly. Why need she take Louise "Sophie!”—Madame Robin had gone back home to live with her? The girl was disin- to her garden chair, and called out to the herited because of the disobedience of her old woman, who had taken Louise to her parents. It is always a mistake to upset bedroom-"I forgot. We must have an omplans. My Emile would make a much bet-elet and a cake for supper. Monsieur Verter heir to Madame Robin than her grand-mont is coming." daughter will; or, as I said a month ago, let Louise be at once promised to Emile, and then the affair is arranged."

All this to herself as she picked up the salad with her nimble claws of hands. Her quick ears heard the wheels of the diligence before the sound reached Madame Robin. Sophie Migneaud had resolved not to say any more on her nephew's behalf. She would let him speak for himself; but in the great dread that came upon her, the dread that even now, in this short journey from St. Roque, Louise's pretty face might have gained her a lover-a lover, too, who might prove acceptable to Madame Robin as the husband of her granddaughter-the brown face twitched till it looked uglier than ever. She determined to make one more appeal.

"My friend"--she clutched at madame's ample black sleeve with her skinny fingers— "I may, then, present Emile to Louise as the husband thou hast chosen ?"

She spoke just too late to get an answer. The grandmother heard the approach of the diligence, and scrambled to her feet; she was VOL. XLIII-No. 258.-57

The little black eyes looked fierce and glittering. "Monsieur Vermont coming, and to supper! Ma foi, there has been already trouble enough in getting ready for Louise; and when I asked that Emile might come and see me, thou hast said it was not possible, thou must have Louise all to thyself. Hein!" Madame Migneaud came close up to her employer, and looked compellingly down in the unmeaning broad face.

Madame Robin felt a little frightened, but she had wits enough to know that Sophie's wrath could be turned aside by flattery.

"Ah ça!" she laughed. "A staid old bachelor like Monsieur Vermont will not come between me and my child; he will not so much as look at Louise; but with a fine, tall youth like Emile it might be different." And then she once more struggled out of her chair and rolled into the house.

"Monsieur has certainly a gray beard, and he must be forty at the least," said Sophie, thoughtfully. "Well, if Louise were to marry him, she would not want her grandmother's money-it would be for me and my

Emile. But then Emile has set his heart on Louise, and what the boy wants he shall have."

disturbed. "I don't know what the good sisters have been about that such ideas get into thy head."

"Bonne maman"--there was a sweet earnestness in the girl's face, more charming even than her mischief-"the ideas were there of themselves."

Louise was not in a mood to sit quietly beside her grandmother. She was so very full of happiness that the blood moved like quicksilver in her veins. She ran all over the house, praising every thing, and then she explored every nook of the garden, counted the peaches and gourds and nectarines, and vowed they had never looked so promising; finally she darted like a sunbeam into the little dark kitchen, and star- Monsieur Vermont looked at her and tled Madame Migneaud among her stew-thanked her, but he talked entirely to Madame Robin.

pans.

"Chut! Thou must be more peaceful, child. We might as well have a gale of wind in the house."

At which Louise smiled, nodded, and then, snatching at both of the brown arms, she made the old woman's elbows meet behind her back, and ran away to the parlor, screaming with laughter.

She threw her arms round her grandmother, kissed her on both cheeks over and over again, and at last sat down on a stool at her feet.

"Bonne maman"-she looked up in the old woman's face-"why dost thou have that grave, solemn old landlord to supper the first day I come home? He is duller than our professor, more severe, though not quite so ugly at least he was in the winter."

Ugly! ma foi! Monsieur Vermont is a very good-looking man. He wrote to ask if he could speak to me on business to-night; but he is nothing to thee, my child."

Louise pouted a little. "Sophie wanted me to ask Emile, but I would not."

Monsieur Vermont came punctually at eight o'clock. Madame Migneaud declared herself tired to death; so Louise waited on the supper-table.

When Louise went up stairs to her little bedroom she was not joyful, or even happy. It was a bare little room, the walls white、 washed; there was not a bit of carpet on the deal floor; a bedstead, an armoire, which served as table, a wash-stand, and a chair made all the furniture; the only ornament was a black crucifix beside the bed. side the window, on the ledge, Madame Robin had placed two pots of scarlet geranium "to keep the child bright," she said.

Out

The girl looked round her. She sighed. "I wonder if it is because the sunshine has gone"-she sighed again-"but it seems as if it would be more dull here than at the convent. As to Monsieur Vermont, he is a stone. He could not have taken less notice of me if I really had been the servant of grandmamma. If he comes here often, I shall be rude to him. I said saucy things on purpose, but he never even smiled. He makes me feel wicked. I am silly to think of him at all."

She began to brush her hair impatiently, but she could not shut Monsieur Vermont from her thoughts. He looked so clever, and yet he was so silent; he was so court

Louise jumped up and hugged her grandmother. "Thou art an angel, bonne maman! I detest Emile; he is so fat and stu-eous, and yet so horribly, impassibly grave; pid, and he has such round blue eyes and such shining red cheeks, and I long to box his great ears when he looks at me."

"Chut! young girls must not talk in such a way when they have left school. Thou must like every one a little, my child."

"Only a little ?" The girl's eyes sparkled with mischief. "Shall I love thee only a little then, bonne maman? and when I marry, shall I love my husband a little too?"

"A little love that lasts is better in marriage than much which changes," the old woman sighed; "but, my child, what dost thou know of love? No young girl should even think of it till she marries, and then her husband is her teacher."

Louise looked dull-sad, even; all the gladness left her eyes.

"I know nothing of love, except that I love thee" she kissed the old woman's hand-"but I feel it, and I am sure I must love my husband before I marry him."

"Bah! bah! bah!" Madame Robin looked

and though he had not spoken, she fancied he had listened to all her nonsense.

"He is a puzzle, and a very provoking one," she said. Her face brightened. "Well, there will be some amusement in trying to make him out."

III.

The room was full of light next morning when Louise opened her eyes. She had no time to indulge the lazy, pleasant, vague sensation of wondering where she was, for in an instant she was conscious that she had not awakened naturally: some one was knocking at the door-steady, dull blows repeated at regular intervals.

Louise was going to say "Come in," and then she remembered that neither Sophie nor her grandmamma would have used this ceremony. She got up, wrapped a shawl round her, and said, "Who is it?"

"It is me, Emile Bibot, and I have the honor to tell Ma'm'selle Louise that her

She stood crying quietly, resting both "Can I be of use to you? I think your arms on the cushioned window-seat, but she grandmother would wish you to consider me was not lamenting her own fate as a desolate | a friend, and to ask me for all you want. I