also held the same opinion. . though the cere mony was performed on Christmas-day! So much for the reasoning faculties of those whom the Lord abandons to their own devices!

book in the world: for it is hardly to be imagined any poor ignorant unbeliever can be, and she that anyone else would think of preserving a copy." He declares he spoke this in the innocence of his heart: but innocent people, my confessor says, are very thoughtless, and thoughtless people very mischievous; and mischievous people have begun to think at last that religion and government are their own concerns.

The safest method for us would be to prohibit the importation of every volume, the contents of which are not secured and sanctified by the adorable cross in the title-page.

John-Mary. Your Majesty would act then like some philosopher I have heard mentioned. . Ferdinand. Like some philosopher! Saints and martyrs! confessors and angels! and VirginMother! defend me from it!

Giovacchino Pallone, the landlord, gave a supper to his friends and received their congratulations, on his good luck in rescuing a soul that never can relapse, and that will keep up his own against the worst that can happen: and his brother Timoteo, the muleteer of Biella, who stood sponsor, has thereby washed his hands of a little murder he committed on a Frenchman some years back. What a generation! Twelve months ago, if anyone looked hard at him, he drew his knife and ran into a church: he now never enters one, unless to ask Saint Antonio some favour for his

John-Mary. He was not indeed so much of a mules. My minister at the Court of Turin informs philosopher as your Majesty is afraid he was. Ferdinand. What did he, then?

me that they are grown much fatter; which other men, who have neither faith nor charity, attribute

John-Mary. He extinguished his lamp lest the to the easy life they lead with him, now he loiters fleas should find him and bite him in bed.

Ferdinand. Did he? then he might have been called a philosopher, when philosopher signified wise man. Until the other day, I only knew that the mischievous sect, who now have taken the name, were the blindest and most ignorant crea tures upon earth: I never was informed that they are likewise the most superstitious.

John-Mary. And are they really?

Ferdinand. Judge for yourself now. One of them, an Englishman at Turin, had so little grace, and so little tenderness for his own offspring, that he would not carry it to be baptised, either the first day or the second of its birth; saying, as an excuse, that there was no occasion for it at present, the boy being strong and healthy. However, the proprietor of the lodging, who began to fear that, as the river was overflowing the country, and masses of ice were breaking with violence against the walls of the promenade, his house might be carried away by divine vengeance, through the obstinate impiety of his guest, went civilly upstairs, and protested that, unless the infant were carried to church within the hour, he would collect his friends and eject it with its mother from the premises. Her husband being from home, to view the course of the river in all its terrors, from I forget what palace of our brother of Sardinia situated on a lofty hill in the vicinity, and the worthy nurse corroborating the conscientious host's importunity, she complied. The infant was baptised: nevertheless it died four days afterward, of symptoms that resembled a cough and a fever. The heretical parents, in the hardness of their hearts, wept without resignation, and (would you believe it?) were firmly of opinion that the cold water, thrown the more profusely over the creature to wash it from heresy and original sin (whereof heretics have just nine times more than catholics), caused its death! No great wonder, it may be, that the father did so, engulfed as he was in the abyss of philosophy; but the mother, I hear, was as harmless and quiet as

and spends his money on the roads.

Low ignorant people will indulge their passions and prejudices, although the skirts of their souls must scorch for it.

John-Mary. I should like to purchase a share of Timoteo's ticket for good works, before he draws too hard upon it.

Ferdinand. I intend to establish a new tax, which every man will pay willingly.

John-Mary. I never heard of any such. Ferdinand. The pope alone has a right over marriages, these being sacraments, therefore I would not dare to think of taxing them: but every man shall pay an impost for sleeping with his wife on the night of his nuptials. The pope would not thwart me in this; particularly as I force every man and woman in my dominions to purchase of him a Bula de Confecion, without which they can not receive absolution on their death-bed, nor leave behind them a valid will, nor preserve their property from confiscation. O my brother and cousin! my sides will crack with laughing.

John-Mary. Let me hope not. Unused as they are to such exercise, it may indeed do them harm. Take this horn against it.*

Ferdinand. I have horns of my own, better than yours. I have the little-toe nail of Saint Jerom, the length of my fore-finger.

John-Mary. What makes your majesty so merry? Ferdinand. The moment before we met, I signed the capitulation of Torrijo.

John-Mary. I am glad to hear it. He is re

The Romans and Neapolitans, and many Spaniards and Portuguese, of every rank and condition, carry a piece chain or their breast, in the form of a horn, to protect of coral, amber, steel, or other substance, at their watchthem against evil eyes and other such mischief. Whoever meets a monk the first person in the morning, turns the point toward him: even a heretic is not more inauspicious Some, ashamed of carrying this amulet, turn their forefinger slily, somewhat bent, under the coat-flap or else

where. Fortunate, if all their superstitions were thus infantine and innocent!

puted to be one of the bravest and most honourable men in Spain. Dear brother and cousin, what makes you toss up so many pinches of snuff into your nose?

Ferdinand. To help to make me angry and brave again. I will gibbet that Torrijo. John-Mary. The same who capitulated! Ferdinand. The very same. John-Mary. What has he done since? Ferdinand. I know nothing more about him. The best of the joke is, the duc d'Angoulême promised to him and to the other constitutionalists, rank, pay, and security. He ought to have known from my station and character that his promise was illusory, and that neither another man's promises nor my own are, or ever shall be, binding upon me. Indeed, to tell you a secret, he knew it as well as you do:* but he wanted to purchase the name of pacificator as cheaply as that of hero.

John-Mary. He could not hope that, nor want it. Every French prince is a hero by acclamation the hour of his birth, and pacificator of the universe the first squeal he utters. There is no instance wherein they have not been victorious: the worst that ever happened to them is, that Fortune has sometimes snatched victory out of their hands, when their enemies have bitten the dust upon the snow or sea, and been utterly annihilated. Sometimes a seventy-four in the disguise of a corvette has pounced upon a frigate or two, which all the courage of Frenchmen could not save from the perfidious islanders, who fed their prisoners eleven weeks on saw-dust and salt-water. Ferdinand. Yet some people, and some who desire to please me, call me a true Bourbon! Never in my life did I know anything like myself, excepting a Polichinello at Andujar; and him I ordered to be brought before the council of Castile for counterfeiting me. By some negligence or connivance he escaped, and was condemned to be hanged in effigy as contumacious. John-Mary. Might I recommend it to the serious consideration of your majesty, whether so popular a speaker might not with advantage be included in the amnesty?

Ferdinand. You mean entrapped and hanged. Amnesty does not signify that, but only confisca tion and imprisonment, with cudgelling and whipping at intervals, such as holidays for example, and the quartering of volunteer dragoons for the remainder of life.

John-Mary. I should have suggested a place at the council-board, where, seated under your president, he would greatly strengthen the majority.

* The perfidy of Bonaparte on no occasion was so infamous as that of his most christian successor in Spain. The Duc d'Angoulême was surety for the performance of the treaties and capitulations he entered into with the constitutionalists; all which are violated. He invaded the country, to take the power out of the people's hands .. and the vilest of the populace now possess it entirely. Legitimate government and catholic religion are maintained by a mob of plunderers and assassins, with a fugitive, perjurer, and parricide, at the head of them.

Ferdinand. I have another cause for good humour. I have found out an enemy of old Yerequi.

John-Mary. Who is Yerequi?

Ferdinand. Do not you know that he was my preceptor?

John-Mary. Well! he and everybody else has an enemy: it is no difficult matter to discover one, provided he is not in the number of our bosom-friends. I would not punish this enemy of Señor Yerequi, unless he has offended against the State or the Church. He may indeed have injured a benefactor. Friendships are not sacred things, according to any council that was ever held, or any decretal of the most rigid pope that ever filled the chair of Saint Peter.

Ferdinand. What! can't you understand? Who talked of punishing a spy and confident? A pious man too, and one who can groan at the right place in his breviary like a white bear, and sing Te Deum like a Tyrolean bulfinch, wanting nothing but a pinch of snuff to begin and end with. And nothing more shall he ever get from me. Yerequi is the scape-goat to punish. He hardly goes beyond the credo; and I could see in his face, when I was little more than a child, that he thought I deserved a whipping. I can whip now: and I dare: which is more than he can say.

John-Mary. Brother Ferdinand! I once heard a remark of an old lady, a relative of ours at Bemposta, when brother Luis of France lost his head for breaking his word, together with that other little thing which the constitutionalists in their jargon call betraying his country.. that a few drops of blood taken from the nether quarters of princes, early in the day, might save them afterward more than they can well spare higher up.

Ferdinand. Oh! oh! down with that hand from the neck, for the love of Christ! What do you smile at? Put it up again: put it on the very spot: I don't mind a caper for it. I only fancied I was afraid that is, I only fancied it might make you so, or, at least, rather uncomfortable: for myself I was not in the least.

John-Mary. A little alarmed; a little bit shocked and shivering; a very very little; I do think, now, brother Ferdinand! and I beg your pardon for my inadvertency.

Ferdinand. No, by Santiago! no, by San Jose! no, by San Spiridion! I never felt a moment's fear in my whole life. I have thought it; and others have thought it too: but they lied; the fools and thieves lied: there was nothing in it, as I hope for Paradise.

I will now tell you, my brother and cousin, what I intend to do with bishop Queypo. Take out your handkerchief: you will laugh until you cry again. It is my plan and order to have him condemned to six years' imprisonment in a monastery, after a year or two of jail. Is not that pleasant?

John-Mary. It may be just.

Ferdinand. But is not it laughable?

John-Mary. How so? laughable things, my

cousin and brother, require a good deal of circum-
spection and inquiry. One would not laugh out
all at once, as a mule brays, but rather say a prayer
or credo between the thing laughed at and the
laugh.

Ferdinand. Do you know the old viper's age?
John-Mary. Bishop Queypo's?

Ferdinand. Bishop Queypo's, yes: but he is not the bishop he was, by a quintal.

John-Mary. I do not know him: I never heard of him before.

Ferdinand. Brother and cousin! one word in your ear! Of all the monasteries in my dominions, that to which I have destined old Queypo is the fullest of lice and fleas : the dogs and cats know it, and will not enter on fish-days or flesh-days: the martins and swallows scream as they fly past, | and never did one of them build her nest under the roof. This I believe is the reason, but I have heard of another that they come from Barbary, and, being Moorish, instinctively shun the purity of our faith.

John-Mary. I have observed them under the tiles of my convents in great plenty.

Ferdinand. Your monks are less holy they wash and comb themselves.

John-Mary. Malice says it. Sometimes in ex

Ferdinand. O! then no wonder you missed the joke. Eight years' imprisonment for a man eighty years old! Laugh now! laugh now! Here is another good thing. People think him very learned and pious, very patient and conscientious: Saez recommends that the younger monks be ap-cessively hot weather they do, and to hear conpointed to instruct him in his Christian duties. John-Mary. Brother, brother! his master Christ will call him away in the midst of the lesson, and let us hope he may be found perfect!

Ferdinand. What! before the six next years of his imprisonment are over? I shall pray against that every night and morning, and spend in the churches ten thousand crowns to cross it. How ever, if he dies before the term of the sentence is completed, he shall not be buried in his cathedral, nor with mitre and crosier on his tombstone. But I can not think Mary and the other saints are so spiteful to me: I fancy I see them with their ears at the door, listening to the constitutional rebel as he says his lesson, and now and then putting him out. I know they will do anything for me I have always put my trust in them. John-Mary. Bishops are under the protection of angels.

Ferdinand. I know that. I have contrived that they shall not approach Señor Queypo. John-Mary. Impossible! my dear cousin and brother!

Ferdinand. Possible enough, and sure enough, though perhaps they little suspect it.

John-Mary. Nay, nay, my brother! that laughter.. I beg pardon. I mean no offence, but surely that laughter is rather too irreverent. Pious men may do many things that others may not; but we must not tempt nor be tempted.

Ferdinand. 'Fore God, he is little temptation for 'em.

John Mary. Your Majesty's genius is great beyond comparison, and the mercies God hath shown you are manifold.

Ferdinand. Else the rogues would have had me on the gallows. This little bit of lead kept me down on my legs: had they searched me and found it and taken it away, I might have mounted the ladder.

John-Mary. Is one kiss permitted me on that sacred image?

Ferdinand. Kiss it; but under the left jaw; this is the part to be guarded.

Now about the angels.

fessions in private houses, where an odour too religious might affect the sick, particularly the women.

Ferdinand. Mere men of the world! men nostre generationis! The women should be accustomed to the odour while they are well.

John-Mary. Generally they are: but there are are some faint stomachs that want civet even in sanctity.

Ferdinand. Jades! I wish I had them under lock and key with old Queypo. If the angels, as I was telling you, came within whistle of those walls, they would have nothing else to do for the remainder of the week than to pick one another's wings.

John-Mary. Brother, I doubt whether the angels are subject to such vermin.

Ferdinand. In heaven certainly not: but here even Michael, though in the act of cutting down a heretic, must put aside his sword and scratch ¦ himself. The older angels are too cunning; they know the place. As for the younger, I am secure of them I have ordered that no change of linen be brought to the wicked wretch: his clothes have been rotting on his body for several months, and at last they are so full of holes that no decent¦ young angel would turn his eyes toward them.*

:

An excellent plan has been laid before me for the deportation of all the constitutionalists. John-Mary. Deportation! whither ? Ferdinand. The plan contains nothing about that. Sealed orders may be opened when they are at sea.

John-Mary. Your majesty must provide bis cuits and water, in a quantity proportionate to the voyage.

Ferdinand. Not I, not I; the plan has nothing in it of biscuits and water. Beside, is there not water enough in the sea for any number? and let them borrow biscuits from the sailors, on their own credit.

These cruelties were all committed against Queypo, for having taken the oath of allegiance, which Ferdinand himself took, to the Constitution. On his removal from the jail to the monastery, some women had the compassion and courage to throw a little of their own apparel over his

John-Mary. And the angels too will protect nakedness, and to cover his aged head from the mid-day

whom they please.

sun in July.

John-Mary. But the sailors must have enough.

Ferdinand. So they shall.

John-Mary. To give or lend?

John-Mary. Did no lightning nor other judg ment fall upon the dog?

Ferdinand. On the contrary, it was feared that he

Ferdinand. I have nothing to do with the might fairly claim eternal life; which would have traffic of sailors.

John-Mary. Unless it pleases God to work a miracle in favour of the constitutionalists, they must perish.

been a dreadful dispensation; for he is the noisiest dog in Logroño. But the women and monks knew their business. They drove a stake an ell long under his tail, and held him with his head

Ferdinand. In their favour! do you know what downward, until a surgeon could arrive, who carethey have done?

John-Mary. Unwise things, no doubt: but your majesty seems to me less happy now, less tranquil, and less safe, than when you joined them.

Ferdinand. The mule that breaks loose, is less quiet than when he was in the shafts; but he is free.

John-Mary. My brother! if that word animates even you so greatly, what wonder if it animated the less intelligent !

Ferdinand. Again, again I ask you, do you know what they have committed? John-Mary. Recently? Ferdinand. Within this week. John-Mary. Not fully nor exactly. Ferdinand. Sacrilege, sacrilege. Robbers have broken into a church at Logroño, and stolen the body of God.

John-Mary. Ave-Maria! Clamavi de profunditatibus. I hope they are taken, and the body of our Lord recovered.

Ferdinand. Recovered, it is true, but after dogs had eaten it.

John-Mary. Alas! alas! alas! that is not recovered.

Ferdinand. Brother and cousin, do not be heretical !

John-Mary. God forbid !

Ferdinand. The true faith is, that the body of our Lord having only passed the diaphragm of dog or other animal, is the Lord's body still: let it enter the viscera, the long gut I mean, and not even his blessed mother could make it his again.

John-Mary. I am so full of horror, I want to hear the rest.

fully removed his lower entrails. The host was
not found there: on which the bells were rung,
tapestry displayed, and cannon fired.
It was
however in the stomach, whence the creature
ejected it from his mouth with severe convulsions.
Several devils flew out at the same moment. Some
people say they could distinguish eight or nine;
others could count but four, being terrified and
taken suddenly, although they heard the voices of
many.

John-Mary. What could they have been about? Ferdinand. Tempting, tempting, tempting: their old trade.

John-Mary. But out they flew then? Gloria Deo in excelsis! if the wind was fair for Morocco, and they took that course. If they tarried in Portugal, it could only be among the Jews or English. But in what condition was the blessed body?

Ferdinand. It was discovered enveloped in bile. The priests say that the bile is the dog's bile : the monks, with greater piety, contend that it proceeds from the body of our Lord, indignant at such treatment, and that what appeared the most awful visitation was a miracle vouchsafed to the city of Logroño. The people in their consternation see no miracle in an affront producing bile, and pray before it, that in due time it may depart. Their contrition has begun to produce this effect, and every morning it is somewhat lessened. John-Mary. Have the bishops and archbishops been consulted?

Ferdinand. Naturally.

John-Mary. What can be done?

Ferdinand. They have ordered two public processions: one, to appease the anger of the Divine Ferdinand. The thieves were pursued by monks, Majesty, for the affront of stealing His Divine women, soldiers, and dogs. Nothing could ex- Majesty's body; the other, to make him forget ceed, as was thought, the right spirit of the dogs: what the dog did, from beginning to end*; which, they appeared to be angrier than the monks as I told you, seems to be accomplishing. I have themselves: it was believed that the Lord would issued an edict, that every dog of the same family glorify himself by these vile animals. "Out of with that most execrable one, be hanged or shot; the mouth of babes and sucklings," and so forth.. and that whoever shall be convicted of having in I forget the remainder; no matter. Suddenly, his possession one begotten by, or allied to, paterwhen they had fastened on the heaviest and slow-nally or maternally, the said most execrable, shall est of the sacrilegious, he who held the holy vessel be considered as a heretic, infidel, and traitor. threw it on the ground, and out fell the body of John-Mary. Let us hope, by the blessing of God! The very dog that was thought the most zealous, left the rogue for it, and would have swallowed it. You know, my cousin and brother, that swallowing the wafer is no easy matter when we first begin; it often sticks to the roof of the mouth; and I have seen a nun who has done penance all her life, because she coughed it

out.

of Saint Antony was robbed of the sacred vessel and consecrated wafers. The bishop ordered a public procession, in order to appease the anger of the Divine Majesty." Anger against whom?

*Lisbon Gazette. "On the 4th of July, 1825, the convent

It must be a very weak mind that fancies Christianity can be injured by these recitals of superstition, in which

the ideas of divine majesty are quite as absurd as the

wildest in the religion of Bramah.

Ferdinand. We may indeed hope it; by the blessing of Sant-lago added to the infant's and the Virgin-mother's.. I mean the mother of the thousand pains; none of the rest for me! In token of it, they delivered into my hands two societies of free-in the Americas, and was ordered by his master's masons. One was detected with a line upon the table; which line the heretical thieves declared was a fishing-line; although there was no other sign of it than the hook and horse-hair. The other was heard to take the most tremendous and diabolical of oaths.. I dare not repeat it. Yes, I will.. Ave Maria! Ave Maria! Ave Maria! Now then hear it.