success invariably attended me. During this long career, I was the envied of the many; and even now, I could direct universal attention to my obscurity, by revealing the designation under which I drew upon myself the eyes of Europe. But neither wealth, power, nor homage softened the agony of my remorse; within me was the worm that never dieth.

As I advanced in life, the fiery restlessness which had hitherto involuntarily propelled me into energetic exertion, forsook me; and the last five-and-twenty years of my guilty existence have been past, I hope, less erringly than the two first. In solitude and in penitence, in prayer and self-imposed privation, have I striven to subdue the strong wickedness of my heart; but hæret lateri lethalis arundo, it goads me night and day, and an ocean of tears could not wash out the memory, of the one great crime of my bad life. For ever and ever, the words of Adoni-bezek recur to me:-"As I have done, so God hath requited me."

No human effort or power can restore me to tranquillity. Since the hour of her death, the curse of Heaven has been on me and mine; my sisters have died childless, and I live the last of my race. In the morning I wish for the evening, and in the night I wish for the day. The heaven above me is as brass, and the earth beneath me is as iron. Above, below man's wo and joy, I prowl over the face of the land alone amongst millions: an alien to the common passions of my race, I can neither weep with the mourner, nor smile with the happy. And yet, I fear to die! Existence is my bane, the future is my dread; I loathe what is, but I tremble at what is to be. May this expiate-May the Almighty be merciful to a wretch who cannot forgive himself!

I do not hope that this gloomy career of crime and misery can interest, but it may instruct. Though I cannot bequeath a moral legacy as striking as that of the Moorish king, I will yet strive to contribute my mite, though a posthumous one, to the welfare of mankind. I have perpetrated and seen so

much evil, have so writhed beneath the horrors of remorse, that I would willingly make any exertion to save a fellow-creature from its stings. I shall not then deem this painful record to have been written in vain, if my example and fate serve but to turn one sinner to repentance, or to impress on the mind of one waverer the conviction that

VIRTUE IS THE ONLY SOURCE OF HAPPINESS.

NOTES.

Page 63, line 7.

Before the rude Thessalian had caused the young and the lovely to be superseded by the staid matron of fifty. ̧

The office of priestess in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi was for many years fulfilled by a youthful and beautiful virgin; but in consequence of a Thessalian of the name of Echecrates having assaulted one of them, it was decreed that for the future none but women above the age of fifty, and correspondingly ugly, should undertake the sacred office.

Page 74, line 22.

I could be inspired with that of Mezentius.

A tyrant of Italy, who used to tie the living to the dead, and leave them without food to perish in this fearful company.

Page 101, line 36.

Like Regulus in his murderous cask.

Among other tortures inflicted on Regulus, after he was taken by the Carthaginians, was that of confining him in a barrel lined with iron spikes, in which he was rolled until he expired in infinite agony.

Page 109, line 16.

The triumph of the Gladiator, who died in receiving the submission of his

enemy.

An Athenian, of the name of Arrichion, who, prostrate on the ground, and half suffocated in the grasp of his enemy with a dying effort, seized him by the foot, and broke one of his toes. The anguish of the fracture caused

him to cry for quarter, in the very moment that Arrichion himself expired. But he had lived to be victor, and the judges awarded that his body should be crowned.

Page 118, line 17.

Or your hand shall be even as the hand of Jeroboam.

"And it came to pass, when King Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God, which had cried against the altar in Bethel, that he put forth his hand from the altar, saying, Lay hold on him. And his hand which he put forth against him dried up, so that he could not put it in again.”—1 Kings, chap. xiii.

Page 125, line 17.

As I have done, so God hath requited me.

"But Adoni-bezek fled, and they pursued after him, and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and his great toes.

"And Adoni-bezek said, Three score and ten kings having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table: as I have done, so God hath requited me!"-The Book of Judges, chap. i.

Page 125, line 33.

Though I cannot bequeath a moral legacy as striking as that of the Moorish king.

Abderame, or Abdalrahman the third, the great Caliph of Cordova, who left in his own hand this estimate of the value of earthly grandeur and felicity:-"Fifty years have I reigned. Riches, honours, pleasures, I have enjoyed them all—exhausted them all. The kings, my rivals, fear me, and envy me, yet esteem me. All that men desire has been lavished on me by Heaven. In this long space of apparent felicity I have calculated the number of days in which I have been really happy; they amount to fourteen. Mortals, learn how to appreciate greatness, the world, and life.”

LA BELLA TABACCAIA.

BY LEIGH HUNT.

NINA was an orphan, and, at the age of fifteen, mistress of a snuff and tobacco shop in Pisa, under the discreet guidance of an aunt, who boarded and lodged with her by virtue of her experience. The stock in trade, a little ready money, and two houses in the suburbs of Leghorn, were her patrimony. She had the fairest complexion with the darkest ringlets that ever were formed together; and though no one ever criticised her lips as rather too full, yet some fastidious admirers objected to the largeness of her eyes—but they could not have remarked their lustre and expression, nor the beautiful jet lashes which shaded them. She was called La Bella Tabaccaia. The students of the University, as they returned from lecture, always' peeped in the shop to see if Nina was behind the counter; and if she was, nine out of ten walked in and asked for segars. There they lighted them one after another at the pan of charcoal, and by turns, puffing awhile for invention, ventured on some gallant compliments. If these were received with a smile, as they generally were, and often more roguishly than would be considered within the rules of a bench of old English ladies, then away they went to strut on the Lung'arno with a much gayer notion of themselves. The grave ones of the neighbourhood thought it a pity she could encourage such idle talk; and the aunt constantly advised her to go into the inner room whenever those wild young fellows made their appearance. But Nina had all the vivacity, the joyousness

of youth, almost of childhood, and defended herself by saying, “La! aunt, there can be no harm in their merriment; for my mother used to tell me, young men with serious faces were the only dangerous ones." And the mother's authority never failed in silencing the aunt.

Late one evening, a student entered while Nina was alone in the shop. After a single glance, he sat down by the side of the counter, took up a knife that lay there, and began seemingly to play with it, but with a countenance that betrayed the most violent agitation. The poor girl never having witnessed any thing like despair, imagined he was intoxicated; and, as the safest means of avoiding insult, remained firmly in her place. On a sudden, the youth, grasping the knife in his hand, seized her by the hair, and threatened death if she did not immediately, and without a word or a scream, give him her money. Instead of complying, quietly and on the instant, in her fright she shrieked for help, and struggled with him. Had not the youth felt a touch of pity even in that moment of frenzy, she would have been destroyed. For her struggles were in vain, and the knife was at her bosom, when some passengers hearing her cries, together with the neighbours from the adjoining houses, ran in and seized him. Without further question, they placed him in the hands of the Sbirri, who led him directly to the police, and Nina was required to follow. Her evidence was written down, and she was ordered to sign the paper. To this she complied, with no other thought than that she had not been guilty of the slightest exaggeration. As she laid down the pen, the officer assured her she might rely on the utmost redress for such an outrage, as her evidence was not only the clearest, but it completely tallied with, the prisoner's confession; and ended with-"Be under no apprehension, my good girl, for you will shortly see him in yellow," alluding to the colour which those convicts wear who are sentenced to hard labour for life. It was not till these words were uttered, that she, still trembling in her