THE KNIGHT OF MALTA. N the course of a tour in Sicily, in the IN days of my juvenility, I passed some little time at the ancient city of Catania, at the foot of Mount Etna. Here I became acquainted with the Chevalier L, an old Knight of Malta. It was not many years after the time that Napoleon had dislodged the knights from their island, and he still wore the insignia of his order. He was not, however, one of those reliques of that once chivalrous body, who have been described as a few wornout old men, creeping about certain parts of Europe, with the Maltese cross on their breasts'; on the contrary, though advanced in life, his form was still lithe and vigorous. He had a pale, thin, intellectual visage, with a high forehead, and a bright, visionary eye. He seemed to take a fancy to me, as I certainly did to him, and we soon became intimate. I visited him occasionally at his apartments, in the wing of an old palace, looking toward Mount Etna. He was an antiquary, a virtuoso, and a connoisseur. His rooms were decorated with mutilated statues, dug up from Grecian and Roman ruins; old vases, lachrymals, and sepulchral lamps. He had astronomical and chemical instruments, and black-letter books, in various languages. I found that he had dipped a little in chimerical studies, and had a hankering after astrology and alchemy. He affected to believe in dreams and visions, and delighted in the fanciful Rosicrucian doctrines. I cannot persuade myself, however, that he really believed in all these; I rather think he loved to let his imagination carry him away into the boundless fairy-land which they unfolded. In company with the chevalier, I made several excursions on horseback about the environs of Catania, and the picturesque skirts of Mount Etna. One of these led through a village which had sprung up on the very track of an ancient eruption, the houses being built of lava. At one time we passed, for some distance, along a narrow lane, between two high dead convent-walls. It was a cut-throatlooking place, in a country where assassinations are frequent; and just about midway |