distance from the city, I fell in with a nume rous party of soldiers who had been wounded

in a recent battle. This, with some general news that I had collected in the town, furnished topics in the refectory for conversa tion after supper; and while we were speaking, a messenger came from a house, not far from the convent, to request the superior to visit an officer whose wounds had suddenly assumed such an appearance, owing to the fatigues of his day's march, that it was feared he could not recover. My friendly old companion readily obeyed the summons, and I went with him.

The night was solemnly tranquil,-the slightest sound was distinctly heard,-the lights of the city seemed to shine with more than common brilliancy, and the stars sparkled as it were with the intelligence of life as well as light.

On reaching the door, it was opened softly. A superfluous number of lamps and candles

were burning in almost every apartment, and an unusual splendour, but dull and mysterious, appeared throughout the whole house. The family spoke in whispers, and were answered by signs. It was evident that some catastrophe was going on.

We silently ascended the stairs. At the chamber-door of the dying man, a tall and venerable old lady stood listening;--she was wrapped in a white mantle over a dress

black, and, the folds being loosely drawn over her head, it had the appearance of a winding-sheet, and gave to her withered and cadaverous features something wildly charnel and characteristic of the tomb. On seeing us approach, she raised her hand, and motioned us to o go into the room.

On entering, we heard the patient breathing laboriously. His servant sat at a table near his pillow, with a crystal goblet of water in his hand. Observing us, he placed it on the table, and resigning his chair to the su

VOL. III.

perior; one of the domestics, who had followed us into the room, at the same time set down a lamp.

I took a seat at the bottom of the bed, and instinctively drew the capuchin of my habit over my head. The old friar, in the meantime, was gently addressing himself to the patient, who was suffering excessively, and breathing with great pain, urging him to make his peace with Heaven by confessing

his sins.

"Heaven," exclaimed the officer, "already knows my sins, and I will not gratify your curiosity."

"You will permit me to pray for you?" said the superior.

"Do as you please,—but it is of no use.

The good and venerable ecclesiastic began in a soft, low, and pathetic voice, the orisons for the dying. Before he concluded, the dead-rattle was heard in the officer's throat. When the service was finished, the patient,

whose fortitude seemed to be invulnerable,

requested a drink. I lifted the glass with the water from the table, at the same moment the old monk raised the lamp, and as we bent to administer the drink, I threw back my capuchin. The dying man gazed at me, and in that instant I discovered in him the mysterious son of the Corsican baron. He wildly stretched out his hand, and grasping the holy brother by the arm, cried, " Save me!" and expired.

Soon after that affair, the monasteries being dissolved, I threw aside my Franciscan garb, and went to Rome.

1

For the causes and reasons already described, I had seen nothing of that famous city during my first visit; I now saw every thing, and, among others, a curious collection of bones of the human leg, formed by a German doctor, for the purpose of instituting a new science, which he intended to call Skæliology.

He had arranged them in what he denominated moral classes, and showed me the points by which they indicated the characters of the individuals to which they had belonged. The signs of the passions were plausibly pointed out; and he showed, on a thigh-joint, what he described as a most extraordinary development of the index of delight.

I was in the act of taking the bone in my hand to examine it, when I was seized with the same inexplicable sort of tremor which I had experienced in Paris, at the time I first saw the Corsican officer in the coffee-room, and the image of the murderer Antonio flashed upon my recollection. astmes

"This bone," said I to the German, “ has been taken from a murderer's thigh. I knew the wretch, and his name was Antonio Scelerata."

The doctor gazed at me with wonder and dread, and then exclaimed, "How can you

K