At length a courier arrived from Vienna with orders for the commissary to conduct us to our destination. This good news filled me with joy, as well as my companions; but at the same time I trembled to see approaching the hour of a fatal discovery -the hour which would unfold to me that I had no longer either father or mother, nor several other connexions, I knew not how many! Thus my melancholy increased as we advanced towards Italy.

From this side the approach to Italy is not agreeable, and the sterile aspect of the country contributed to increase my sadness. To see again our own sky, to meet human faces having no longer the northern expression, to hear on all lips the words of our language, affected me much; but the emotion produced tears rather than smiles. How often I covered my face with my hands, feigning to sleep, but shedding tears! How many nights I passed unable to close an eye, and burning with fever, sometimes bestowing the most impassioned benedictions upon my sweet Italy, and thanking Heaven for having restored me to it; sometimes tormenting myself with the absence of intelligence concerning my family, and conjuring up imaginary ills; sometimes in reflecting that I should shortly have to separate, perhaps for ever, from a friend who had passed through so many sufferings with me, and had given me such proofs of a fraternal affection!

At Mantua it was necessary to bid farewell to Maroncelli, for here we were to separate. It was a parting of the most tender kind, not unaccompanied with tears. At Brescia I left behind my other companion in misfortune, Andrea Tonelli. On the 9th of September, two days after, I arrived at Milan, where I was detained for several days, and then set out for Piedmont in charge of a brigadier of gendarmerie.

The state of my feelings may be judged on once more finding myself on the Piedmontese soil. Ah! much as I love all nations, God knows that Italy is dearest to me! and much as I dote upon Italy, God knows how infinitely sweeter to me than the name of every other country in Italy is the name of Piedmont, the land of my fathers!

I was still not free. The brigadier, on leaving me, handed me over to the Piedmontese carabineers. After a short delay, a gentleman appeared, who begged me to permit him to accompany me to Novara. He had missed another opportunity, and now there was no carriage but mine; he was much obliged that I allowed him to take advantage of it.

This disguised carabineer was of a jovial turn, and kept me good company as far as Novara. When we arrived at that town, pretending to conduct me to a hotel, he directed the carriage to the barracks of the carabineers, and there I was told there was a bed for me in the apartment of a brigadier, where I was to wait for higher orders.

Expecting to resume my journey on the following day, I went

to bed, and after conversing a moment with my host, I sank into a profound sleep. I had not slept so well for a long time. I awoke towards morning, immediately arose, and got through some very long hours. I breakfasted, chatted, walked about the room and on the terrace, and cast a look on my host's books. At last a letter arrived from my father.

Oh what joy to see again those much-loved characters! What joy to learn that my mother, my dearest mother, still lived!—that my two brothers, and my eldest sister, were also still alive! Alas! the youngest, the Marietta, who had entered the convent of the Visitation, as I had clandestinely learned in prison, had ceased to breathe nine months ago! It is sweet to think that I owe my liberty to those who loved me, who never ceased to intercede for me.

Days passed, and permission to leave Novara did not come. On the morning of the 16th September this permission was at last given me, and then I was freed from the tutelage of the carabineers. Oh how many years it was since I had been able to go where I pleased, without the incumbrance of guards!

I obtained some money, received the greetings of a few persons, acquaintances of my father, and about three in the afternoon Í departed. I had as companions on the journey a lady, a merchant, a sculptor, and two young painters, one of whom was deaf and dumb. We passed the night at Vercelli. The fortunate sun of the 17th of September arose. We continued our journey, and did not reach Turin until the evening.

Who, who could describe the emotion of my heart, of the hearts of those so endeared to me, when I beheld, when I embraced my father, my mother, my brothers! My sister, my dear Josephine, was not present, as her duties detained her at Chieri; but at the first news of my return, she hastened home to pass a few days in the bosom of the family. Restored to these five objects of my tenderest affection, I was, I am, the most enviable of mortals!

CONCLUSION.

After his restoration to his native country, Silvio Pellico has remained in tranquillity and retirement, surrounded by his family, the recollection of which forms so frequent a source of inspiration to him in the memoir of his imprisonment. Expectations are still formed of his reappearance in the field of literature, in which he early gained so brilliant a renown. But the captious censorship which weighs upon the Italian press, must be a serious impediment to the effusions of his genius. One of the works he composed beneath the Leads of Venice, Ester d'Engaddi, which was considered, even by the commission appointed by the emperor of Austria to conduct the process against him, as unobjectionable, was acted at Turin in 1831, the year after his liberation, with the highest applause, as well as another piece entitled Gismonda. Both were immediately interdicted by the jealousy

of Italian despotism. It has been stated in the introduction, that the Austrian government published a decree annexing the penalty of death to the offence of belonging to a secret society. This extreme sentence, however, at least up to the period of Pellico's sufferings, was not carried into execution; and the utmost vengeance of the government went no further than the severities of long and ignominious confinement.

The Count Arrivabene, who is mentioned by Silvio Pellico as having been discharged from the prison of Saint Michael as innocent, found himself, shortly after, exposed to the suspicions of the government, and judged it expedient to fly. His only crime was having received Porro, Pellico, and some others at his country-house near Mantua, as they returned from a trip in Porro's steamboat from Pavia to Venice. He fled from Mantua to Brescia, where he imparted his and their danger to his friends Ugoni and Scalvini, who joined him in his endeavour to escape into Switzerland. Gendarmes had been despatched on all the routes to arrest Arrivabene as soon as his departure was known. He and his friends effected their retreat into Switzerland, disguised as cattle-drovers, but were very nearly caught. They had to pass an inn in which three gendarmes, lying in wait for them, were asleep; and at the moment they reached the Swiss frontier, they were so exhausted, from having had no interval of repose for sixty hours, that they fell upon the ground in the presence of the Austrian soldiers, who were close upon their heels. when they crossed the line which separated tyranny from freedom. They were, however, safe. Count Porro also effected his escape from Italy. The gendarmes entered his house at one door as he left it by another. Confalonieri was prevented from executing the same manoeuvre by finding a door locked, the key of which had been altered by his intendant without his knowledge.

Francis I., emperor of Austria, in whose reign these arrests and barbarities were perpetrated, died in 1835, and was succeeded by his eldest son Ferdinand, whose mind and body are both in a very enfeebled condition. It is a somewhat fortunate circumstance that his weak understanding takes a childish delight in pomp and ceremony; and having already undergone the pageantry of two coronations in Austria and Hungary, he some time ago favoured his Italian dominions with a third, and had himself crowned as king of Lombardy at Milan. This event had the auspicious consequence of re-opening their country to the political exiles, who had, since 1820, been suffering their voluntary banishment. The occurrence of the coronation was taken hold of as a fitting period for grace, and pardon was extended, without, as it is believed, any exceptions, to all the Italians expatriated on political grounds. It is to be hoped a more merciful policy will illustrate the reign of Ferdinand than that which blackened the age of Francis.

OVERY one who has visited Tweeddale, and has traversed the banks of the lovely river which gives the district its most familiar name, must recollect the stately and massive castle of Neidpath, which rears its head within a short walk, and in sight of Peebles, one of the most picturesquely-situated towns in Scotland. The situation of the castle is a very fine one. The eminence on which it stands projects into the centre of the vale, here remarkably narrow, and around the southern base of the knoll winds the clear and sparkling Tweed. Immediately below, on the east, the vale opens widely up, but again becomes contracted about three miles farther down. A kind of amphitheatre is thus formed, bounded by hills, and having the town of Peebles in the centre, with Neidpath, like a gray-haired warder, overlooking all from its ground of vantage. Nor is the castle itself unworthy of such a position or such an office, partially ruinous though it now be. It is an old baronial tower, of square form and great bulk, with walls of remarkable height and thickness. The front of the castle looks down the vale, and is approached by an avenue, terminating in a courtyard, the gateway of which still bears a deer's head couped, and bunch of strawberries, the cognizance of the Frasers, once lords of the fortlet castle, and probably its founders. On the top of the castle, in front, is a bartisan or terrace, passing between two corner turrets, and affording a splendid view of the adjacent country.

After being the property of the noble families of Fraser and Yester, the demesne and castle were purchased in the latter part of the seventeenth century by William, Duke of Queensberry, for his second son the Earl of March, in whose hands an event occurred which forms one of the traditionary tales of the district. Among the many noblemen and gentlemen of note who sought the hand of the lovely Lady Mary, daughter of the Earl of March, there was not one on whom she could be persuaded to look with favour. Her parents beheld this indifference with surprise, for among the suitors were several young men who were graced with handsome persons, high birth, and splendid fortune. This mysterious unconcern was, however, presently accounted for by the jealous watchfulness of the Countess of March, whose pride had taken alarm at certain indications of regard shown by her daughter for the young laird of Tushielaw. When taxed with this dereliction of duty, the blushes of Lady Mary, and the perturbation into which she was thrown by the mention of her lover's name, confirmed her mother in her supposition. If, however, any doubt remained, it was speedily dissipated by an application of Tushielaw for the consent of the parents to a union with their. daughter, while he urged their mutual affection as an apology for his seeming presumption. Young Scott of Tushielaw, though of an old and honourable family, was neither rich nor titled, and of course, in the opinion of the Earl and Countess of March, no fitting mate for their daughter. Lady Mary was therefore summoned into the presence of her incensed parents, and severely reprimanded for her undutiful conduct in having bestowed her affections without their leave. She was also informed of their unalterable determination to refuse their consent to her marriage, and forbidden ever to think again of her devoted lover. In those days it was more customary for high-born young women to sacrifice their feelings and attachments to the will of their parents, and the aggrandisement of their family, than it now is; and this command, which the unfortunate girl felt she could not obey, was yet received with meek submission, while she gave a reluctant promise that she would never marry without their consent. So far, she was able to control her own wishes, but from that moment she ceased to appear like one who has any interest in life or its affairs.

The earl and countess, elated with the victory which they imagined they had gained over the affections of their daughter, next rejected in haughty terms the proposal of Tushielaw; while they gave a deathblow to his hopes, by informing him that Lady Mary was now brought to a proper sense of her duty, and would never consent to be his. The attachment of this highspirited young man was characterised by all the deep devotion which possesses the heart of an enthusiastic lover in the days of his youthful romance; and feeling himself alike unable to brook the indignity put upon him by the parents, or to forget his love