Journal down into those ethereal tints, stretched out before them; ending in the haze of the Ligurian Mountains. The scene was enough to take away the breath of one unaccustomed to that blaze of wonderful light, and all the delightful accidents of those purple hills. But this pair were too familiarly acquainted with every line to make any pause. They turned round the sunny height from the gateway, and entered by a deep small door sunk in the wall, which stood high like a great rampart rising from the Punto. This was the outer wall of the palace of the lord of the town, still called the Palazzo at Bordighera. Every large house is a palace in Italy; but the pretensions of this were well founded. The little door by which they entered had been an opening of modern and peaceful times, the state entrance being through a great doorway and court on the inner side. The deep outer wall was pierced by windows only at the height of the second story, on the sea-side, so that the great marble stair up which Waring toiled slowly was very long and fatiguing, as if it led to a mountain top. He reached his rooms breathless, and going in through antechamber and corridor, threw himself into the depths of a large but upright chair. There were no signs of luxury about. It was not one of those hermitages of culture and ease which English recluses make for themselves in the most unlikely places. It was more like a real hermitage; or, to speak more simply, it was like, what it really was, an apartment in an old Italian house, in a rustic castle, furnished and provided as such a place, in the possession of its natural inhabitants, would be. The Palazzo was subdivided into a number of habitations, of which the apartment of the Englishman was the most important. It was composed of a suite of rooms facing to the sea, and commanding the entire circuit of the sun; for the windows on one side were to the east, and at the other the apartment ended in a large loggia, commanding the west and all the glorious sunsets accomplished there. We northerners, who have but a limited enjoyment of the sun, show often a strange indifference to him in the sites and situations of our houses; but in Italy it is well known that where the sun does not go the doctor goes, and much more regard is shown to the aspect of the house. The Warings at the worst of that genial climate had little occasion for fire; they had but to follow the centre of light when he glided out of one room to fling himself more abundantly into another. The Punto is always full in the cheerful rays. It commands everything-air and sea, and the mountains and all their thousand effects of light and shade; and the Palazzo stands boldly out upon this the most prominent point in the landscape, with the houses of the little town withdrawing on a dozen different levels behind. In the warlike days when no point of vantage which a pirate could seize upon was left undefended or assailable, it is probable that there was no loggia from which to watch the western illuminations. But peace has been so long on the Riviera that the loggia too was antique, the parapet crumbling and gray. It opened from a large room, very lofty, and with much faded decora tion on the upper walls and roof, which was the salone or drawing-room, beyond which was an anteroom, then a sort of library, a diningroom, a succession of bedchambers; much space, little furniture, sunshine and air unlimited, and a view from every window which it was worth living to be able to look out upon night and day. This, however, at the moment of which we write was shut out all along the line, the green persiani being closed, and nothing open but the loggia, which was still cool and in the shade. The rooms lay in a soft green twilight, cool and fresh; the doors were open from one to another, affording a long vista of picturesque glimpses. From where Waring had thrown himself down to rest, he looked straight through over the faded formality of the anteroom with its large old chairs, which were never moved from their place, across his own library, in which there was a glimmer of vellum binding and old gilding, to the table with its white tablecloth, laid out for breakfast in the eating-room. The quiet soothed him after a while, and perhaps the evident preparations for his meal, the large and rotund flask of Chianti which Domenico was placing on the table, the vision of another figure behind Domenico with a delicate dish of mayonnaise in her hands. He could distinguish that it was a mayonnaise, and his angry spirit calmed down. Noon began to chime from the campanile, and Frances came in without her hat and with the eagerness subdued in her eyes. 'Breakfast is ready, papa,' she said. She had that look of knowing nothing and guessing nothing beyond what lies on the surface, which so many women have. She was scarcely to be called a woman, not only because of being so young, but of being so small, so slim, so light, with such a tiny figure, that a stronger breeze than usual would, one could not help thinking, blow her away. Her father was very tall, which made her tiny size the more remarkable. She was not beautifulfew people are to the positive degree; but she had the prettiness of youth, of round_soft_contour and peach-like skin, and clear eyes. Her hair was light brown, her eyes dark brown, neither very remarkable; her features small and clearly cut, as was her figure, no slovenliness or want of finish about any line. All this pleasing exterior was very simple and easily comprehended; and had but little to do with her, the real Frances, who was not so easy to understand. She had two faces, although there was in her no guile. She had the countenance she now wore, as it were for daily use-a countenance without expression, like a sunny cheerful morning in which there is neither care nor fear-the countenance of a girl calling papa to breakfast, very punctual, knowing that nobody could reproach her as being half of a minute late, or having a hair or a ribbon a hair's-breadth out of place. That such a girl should have ever suspected anything, feared anything-except perhaps gently that the mayonnaise was not to papa's taste-was beyond the range of possibilities; or that she was acquainted with anything in life beyond the simple routine of regular hours and habits, the sweet and gentle bond of the ordinary, which is the best rule of young lives. 宅 Frances Waring had sometimes another face. That profile of hers was not so clearly cut for nothing; nor were her eyes so lucid only to perceive the outside of existence. In her room, during the few minutes she spent there, she had looked at herself in her old-fashioned dim glass, and seen a different creature. But what that was, or how it was, must show itself further on. She led the way into the dining-room, the trimmest composed little figure, all England embodied-though she scarcely remembered England -in the self-restrained and modest toilet of a little girl accustomed to be cared for by women well instructed in the niceties of feminine costume; and yet she had never had any one to take counsel with except an Italian maid-of-allwork, who loved the brightest primitive colours, as became her race. Frances knew so few English people that she had not even the admiration of surprise at her success. Those she did know took it for granted that she got her pretty sober suits, her simple unelaborate dresses, from some very excellent dressmaker at 'home,' not knowing that she did not know what home was. Her father followed her, as different a figure as imagination could suggest. He was very tall, very thin, with long legs and stooping shoulders, his hair in limp locks, his shirt-collar open, a velvet coat-looking as entirely adapted to the locality, the conventional right man in the right place, as she was the woman. A gloomy look, which was habitual to him, a fretful longitudinal pucker in his forehead, the hollow lines of illhealth in his cheeks, disguised the fact that he was, or had been, a handsome man; just as his extreme spareness and thinness made it difficult to believe that he had also been a very powerful one. Nor was he at all old, save in the very young eyes of his daughter, to whom forty-five was venerable. He might have been an artist or a poet of a misanthropical turn of mind; though, when a man has chronic asthma, misanthropy is unnecessary to explain his look of pain and fatigue and disgust with the outside world. He walked languidly, his shoulders up to his ears, and followed Frances to the table, and sat down with that air of dissatisfaction which takes the comfort out of everything. Frances either was inaccessible to this kind of discomfort, or so accustomed to it that she did not feel it. She sat serenely opposite to him, and talked of indifferent things. 'Don't take the mayonnaise, if you don't like it, papa; there is something else coming that will perhaps be better. Mariuccia does not at all pride herself upon her mayonnaise.' 'Mariuccia knows very little about it; she has not even the sense to know what she can do best.' He took a little more of the dish, partly out of contradiction, which was the result which Frances hoped. "The lettuce is so crisp and young, that makes it a little better,' she said with the air of a connoisseur. 'A little better is not the word; it is very good,' he said fretfully; then added with a slight sigh Everything is better for being young.' Except people, I know. Why does young mean good with vegetables and everything else, and silly only when it is applied to people? though it can't be helped, I know.' "That is one of your metaphysical questions,' he said with a slight softening of his tone. Perhaps because of human jealousy. We all like to discredit what we haven't got, and most people you see, are no longer young.' 'Oh, do you think so, papa? I think there are more young people than old people.' 'I suppose you are right, Fan; but they don't count for so much, in the way of opinion at least. -What has called forth these sage remarks?' 'Only the lettuce,' she said with a laugh. Then, after a pause: For instance, there were six or seven children in the party we met to-day, and only two parents.' "There are seldom more than two parents, my dear.' She had not looked up when she made this careless little speech, and yet there was a purpose in it, and a good deal of keen observation through her drooped eyelashes. She received his reply with a little laugh. I did not mean that, papa; but that six or seven are a great deal more than two, which of course you will laugh at me for saying. I suppose they were all English?' I suppose so. The father-if he was the father-certainly was English.' 'And you knew him, papa?' 'He knew me, which is a different thing.' Then there was a little pause. The conversation between the father and daughter was apt to run in broken periods. He very seldom originated anything. When she found a subject upon which she could interest him, he would reply, to a certain limit; and then the talk would drop. He was himself a very silent man, requiring no outlet of conversation; and when he refused to be interested, it was a task too hard for Frances to lead him into speech. She on her side was full of a thousand unsatisfied curiosities, which for the most part were buried in her own bosom. In the meantime, Domenico made the circle of the table with the new dish, and his step and a question or two from his master were all the remarks that accompanied the meal. Mr Waring was something of a gourmet, but at the same time he was very temperate, a conjunction which is favourable to fine eating. His table was delicately furnished with dishes almost infinitesimal in quantity, but superlative in quality; and he ate his dainty light repast with gravity and slowly, as a man performs what he feels to be one of the most important functions of his life. 'Tell Mariuccia that a few drops from a fresh lemon would have improved this ragoût-but a very fresh lemon.' Yes, Excellency, freschissimo,' said Domenico with solemnity. In the household, generally nothing was so important as the second breakfast, except, indeed, the dinner, which was the climax of the day. The gravity of all concerned, the little solemn movement round the white-covered table in the still soft shade of the atmosphere, with those green persianis shutting out all the sunshine without, and the brown old walls, bare of any decorations throwing up the group, made a curious picture. The walls were quite bare, the floor brown and polished, with only a square of carpet round the table; but the roof and cornices were gilt and painted with tarnished gilding and half-obliterated pictures. Opposite to Frances was 油 Journal a blurred figure of a cherub with a finger on his lip. She looked up at this faint image as she had done a hundred times, and was silent. He seemed to command the group, hovering over it like a little tutelary god. PRISON LITERATURE. THE prison, which was intended for the lawless, has been the birthplace of ennobling as well as striking literature, whose claim to be brought into prominence is all the greater because it has usually been produced under circumstances the least favourable to it, and not rarely by men of whom the world was not worthy. and Mr Rastall. Returning to England soon afterwards, he had the best proof of the power of the pen he had thus wielded, for Sir Thomas More, who was the Chancellor, found a place for him in the Tower. Here he wrote a treatise on the Eucharist, which was destined to be replied to by the fagots of the executioner. It was extracted from him by one Holt, a tailor, who professed great anxiety for his instructions, but who probably had much greater anxiety to serve More, for the treatise soon found its way to the Chancellor, who sent forth a brief reply to it. Fryth's rejoinder, considering that it was written without books and in prison, must always be regarded as a remarkable effort, including in its arguments, as it does, the testimony of the Fathers. The bishops handed him over to the civil authority for death by fire. It is satisfactory to know that the action of the bishops, and the martyrdom by which it was followed, were not indorsed by the country. Parliament almost immediately passed an Act which made it illegal for bishops to proceed ex officio against heretics. made a prisoner in an action near Ingelmunster. His personal worth was attested by Parma, who, when offered Count Egmont and De Selles in exchange for him, said that he could not give warrior was consigned to the donjon keep of a lion for two sheep. Yet, this lion-hearted the castle of Limburg, where an aperture in the roof admitted a little light and much rain, snow, and wind, whilst the floor was the home of rats, toads, and other obnoxious vermin. Here he was immured for five years, and here he composed his political and military discourses, and made annotations upon Plutarch and other The Consolation of Philosophy, the work of a Latin philosopher of the fifth century, may well stand first on the list. Charles Kingsley calls it 'a noble work;' and Gibbon, ‘a golden volume not unworthy the leisure of Plato or Tully.' Until the fourteenth century, it ranked with the best classics; and at times, even amongst scholars, it was placed next only to the Bible. Granted that the period during which it obtained this exalted reputation was marked by literary poverty, it As the long struggle waged by William of is surely not a little remarkable that such a book Orange against the power of Spain drew to its came into existence in a prison. Its author, close, the silent Prince lost one of his bravest Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius, was through-soldiers in the capture of De la Noue, who was out the greater part of this time claimed by the Church as saint and martyr, the friend of St Benedict, the instrument of a miracle, and the author of several theological treatises. Appointed 'Master of the Offices' in the court of Theodoric, king of the Goths, who had made Rome the seat of his government, his purse, as of old, was open to the poor, his eloquence was employed on behalf of the oppressed, and his influence was exercised with Theodoric on behalf of his country, in a manner which cannot but have saved it from much misery. His fearless and uncompromising love of justice compelled him to speak out against the unscrupulous misgov-not be crowded with their doomed thousands, The prisons of the French Revolution could ernment of the barbarians around him. This representative of every section of the community, without producing a literature quite distinctly its own. But that such a work as Madame Roland's Mémoires was begun and ended in one of these houses of arrest is one of the extraordinary phenomenal facts of literature, and proves its author to have been a most remarkduces her life from the days of childhood, with a able woman. Face to face with death, she reproprecision and fullness that are equally surprising. The horrors endured by her country at times almost overwhelm her, but fear of personal peril or danger is unknown to her. She remains to the last an angel of light, pure, sweet, generous, and pitiful. Without books and under the surveillance of jailers, her resources are exhaustless. 'I must despatch this book,' she says, 'to be free to go on with another.' But the material so crowds upon her that she can scarcely get away from it. To follow things thus step by step, I should have to write a long work, for which I have not the time left to live.' When they took her to the scaffold, they also took Lamarche. His dejection made her his aroused their wrath, and their opportunity came. Albinus, a senator, having been charged with treason, Boëthius chivalrously became his defender; the reward of which was to find himself, along with his father-in-law, Symmachus, placed under the same accusation. The evidence produced against him was letters, which he declares to have been forged. But Theodoric's mind had been poisoned, and so the philosopher was doomed to die a sentence which was cruelly carried out. The Reformation in England produced many men of literary capacity and learning, but few of them could have produced such work in prison as did John Fryth. Suspected of the Lutheran heresy soon after he was brought from Cambridge to Oxford by Wolsey, he was allowed to escape to Germany. There he associated himself with Tyndale, and sent forth a reply to Sir Thomas More's Supplication of Souls and to two works in defence of purgatory by Bishop Fisher works. consoler, and then she asked to die first, to show him how peacefully this could be done. Before the guillotine could do its work, she asked for a pen to write the strange thoughts that were rising in her.' They refused her this last request, and the world is so much the poorer; but let it at least be thankful for the woman and for her prison Mémoires. can be classed under prison literature, it is because it is so well known and so universally accessible, while the circumstances under which it was written are familiar to all. MY EXTRAORDINARY FRIEND. IN THREE CHAPTERS.-CHAP. I. I WAS only an assistant-master in a private school in the south of England, but my position was a very comfortable one. My salary was small, but When, in 1716, Voltaire was thrown into the Bastille on suspicion of having libelled the government, they were afraid to allow him either pen or paper; but he there planned and in part composed the Henriade, one of the greatest of so were my expenses. I had sufficient leisure the very few great epics of the world. Robert time. The boys were as a body of a very good Southwell, the Jesuit priest, who was three times imprisoned, ten times racked, and at last executed, class, and best, perhaps, of all, I agreed thoroughly wrote his two longest poems in prison, namely, with the head-master, who treated me rather as St Peter's Complaint and Mary Magdalene's Funeral a companion and an equal, than in the manner Tears. In his Autobiography, Leigh Hunt, refer- usually associated with the profession of usher. ring to his imprisonment of 1813-15, says, 'I read I believe I was popular with the boys because I verses without end, and wrote almost as many.' entered with zest into their sports and pursuits; Sir Walter Raleigh wrote his History of the World and having been educated at a large public school in the Tower of London; and it was whilst a myself, I understood them, and possessed that captive in the prison-fortress of Ham that Napo- tact in treatment and management which so few leon III. put together his Napoleonic Ideas. Rossel, of the many men who groan at the slavery of who resigned the post of chief of the corps 'cub-taming' seem to possess. Naturally, I did of engineers at Nevers to join the Commune not intend to devote the remainder of my life during the last struggle of France with Germany, to cub-taming; but I was a stern believer in because it did not number among its adherents the old axiom, that 'All things come to him who the generals guilty of capitulation,' and was waits, probably because I had a very tangible arrested by the party he joined, and finally shot something to wait for in the shape of a little when Versailles became triumphant, occupied his fortune compiled by an old Indian relative, who, prison hours in committing to paper his thoughts, humanly speaking, could not possibly live very theories, and experiences. Some of his descrip- many years longer. tions throw a lurid light on the revolutionary leaders, and make it quite easy for one to understand how rapid was his disenchantment with the men from whom he had hoped so much. I was popular amongst the boys, yet I think the only real friend I had amongst them was a young Russian named Ivan Dolomski. I believe I took a fancy to him simply because no one else did. He was a very extraordinary being; a very intellectual giant with the frame of a boy of sixteen. Why he was shunned by his schoolfellows I could never satisfactorily make out, unless it was because his ways were mysterious; because he took no part in the active healthful sports of the others; did not know the difference between square-leg and cover-point, or between a dropkick and a punt; and perhaps because he was reputed to be 'awfully' clever the word 'awfully' in his case being taken in its literal, and not its colloquial sense. The literature of the prison is in other respects exceedingly varied and suggestive. It was whilst immured in the Tower of London that Penn composed No Cross, No Crown. During his imprisonment, Savonarola wrote Commentaries on the thirty-first and fifty-first Psalms, as also his Rule for a good Christian Life. This last work was written at the request of his jailer, who, observant of his sanctity, had asked for a help to attain to it himself. Very beautiful, too, was the life of Bartholomew Ziegenbalg, who, whilst acting as a missionary in India, was thrown into The few boys who had been able to get a prison by the governor of Tranquebar. Not only peep into the desk, which he kept, as a rule, were books refused him wherewith to continue rigidly locked up, declared that it was a regular his translation of the New Testament, but even engine-room inside. Whilst his mates were pen and ink were forbidden, and a guard set reading or skylarking during the hours of over him to prevent any communication with the indoor leisure, he would be absorbed in the outer world. When, therefore, he one morning gloom of this desk, hammering, tinkering, sawfound writing materials on his table, he concluded ing, nailing; now and then creating a terrible that some angel had supplied his want; hence smell, and more than once causing a small explohe declared on the title-page of The Christian | sion. He spent all his pocket-money-and he Life and The Christian Teacher, which he pro- had plenty-in odd bits of iron, tubes, models ceeded to compose, that they were written under of engines, mysterious substances wrapped in the immediate direction of God. In the very year in which Ziegenbalg had been born (1683), the Hon. Algernon Sidney was beheaded for alleged complicity in the Ryehouse plot. Whilst in prison, he wrote a résumé of his life and trial, which production is a strong testimony both to his patriotism and honour. If we have said nothing yet of the Pilgrim's Progress, by far the most remarkable book which paper. In fact, he was as unlike the average English schoolboy of his own age as could be imagined, and was regarded much in the same way as a wise-man or necromancer of the middle ages was regarded by the ignorant populace, saving in one respect-no one dared to interfere with him. Quiet and harmless when left alone, forbearing even when chaffed and taunted, if he was roused by a more than ordinarily bold Journal move on the part of his school fellows, such as a grab at his keys, or the sudden plunging of a head into his desk, his black eyes would flash, his brow would contract into an almost diabolical frown, and, no matter what weapon was within reach, or who was present, he would use it with the frenzy of a madman. Hence, he was an object of awe and suspicion, as well as of ridicule, to the school. But to me he was different. I don't think there was much in common between us, for I had no taste for mechanics; but I used to speak to him, and try to take an interest in his pursuits. I used to take his part against the young 'bulldogs' who were everlastingly yapping and snapping about him; and he would refer to me upon scientific questions in a manner which only served to bring out the astonishing ignorance of one who was supposed to be his teacher, but which bound him closely to me. In the school, he was sullen, silent, morose. At my desk, at my side in the playground, in my private room, he was bright, enthusiastic, and cheerful. us. But there was another bond of unity between Ivan evidently came of wealthy and patrician parents. Every other Saturday afternoon, a magnificently appointed carriage drove up to the playground from the neighbouring wateringplace of Hythe, and the word was passed that 'young Bear's' friends had come for him. In the carriage there were usually an elderly lady and a girl of eighteen. As I was invariably on playground duty during Saturday afternoons, I became in some sort acquainted with Madame Dolomski and her daughter Olga, especially as I had generally to be employed as an agent between them and Ivan; for if the latter happened to be engaged upon some interesting experiment or new problem, the most endearing of maternal messages could not drag him away; and even I, with all my influence, had sometimes to return to the carriage without him. My conversation was chiefly with the elder lady; but my regards, I must say, were entirely for the younger. She was, as I have said, about eighteen, the possessor of one of those open, smiling faces which make us resent all that cynics and satirists have said against woman, a face set in an aureole of clustering curls; of a figure which some might say was too square and full developed to be within the category of feminine delicacy and grace, but which I rightly estimated to be the outcome of cold water and fresh air; of faultless hands and feet; and, perhaps best of all, of the sweetest and most musical of voices. I don't suppose she would have been looked at in a Belgravian drawing-room; but to me, a poor schoolmaster, shut up during nine months of the twelve within the school-boundary walls, who seldom saw a fairer face than that of Betty Housemaid, she seemed an angel. And although I was a dreamy young enthusiast of four-and-twenty, I knew more than to believe that any but a kind, good heart could be enshrined within so attractive a frame. Once smitten, I began to regard these Saturday visits as epochs in my existence, and was always hovering about the gate at about the usual hour of the carriage's arrival; and I do not believe I had ever passed two more wretched ten minutes in my life than once when I happened to be at the other end of the ground stopping a fight, and the French master played my role to the occupants of the carriage; and another time when Madame arrived alone. I suppose Ivan must have told his mother and sister of his respect and affection for me, for not only were they invariably polite and gracious, but they asked me to dine with them at Hythe one evening; and from their surroundings I could see that they were very great people. I believe the French master could have eaten me when I returned that night. Of course it was all very absurd, although there might have been something romantic in the love of a humble usher with a hundred a year for the daughter of a Russian colonel with a 'Von' before his name; but there it was. I found Olga so amiable, so intelligent, so interested in all that I told her about English school-life and traditions and pastimes and eccentricities, that I am afraid when the carriage came, I did not pay one half the attention to the good Madame that I paid her daughter. My joy may be imagined when one Saturday the carriage came with Olga alone in it. I do not know what I said or how I looked during the half-hour I stood beside it; but I remember that I did not hurry to execute the usual errand of fetching Ivan until the expiration of that time. There was not a trace of coquetry about Olga's bearing towards me; but I impressed myself with the notion that she reciprocated my passion, and built for myself castles in the air which in extravagance surpassed the wildest dreams of romancists. The more I saw of Ivan, the less I understood him. When I watched him amongst his schoolfellows there was a set scowl on his face, and an ugly line on each side of his mouth, which proclaimed that his hand was against every one's, and every one's hand against his. When he saw me, the dark, almost truculent face would light up, the bad lines would fade from his mouth, and a smile would break out, which made him look positively handsome. Yet, strong as was my influence over him, I never could get him to assimilate himself to the surroundings of his life, and when I suggested cricket or football, he would answer: Mr Cormell, such sports are for barbarians, not for thinkers.' I gazed at my young thinker of sixteen, as well I might; but he was unmoved and serious. One day-a wet day, and the school consequently confined within doors; I was writing at my desk-I rather think it was an ode to my charmer, when I heard above the din of laughing chattering restless boys, a tremendous commotion at the other end of the room, scuffling, cries of Young blackguard!' 'Beastly young foreign cad!' 'Coward,' and so forth. I could not see much beyond the agitated waves of boys' heads; but instinct told me that Ivan was there or thereabouts. I cast away the gentle look of the amorous composer, put on my magisterial air, and went to the scene of disturbance. Arrived there, I saw Mr Ivan standing with his back to the door like a wild beast at bay, with an open pocket-knife of large size in his hand; and in the midst of a knot of whitefaced boys sat one whom I knew to be a frequent tormentor of the young Russian-Quayle Major by name, his coat |