to deprive "the Malocchio" of much, if not all its diablerie. I met at the baths of Ems last year a Russian prince-they are as common there as blackberries-of whom I made inquiries respecting his compatriot, and who by a singular good fortune, enables me to supply some passages in his history, not unimportant to my readers, or at least to myself. He laughed much at the idea of his being the evil spirit in disguise; though he confessed that he was a restless and unquiet one, a man of disappointed ambition, very eccentric in his habits, and given to misanthropy. The prince had been at that university with the count about twenty years before, and though he had not renewed any acquaintance with him, which he strenuously disowned, they had met in many of the capitals of Europe. As to his eye-which was averred to have been gifted with such diabolical influences-it seems that there was nothing extraordinary in it, but its nyctolopic dilatation. He wore spectacles in order to improve his personal appearance, and conceal in some measure the deprivation of the one which he had lost in a schlager duel with a brother student; that duel having arisen from jealousy a quarrel respecting the wife of the Jew, a woman of remarkable beauty, and of whose virtue the scandalous chronicle of the day did not speak very favourably. She died it was said in childbirth, and that child, and the date corresponds well, was doubtless Esther. This will explain the choice of the Jew's dwelling, the count's nocturnal visits to the Hebrew burial-ground, and more than all, the attempts he made to persuade her to elope with him, knowing that her supposed father would never have consented to part with her. Her hatred of him-a retaliation for her mother's wrongs-was natural. In order to mask his views he had assumed a still greater eccentricity than he really possessed; part of which mystification was the letters which he addressed to his feigned correspondents. I learnt also on my return to H, that the Jew, of whom an autopsis had been made, had died of apoplexy from mounting too rapidly, at the screams of Esther, the staircase of the tower, and not of ignition; and moreover that the count's disappearance after the catastrophe was no supernatural one, but owing to an order of the police, who strongly suspected him of being a Russian spy, without which there is no town in Germany, however small.

I was curious also to know something of the fair Esther, who not only recovered from her swoon, but whose health was by the absence of the count soon re-established. She became it seems a great heiress, for in one of the old escritoirs belonging to the Jew was discovered a secret drawer that contained jewels and gold to an immense amount. Great heiresses in Germany are as much in request as elsewhere. She was no longer the despised and rejected, but found an admirer, and soon after a husband in the person of a young D. L. in the university, the only son of a rich diamond merchant of Frankfort on the Maine, where she is still living, with little lost of her original beauty, and forming a distinguished ornament of the Rothschild circle.

I have lately learnt that the prince was mistaken as to his noble compatriot's having lost his eye in the duel. It afterwards recovered, and was finally poked out with a knitting-needle by a lady who caught him in the act of peeping at her at an hotel through a key-hole of her

chamber.

A STORY OF A STRANGE CHILDHOOD.

BY ARNHELDT WEAVER,

I WAS not reared as other children are. I had no father, no mother, no play mates, no home. It was not home where I was sometimes allowed to shew my pale, thin face; where, sometimes, as my aunt's good or ill temper predominated, I had a meal bestowed on me, or, as more frequently happened, was sent famishing to bed. That was not home. Other children had homes. I had none.

My earliest recollections are all unfavourable. My hair was uncombed, my face unwashed, my clothes were ragged, dirty, and much too large for my poor weazen body. I was the most wretched object in all the parish, and not one child, not even the offspring of a beggar, would play with me. As for the grown people, I saw them shrug their shoulders as I passed. If I attempted to address them, they would turn away, as it seemed to me, with hatred and contempt, and hurry into their houses. The very dogs appeared to avoid me.

On the outskirts of the village where my aunt dwelt, there were several fields with footpaths leading across them. In one of these fields, at some distance from the path, there was a pond containing silvery-scaled fish. Around the brink were many shrubs and trees, and a mossy bank sloped from the water's edge, which, being overarched by the boughs of the trees, and shaded by the shrubs, formed a choice retreat during the summer months for the children of the better class, whose parents resided in the neighbourhood. The boys would sail tiny ships in the pond, and angle for the fish, (though that was forbidden,) while the girls would bring their needlework or their books, and pass whole hours in reading or sewing. The poor children of the village came to look at them, and were sometimes invited to perform little offices, which they gladly did, esteeming it in some sort as a privilege; but if I ventured to appear amongst them, the girls shrieked and gathered up their books and needlework, while their brothers or cousins hurled stones at me, hitting me cruel blows, to escape which I ran away as fast as my legs would carry me.

What was the reason of this? Why was I different from the other poor children of the village? I knew not.

I remember the morning well-God never sent a brighter out of the heavens. It made me glad. But few things rejoiced me in my childhood, and that summer's morning was one of them. I bent my steps towards the pond in the meadow, trusting that Heaven would soften the children's hearts on such a day, and that they would at least let me look at them, from a distance.

There was no one there. But as I cast my eyes around, I saw two girls crossing the field, and advancing towards the pond. The elder was perhaps eighteen years old, while her companion was a mere child. I recognised them immediately. They were orphans, like myself. L crept quickly amongst the shrubs, for I knew that they would retreat if they saw me. I prayed in my heart that they would come and sit directly beneath me, and they did so.

VOL. VIII.

I am an old man now, but I remember well what beautiful faces they had. They were orphans, as I said, and I seemed to myself to love them, because they were as I was. I kept quite still, not so much as causing a twig to bend or a leaf to rustle. Soon, the elder girl began talking to the child,-soon she made affectionate mention of their parents' memory, and expressed a hope that they might both rejoin them. I could bear it no longer: I also thought of my pa"Oh God!" I cried aloud, let me go to my mother and father, for every one hates me here.

rents.

The girl shrieked at the unexpected sound, and snatched her little sister from the bank, while she looked with alarm to the spot whence my voice had issued. She saw my face peering amidst the shrubs; but she did not recognise me.

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What do you there?" she said. children. Why do you hide yourself? Oh, no, she did not recognise me!

"You are one of the village We shall not harm you."

"Ah! will you let me come?" I asked quickly and joyfully. "Yes, to be sure," she replied, in the sweetest of voices.

I lost no time in quitting my position. I stood before her. Great God! it is true! she caught the child in her arms, and fled with all her speed.

I hurried home. I resolved to entreat my aunt to solve this mystery, —why all, even the gentlest and loveliest, even those who would turn aside in their path rather than tread upon a worm, should fly from me, a poor child, who would also turn aside rather than crush a worm or an insect.

My aunt beat me cruelly, and bade me quit her sight for ever. Child as I was, I resolved to obey her. Wherever I go, I thought, I can but be beaten and shunned.

I remembered having heard her speak of a relation, who was a maker and vendor of fishing rods and tackle, and who dwelt in Fetter Lane, London. Thither I determined to repair. I did not know the name of my relative, or our respective degrees of affinity. I believed him to be very poor, inasmuch as my aunt, though possessing a little independence, was needy enough, and because I had ever been forlorn and wretched to a depth below appreciation.

I have not space to relate all the shifts I used to reach the metropolis, or how I subsisted on the road. On the morning of the 7th of September, 1786, just after sunrise, I beheld from the top of Highgate Hill the ball of St. Paul's, which glittered like an orb of fire in the rays of that glorious planet. About noon of that day I found myself in Fetter Lane.

I passed upwards of an hour in looking into and pacing to and fro before the doors of the two or three fishing-tackle shops that were then to be found in this locality. The houses were so tall; the windows were, to my fancy, so imposingly decked out, and I was so dirty, and wretchedly clad, and was withal so shy and fearful of meeting with a frown or disdainful stare, that it was long before I could resolve to cross the threshold of either of them.

I summoned sufficient courage at length. I entered that which appeared to be the poorest-for still I could not believe my relation to be, in the world's phraseology, well to do. A man, who stood behind the

counter, eyed me with surprise and distrust; for the little mendicants and street-sweepers had a more aristocratic appearance than I had.

I told him my name, and the village where I had lived. I thought he would recognise me immediately, and, if kindly disposed towards me, would at once embrace me. But he only stared with unaffected amazement. Meanwhile I stood pattering my feet on the floor and twiddling my thumbs.

"You young vagabond!" he presently cried, with a burst of indignation, "you want to steal something. If you don't leave the shop directly I'll send you to prison."

I did not wait for him to repeat his objurgation and threat. Another hour passed, and I was still sauntering along, deprived of the necessary courage for a second venture. But at last I repeated the experiment, and this time I selected the tallest house, and the most imposing window. There was a man also in this shop.

I renewed my former attempt at self-introduction. My relation (for it was he) staggered as though a thunderbolt had struck him. The result was, that before dusk of that evening I found myself plunged into a suit of ready-made clothes; my matted hair was dressed by a barber's skilful hands, and my whole appearance became suddenly respectable. Before I went to bed, I related to my uncle,—my mother's brother, for such was my newly discovered relation,-the unaccountable treatment I had endured in the village I had quitted. He listened with profound attention, and sighed deeply as I concluded.

"Yes," he remarked; "mankind is always unjust. What you tell

me does not astonish me."

"What have I done," I asked, "that people should always shun

me?"

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You done? You have done nothing," replied my uncle. are punished because but I must not tell you yet." "Am I to live with you?" I enquired eagerly.

"You

'Yes, for the present, till-well, for a long time you will live with me; and as you have never received any instruction, you must go to school."

I pass over the next two years, during which I remained with my relation, and went regularly to an academy of some eminence. I was no longer pained by the treatment I had endured at an earlier period of my life. During this time, my uncle, at frequent intervals, corresponded with a party in America, to whom, as I could make out, I was an object of considerable interest. To myself I was shrouded in mystery. I was ignorant of my parents, and of the manner of my first coming into life. My uncle was always taciturn whenever I hinted a desire to know something respecting my origin.

He took me upon one occasion to Westminster, (it was the month of December,) and entering a street in which the houses in their gravity wore a kind of owlish aspect, derived probably from their near neighbourhood to the senatorial wisdom and forensic profundity of the nation, to say nothing of the abbey and its divinity, he halted opposite to a large, gloomy building, and bade me observe it attentively, so that I might readily recognise it again. I did 80. I remember it perfectly now, though it has long since disappeared. I should say that its builder had been a morose individual, a rigid

Calvinist, or perhaps a fifth monarchy man. Vulcan might have cursed out his Sundays there, and blasphemed his craft because his forge was idle. The merest glance at it told you that a laugh never echoed within its walls, that no thought was ever born there which enlarged the heart and enlightened the intellect. Of course it possessed a library-it looked as if it did; and what were the books its shelves contained could be decided without a moment's hesitation. The m

jority of them -you could not doubt it were unwieldy folios, emanations from the austere spirits of a former time, when judges and lord chancellors believed in witchcraft. It was pre-eminently a house of gloom. The very crickets in the kitchen were silent, and uttered no merry chirp.

Are you sure that you shall know this house again?" demanded my relation.

I answered readily in the affirmative.

On our way home, my uncle bought at a shop where ready-made clothes of all kinds were sold, a suit that was calculated to fit a boy of my age; the appearance of which puzzled me extremely. It was not greatly superior, save that it was new, to the wretched suit I had discarded on the day of my arrival in London.

When we reached our abode in Fetter Lane, the night had closed in, and the streets and windows displayed their usual stock of oil lamps. I was not long left in doubt as to the intentions of my uncle with respect to the suit of clothes. He bade me with as little delay as possible equip myself therein, and while I did so, he went out, and returned presently, bearing a bundle of links, one of which he lighted. Thrusting it into my hand, he told me to carry the rest under my arm, and hurry off to Westminster, where, as he further instructed me, I was to take up my position at the door of the mansion he had pointed out; and, counterfeiting the character of a link-boy, was to wait there until an opportunity arrived of serving in that capacity the inmates of the gloomy abode.

I did not at first much relish these directions, but I overcame my distaste, and reflected only on the romance of the adventure. I stood a long time near the door of the building, pinched with cold, for it was severe weather, and I was thinly clad. At length an old man, snugly wrapt up, came forth. He called me, and bade me precede him with my link. We went to a celebrated Nonconformist chapel, at the door of which he gave me sixpence, and told me, if I pleased, I could be in readiness to do the like office on his return, when the service was concluded. I thanked him, and hastened to Fetter Lane, for my feet were nearly frozen, and my uncle had not directed me to wait. Nevertheless he was angry that I had not tarried till the old man returned home.

The next night, and the next, and many subsequent nights, I continued to repeat this adventure, until at last the old gentleman, finding me always attentive to his hour of coming forth,-always civil, and better behaved than the other link-boys of the metropolis,-began to ask me questions; when, following my uncle's instructions, which he had expressly given me, in anticipation of such a disposition on the old man's part, I told him that I was an orphan, whose means of livelihood were dependent on the precarious occupation I followed. My Nonconformist found me not uninformed, and after several more