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taking my leave of Lovell House, as the sinking sun yonder warns me it is time to do, I feel that I shall have the reproaches of the king to add to my own regrets, at proving a disgraced ambassador-dismissed without an audience."

"With your grace's permission, I will once more attempt to move the spirit of my noble lady!" cried Shum, stumbling towards the door in the earnestness of his desire to exonerate his beloved lady from the ignominious charge circulated against her at court. “I trust I may even now persuade her to receive your grace's parting salutations."

"And hark ye, friend," cried Buckingham, resting his ruffled boot on an adjoining chair, and swallowing a fragment of chocolate macaroon as a zest to his glass of Rivesaltes, "should her ladyship prove obdurate, after the approved fashion of country-gentlewomen, beseech her to despatch hither as proxy a certain pretty little article in a sadcoloured gown and starched pinners, a vision of whose blue eyes greeted me on my entrance. For want of the mistress, I will allow myself to abide by the maid.

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Fortunately, Master Shum had retreated, without hearing or understanding this unseemly allusion to his fair and modest helpmate; or his pleading to Lady Lovell to rescind her determination might possibly have been less zealous. Nevertheless, when he beheld her seated in a simple undress in her own apartment, wearying, with a book in her hand, till the departure of her troublesome guest should place her once more at liberty, he perceived in a moment that he might as well attempt to root up Mountsorrel, as deter her from her purpose of seclusion.

It scarcely surprised him when, on crossing the hall on his return to the banqueting-room, he perceived that on a private command despatched by Lady Lovell to the stables, the equipage and people of the Duke of Buckingham were already in attendance, as the duke must needs perceive from the bay windows of the chamber in which he sat; and expecting, in his country breeding, that his grace would be indignant and resentful at so flagrant a breach of courtesy, he was amazed to find the duke, beaver in hand, prepared for instant departure; and pouring forth, with smiling volubility, expressions of regret that it would be impossible for him him to protract his stay sufficiently to accept an audience of Lady Lovell.

"I have only this moment become aware of the lateness of the hour," cried he, with an air of insolent superiority. "I fancied that your country clocks were as much behindhand as everything else in the country. Nay," he continued, following Master Shum's glance towards the setting sun, "I was idiot enough to surmise that even the sun went slower here than elsewhere. I shall, therefore, pray you to commend me to the Lady Lovell, assuring her of due report to his majesty of the splendour and favour with which his messengers are entertained; and an intimation of her ladyship's humble sense of unworthiness of the honour designed her."

"But, my lord duke," interrupted Shum-

"Leave it to my care, excellent sir," cried Buckingham, waving his hand, "to garnish the message with those common forms of

politeness, in which your province is supposed to be deficient. Foi de chevalier, Monsieur l'Auditeur-though my absence from Whitehall will have been but of forty-eight hours' duration, I shall make it a duty to go through a course of douches and fumigations at the hands of my French baigneur, ere I present myself in his majesty's presence, lest the bumpkin atmosphere should adhere to my garments, and discredit me in the eyes of the decent class of the community. Farewell, sir; not a step further, I beseech ye!"

And crossing the hall with an easy picktooth gait, which left Master Shum in open-mouthed amazement at his sangfroid, he tossed a purse of gold pieces to the page as vails for the household, which, according to the custom of the times, would have been freely accepted but for the established regulations of Lovell House.

"Send it as alms, then, to the parish church!" cried Buckingham with a scornful smile, when, to his amazement, the old steward advanced to the portal of the courtier's painted coach, and requested him to resume a gift which was contrary to the forms of the house. "Since the customs of civilisation do not yet obtain here, it is to be hoped that your beggars have still the good grace to be thankful.”

"We have no beggars hereabouts, my lord duke,” replied the old man, tossing the purse to the duke's groom of the chambers, much as it had been thrown by the duke to little Edmund. And the glass being that instant indignantly drawn up by Buckingham in the face of the presumptuous menial, a signal was given to the cortège to proceed.

Glancing back to the old mansion, as a turn towards the lodgegates brought him once more within view of the house, the duke was astonished to perceive that, instead of the rustic household bursting forth from the porch to stare upon the departing train of carriages which displayed a degree of magnificence at that period rarely witnessed beyond the limits of the capital, not so much as a groom or chambermaid was at the trouble to play spectator! There was not a single consolatory circumstance by which his wounded vanity could be appeased.

"The devil fetch this untaught wench!" cried he, as he mused sullenly in a corner of his unwieldy carriage. "Though it goes against me to take up the gauntlet she has presumed to throw down, my honour is concerned in bringing her to shame! Let her look to it. Never yet did man or woman provoke with impunity the vengeance of a Villiers."*

*To be continued.

MEMS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN.1

BY LAUNCELOT LAMPREY.

"Chi va lontan dalla sua patria, vede

Cose da quel che gia credea, lontane."

No. VII.

Girgenti and Agrigentum-The Temple of the Giants-Girgenti Theatricals-Sici lian idea of London life-Alicata-Terra Nova-Biscari--A convent of Capuchins.

THE path from Monte Allegro to Girgenti, a distance of fourteen miles, wound among almond, fig, and cork trees, the latter barked to the height of about ten feet. We passed, too, through whole meadows of the iceplant, whose large globules of frozen dew glistened with a freshness that almost made one feel cool in looking at them, notwithstanding the intensity with which the beams of a scorching sun beat upon the huge umbrella canopies which we carried over our heads. By the way, I finally discovered that the heat was much more oppressive in such a shelter than when exposed directly to the rays of the sun, with only the rim of a straw hat or the penthouse of a travellingcap to protect the eyes.

Before entering the town, we passed on the right the mole of Girgenti, where great quantities of sulphur-cake were lying ready for exportation. From it there is a carriage-road, the first we had seen since leaving Palermo, leading to Girgenti itself, which, as usual, is perched on the summit of a rocky hill, once, if the doctor was to be believed, the citadel of Agrigentum. Citadel or not, the view from the winding road that climbs to its summit is magnificent. Our foreground, when we drew up to take a long and tranquil view, was filled up by the enormous cacti and budding aloes (buds six feet long!) that formed the fence. A begging friar, in his brown robe of serge, made a point in the picture, and contrasted well in colour with the verdure behind him. On our left was the city, with its gray walls and flat roofs clustered round the rock. Before and below us extended a rich wavy, wooded plain, covered with olive, myrtle, and almond, mingled with aloe, and here and there a palm, from among which peeped out in strong relief the brown clayey-looking pillars of the temples, some of which, half hidden among the foliage, seemed as if they were still portions of a perfect edifice, sheltering its Pagan worshippers. Beyond was the sea, looking glorious in the calm sunshine, coming with a bold sweep from the chalk-like promontory that bounded our view upon the

east.

At Girgenti our accommodations were a shade or two better than they had been at Sciacca or Castel Vetrano, a point of more importance than any one who has not had some experience in Sicilian travelling will readily believe. The fatigues of the day are nothing; one

1 Continued from p. 73.

soon gets accustomed to the peaked saddle; the hard fare is nothing. A bit of brown bread and an orange are almost always procurable, but it was the bed, or rather the want of anything that could, without a powerful figure, be called such, that gave the coup de grace to one's patience. In place of ordering a pair of slippers and the evening paper, with which to while away the time in the company of a glass of sherry and water until supper is ready, with a snug fire, a neat carpeted room, a sofa to lounge upon, obsequious waiters ministering to your wants, (your slaves for the time, in consideration of an extra sixpence,) the unfortunate Sicilian traveller, after jolting on mule-back over rough mountain-paths for forty miles or thereabouts, broiled by the sun, hungry and weary, is shown into a room, on whose tiles, innocent of water, small salad might conveniently be grown. The windows are unglazed, a wooden shutter alone partially excluding the wind and rain. In the corner is the bed, composed of two iron "horses," three planks, a filthy mattress, and a rug. A rickety chair and a small deal table form the remainder of the furniture. Over all these chair, table, bed, floor, walls, and ceiling—is running a lively population, any one of which is ready to attack with a vigour sufficient to chase away sleep from the eyes even of Morpheus himself after an extra dose of poppies. One's heart sinks at the obvious impossibility of procuring an hour's slumber in such companionship.

Girgenti, however, as I have said, presented accommodations a shade better than those of the two previous evenings, and it was in better spirits than usual that we the next morning mounted our mules to visit its antiquities. The first ruin to which our guide conducted us was a portion of what evidently had once been a cellar, but which has been repaired, so as to serve for a modern church. It stands on the heights indented, as it were, into the rock, which has been cut away to afford it room. We then visited the temple, called that of Juno Lucina; of this the greater number of the pillars remains with a portion of the cella. Next was the Temple of Concord, which, like that at Segesta, is nearly perfect, wanting merely the roof. It has not, however, the same appearance of stability. The pillars are much shattered, and the softer materials of which the edifice is composed bear much stronger traces of the ravages of time, the air having in many places eaten out whole blocks from the wall. Even the reparations which the temple has suffered, presenting a whitish patchwork on a ground of a deep clay colour, though necessary perhaps to stay its fall, do irreparable damage to the sentiment of its appearance, and give it a modern antique kind of air, not at all relieved by the slab of white marble running across the pediment, and containing the date of the repairs, with the royal name under whose patronage they were executed. The old city walls (the most perfect specimens of which are to be found in the space between these two latter temples) presented to the eye of the doctor a much more gratifying sight. He had been muttering discontented grumblings all the morning, and talking incoherently about plaster and Pæstum, Segesta, King Ferdinand, and the Goths; but these old walls, au naturel as time had left them, restored the sunshine to his brow, and perched on their summit; looking on one side down on the plain and the distant sea, on the other up

to the site of the ancient citadel, he discoursed long and eloquently of Agrigentum and its wars with Carthage, of its famous horses, of Theron, Phalaris, and his brazen bull.

The walls themselves on which we sat were very remarkable, being not built but hewn. The calcareous rock was in some places merely cut away, so as to present a precipice on the outside, in others a wall was actually formed by excavations on the inside also. Chambers, which seemed as if they had been used for tombs, were cut in their thickness. Some of these were mere oblong holes, others formed a small chamber with compartments, intended apparently to hold bodies of different sizes. Flights of steps on the outside provided the means of access. It seemed strange that the defences of the city should have been used for a purpose by which they were so much weakened a circumstance that seemed unaccountable, unless the theory of the doctor should happen to be the correct one, namely, that the walls had not been used for sepulchres until they were useless as defences, and in a great measure destroyed.

We afterwards visited the prostrate remains of the temple called that of the Olympian Jupiter, a ruin which has given rise to innumerable speculations. It has evidently been of great extent and of a colossal bulk, testified by the massive fragments of pillar and frieze, cornice and capital, that lie scattered around. Its plan, however, in the state of confusion in which its ruins remained, was a hopeless puzzle for the antiquarians, until the Neapolitan government ordered excavations by which its proportions were developed. It then appeared to have been composed of three aisles, the bases of the buttresses by which they were divided being still easy to be traced running from end to end of the building. But lo! in solving the one mystery a greater appeared. Elbows and knees of colossal figures were found among the ruins; a foot, an arm, a head, were discovered, and at last the searchers succeeded in putting together, in all his giant bulk, a massive figure of tolerably correct proportions, his arms elevated above his head, and his shoulders bowed as if burthened, like Atlas, with some crushing weight. The fragments of another, and another, and another, were discovered, each in the same attitude, each with the same developement of muscle, each with the same full-lipped negrolike aspect. One of them lay stretched out before us, a huge Colossus. "There now, doctor," said Dawson," you're fond of nuts to crack. Try your teeth on that son of Anak-what doth he here? The 'Cockerell' theory, as laid down by that gentleman, is, that these were perched on the top of the buttresses dividing the side aisles, and were supports to the roof. Rather a droll locality, certainly, and somewhat out of the way; but we must, I am afraid, put up with this theory for want of a better."

We lounged about the antiquities of Agrigentum the whole day, peeping into the tombs, clambering along the walls, and sitting on the steps of the Temple of Concord, with our mules picketed around us, in the full enjoyment of "summer's delicious idleness."

In the evening we discovered that Girgenti was possessed of a theWe went early, and established ourselves in the pit before the house filled, so that we had abundant time to study and examine its

atre.

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