fixed her black eyes on her husband's, as if she would read his very soul.

"Let me be," Matteo answered. "I'm his father."

Giuseppa kissed her child, and went back, crying, into the cottage. She threw herself on her knees before a picture of the Blessed Virgin, and prayed fervently. Meantime Falcone had walked a couple of hundred paces along the path, not pausing till he had reached a dell. Into this he went down.

He sounded the ground with the butt of his gun, finding it soft and easy to dig, and he thought the spot suited to his purpose. "Fortunato, go over to that big stone."

The boy did as he was told, and then knelt down.

"Say your prayers."

"Father, father, don't kill me!"

"Say your prayers," Matteo repeated, in a terrible tone.

Stuttering and sobbing, the child said the Paternoster and the Creed. With a loud voice, the father said "Amen" at the end of each.

"Are those all the prayers you know?"

"Father, I know the Ave Maria too, and the Litany my aunt taught me."

"It's a long Litany. Never mind."

The boy finished it in a failing voice.

"Have you done?"

"Oh, father! Have pity! Forgive me! I won't do it again! I'll beg my uncle, the corporal, so hard for Gianetto that he'll let him off!"

He was still speaking when Matteo put his gun on full-cock and took aim, saying, "God forgive you !"

The child made a desperate effort to jump up and throw himself at his father's knees, but he had not time to do it. Matteo fired, and Fortunato fell stark dead.

Without casting a glance at the corpse, Matteo went towards his house to fetch a spade to bury his son. He had not gone far when he met Giuseppa, who hurried to the spot in terror, having heard the shot.

"What have you done?" she cried.

"Justice!"

"Where is he?"

"In the dell. I'm going to bury him. He died like a Christian. I'll have a Mass said for him. Tell my son-in-law, Tiodoro Bianchi, to come and live in our house."

PROSPER MÉRIMÉE. Translated by E. M. LYNCH.

ВАТНЫ

PICKWICKIAN BATH.

ATH, which already owed so much to famous writers, owes even more to "Boz," the genial author of "Pickwick "—a book which has so much increased the gaiety of the nation. The scenes at the old city are more minute and vivid than any yet offered. But if it owed much to "Boz," it repaid him by furnishing him with a name for his book which has gone over the world. Everything about this name will be interesting; and it is not generally known when and how "Boz" obtained it.

There was a small hamlet some few miles from Bath and 97 from London-which is 106 miles away from Bath-bearing the name of "Pickwick." The Bath coach, by the way, started from the White Horse Cellars, Piccadilly, at half-past seven in the morning, and took just twelve hours for the journey. Now it is made by the Great Western in two! Here many years ago, at the time of the story, was "Pickwick House, the seat of C. N. Loscombe, Esq.," and also "Pickwick Lodge," where dwelt Captain Fenton. "Boz" had never seen or heard of such places, but all the same they indirectly furnished him with the name. A mail-coach guard found an infant on the road in this place, and gave it the name of "Pickwick." The word "Pickwick " contains the common terminal "wick," as in "Warwick": an affix which means a village or hamlet of some kind. Pickwick, however, has long since disappeared from the face of the map. Probably after the year 1837 folk did not relish dating their letters from a spot of such humorous memories.

This foundling, Eleazar Pickwick, was taken into the service of the coaching hotel, the White Hart, devoted himself to the horse and coaching business, and at the time of "Boz's" or Mr. Pickwick's visit, his grandson, Moses, was the actual proprietor of the coaches on the road. "The name," said Sam, "is not only down on the vay-bill, sir, but they've painted vun on 'em on the door of the coach." As Sam spoke, he pointed to that part of the door on which the proprietor's name usually appears, and there sure enough, in gilt letters of a goodly size, was the magic name of PICKWICK. "Dear me," said

Mr. Pickwick, quite staggered by the coincidence, "what a very extra-
ordinary thing!" "Yes; but that ain't all," said Sam, again directing
his master's attention to the coach-door. "Not content with writin'
up Pickwick, they put 'Moses' afore it, which I calls adding insult
to injury." "It's odd enough, certainly," said Mr. Pickwick. It
may be noted here what an air of reality this imparts, and how
unlikely we should be to find such a touch in a modern novel.
When he was casting about for a good name for his venture, it
recurred to him as having a quaint oddity and uncanniness.
thus it is that we owe to Bath, and to Bath only, this celebrated
name. Many years ago, a Mr. Pickwick actually changed his name
by public advertisement. This ordinary event caused quite a public
sensation. The owner was reminded that it was an old and
honourable name-coming originally from Pique vite-and it was
not Count Smorltork who suggested this derivation.

And

In the course of his story, our author having thus to take Mr. Pickwick down to Bath, it occurred to him that the fact that his hero was transported by a coach bearing his own name on the door must have seemed odd to many of his readers, or possibly to the coach proprietor himself. He saw, too, an opening for some goodhumoured fun, and accordingly made Sam call his master's attention to the matter. No city has had its society and manners sketched by such eminent pens as has Bath-Smollett, Miss Burney, Miss Austen, and "Boz" have all described it. The old walls and houses are thus made to live. "Boz" has given one of the most vivid and vivacious pictures of its expiring glories in the thirties, when there were still "M.C.s," routs, assemblies, and sedans. His own connection with the place is personal, and a very interesting one. He was there in 1835 on election business, hurrying after Lord John Russell, all over the country, to report his speeches-a young fellow of three-and-twenty, full of "dash," "go," and readiness of resource, of immense energy and carelessness of fatigue, ready to go anywhere and do anything. While thus engaged on serious business he kept his eyes wide open, took in all the humours of Bath and noted them in his memory, though he made no use of this till more than two years later, when he was well on into "Pickwick." Indeed, all "Pickwick" is full of his own personal adventures at this time, Bath and Ipswich particularly contributing a substantial portion of the book.

Entering an old city by night leaves a curious romantic impression, and few old cities gain so much as Bath by this mode of approach. The shadowy houses have a monumental air; the fine streets which

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we mostly ascend show a mystery, especially as we flit by the open square, under the great black Abbey, which seems a beetling rock. This old Bath mysteriousness seems haunted by the ghosts of Burney, Johnson, Goldsmith, Wilkes, Quin, Thrale, Mr. Pickwick, and dozens more. Fashion and gentility hover round its stately homes. The Parade, North and South, and what adjoins the Parade, Pierrepoint Street, of quaint aspect, inspire a sort of awe. The Parade! What an antique twang about the name! And there it is: a genuine thing, and quite ready for company, with its capacious well-flagged promenade. Nothing, too, rouses such ideas of state and dignity as the Palladian Circus. There is a tone of mournful grandeur about it-something forlorn. Had it, in some freak of fashion, been aban. doned and suffered, for a time at least, to go to neglect and be somewhat overgrown with moss and foliage, it would pass for some grand Roman ruin. There is a solemn greyish gloom about it; the grass in the enclosure is rank, long, and deep green.

Pulteney Street, too: what a state and nobility there is about it! So wide and so spacious; the houses with an air of grand solidity -no carvings or frittering work, but relying on their fine lines. and proportion. To lodge there is an education, and the impression remains with one as of a sense of personal dignity from dwelling in such large and lofty chambers, grandly laid out with noble stairs and the like. The builders in this fine city would seem to have been born architects; nearly all the houses have claims to distinction, each has an expression and feeling of its own. The mellow blackened or browned tint adds to the effect. The mouldings are full of reserve, and chastened-suited exactly to the material. There is something, too, very stately about Laura Place, which opens on it.

From this point of view, Bath is a far more interesting city than Edinburgh. Mr. Peach has written two most interesting little quartos on the "Historic Houses of Bath"; and Mr. Meehan, a well-read bookseller, has compiled an admirable hand list or guide. to these notable residences.

I don't know anything more strange and agreeable than the feeling of promenading these Parades, North and South-a feeling compounded of awe, reverence, and exciting interest. The tranquil repose and dignity of these low, solid houses, the broad flagged Promenade, the unmistakable air of old fashion, the sort of reality and self-persuasion that they might in a moment be re-peopled with

Mr. T. Sturge Cotterell has prepared a singularly interesting map of Bath, in which all the spots honoured by the residence of famous visitors are marked down. It is very extraordinary the number and distinction of these personages.

all these eminent persons-much as "Boz" called up the ghosts of the old mail-coach passengers in his telling ghost story-the sombre grey of the walls, the brightness of the windows: these elements join to leave an extraordinary impression. The houses on these Parades are charming from their solid proportions, adapted, as it were, to the breadth of the Parade. I always admire their compact, compressed, unpretending, yet substantial build, recalling the old Bruges mansions. Execrable, by the way, are the modern attempts seen side by side— feeble and incapable, not attempting any expression at all; extraordinary are the helplessness and lack of purpose which we find in our modern times. There is a row of meagre tenements beside the Abbey-attempts at pinnacled gables-which it is a sorrowful thing to look on, so cheap and starved is it. Even the newer shops in places like Milsom Street, with nothing to do but to copy what is before them, show the same platitude. Here and there you are constantly coming upon one of these beautifully designed old mansions piteously disguised, cut up in two or three it may be, or the lower portion fashioned into a shop. These have been well described by Mr. Peach.

No group of architectural objects is more effective or touches one more nearly than the buildings gathered round the Baths. There is something quaint and old-fashioned in the arrangement, and I am never tired of coming back to the pretty open colonnade, the faded yet dignified Pump-room, with the ambitious hotel and the solemn Abbey rising solemnly behind. Then there is the delightful

Promenade opposite, under the arcades--a genuine bit of old fashion -under whose arches the capricious Fanny Burney often strolled. Everything about this latter conglomeration-the shape of the ground, and even the older portion of the municipal buildings, with their elegant decorations, sculptured garlands, &c.-bespeak the influence of the graceful Adam, whose pupil or imitator Mr. Baldwin may have been.

"Boz's" description of the tarnished Pump-room answers to what is seen now, save as to the tone of the decorations. I say "Boz's," for Pickwick, it should be recollected, was not actually acknowledged by the author under his proper name. It was thought that the well-known and popular "Boz" of the "Sketches" would attract far more than the obscure C. Dickens. Now "Boz" and the Sketches have receded and are little thought of. "Boz" and Pickwick go far better together than do Dickens and Pickwick. There is an old-fashioned solemnity over this Pump-room which speaks of the classical taste over a hundred years ago. How quaint and suitable is the in