course of time, he was impressed by the commander of an English frigate, who had lost so many of his men by the yellow fever, that he seized upon all he could lay his hands on to supply their places, even Ithuel being acceptable in such a strait.

THE glance which Ithuel cast around him was brief, but comprehensive. He saw that two of the party in the room were much superior to the other four, and that the last were common Mediterranean mariners. The position which Benedetta occupied in the household could not be mistaken, for she proclaimed herself its mistress by her very air; whether it were in the upper or in the lower room.

"Vino," said Ithuel, with a flourish of the hand to help along his Italian; this and one or two more being the only words of the language he ventured to use directly, or without calling in the assistance of his interpreter; "vino - vino, vino, Signora."

"Sì, sì, sì, Signore," answered Benedetta, laughing, and this with her meaning eyes so keenly riveted on the person of her new guest, as to make it very questionable whether she were amused by anything but his appearance; "your eccellenza shall be served; but whether at a paul or a half-paul the flask depends on your own pleasure. We keep wine at both prices, and," glancing towards the table of Andrea Barrofaldi, "usually serve the first to signori of rank and distinction."

"What does the woman say?" growled Ithuel to his interpreter, a Genoese, who from having served several years in the British navy spoke English with a very tolerable facility; "you know what we want, and just tell her to hand it over, and I will fork out her St. Paul without more words. What a desperate liking your folks have for saints, Philip-o!" for so Ithuel pronounced Filippo, the name of his companion - "what a desperate liking your folks have for saints, Philip-o, that they must even call their money after them!"

"It not so in America, Signor Bolto?" asked the Genoese, after he had explained his wishes to Benedetta, in Italian; "it not ze fashion in your country to honour ze saints?"

"Honour the saints!" repeated Ithuel, looking curiously around him, as he took a seat at a third table, shoving aside the glasses at the same time, and otherwise disposing of everything within reach of his hand so as to suit his own notions of order; and then leaning back on his chair until the two ends of the uprights dug into the plaster behind him, while the legs on which the fabric was poised cracked with his weight; "honour the saints! we should be much more like to dishonour them! What does any one want to honour a saint for? A saint is but a human - a man like you and me, after all the fuss you make about 'em. Saints abound in my country, if you'd believe people's account of them

selves."

"Not quite so, Signor Bolto. You and me no great saint. Italian honour saint because he holy and good."

By this time Ithuel had got his two feet on the round of his seat, his knees spread so as to occupy as much space as an unusual length of leg would permit, and his arms extended on the tops of two chairs, one on each side of him, in a way to resemble what is termed a spread-eagle.

Andrea Barrofaldi regarded all this with wonder. It is true, he expected to meet with no great refinement in a wine-house like that of Benedetta; but he was unaccustomed to see such nonchalance of manner in a man of the stranger's class, or, indeed, of any class; the Italian mariners present occupying their chairs in simple and respectful attitudes, as if each man had the wish to be as little obtrusive as possible. Still he let no sign of his surprise escape him, noting all which passed in a grave but attentive silence. Perhaps he saw traces of national peculiarities, if not of national history, in the circumstances.

"Honour saint because he holy and good!" said Ithuel, with a very ill-concealed disdain "why, that is the very reason why we don't honour 'em. When you honour a holy man, mankind

The Jack O'Lantern.

4

may consait you to do it on that very account, and so fall into the notion you worship him, which would be idolatry, the awfullest of all sins, and the one to which every ra'al Christian gives the widest bairth. I would rayther worship this flask of wine, any day, than worship the best saint on your parson's books."

As Filippo was no casuist, but merely a believer, and Ithuel applied the end of the flask to his mouth at that moment, from an old habit of drinking out of jugs and bottles, the Genoese made no answer; keeping his eyes on the flask, which, by the length of time it remained at the other's mouth, appeared to be in great danger of being exhausted, a matter of some moment to one of his own relish for the liquor.

"Do you call this wine?" exclaimed Ithuel, when he stopped, literally to take breath; "there isn't as much true granite in a gallon on 't, as in a pint of our cider. I could swallow a butt, and then walk a plank as narrow as your religion, Philip-o!"

This was said, nevertheless, with a look of happiness, which proved how much the inward man was consoled by what it had received, and a richness of expression about the handsome mouth, which denoted a sort of consciousness that it had been the channel of a most agreeable communication to the stomach. Sooth to say, Benedetta had brought up a flask at a paul, or at about four cents a bottle, - a flask of the very quality which she had put before the vice-governor; and this was a liquor which flowed so smoothly over the palate, and of a quality so really delicate, that Ithuel was by no means aware of the potency of the guest which he had admitted to his interior.

All this time the vice-governor was making up his mind concerning the nation and character of the stranger. That he should mistake Bolt for an Englishman was natural enough, and the fact had an influence in again unsettling his opinion as to the real flag under which the lugger sailed. Like most Italians of that day, he regarded all the families of the northern hordes as a species of barbarians, an opinion that the air and deportment of Ithuel had no direct agency in changing; for while this singular being was not brawlingly rude and vulgar, like the coarser set of his own countrymen with whom he had occasionally been brought in contact, he was so manifestly uncivilized in many material points as to put his claim to gentility much beyond a cavil, and that in a negative way. "You are a Genoese?" said Andrea to Filippo, speaking with the authority of one who had a right to question.

"Signore, I am, at your eccellenza's orders, though in foreign service at this present moment."

"In what service, friend? I am in authority here in Elba, and ask no more than is my duty."

"Eccellenza, I can well believe this," answered Filippo, rising and making a respectful salutation, and one, too, that was without any of the awkwardness of the same act in a more northern man, "as it is to be seen in your appearance. I am now in the service of the King of England.”

Filippo said this steadily, though his eyes dropped to the floor under the searching scrutiny they endured. The answer of the vicegovernor was delivered coolly, though it was much to the point.

"You are happy," he said, "in getting so honourable a master; more especially as your own country has again fallen into the hands of the French. Every Italian heart must yearn for a government that has its existence an its motives on this side of the Alps."

"Signore, we are a republic to-day, and ever have been, you know."

"Ay, such as it is. But your companion speaks no Italian, he is an Inglese?"

"No, Signore, an Americano: a sort of an Inglese, and yet no Inglese after all. He loves England very little, if I can judge by his discourse."

"Un' Americano!" repeated Andrea Barrofaldi; "Americano!" exclaimed Vito Viti; "Americano!" said each of the mariners in succession, all eyes turning with lively curiosity towards the subject of the discourse, who bore it all with appropriate steadiness and dignity.

The reader is not to be surprised that an American was then regarded with curiosity in a country like Italy; for, two years later, when an American ship of war anchored suddenly before the town of Constantinople, and announced her nation, the authorities of the Sublime Porte were ignorant that such a country existed. It is true, Leghorn was beginning to be much frequented by American ships in the year 1799; but even with these evidences before their eyes, the people of the very ports into which these traders entered were accustomed to consider their crews a species of Englishmen, who managed to sail the vessels for the negroes at home. * In a word, two centuries and a half of national existence, and more than half a century of national independence, have not yet sufficed to teach all the inhabitants of the Old World that the great modern Republic is peopled by men of an European origin, and possessing white skins. Even of those who are aware of the fact, the larger proportion, perhaps, have obtained their information through works of a light character, similar to this of our own, rather than by the more legitimate course of regular study and a knowledge of history.

"Si," repeated Ithuel, with emphasis, as soon as he heard his nationality thus alluded to, and found all eyes on himself, "Si, oon Americano, - I'm not ashamed of my country; and if you 're any way partic'lar in such matters, I come from New Hampshire, or what we call the Granite State. Tell 'em this, Philip-o, and let me know their idees in answer."

Filippo translated this speech as well as he could, as he did the reply; and it may as well be stated here once for all that, in the dialogue which succeeded, the instrumentality of this interpreter was necessary, that the parties might understand each other. The reader will, therefore, give Filippo credit for this arrangement, although we shall furnish the different speeches very much as if the parties fully comprehended what was said.

“Uno stato di granito!" repeated the vice-governor, looking at the podestà with some doubt in the expression of his countenance, "it must be a painful existence which these poor people endure, to toil for their food in such a region. Ask him, good Filippo, if they have any wine in his part of the world?"

* As recently as 1828, the author of this book was at Leghorn. The Delaware, 80, had just left there; and speaking of her appearance to a native of the place, who supposed the writer to be an Englishman, the latter observed, "Of course, her people were all blacks." - "I thought so, too, Signore, until I went on board the ship," was the answer, "but they are as white as you and I are."