regiment about to embark for Portugal. He was among the first who perished before the walls of St. Sebastian.

I do not know how, upon a subject which I began with treating half seriously, I should have fallen upon a recital 5 so eminently painful; but this theme of poor relationship is replete with so much matter for tragic as well as comic associations that it is difficult to keep the account distinct without blending. The earliest impressions which I received on this matter are certainly not attended with anything painful 10 or very humiliating in the recalling. At my father's table (no very splendid one) was to be found, every Saturday, the mysterious figure of an aged gentleman, clothed in neat black, of a sad yet comely appearance. His deportment was of the essence of gravity; his words few or none; and I was not to 15 make a noise in his presence. I had little inclination to have done so for my cue was to admire in silence. ticular elbow-chair was appropriated to him, which was in no case to be violated. A peculiar sort of sweet pudding, which appeared on no other occasion, distinguished the days of his 20 coming. I used to think him a prodigiously rich man.

A par

All

I could make out of him was that he and my father had been schoolfellows a world ago at Lincoln, and that he came from the Mint. The Mint I knew to be a place where all the money was coined and I thought he was the owner of all 25 that money. Awful ideas of the Tower twined themselves about his presence. He seemed above human infirmities and passions. A sort of melancholy grandeur invested him. From some inexplicable doom I fancied him obliged to go about in an eternal suit of mourning; a captive, a stately 30 being, let out of the Tower on Saturdays. Often have I wondered at the temerity of my father, who, in spite of an habitual general respect which we all in common manifested towards him, would venture now and then to stand up against him in some argument touching their youthful days. The 35 houses of the ancient city of Lincoln are divided (as most of my readers know) between the dwellers on the hill and in the valley. This marked distinction formed an obvious division between the boys who lived above (however brought

together in a common school) and the boys whose paternal residence was on the plain; a sufficient cause of hostility in the code of these young Grotiuses. My father had been a leading Mountaineer; and would still maintain the general superiority, in skill and hardihood, of the Above Boys (his 5 own faction) over the Below Boys (so were they called), of which party his contemporary had been a chieftain. Many and hot were the skirmishes on this topic-the only one upon which the old gentleman was ever brought out and bad blood bred; even sometimes almost to the recommencement 10 (so I expected) of actual hostilities. But my father, who scorned to insist upon advantages, generally contrived to turn the conversation upon some adroit by-commendation of the old minster; in the general preference of which before all other cathedrals in the island, the dweller on the hill and the 15 plain-born could meet on a conciliating level, and lay down their less important differences. Once only I saw the old gentleman really ruffled, and I remembered with anguish the thought that came over me: "Perhaps he will never come here again." He had been pressed to take another plate of 20 the viand which I have already mentioned as the indispensable concomitant of his visits. He had refused with a resistance amounting to rigor, when my aunt—an old Lincolnian, but who had something of this, in common with my cousin Bridget, that she would sometimes press civility out of season 25 -uttered the following memorable application: "Do take another slice, Mr. Billet, for you do not get pudding every day." The old gentleman said nothing at the time; but he took occasion in the course of the evening, when some argument had intervened between them, to utter with an emphasis 30 which chilled the company, and which chills me now as I write it" Woman, you are superannuated!" John Billet did not survive long after the digesting of this affront, but he survived long enough to assure me that peace was actually restored; and if I remember aright, another pudding was dis- 35 creetly substituted in the place of that which had occasioned the offence. He died at the Mint (anno 1781), where he had long held what he accounted a comfortable independence;

and with five pounds, fourteen shillings, and a penny, which were found in his escritoire after his decease, left the world, blessing God that he had enough to bury him and that he had never been obliged to any man for a sixpence. This was 5. -a Poor Relation.

Walter Savage Landor.

1775-1864.

PETRARCH ATTENDS THE PARISH CHURCH.

(From The Pentameron, 1837.)

It being now the Lord's Day, Messer Francesco thought it meet that he should rise early in the morning and bestir himself, to hear mass in the parish church at Certaldo. Whereupon he went on tiptoe, if so weighty a man could indeed go in such a fashion, and lifted softly the latch of Ser Gio- 5 vanni's chamber-door, that he might salute him ere he departed, and occasion no wonder at the step he was about to take. He found Ser Giovanni fast asleep, with the missal wide open across his nose, and a pleasant smile on his genial, joyous mouth. Ser Francesco leaned over the couch, closed 10 his hands together, and, looking with even more than his usual benignity, said in a low voice, "God bless thee, gentle soul! the Mother of purity and innocence protect thee!"

He then went into the kitchen, where he found the girl Assunta, and mentioned his resolution. She informed him 15 that the horse had eaten his two beans, and was as strong as a lion and as ready as a lover. Ser Francesco patted her on the cheek, and called her "semplicetta!" She was overjoyed at this honor from so great a man, the bosom-friend of her good master, whom she had always thought the greatest man 20 in the world, not excepting Monsignore, until he told her he was only a dog confronted with Ser Francesco. She tripped alertly across the paved court into the stable, and took down the saddle and bridle from the farther end of the rack. But Ser Francesco, with his natural politeness, would 25 not allow her to equip his palfrey. "This is not the work for maidens," said he; "return to the house, good girl!"

She lingered a moment, then went away; but, mistrusting

the dexterity of Ser Francesco, she stopped and turned back again, and peeped through the half-closed door, and heard sundry sobs and wheezes round about the girth. Ser Francesco's wind ill seconded his intention; and although he had 5 thrown the saddle valiantly and stoutly in its station, yet the girths brought him into extremity. She entered again, and, dissembling the reason, asked him whether he would not take a small beaker of the sweet white wine before he set out, and offered to girdle the horse while his Reverence bitted and 10 bridled him. Before any answer could be returned, she had begun. And having now satisfactorily executed her undertaking, she felt irrepressible delight and glee at being able to do what Ser Francesco had failed in. He was scarcely more successful with his allotment of the labor; found un15 looked-for intricacies and complications in the machinery, wondered that human wit could not simplify it, and declared that the animal had never exhibited such restiveness before. In fact he never had experienced the same grooming. At this conjuncture a green cap made its appearance, bound with 20 straw-colored ribbon and surmounted with two bushy sprigs of hawthorn, of which the globular buds were swelling, and some bursting, but fewer yet open. It was young Simplizio Nardi, who sometimes came on the Sunday morning to sweep the court-yard for Assunta.

25

"O! this time you are come just when you were wanted," said the girl. "Bridle directly Ser Francesco's horse, and then go away about your business."

The youth blushed, and kissed Ser Francesco's hand, begging his permission. It was soon done. He then held the 30 stirrup; and Ser Francesco, with scarcely three efforts, was seated and erect on the saddle. The horse, however, had somewhat more inclination for the stable than for the expedition; and as Assunta was handing to the rider his long ebony staff, bearing an ivory caduceus, the quadruped turned sud35 denly round. Simplizio called him "bestiaccia!" and then, softening it," poco garbato!" and proposed to Ser Francesco that he should leave the bastone behind, and take the crabswitch he presented to him, giving at the same time a sample