the same time he was equally unwilling to fail in the fulfilment of his oath, or to place himself undefended in the power of his enemies he had, however, little trouble in devising a means of eluding the difficulty. He despatched orders to his champions, who were all in readiness in the neighbourhood of the frontier, that each one should halt in the place where he had first received information of the unfair dealings of the French. He despatched Gilbert Cruyllas to the seneschal of the King of England, to require of him to guarantee a fair field, and every day he sent a fresh messenger after him, both in order to receive constant intelligence, and also to render the appearance of the followers of the King of Arragon upon the roads no unusual Occurrence. He himself, with three trusty knights, Blasco Alagona, Berenger Pietralalladra, and Conrad Lucia, on horseback, and without any other retinue, joined company with one Domenic Figuera, of Taragossa, a horsedealer, well acquainted with the country, binding him to secrecy by fearful oaths, and confiding the secret of his journey to no one of his court, not even to the Infant Don Alphonso. The king armed himself with a shirt of mail under his clothes, and a steel head-piece under his cap, wrapped himself in an old blue cloak, took a javelin in his hand, and a valise upon his horse, to appear like the servant of the merchant, while the others disguised themselves in still meaner clothing as grooms. Figuera, on the other hand, was richly attired and equipped, and treated with distinction: he used his companious roughly, lodged apart, and the king waited upon him at table, and poured water for him to wash his hands. Thus, mounted on swift palfreys, which they changed at every post, they took the road to Tarragona. To the inqui ries made of them at the frontier passes, the merchant replied that he was travelling on his own business with his servants; and thus eluding all the snares of the enemy, they halted under the walls of Bordeaux at noon on the 31st of May.

The king immediately sent Berrenger, the son of Cruyllas, into the city to seek his father, and to charge him secretly to persuade the English seneschal, John de Greilly, to come forth from the town, by telling him that a knight, one of his friends, wished to speak to him on a subject of importance, and requesting him at the same time to bring with him a notary. John went forth as desired at nightfall, and Peter, feigning himself to be another envoy, asked again whether the King of Arragon could come. Greilly resolutely replied that he could not; that large bodies of French horse

were stationed in the neighbourhood; that King Edward had never guaranteed the field, and now could not do so if be would, even by uniting his own forces with those of Arragon, as he had already, he said, affirmed to Gilbert. Peter thereupon requested him to let him see the lists. Greilly conducted him thither; and then the King of Arragon, throwing back his hood, discovered himself to the seneschal, who conjured him for the love of God to save himself from his enemies. The king mounted his charger, rode three times round the lists, and halting in the midst, solemnly protested to the seneschal and to the notary, that he had come to redeem his oath, and if the duel did not take place it was not to be ascribed to him but to the perfidy of his enemies. He then had a protestation to this effect drawn up in due form, in which Greilly attested the coming of the King of Arragon, and the order given by Edward to consign the city to Philip and to Charles. The king left his arms to the English seneschal, requested him to delay the promulgation of the occurrence for a short time, and putting spurs to his horse, galloped back to the Spanish frontier by the way of Bayonne. He reached that city weary and travel-worn, not having closed his eyes for three days, and from thence published a protest, sent letters and messengers to the princes of Christendom; and, in the anticipation that war would immediately be declared, summoned all such of his subjects as might be in France to return forthwith to Arragon.

"Charles, on the other hand, who had been at Bordeaux ever since the 28th of May, being informed by the Seneschal of the coming of his adversary on the very day of the duel, was infuriated at the tidings, sent off horsemen in pursuit of him (whose toil was, however, fruitless, owing to the start that Peter had obtained), showered bitter reproaches upon Greilly, and even presumed so far as to confine him in the palace, but speedily released him on seeing the citizens rise in rebellion against such violence. On the same day Charles, with all his champions fully armed, remained in the lists until noon; and a French force, of some say three, some five thousand horse, and some many more, ostentatiously occupied the outskirts of the city. Charles uttered a haughty protest, openly proclaiming Peter a defaulter and a coward; but Saba Malespina himself says, "that in his heart he was full of chagrin, that his snare had thus been spread in vain ;' and d'Esalot relates, that he called his daring enemy not a man, but rather a fiend of hell, and even worse, for at the sign of the cross the devil will flee away.

but against him there is no security; you deem him a thousand miles away, and you find him upon you. At length, leaving Bordeaux on the 11th of June, Charles hastened to publish in Italy an interminable recapitulation of the offences of Peter, and of the taunts and insults to which he had submitted, and thus the drama ended."

But the drama of Sicilian convulsions was not yet ended; truly the ever-burning mountain that stands in the midst of that beautiful island is an apt type of the fiery heart of its generous people. The remainder of the volumes contains most interesting details of the after results of the Sicilian Vespers, and how, from struggle to struggle, now in light, now in darkness, Sicily passed through the ordeal of a brief anarchy, to come forth, as the author says, "from her revolution in the thirteenth century, with a political constitution hardly equalled by those of the most civilised nations in the nineteenth century." But we will not mar the interest which many readers, we trust, will find in this remarkable work, by giving more of these necessarily garbled extracts. We recommend all to judge for themselves of the merits we have so briefly touched upon; and now, in conclusion, having amply testified our admiration, of this work in its graceful English dress especially, we must, as a conscientious reviewer, comment briefly on certain remarks of Michele Amari, for which we cannot quite forgive him. We conceive it to be the bounden duty of great minds to strip themselves of all world-taught fallacy and prejudice, all received conventionalism, and to view things as they really are in the sight of high Heaven, and not in the dim eyes of man, and thus to separate whatever is really true, and holy, and of good report, from the mass of dross, and clay, and painted rubbish which the maxims of a false society too often dignify

simply as an existent fact, wholly independent of temporary causes—war, a principle admitted and established in the world, for the organised destruction of portions of the human race by the hands of their fellow-creatures-is a thing so preposterous, that it is only in compliance, or under the influence of received fallacies, that we can talk of the greater or lesser merit of those who practise it. Now there is a certain gusto in the manner in which Amari talks, of the actual massacre of the French, a forgetfulness of what is due from man to man, in the excitement of telling how it fared between nation and nation, which, with all due allowance for the fact that he is a Sicilian and a patriot, we yet cannot approve. In justification of our feelings on this subject, we will but quote his own remark, after mentioning that on one oc

casion, when the Prince of Salerno, son to Charles of Anjou, was in the power of the Aragonese, they threatened to put him to death, though innocent of any crime, save that his father had conquered Sicily, Amari says:—

This menace, which, carried into effect, might have proved a wise and salutary measure to strengthen the Sicilians with the courage of desperation, would not, I think, have sufficed to arrest the progress of Charles, when confident of victory."

The translator has, in a very spirituelle manner, given the substance of the feelings which this passage must excite, in a note consisting solely of three points of admiration.

And now, having relieved the reviewer's conscience, so proverbially tender and scrupulous, with this brief criticism, we would wish to conclude with a strong recommendation of the work as a most attractive reproduction of a very clever book for the benefit of the English public.

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VOL. XXXVII.-NO. CCXX.