In

In the recital of his early trials, disappointments, and successes, there was little beyond the average amount of interest which, so far as our own personal experience enabled us to judge, belongs to similar situations in the lives of most professional men who have risen to greatness by their own inherent genius and industry. But there was one fact, incident to the career of a truly great and good manwe refer to the late Dr. Chene-which was so painfully remarkable as to leave its vivid impression upon our memory up to the present hour. It is stated that this kindly hearted and Christian gentleman was, like most eminent men of his calling, so frequently called to visit persons utterly beyond the reach of human skill, that his countenance acquired an expression of asperity which quite belied the real character of his heart. Oft-recurring mortification at the failure of his art had left an impression of settled pain on his face of which he found it impossible to divest it. If the editorial visage does not acquire the same expression as that of the physician, it is, perhaps, because it is composed of more elastic material, or because it is as often subjected to hilarious impulses as saddening ones. Assuredly the newspaperwriter, who necessarily is a newspaper-reader, meets in his pursuit a huge amount of the most appalling vice. He must in his time have analyzed enough of human depravity to depress any man not wholly impassible, or endued with more than rhinoceros insensibility. all our experience, and it is tolerably extensive, we have no recollection of ever having been more acutely pained by any circumstance not affecting ourselves personally than by one detailed in a recent report of the proceedings in the Insolvent Court, that miserable goal of improvidence, misfortune, and crime. We have no desire to add one drop to the cup of sorrow and suffering which already overflows, and we therefore avoid the repetition of names; besides, to point our moral, minute particulars are not needed, Indeed, if they were, we could not defile our pages with them. It is sufficient for our purpose to say that, not long ago, a loving and trusting girl, whilst under an engagement to be married to a member of a most respectable profession, handed over to her intended husband the whole of her worldly wealth, and that the man to whom she had affianced herself gave the money meant to be the basis of a future fortune to a creature the bare mention of whose name would contaminate this sheet. He states that he lent the money, but under pretexts so shallow that it taxes the credulity of the most charitable to give any credence to them. The abandoned person was a party, whether knowingly or not, to the plunder of the innocent and rightful owner through the medium of her future husband (for he did marry the woman he so cruelly wronged), after leading no dubious course of life in Dublin and London; and she is now illustrating as appropriately the purlieus of the police courts of Paris. It would be sheer waste of words to draw inferences here. Surely-surely, no woman ever yet set her head to keep watch and ward upon her heart that had not reason to feel grateful for the guardianship!

THE LEGEND OF FRA DIEGO.

THE barbarous policy of the mediæval ages almost legalised assassination, and gave an air of terrible romance to the period. The administration of justice at all times wore the fierce aspect of private revenge; and the pertinacious interference of an ambitious, ignorant, and unscrupulous priesthood, in both public and private affairs, cast a gloomy shade of superstition over all the observances of society. The influence of these consecrated tyrants penetrated the most secret places of the domestic circle, and was evident in the highest seats of honour and authority. They were the repositors of every man's secrets. Under the name of confession, each one confided to his ghostly instructor the deeds he had already perpetrated, or the guilt he meditated. On the one hand, penance or gold purchased absolution; on the other, an anticipatory oblation insured an indulgence. Hence they became aware of all the robberies, abductions, assassinations, and outrages, either by the subsequent remorse of the criminal, or the promptings of his previous fears for the result of his crimes. The meanest and the highest sought their counsel or their consolation. The sovereign himself felt their domination. This was particularly so with Philip II. of Spain, as is evident in M. Mignet's history of that monarch. The

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sanguinary character of his policy, his duplicity, cruelty, and cowardice, were admirably adapted to the mystery and superstitious ascendancy of the monks. Being opposed, as he conceived, by his half brother Don Juan of Austria, who commanded the distracted and lately revolted provinces of the Netherlands, and jealous of his shining qualities as a soldier, and the popularity of his briliant career, yet unable to dispense with his assistance, he allowed him to solicit in vain for the fulfilment of certain promises, and did all he could to aggravate the fiery and successful warrior to rebel openly, and thus give him a pretext to destroy him. Don Juan had despatched his secretary, Escovedo, from Brussels, where he then was, to Madrid, to enforce his master's demands. The secretary resisted the cajolery and threatenings of both Philip and his minister, Antonio Perez, and remained faithful to Juan's interest; and in accordance with their bloody policy, it was resolved to remove him by assassination. Perez was the principal agent: but such a deed could not be executed without the approval of the Church. A friar of the name of Diego de Chaves was Philip's confessor, and him they consulted on the civil and religious bearings of Escovedo's murder. His answer on the first point was favourable to the sovereign's right of assassination, reserving the last point for decision in the confessional. He said," The secular prince, who has power of life and death over his subjects and vassals, as he may deprive him of life on just cause by judicial forms, so may he do this on sufficient evidence without such process, since the mere machinery of justice is nothing in respect to his laws, which also he can annul and re-enact at his pleasure. Nor is it a crime in a vassal who, at his command, may kill another vassal, since he must suppose that it was ordered to be done on just grounds, which the law of right assumes to exist in all the acts of a supreme prince." Escovedo was waylaid and slain in the square of San Jacobo, in Madrid. The actual assassins escaped for the time, but the relations and friends of the murdered gentleman loudly denounced Perez as the instigator, and demanded his trial. Philip resisted long, but the faction was powerful and numerous, and the suspicious wretch, like all other tyrants, had grown jealous of his agent, and at length issued a decree for his arrest. Perez suffered a long confinement with great constancy, without being brought to trial -his heroic lady making incredible and incessant efforts to procure his enlargement or his trial. All appeals to the king's sense of justice were in vain ; and weary of being tantalised with promises and evasions, she attempted, as a last resource, to reach the conscience of the royal confessor (the casuist in lawful murder), and induce him to intercede with Philip for a simple act of justice, if not of mercy-a fair trial for her husband. The lady was called Dona Juana de Coëllo, and was remarkable for her stately beauty and superior intellect, as well as her strong conjugal affections. The interview with the priest in the convent of Domingo el Real, as described by Mignet, from Relaciones, subsequently written by Perez himself, is that which forms the subject of the following legend. The Donna's address to

the confessor is nearly a literal transcript from the Relaciones. The character of the monk is not apocryphal. The catastrophe alone forms the confessedly legendary portion of the rhyme.

The glorious light of evening lay on San Domingo's dome,
And rob'd in purple halos every cloister, shrine, and tomb,
And shone upon the altar crypt in colours rich and rare,
Like sunshine through the waving plumes of angels on the air;
And high on gilded 'scutcheon and ancient banners' fold,
It threw its gorgeous lustre in traceries of gold.
Oh, guilty would the bosom be, and dark the heart within,
Could meditate beneath such light on treachery and sin.

But close beside the altar rail, and pacing to and fro,
There moveth one whose breast is foul with sin's unshriv'n throe;
Within whose eyes-an eye that ne'er on Heaven's sky dare look-
Ye might have read of fearful deeds, as is in a written book;
Upon whose brow the cords like folds were triply bent around,
As if to guard some fell intent within their iron bound.

It was the Fra Diego, who, near the rail of gold,
Paced to and fro impatiently as wolf-dog in his hold.

And ever as he pondered o'er some secret deed of guile,

His grim lip curled in triumph, as the base alone can smile;

And darkly down, like thunder-cloud upon the mountain peak,

The low'ring forms of dreadful thoughts were shadowed on the cheek;
And though he bent his grizly head, like one in pious dream,

Ye might have sworn his orisons were not of holy theme;
Nor, when he clutch'd his rosary, were it a sin to tell,

The poignard's hilt would have become that bony hand as well.
At once arrested is his pace, his swarthy cheeks turn pale,
A low sad sound hath struck his ear-a mourning lady's wail:
Resounding through the cloister arch the dulcet sorrow passed,
And sank, as does the requiem strain beside the cygnet's nest,
Awhile Diego trembling stood, in horror and affright,
A thing of spectral gloom and fear, amidst that golden light,
For all unearthly grew his look, his cheek all deathly wan,
And even his shadow blacker fell than that of mortal man.

"What, ho! sacristan, bar the porch, for such a mood as mine
Is all unmeet to list the plaint of penitential whine,"
He cried; " And absolution-oh, that jugglery to none
Must I dispense, save to the souls of royal fools alone;
And were that mockery, in sooth, an amulet divine,

'Twere needed all to wash away from Philip's breast and mine
The blood of Escovedo, and hundreds more beside,

With thine, proud Perez, which will soon augment the burning tide."

Whilst audibly the monk thus mus'd, along the chancel came
A lady tall and stately-Don Perez's lovely dame.