"Don't put on a injured look at the question; you've done it many a time. Jerk the tinkler."

These words, in plain English, conveyed an injunction to ring the bell. It was answered by another Jew, younger than Fagin, but nearly as vile and repulsive in appearance.

Bill Sikes merely pointed to the empty measure, and the Jew, perfectly understanding the hint, retired to fill it, previously exchanging a remarkable look with Fagin, who raised his eyes for an instant as if in expectation of it, and shook his head in reply so slightly that the action would have been almost imperceptible to a third person. It was lost upon Sikes, who was stooping at the moment to tie the boot-lace which the dog had torn. Possibly if he had observed the brief interchange of signals, he might have thought that it boded no good to him.

"Is anybody here, Barney ?" inquired Fagin, speaking-now that Sikes was looking on-without raising his eyes from the ground.

"Dot a shoul," replied Barney, whose words, whether they came from the heart or not, made their way through the nose. "Nobody ?" inquired Fagin in a tone of surprise, which perhaps might mean that Barney was at liberty to tell the truth. "Dobody but Biss Dadsy," replied Barney.

"Miss Nancy!" exclaimed Sikes. "Where? Strike me blind, if I don't honor that 'ere girl for her native talents." "She's bid havid a plate of boiled beef id the bar,” replied Barney.

"Send her here," said Sikes, pouring out a glass of liquor; "send her here."

Barney looked timidly at Fagin, as if for permission; the Jew remaining silent, and not lifting his eyes from the ground, he retired, and presently returned ushering in Miss Nancy, who was decorated with the bonnet, apron, basket, and streetdoor key complete.

"You are on the scent, are you, Nancy?" inquired Sikes, proffering the glass.

“Yes, I am, Bill," replied the young lady, disposing of its contents; "and tired enough of it I am, too. The young brat's been ill and confined to the crib; and

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Ah, Nancy, dear !" said Fagin, looking up.

Now, whether a peculiar contraction of the Jew's red eyebrows, and a half-closing of his deeply-set eyes, warned Miss Nancy that she was disposed to be too communicative, is not a matter of much importance. The fact is all we need care for here; and the fact is, that she suddenly checked herself, and, with several gracious smiles upon Mr. Sikes, turned the conversation to other matters. In about ten minutes' time, Mr. Fagin was seized with a fit of coughing, upon which Miss Nancy pulled her shawl over her shoulders, and declared it was time to go. Mr. Sikes, finding that he was walking a short part of her way himself, expressed his intention of accompanying her and

they went away together, followed at a little distance by the dog, who slunk out of a back-yard as soon as his master was out of sight.

The Jew thrust his head out of the room door when Sikes had left it, looked after him as he walked up the dark passage, shook his clenched fist, muttered a deep curse, and then with a horrible grin reseated himself at the table, where he was soon deeply absorbed in the interesting pages of the Hue and Cry.

Meanwhile Oliver Twist, little dreaming that he was within so very short a distance of the merry old gentleman, was on his way to the bookstall. When he got into Clerkenwell he accidentally turned down a by-street which was not exactly in his way; but not discovering his mistake till he had got halfway down it, and knowing it must lead in the right direction, he did not think it worth while to turn back, and so marched on as quickly as he could, with the books under his arm.

He was walking along, thinking how happy and contented he ought to feel, and how much he would give for only one look at poor little Dick, who, starved and beaten, might be lying dead at that very moment, when he was startled by a young woman screaming out very loud, "Oh, my dear brother!" and he had hardly looked up to see what the matter was, when he was stopped by having a pair of arms thrown tight round his neck. "Don't!" cried Oliver struggling. "Let go of me. Who is

it? What are you stopping me for?"

The only reply to this, was a great number of loud lamentations from the young woman who had embraced him, and who had got a little basket and a street-door key in her hand.

"Oh my gracious!" said the young woman, "I've found him! Oh, Öliver! Oliver! Oh, you naughty boy, to make me suffer such distress on your account! Come home, dear, come. Oh, I've found him. Thank gracious goodness heavins, I've found him!" With these incoherent exclamations the young woman burst into another fit of crying, and got so dreadfully hysterical, that a couple of women who came up at the moment asked a butcher's boy, with a shiny head of hair anointed with suet, who was also looking on, whether he didn't think he had better run for the doctor. To which the butcher's boy, who appeared of a lounging, not to say indolent disposition, replied that he thought not.

"Oh, no, no, never mind," said the young woman, grasping Oliver's hand; "I'm better now. Come home directly, you cruel boy, come."

"What's the matter, ma'am ?" inquired one of the women. "Oh, ma'am," replied the young woman, "he ran away near a month ago from his parents, who are hard-working and respectable people, and joined a set of thieves and bad characters, and almost broke his mother's heart."

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Young wretch!" said one woman.

"Go home, do, you little brute," said the other.

"I'm not," replied Oliver, greatly alarmed. "I don't know her. I haven't got any sister, or father and mother either. I'm an orphan; I live at Pentonville."

"Oh, only hear him, how he braves it out!" cried the young

woman.

"Why, it's Nancy !" exclaimed Oliver, who now saw her face for the first time, and started back in irrepressible astonishment. "You see he knows me," cried Nancy, appealing to the bystanders. "He can't help himself. Make him come home, there's good people, or he'll kill his dear mother and father, and break my heart!"

"What the devil's this?" said a man, bursting out of a beershop, with a white dog at his heels; "young Oliver! Come home to your poor mother, you young dog! come home directly."

"I don't belong to them. I don't know them. Help! help!” cried Oliver, struggling in the man's powerful grasp.

"Help!" repeated the man. "Yes; I'll help you, you young rascal! What books are these? You've been a stealing 'em, have you? Give 'em here!" With these words the man tore the volumes from his grasp, and struck him violently on the head.

"That's right!" cried a looker-on, from a garret window. "That's the only way of bringing him to his senses!"

"To be sure," cried a sleepy-faced carpenter, casting an approving look at the garret-window.

"It'll do him good!" said the two women.

"And he shall have it, too!" rejoined the man, administering another blow, and seizing Oliver by the collar. "Come on, you young villain! Here, Bull's-eye, mind him, boy! mind him!"

Weak with recent illness, stupified by the blows and the suddenness of the attack, terrified by the fierce growling of the dog and the brutality of the man, and overpowered by the conviction of the bystanders that he was really the hardened little wretch he was described to be, what could one poor child do? Darkness had set in; it was a low neighbourhood; no help was near; resistance was useless. In another moment he was dragged into a labyrinth of dark, narrow courts, and forced along them at a pace which rendered the few cries he dared to give utterance to, wholly unintelligible. It was of little moment, indeed, whether they were intelligible or not, for there was nobody to care for them had they been ever so plain.

The gas-lamps were lighted; Mrs. Bedwin was waiting anxiously at the open door; the servant had run up the street twenty times, to see if there were any traces of Oliver; and still the two old gentlemen sat perseveringly in the dark parlour, with the watch between them.

THE POISONERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

BY GEORGE HOGARTH.

THERE are few things in the history of mankind more extraordinary than the frightful extent to which the crime of secret poisoning was carried, in several countries of Europe, during a large portion of the seventeenth century. It appears to have taken its rise in Italy, where it prevailed to a degree that is almost incredible. The instrument chiefly used in its perpetration was a liquid called aqua tofanu, from the name of Tofania, its inventor, a woman who has acquired an infamous celebrity. According to the account of Hoffmann, the famous physician, this woman confessed that she had used this liquid in poisoning above six hundred persons; and Gmelin says that more people were destroyed by it than by the plague, which had raged for some time before it came into use. This crime also prevailed, though for a shorter time and to a smaller extent, in France; and was far from being unknown in England. We intend to give our readers such information as we have collected on this curious subject; and though the most regular way might be to begin with the Signora Tofania herself, and the diffusion of her practices in her own country, we prefer giving at present the history of the most eminent of her followers, the Marchioness de Brinvillier, whose atrocities created so much excitement in France in the time of Louis the Fourteenth, as we shall thus be enabled at once to place the matter in its most striking light. We have consulted, we believe, most of the French works in which there are any particulars respecting this lady; and our readers may take the following as a faithful account of her life.

Marie-Marguerite d'Aubray was the daughter of M. d'Aubray, a gentleman who held a considerable judicial office in Paris. In 1651 she married the Marquis de Brinvillier. The match was a suitable one, both in respect to station and property. The marquis had estates of thirty thousand livres a-year; and his wife, who had two brothers and a sister, brought him a fortune of two hundred thousand livres, with the prospect of a considerable share of her father's inheritance. The marchioness enjoyed the gifts of nature as well as of fortune. Her figure was not remarkably handsome, but her face was round and pretty, with a serene and quiet expression; and she had an air of innocence, simplicity, and good-nature which gained the confidence of everybody who had any intercourse with her.

The Marquis de Brinvillier was colonel of a regiment of foot. While on service, he had contracted an intimacy with a gentleman of the name of St. Croix, a captain of cavalry. There was some mystery about this man's birth. It was known that he was from Montauban. Some thought him an illegitimate scion of a noble house; others said he belonged to a respectable family; but all agreed that he was totally destitute of the gifts of fortune.

The part which this personage acted in the occurrences of which we are about to give a sketch, makes it worth while to repeat the description of him contained in some of the memoirs of the time. His

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countenance was handsome and intelligent; he was remarkably courteous and obliging, and entered into any benevolent or pious proposal with the same alacrity with which he agreed to commit a crime. He was vindictive, susceptible of love, and jealous to madness. His extravagance was unbounded, and, being unsupported by any regular income, led him into every sort of wickedness. Some years before his death, he assumed an appearance of devotion, and it is said even wrote some tracts on religious subjects.

The Marquis de Brinvillier was much addicted to pleasure. St. Croix got into his good graces, and was introduced into his house. At first he was only the husband's friend, but presently he became the wife's lover; and their attachment became mutual. The dissipation of the marquis's life prevented him from observing his wife's conduct, so that the pair carried on a guilty commerce without any suspicion on his part. His affairs became so disordered, that his wife succeeded, on this ground, in obtaining a separation, and after this paid no respect to decency or concealment in her connexion with her paramour. Scandalous, however, as her conduct was, it made no impression on the mind of the marquis, whose apathy induced the marchioness's father, M. d'Aubray, to use his paternal authority. He obtained a lettre de cachet against St. Croix, who was arrested one day when he was in a carriage with the marchioness, and carried to the Bastile, where he remained for a year.

Absence, far from abating the marchioness's passion, only inflamed it; and the constraint to which she found it necessary to subject herself in order to prevent a second separation, inflamed it still more. She conducted herself, however, with such apparent propriety, that she regained her father's favour, and even his confidence. St. Croix availed himself of the power which love had given him over his mistress to root out every good principle or feeling from her mind. Under his horrid lessons she became a monster, whose atrocities, we hope and believe, have hardly ever been paralleled. He resolved to take a dreadful revenge on the family of D'Aubray, and at the same time to get his whole property into the possession of the marchioness, that they might spend it together in guilty pleasures.

While St. Croix was in the Bastile, he had formed an acquaintance with an Italian of the name of Exili, to whom he communicated his views. Exili excited him to vengeance, and taught him the way to obtain it with impunity. Poisoning may be called, par excellence, an Italian art. With many fine qualities, vindictiveness and subtlety must be acknowledged to be strong features in the character of that people; and hence their early superiority in this art of taking the most deadly, and at the same time the safest, revenge on their enemies. It appears, accordingly, (as we have already said,) that it was from the Italians that the poisoners of other countries derived their skill. They acquired the art of composing poisons so disguised in their appearance and subtle in their effects, that they baffled the penetration and art of the physicians of that age. Some were slow, and consumed the vitals of the victim by almost imperceptible degrees; others were sudden and violent in their action; but few of them left any traces of their real nature, for the symptoms they produced were generally so equivocal, that they might be ascribed to many ordinary diseases. St. Croix greedily devoured the instruc