The Marquis de Créqui, on receiving this astounding news, imme. diately arrayed himself in the uniform of a general officer, with his cordon of nobility on the coat. He ordered six valets to attend him in grand livery, and two of his carriages, each with six horses, to be brought forth. In this sumptuous state, he set off for the Palace de Gréve, where he had been preceded by the 'Princes de Ligne, de Rohan, de Crouy, and the Duke de Havré.

The Count Van Horn was already dead, and it was believed that the executioner had had the charity to give him the coup de grace, or "death blow," at eight o'clock in the morning. At five o'clock in the evening, when the Judge Commissary left his post at the Hotel de Ville, these noblemen, with their own hands, aided to detach the mutilated remains of their relation; the Marquis de Créqui placed them in one of his carriages, and bore them off to his hotel, to receive the last sad obsequies.

The conduct of the Regent in this affair excited general indignation. His needless severity was attributed by some to vindictive jealousy; by others to the persevering machinations of Law and the Abbé Dubois. The house of Van Horn, and the high nobility of Flanders and Germany, considered themselves flagrantly outraged many schemes of vengeance were talked of, and a hatred engendered against the Regent, that followed him through life, and was wreaked with bitterness upon his memory after his death.

The following letter is said to have been written to the Regent by the Prince Van Horn, to whom the former had adjudged the confiscated effects of the Count:

"I do not complain, sir, of the death of my brother, but I complain that your Royal Highness has violated in his person the

rights of the kingdom, the nobility, and the nation. I thank you for the confiscation of his effects; but I should think myself as much disgraced as he, should I accept any favor at your hands. I hope that God and the King may render to you as strict justice as you have rendered to my unfortunate brother."

14*

DON JUAN: A SPECTRAL RESEARCH.

"I have heard of spirits walking with aërial bodies, and have been wondered at by others; but I must only wonder at myself, for, if they be not mad, I'me come to my own buriall." SHIRLEY'S "WITTY FAIRIE ONE."

EVERY body has heard of the fate of DON JUAN, the famous libertine of Seville, who for his sins against the fair sex, and other minor peccadilloes, was hurried away to the infernal regions. His story has been illustrated in play, in pantomime, and farce, on every stage in Christendom, until at length it has been rendered the theme of the opera of operas, and embalmed to endless duration in the glorious music of Mozart. I well recollect the effect of this story upon my feelings in my boyish days, though represented in grotesque pantomime; the awe with which I contemplated the monumental statue on horseback of the murdered commander, gleaming by pale moonlight in the convent cemetery: how my heart quaked as he bowed his marble head, and accepted the impious invitation of Don Juan: how each foot-fall of the statue smote upon my heart, as I heard it approach, step by step, through the echoing corridor, and beheld it enter, and advance, a moving figure of stone, to the supper table! But then the convivial scene in the charnel house, where Don Juan returned the visit of the statue; was offered a banquet of sculls and bones,

and on refusing to partake, was hurled into a yawning gulf under a tremendous shower of fire! These were accumulated horrors enough to shake the nerves of the most pantomime-loving schoolboy. Many have supposed the story of Don Juan a mere fable. I myself thought so once; but "seeing is believing." I have since beheld the very scene where it took place, and now to indulge any doubt on the subject, would be preposterous.

I was one night perambulating the streets of Seville, in company with a Spanish friend, a curious investigator of the popular traditions and other good-for-nothing lore of the city, and who was kind enough to imagine he had met, in me, with a congenial spirit. In the course of our rambles, we were passing by a heavy dark gateway, opening into the court-yard of a convent, when he laid his hand upon my arm: "Stop!" said he; Stop!" said he; "this is the convent of San Francisco; there is a story connected with it, which

I a

am sure must be known to you. You cannot but have heard of Don Juan and the marble statue.”

"Undoubtedly," replied I; "it has been familiar to me from

childhood."

"Well, then, it was in the cemetery of this very convent that the events took place."

แ

'Why, you do not mean to say that the story is founded on fact?"

t

Undoubtedly it is. The circumstances of the case are said to have occurred during the reign of Alfonso XI. Don Juan was of the noble family of Tenorio, one of the most illustrious houses of Andalusia. His father, Don Diego Tenorio, was a favorite of the king, and his family ranked among the veintecuatros, or magistrates, of the city. Presuming on his high descent

and powerful connections, Don Juan set no bounds to his exces ses: no female, high or low, was sacred from his pursuit; and he soon became the scandal of Seville. One of his most daring outrages was, to penetrate by night into tho palace of Don Gonzalo de Ulloa, Commander of the Order of Calatrava, and attempt to carry off his daughter. The household was alarmed; a scuffle in the dark took place; Don Juan escaped, but the unfortunate commander was found weltering in his blood, and expired without being able to name his murderer. Suspicions attached to Don Juan; he did not stop to meet the investigations of justice and the vengeance of the powerful family of Ulloa, but fled from Seville, and took refuge with his uncle, Don Pedro Tenorio, at that time ambassador at the court of Naples. Here he remained until the agitation occasioned by the murder of Don Gonzalo had time to subside; and the scandal which the affair might cause to both the families of Ulloa and Tenorio had induced them to hush it up. Don Juan, however, continued his libertine career at Naples, until at length his excesses forfeited the protection of his uncle the ambassador, and obliged him again to flee. He had made his way back to Seville, trusting that his past misdeeds were forgotten, or rather trusting to his dare-devil spirit and the power of his family, to carry him through all difficulties.

"It was shortly after his return, and while in the height of his arrogance, that on visiting this very convent of Francisco, he beheld on a monument the equestrian statue of the murdered commander, who had been buried within the walls of this sacred edifice, where the family of Ulloa had a chapel. It was on this occasion that Don Juan, in a moment of impious levity, invited the statue to the banquet, the awful catastrophe of which has given such celebrity to his story."