Within the house, which is desolate and despoiled, are some solemn statues, but above, in the terrazzo, where we were led by an antiquated crone, is the most wonderous panorama that ever greeted human eyes. Below stands the great Basilica, within whose walls one loves to think repose all that is mortal of that often erring, but attached disciple to whom Christ entrusted the spiritual keys. Its colonnades-its fountains -its courts-its pillars-its vast dome-revealed in all their immense proportions, white and chaste as the pure bride who waits the coming of her lord-typical of an unsullied church. Heavens! what a noble sight! Behind uprose the stern solemn line of Mount Soracte, standing alone, like an island on an earthy ocean-disdaining its Alpine fellows, who cluster and crouch together on either hand, leaving it in solitary grandeur. Then there was Tivoli wrapt in the Sabine Hills as in a mantle, their summits covered with snow, glistening in the sunshine far up in the azure sky. Then came a deep valley, and further on lay Albano, and Castel Gondolfo, and Rocca di Papa, and Frascati-each like a white blossom nestling in the purple mountains; and then the long straight line marking the sea-shore, and beyond the pine-woods-what a circle of loveliness, a very zone of beauty. I felt that "it was good for me to be here." Such a scene is a manifestation of the great Eternal to us poor worms in his softest and gentlest attributes; for shall not the Creator, who bids such scenes arise out of chaos for our enjoyment, be full of mercy ?

Afterwards the hobbling old woman led us to some Roman tombs in a sequestered grove beside the Casino-Colombarie, deep underground, where the ashes of the dead repose in little apertures carved in the wall, like pigeon-holes, green, damp, and decaying, full of corruptions and the rust of centuries. Ruins were heaped around, among dark shrubs, and wild roses with pale blossoms waved over the tombs of the past.

Through a long, long vista was a modern tomb, erected by Prince Doria to the French troops shot in these grounds. Perhaps it is the spirit of these unfortunates that sheds such a melancholy over the scene, for here death reigns rather than life, and tombs are more numerous than the living; save the old crone no mortal appeared.

I came to a deep green dell, shut in by ilex woods and rising hills, where three separate fountains sent forth their silvery streams in varied devices of tiny, bright, threadlike jets, or in large, gushing, echoing volume. There they gurgled and splashed to the spirits enshrouded in those mysterious trees, and the moss grew unchecked over their marble basins. Lower down was a river formed by the accumulated waters, on whose banks the willow grew, sweeping their trailing boughs into the still water.

QUINTIN BAGSHAW'S DUEL WITH MAXWELL.

BY DUDLEY COSTELLO.

DUELLING disappeared from England in the woods of Esher, put to flight by the "Cock Pheasant" of the Times; but there are many yet living-it is true they are somewhat in the sere, the yellow leaf-who remember when a duel was a thing of every-day occurrence, nor does it require any very great effort of memory to instance a score or two of affairs of honour that have made a sensation within the last five-andtwenty years. These encounters are known to all the world and have become matters of history, but the duel of which I am about to speak is as yet unrecorded. When I call to mind all the circumstances that attended upon its getting up, and consider what was the issue, I do not think I should be warranted in withholding from the public all I know about it.

The event of which I am the narrator came off about fifteen years ago, a period when it was still a part of every gentleman's creed that the proper way to repair one wrong was by the commission of another. The actors-but, as I am only bound to describe that of which I am personally cognisant, I should rather say the principal actor in the affair, was an individual with whom I had long been acquainted; of the other party I know nothing, except what I derived from the information given by a third person.

To do justice to the case it will be necessary that I should enter into some detail respecting "the man so-called my friend."

Quintin Bagshaw, that was his name-one better known than trusted,-ought to have been the eldest son of his very wealthy father, for he possessed the faculty, common to a great many beside, of being able to get through any given (or borrowed) amount with as much facility as if he had been born to a large succession.

While a distinguished nobleman now living, who has always been honoured for his princely munificence, was yet in his minority, his liberal expenditure gave some alarm to the steward of his father's vast estates, and the man of business thought it necessary to represent the fact in the proper quarter. "I am sorry," he said, "to be obliged to inform your grace that Lord His spending a great deal of money!" "Is he ?" returned the duke; "I am glad to hear it, for he'll have a great deal to spend !"

Now Quintin Bagshaw when he was in his minority very much resembled Lord H- ; but, unluckily for him, old Mr. Bagshaw had no such answer to give to the numerous applicants who sent in their little bills. He settled them, it is true, but with the customary parental reluctance and the customary parental objurgations, neither of which were much cared for by the parties most immediately concerned. But every time Mr. Bagshaw paid Quintin's debts, he gave him and his creditors "distinctly to understand" that "it was the very last time he intended to be guilty of such a weakness;" and, as a matter of course, Quintin always promised that he would "never again, under any circumstances whatever, exceed his allowance." When Quintin Bagshaw forgot his vow, which generally took place July-VOL. CI. NO. CCCCIII.

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the day after the whitewashing process, he used to justify the act by the following argument: "I know I gave my word that I wouldn't get into debt again, but hasn't the governor sworn over and over that he'd never pay another shilling for me? Well, he broke his promise, and I don't see why I shouldn't break mine! If he sets me a bad example he can't blame me for following it."

So decided was Quintin Bagshaw's propensity for getting into everybody's books, that he never seemed happy at the idea of being out of them. Whether or not he studied Rabelais while he was at Oxford is a question, but at all events he understood and practised the philosophy of the Sage Alcofribas.

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But," demanded Pantagruel, "when will you be out of debt?"

"At the Greek Kalends," replied Panurge; "when all the world are content, and you become your own heir. God keep me from ever being out of debt! Nobody then would lend me a penny!"

It was impossible for any one to understand the art of robbing Peter to pay Paul" versurum facere," as his tutor at Christ Church said— better than Quintin Bagshaw. The system of "bill-transactions" seemed to have been invented on his account: the more he gave the less he got, and he was always giving. You may easily imagine, then, what kind of balance-sheet he exhibited by the time he had finished his University career and had lived "about town" for two or three years. Accustomed as he was to Quintin's extravagance, old Mr. Bagshaw opened the eyes of astonishment when he found himself called upon once more to pay his son's debts to an amount which appeared to him the aggregate of all he had paid before, the ghosts of the old bills not yet laid and clamorously walking. Silas Bagshaw, Quintin's elder brother, as prudent as his junior was improvident, in a truly fraternal spirit counselled the Insolvent Debtors' Court; but old Mr. Bagshaw's pride was too much for that, and as to Quintin, when he heard the friendly proposition, he declared that "he would rather earn his bread, for the rest of his days, by breaking stones on the road." Up to that time he had never earned so much as would pay for a penny roll, and his habits of life were more likely to break hearts than stones, though fathers, it is said, have flinty ones, which are not easily broken. The practical character of Quintin's determination was not likely, therefore, to be very useful; but he was spared the necessity of making his words good. His debts were once more paid, and really before he had time to incur fresh ones he was married to a lady of good family and some fortune; while, to keep him straight, a handsome addition was made to his former allowance, so that, at four-and-twenty, he was the possessor of a very respectable income, with expectations in store in the event of good behaviour.

How long that "good behaviour" lasted-though the "expectations" were never lost sight of-it is scarcely worth while to inquire. Without going through the particulars, which would involve no very pleasant task, it may suffice to describe his position at the end of six years. He was ruined; but that you have anticipated. His wife had gone back to her family; his children had been "taken" by their paternal grandfather; and a second Mrs. Quintin Bagshaw presided over his establishment in Brussels, which, considering the ruin that had overtaken him, was kept up in a style truly surprising to those who were aware of the real state of the case. To those, however, who were not, it was a very simple

matter. Here was a Milord Anglais who had a large and first-rate set of acquaintance-as far as that goes in a place like Brussels,-who kept horses and carriages, gave splendid dinners, and carried everything off with such a grand air, that not to have supposed him a man of fortune would have disturbed some of the most agreeable illusions that selfinterest ever nursed.

"I tell these fellows," Quintin used laughingly to say to a friend, now and then, in the presence of the people where he dealt "I tell these fellows they'll never get their money; but they won't believe me!"

The time, however, came when they were not quite so hard of belief. It happened when, Brussels being completely exploité, Quintin Bagshaw betook himself without beat of drum to one of the German baths, and left neither effects nor address behind him; that is to say, he left only moral effects, and the recollection of the address with which he had "done" everybody.

It is not so easy to get into debt at a German bath as in a large capital, though money disappears at the former quite as quickly. Somehow or other Quintin Bagshaw contrived to accomplish the difficult feat; but what he did in that way he looked upon as a bagatelle; it was merely a trifle for three months' board and lodging at the Golden Sun, the price of the carriage in which he drove away, and some forty Napoleons borrowed of Herr Dummkopf, the landlord, to whom he gave a "Wechsel" for the whole amount, having, as he said, been cleaned out of all his "ready" at the Redoute (which was true enough), and not expecting a fresh remittance in time for his departure (which was equally true). How much the landlord of the Golden Sun gained by this transaction I never knew; in all probability it did not enable him to build a new wing to his hotel, unless he too was in the habit of giving bills, for the “Wechsel,” after more than one fruitless journey across the British Channel, may still be seen under a glass-case in Herr Dummkopf's bureau, with the ominous word "Zurückgewiesen" stamped on the face of it.

To say that Quintin Bagshaw afterwards flourished in Paris, himself the best dressed man on the Boulevard Italien, and Mrs. Q. B. (Secundus) the gayest lady there, is only to describe the natural course of such a career as his. It will appear less natural if I add that this " renewed existence" was not extinguished by any violent contrecoup on the part of unsatisfied creditors. I cannot explain the phenomenon-but, as far as I know, Quintin Bagshaw was never in Ste. Pélagie, never sold up, nor Mrs. Q. B. (Secundus) an object of commiseration (and subscription) to the English residents in Paris. What his secret was, he kept to himself, but it seemed as if, in a mild way, he had discovered the philosopher's stone. He was hospitable, gave better dinners than when he lived in Brussels, was always to be seen where people "most do congregate," in the Champs Elysées, the Palais Royal, the Garden of the Tuileries, at the Vaudeville, the Français, the Bal de l'Opera, at "good men's feasts"-at every place, in short, where those who are fond of pleasure and can afford to pay for it are to be found. Perhaps he exercised his powers of persuasion on a grand scale, and lived on post obits; perhaps he paid a little and promised more; perhaps to use a common but expressive phrasehe contrived to "milk the ducks" belonging to his rich old maiden aunts,

who, in spite of all his peccadilloes, never turned their backs on him; but, in any case, there he was, enjoying Parisian life as perfectly as if his actual income of six hundred a year had been the six thousand which some gave out he was heir to.

It was at this period of his existence that I became acquainted with him. He was what the world calls "a capital fellow," with a good person, a frank, jovial air, and certainly a very winning style of conversation; his manners were excellent, and, as far as external appearances went, his proper place was good society. Not, however, that he was always to be found there; but this was a failing which he shared, or shares, with greater men than himself. He had another failing, too, but this I did not discover till later. It will develop itself before I have done.

After the revolution of 1830, a considerable clearance of the English took place in Paris. I was amongst those who, after setting up my tent in other parts of the Continent, finally returned to England; but Quintin Bagshaw stuck as firmly to the Quartier d'Antin as a limpet to a rock. Indeed he united himself to France by still closer ties than those of residence and expenditure: without actually naturalising, he took advantage of a permission which was generally accorded, and enrolled himself amongst the defenders of the French capital. In London, in the hour of emergency, Louis Napoleon took up the staff of special constable; in Paris, after the excitement of the Three Days, Quintin Bagshaw sported the uniform of a Lancer of the National Guard; he was a private only, but, having once "served" and retired, it was not difficult afterwards to assume the rank of colonel.

But although Paris continued to be his head-quarters, Quintin Bagshaw paid frequent visits to England, and on one of these occasions I accidentally met him in London, an interval of two or three years having elapsed since our last meeting. He manifested the same empressement, the same hospitable feeling, but did not appear quite so much at his ease in London as had been his wont in Paris. There was a good reason for this, and it was not very difficult to divine it when I observed that, at every fresh visit to London, he invariably dated his notes of invitation from a different part of the town to that in which he had previously resided. Thus, the first time I encountered him he had taken up his quarters at an hotel in St. Paul's Churchyard; on the next occasion, he was lodged at the western extremity of Oxford-street; on the third, at an hotel abutting on Westminster-bridge; on the fourth, in Rathboneplace; on the fifth, in Pimlico; and so on. No credit, however, was due to me on the score of sagacity, in having guessed the cause of these changes, for he "frankly"-it was a favourite phrase of Quintin Bagshaw's, and he looked so very honest when he used it-" frankly" confessed that a certain process called "outlawry" having taken place, by which the capture of his person became an object of interest to more people than one, it was desirable for his safety that he should never remain long in one place, or ever return to the same neighbourhood.

Having once broken the ice, Quintin Bagshaw became extremely confidential, and related many of the occurrences of his past life, which, in his mode of telling them, appeared to be as full of "moving incidents" and "hairbreadth 'scapes" as that of Othello, though they were