at sight of him, and asked twenty questions in a breath, and chuckled, and slapped his thigh, and snapped his fingers for joy, to think what a pair of fools two rogues had to do with. Little did the despairing doctor, on his return home, guess what they were saying of him as he passed the wall of the house in which they were feasting. "Heyday!" cried the wife, smiling all abroad, as she saw him entering, "what, art thou come to fetch me then, bone of my bone? Well; if this isn't the gallantest day I have seen many a year! It puts me in mind—it puts me in mind"Here the chirping old lady was about to remind the doctor of the days of his youth, holding out her arms and raising her quivering voice, when (we shudder to relate) she received a considerable cuff on the left cheek. "You make me mad," cried the doctor, "with your eternal idiotical nonsense. do you mean by coming to fetch you, and the gallantest day of your life? May the devil fetch you, and me, and that invisible fiend that stole the cup."-"What!" exclaimed the wife, suddenly changing her tone from a vociferous complaint which she had unthinkingly set up, "did you send nobody then for the lamprey?" Here the doctor cast his eyes upon the bereaved table; and unable to bear the shame of this additional loss, however trivial, began tearing his hair and beard, and hopping about the room, giving his wife a new and scandalous epithet at every step, as if he was dancing to a catalogue of her imperfections. The story shook all the shoulders in Bologna for a month after.

What

As we find, by the length to which this article has already reached, that we should otherwise be obliged to compress our recollections of Spanish, French, and English thieves, into a compass that would squeeze them into the merest dry notices, we will postpone them at once to our next number; and relate another story from the same Italian novelist that supplied our last.* Our author is Massuccio of Salerno, a novelist who disputes with Bandello the rank next in popularity to Boccaccio.

*In the original edition of the Indicator this article was divided into three numbers. Perhaps it would have been better had the division been retained; but perplexities occur in hastily correcting a work for a new edition, which the reader will have the goodness to excuse.

We have not the original by us, and must be obliged to an Eng. lish work for the groundwork of our story, as we have been to Paynter's Palace of Pleasure for the one just related. But we take the liberty usual with the repeaters of these stories; we retain the incidents, but tell them in our own way, and imagine what might happen in the intervals.

son.

Two Neapolitan sharpers, having robbed a Genoese merchant of his purse, made the best of their way to Sienna, where they arrive during the preaching of St. Bernardin. One of them attends a sermon with an air of conspicuous modesty and devotion, and afterwards waits upon the preacher, and addresses him thus: "Reverend father, you see before you a man, poor indeed, but honest. I do not mean to boast; God knows, I have no reaWho upon earth has reason, unless it be one who will be the last to boast, like yourself, holy father?" Here the saintly orator shook his head. "I do not mean," resumed the stranger, "to speak even of the reverend and illustrious Bernardin, but as of a man among men. For my part, I am, as it were, a creeping thing among them; and yet I am honest. If I have any virtue, it is that. I crawl right onward in my path, looking neither to the right nor to the left; and yet I have my temptations, Reverend father, I have found this purse. I will not deny, that being often in want of the common necessaries of life, and having been obliged last night, in particular, to sit down faint at the city gates, for want of my ordinary crust and onion, which I had given to one (God help him) still worse off than myself, I did cast some looks-I did, I say, just open the purse, and cast a wistful eye at one of those shining pieces, that lay one over the other inside, with something like a wish that I could procure myself a meal with it, unknown to the lawful proprietor. But my conscience, thank Heaven, prevailed. I have to make two requests to you, reverend father. First, that you will absolve me for this my offence; and second, that you will be pleased to mention in one of your discourses, that a poor sinner from Milan, on his road to hear them, has found a purse, and would willingly restore it to the right owner. I would fain give double the contents of it to find him out; but then, what can I do? All the wealth I have consists in my honesty. Be pleased, most illus.

trious father, to mention this in your discourse, as modestly as becomes my nothingness; and to add especially, that the purse was found on the road from Milan, lying, miraculously as it were, upon a sunny bank, open to the view of all, under an olive-tree, not far from a little fountain, the pleasant noise of which peradventure had invited the owner to sleep." The good father, at hearing this detail, smiled at the anxious sincerity of the poor pilgrim, and, giving him the required absolution, promised to his utmost to bring forth the proprietor. In his next ser. mon, he accordingly dwelt with such eloquence on the opportunities thrown in the way of the rich who lose purses to behave nobly, that his congregation several times half rose from their seats out of enthusiasm, and longed for some convenient loss of property that might enable them to show their disinterestedness. At the conclusion of it, however, a man stepped forward, and said, that anxious as he was to do justice to the finder of the purse, which he knew to be his the moment he saw it (only he was loth to interrupt the reverend father), he had claims upon him at home in the person of his wife and thirteen children,— fourteen perhaps, he might now say,-which, to his great sor. row, prevented him from giving the finder more than a quarter of a piece; this however he offered him with the less scruple, since he saw the seraphic disposition of the reverend preacher and his congregation, who he had no doubt would make ample amends for this involuntary deficiency on the part of a poor family man, the whole portion of whose wife and children might be said to be wrapped up in that purse. His sleep under the olivetree had been his last for these six nights (here the other man said, with a tremulous joy of acknowledgment, that it was indeed just six nights since he had found it); and Heaven only knew when he should have had another, if his children's bread, so to speak, had not been found again." With these words, the sharper (for such, of course, he was) presented the quarter of a piece. to his companion, who made all but a prostration for it; and hastened with the purse out of the church. The other man's circumstances were then inquired into, and as he was found to have almost as many children as the purse-owner, and no possessions at all, as he said, but his honesty,-all his chil

dren being equally poor and pious,-a considerable subscription was raised for him; so large, indeed, that on the appearance of a new claimant next day, the pockets of the good people were found empty. This was no other than the Genoese merchant, who having turned back on his road when he missed his purse, did not stop till he came to Sienna, and heard the news of the day before. Imagine the feelings of the deceived people! Saint Bernardin was convinced that the two cheats were devils in disguise. The resident canon had thought pretty nearly as much all along, but had held his tongue, and now hoped it would be a lesson to people not to listen to everybody who could talk, especially to the neglect of Saint Antonio's monastery. As to the people themselves, they thought variously. Most of them were mortified at having been cheated: and some swore they never would be cheated again, let appearances be what they might. Others thought that this was a resolution somewhat equivocal, and more convenient than happy. For our parts, we think the last were right: and this reminds us of a true English story, more good than striking, which we heard a short while ago from a friend. He knew a man of rugged manners, but good heart (not that the two things, as a lover of parentheses will say, are at all bound to go together), who had a wife somewhat given to debating with hackney-coachmen, and disputing acts of settlement respecting half-miles, and quarter-miles, and abominable additional sixpences. The good housewife was lingering at the door, and exclaiming against one of these monstrous charioteers, whose hoarse low voice was heard at intervals, full of lying protestations and bad weather, when the husband called out from a back-room, "Never mind there, never mind--let her be cheated; let her be cheated."

This is a digression: but it is as well to introduce it, in order to take away a certain bitterness out of the mouth of the other's moral.

We now come to a very unromantic set of rogues; the Spanish ones. In a poetical sense, at least, they are unromantic; though doubtless the mountains of Spain have seen as picturesque vaga. bonds in their time as any. There are the robbers in Gil Blas, who have, at least, a respectable cavern, and loads of polite superfluities. Who can forget the lofty-named Captain Rolando,

with his sturdy height and his whiskers, showing with a lighted torch his treasure to the timid stripling, Gil Blas? The most illustrious theft in Spanish story is one recorded of no less a person than the fine old national hero, the Cid. As the sufferers were Jews, it might be thought that his conscience would not have hurt him in those days; but "My Cid" was a kind of early soldier in behalf of sentiment; and though he went to work roughly, he meant nobly and kindly. "God knows," said he, on the present occasion, "I do this thing more of necessity than of wilfulness; but by God's help I shall redeem all." The case was this. The Cid, who was too good a subject to please his master, the king, had quarrelled with him, or rather, had been banished; and nobody was to give him house-room or food. A number of friends, however, followed him; and by the help of his nephew, Martin Antolinez, he proposed to raise some money. Martin accordingly negotiated the business with a couple of rich Jews, who, for a deposite of two chests full of spoil, which they were not to open for a year, on account of political circumstances, agreed to advance six hundred marks. Martin Antolinez, "ye see that the night is advancing; the Cid is in haste, give us the marks." "This is not the way of business," said they; we must take first, and then give." Martin accordingly goes with them to the Cid, who in the meantime has filled a couple of heavy chests with sand. The Cid smiled as they kissed his hand, and said, "Ye see I am going out of the land because of the king's displeasure; but I shall leave something with ye." The Jews made a suitable answer, and were then desired to take the chests; but, though strong men, they could not raise them from the ground. This put them in such spirits, that after telling out the six hundred marks (which Don Martin took without weighing), they offered the Cid a present of a fine red skin; and upon Don Martin's suggesting that he thought his own services in the business merited a pair of hose, they consulted a minute with each other, in order to do everything judiciously, and then gave him money enough to buy, not only the hose, but a rich doublet and good cloak into the bargain.*

"Well, then," said

• See Mr. Southey's excellent compilation entitled The Chronicles of the Cid, Book III., Sec. 21. The version at the end of the book, attributed to Mr.