the cave, and which served as door to the descent, was withdrawn, and the goats skipped out two and two, like the animals which went out of Noah's ark. A very little peasant lad brought up the rear; his little pointed hat, round which a piece of twine was tied, the torn stockings, and sandals, to which the short, brown cloak, which he had thrown around him, gave him a picturesque appearance. The goats tripped up above the cave among the low bushes, whilst the boy, seating himself upon a piece of rock which projected above the cave, looked at us and the painter, who drew him and the whole scene.

"Maledetto!" we heard the vetturino exclaim, and saw him running towards us at full speed: there was something amiss about the passports. "It was certainly with mine," thought I, anxiously, and the blood mounted to my cheeks. The stranger scolded because of the ignorance of the soldiers who could not read, and we followed the vetturino up into one of the towers, where we found five or six men half-stretched over the table, on which our passports lay spread out.

"Who is called Frederick?" inquired one of the most important-looking of the men at the table.

"That is I," replied the stranger; "my name is Frederick, in Italian Federigo."

"Thus, then, Federigo the Sixth."

"O no! that is my king's name which stands at the top of my passport."

"Indeed!" said the man, and slowly read aloud, “Frédéric Six, par la grace de Dieu Roi de Danemarc, des Vandales, des Gothes, etc.'- But what is that? exclaimed the man; 66 are you a Vandal? they are actually a barbarous people?

"Yes," replied the stranger, laughing; "I am a barbarian who am come to Italy to be civilized. My name stands below; it is Frederick, like my king's; Frederick, or Federigo." "Is he an Englishman?" asked one of the writers. "O no!" replied another, " thou confoundest all nations together; thou canst surely read that he is out of the north; he is a Russian."

Federigo

Denmark — the name struck my soul like a flash of lightning. It was, indeed, the friend of my childhood;

my mother's lodger, him with whom I had been into the catacombs, who had given me his beautiful silver watch, and drawn lovely pictures for me.

The passport was correct, and the barrier soldier found it doubly so, when a paolo was put into his hand that he might not any longer detain us.

As soon as we were out again, I made myself known to him; it was actually he whom I supposed our Danish Federigo, who had lived with my mother. He expressed the most lively joy at again meeting with me, called me still his little Antonio. There were a thousand things to be inquired after, and mutually communicated. He induced my former neighbor in the cabriolet to exchange places with him, and we now sat together; yet once more he pressed my hand, laughed and joked.

I related to him in a few words the occurrences of my life, from the day when I went to Domenica's hut, till the time when I became abbé, and then, making a great leap forwards, without touching upon my late adventures, ended by shortly saying, "I now go to Naples."

He remembered very well the promise which he had made, the last time we saw each other in the Campagna, to take me with him for one day to Rome; but shortly after that he received a letter from his native country, which obliged him to take the long journey home, so that he could not see me again. His love for Italy, however, in his native land, became only stronger every year, and at length drove him there again.

"And now, for the first time, I enjoy everything properly," said he; "drink in great draughts of the pure air, and visit again every spot where I was before. Here my heart's fatherland beckons me; here is coloring; here is form. Italy is a cornucopia of blessing!"

Time and the way flew on so rapidly in Federigo's society, that I marked not our long detention in the Pass Bureau at Fondi. He knew perfectly how to seize upon the poetically beautiful in everything; he became doubly dear and interesting to me, and was the best angel of consolation for my afflicted heart.

"There lies my dirty Itri !" exclaimed he, and pointed to

the city before us. "You would hardly credit it, Antonio, but in the north, where all the streets are so clean, and so regular, and so precise, I have longed for a dirty Italian town, where there is something characteristic, something just for a painter. These narrow, dirty streets, these gray, grimy stone balconies, full of stockings and shirts; windows without regularity, one up, one down, some great, some small; here steps four or five ells wide leading up to a door, where the mother sits with her hand spindle; and there a lemon-tree, with great yellow fruit, hanging over the wall.

"Yes, that does make a picture! But those cultivated streets, where the houses stand like soldiers, where steps and balconies are shorn away, one can make nothing at all of!"

"Here is the native city of Fra Diavolo !" exclaimed those inside the carriage, as we rolled into the narrow, dirty Itri, which Federigo found so picturesquely beautiful. The city lay high upon a rock beside a deep precipice. The principal street was in many places only wide enough for one carriage.

The greater part of the first stories of the houses were without windows, and instead of these, a great broad doorway, through which one looked down, as if into a dark cellar. Everywhere was there a swarm of dirty children and women, and all reached out their hands to beg; the women laughed, and the children screamed and made faces at us. One did not dare to put one's head out of the carriage, lest it should get smashed between it and the projecting houses, from which the stone balconies in some places hung out so far above us that it seemed as if we drove through an archway. I saw black walls on either hand, for the smoke found its way through the open doors up the sooty walls.

"It is a glorious city!" said Federigo, and clapped his hands.

"A robber city it is," said the vetturino, when we had passed through it; the police compelled one half of the people to flit to quite another city behind the mountains, and brought in other inhabitants, but that helped nothing. All runs to weed that is planted here. But then, poor folks must live."

The whole neighborhood here, upon the great high-road between Rome and Naples, invites to robbery. There are places

of deep concealment on every hand, in the thick olive woods, in the mountain caves, in the walls of the Cyclops, and many other ruins.

Federigo directed my attention to an isolated colossal wall overgrown with honeysuckle and climbing plants. It was Cicero's grave! it was here that the dagger of the assassin struck the fugitive: here the lips of eloquence became dust.

"The vetturino will drive us to Cicero's villa in Mola di Gaeta," said Federigo. "It is the best hotel, and has a prospect which rivals that of Naples."

The form of the hills was most beautiful, the vegetation. most luxuriant; presently we rolled along an alley of tall laurels, and saw before us the hotel which Federigo had mentioned. The head-waiter stood ready with his napkin, and waited for us on the broad steps which were ornamented with busts and flowers.

“Excellenza, is it you?" exclaimed he, as he assisted a somewhat portly lady out of the carriage.

I noticed her; her countenance was pretty, very pretty, and the jet-black eyes told me immediately that she was a Neapolitan.

"Ah yes, it is I," replied she; "here am I come with my waiting-woman as cicisbeo; that is my whole train - I have not a single man-servant with me. What do you think of my courage in travelling thus from Rome to Naples?"

She threw herself like an invalid on the sofa, supported her pretty cheek upon her round little hand, and began to study the list of eatables. "Brodetto, cipollette, facioli. You know that I cannot bear soup, else I should have a figure like Castello dell' Ovo. A little animelle dorate, and some fennel, is enough for me; we must really dine again in Santa Agatha. Ah, now I breathe more freely," continued she, untying the strings of her cap. "Now I feel my Neapolitan air blowingbella Napoli!" exclaimed she, hastily opening the door of the balcony, which looked on the sea; and spreading out her arms, she drank in great draughts of the fresh air.

"Can we already see Naples?" inquired I.

"Not yet,” replied Federigo; "but Hesperia, Armida's enchanted garden."

We went out into the balcony, which was built of stone, and looked out over the garden. What magnificence! — richer than fancy can create to itself! Below us was a wood of lemon and orange trees, which were overladen with fruit; the branches bent themselves down to the ground with their golden load; cypresses gigantically tall as the poplars of the North of Italy, formed the boundary of the garden; they seemed doubly dark against the clear, heaven-blue sea which stretched itself behind them, and dashed its waves above the remains of the baths and temples of antiquity, outside the low wall of the garden. Ships and boats, with great white sails, floated into the peaceful harbor, around which Gaeta,1 with its lofty buildings, stretches itself. A little mountain elevates itself above the city, and this is crowned with a ruin. My eye was dazzled with the great beauty of the scene. "Do you see Vesuvius?— How it smokes!" said Federigo, and pointed to the left, where the rocky coast elevated itself, like light clouds, which reposed upon the indescribably beautiful sea.

With the soul of a child I gave myself up to the rich magnificence around me, and Federigo was as happy as myself. We could not resist going below under the tall orange-trees, and I kissed the golden fruit which hung upon the branches; took from the many which lay on the ground, and threw them like golden balls up in the air, and over the sulphur-blue lake.

"Beautiful Italy!" shouted Federigo, triumphantly. “Yes, thus stood thy image before me in the distant North. In my remembrance blew this air which I now inspire with every breath I draw. I thought of thy olive groves when I saw our willows; I dreamed of the abundance of the oranges when I saw the golden apples in the peasants' gardens beside the fragrant clover-field; but the green waters of the Baltic never become blue like the beautiful Mediterranean; the heavens of the North never become so high, so rich in color, as the warm, glorious south. Its gladness was inspiration, its speech became poetry.

66

What longings I had in my home?" said he.

"They are

1 There Æneas buried his nurse, Cajeta, after whom this city is called.