In less than a fortnight, the following letter reached the good old German:—­

“Sir,—­We have to inform you, that we never lost the bills sent in your last favour, every one of which is fabricated, and our acceptance forged.  Our cashier has no son, nor has he lost a wife.  We are sincerely grieved that your friendly feeling towards our house should have led you to listen to so palpable a cheat.

“We remain, with great respect, yours,

“BENNETT, FORD, AND CO.

“P.S.  If you should ever hear again of the person you have, at your own expense, sent to Batavia, we shall be glad to know.”

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What can be said of the good old German’s feelings, but that they may “be more easily conceived than described?”—­Monthly Magazine.

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NEW BOOKS.

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OTWAY’S “VENICE PRESERVED.”

(Hundreds of our readers who have again and again heard

  Belvidera pour her soul in love—­

may not be aware of the precise historical connexion of the incidents of Otway’s play with the events of history.  They are taken, in the main, from an atrocious conspiracy formed at Venice in 1618.  Sir Henry Wotton, then English ambassador at Venice, writes as follows on the 25th of May, in the above year:—­“The whole town is here at present in horror and confusion upon the discovering of a foul and fearful conspiracy of the French against this state; whereof no less than thirty have already suffered very condign punishment, between men strangled in prison, drowned in the silence of the night, and hanged in public view; and yet the bottom is invisible.”  Beyond this quaint, meagre, chronological notice, little is actually established of the details, although the event is perhaps as familiarly known by name to English readers as any other in the History of Venice.  We are, therefore, happy to see the affair treated with minute consideration in the second volume of “Sketches from Venetian History,” in the Family Library; and so interesting is the narrative, or rather the facts and conjectures, to the lover of history, as well as to the unstudious playgoer, that we are induced to quote nearly every line of the passage.  The editor observes:—­)

Muratori indeed has scarcely exaggerated the obscurity in which this incident is enveloped when he affirms that only one fact illuminates its darkness; namely that several hundred French and Spaniards engaged in the service of the Republic were arrested and put to death.  The researches of Comte Daru have brought to light some hitherto unknown contemporary documents; but even the inexhaustible diligence of that most laborious, accurate, and valuable writer has been baffled in the hope of obtaining certainty as its reward; and he has been compelled to content himself with the addition of one hypothesis more to those already proposed in explanation of this mystery.