in the course of the investigation.  But I pledge
     myself to assist you by letters, and whatever information I can
     collect, to the utmost of my power; and remain very sincerely yours,
                                                       F. HASTINGS.” 
     “Nugent Bell, Esq.”

On the back of this letter Captain Hastings wrote: 

   “By all that’s good, you are mad.”

On the 17th of August Mr. Bell sailed for England, and proceeded to Castle Donnington, where he had a very unsatisfactory interview with a solicitor named Dalby, who had long been in the employment of the Hastings family.  Bit by bit, however, he picked up information, and every addition seemed to render the claim of the Enniskillen captain stronger, until at last Bell drew up a case which met the unqualified approval of Sir Samuel Romilly, who said, “I do not conceive that it will be necessary to employ counsel to prepare the petition which is to be presented to the Prince-Regent.  All that it will be requisite to do is to state that the first earl was created by letters-patent to him and the heirs-male of his body; and the fact of the death of the last Earl of Huntingdon having left the petitioner the heir-male of the body of the first earl, surviving him, together with the manner in which he makes out his descent; and to pray that his Royal Highness will be pleased to give directions that a writ of summons should issue to call him up to the House of Lords.”  A petition was accordingly prepared in this sense, and was submitted to the Attorney-General, Sir Samuel Shepherd, who made the recommendation as suggested.  After the Attorney-General’s report had received the approbation of the Lord Chancellor, the Prince-Regent signed the royal warrant, and Captain Hastings took his place in the House of Lords as Earl of Huntingdon.

REBOK—­THE COUNTERFEIT VOLDEMAR, ELECTOR OF BRANDENBURG.

Voldemar II., Marquis and Elector of Brandenburg, actuated by a fit of devotion, set out from his dominions in 1322 on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, leaving his brother John IV. to rule in his absence.  He left no clue as to his intended route; but simply announcing his purpose of visiting the sacred shrines of Palestine, started on his journey accompanied by only two esquires.  Four-and-twenty days after his departure his brother John sickened and died—­not without suspicions of foul play—­and Louis of Bavaria, then possessing the empire, presented the electorate to his own eldest son as a vacant fief of Germany.  The change was quietly effected; but in 1345 a man suddenly appeared as from the dead, proclaiming himself the missing Voldemar, and demanding the restoration of his rights.  He was of about the same age as the elector would have been, and the story which he told of captivity among the Saracens was sufficient to account for any perceptible change in his gait and appearance, and in the colour of his hair.