of rapture sent up to heaven by every voice.  And when he gave his benediction to the people, there was an universal prostration, a sobbing and marks of emotions of joy almost like the bursting of the heart.  I heard, everywhere around me, cries of “The holy Father!  The most holy Father!  His restoration is the work of God!” I saw tears streaming from the eyes of almost all the women about me, many of them were sobbing hysterically, and old men were weeping as if they had been children.  I pressed my rosary to my breast on this occasion, and repeatedly touched with my lips that part of it which had received the kiss of the most venerable Pontiff.  I preserve it with a kind of hallowed feeling, as the memorial of a man whose sanctity, firmness, meekness and benevolence are an honour to his Church and to human nature; and it has not only been useful to me, by its influence upon my own mind, but it has enabled me to give pleasure to others, and has, I believe, been sometimes beneficial in insuring my personal safety.  I have often gratified the peasants of Apulia and Calabria by presenting them to kiss a rosary from the Holy Sepulchre which had been hallowed by the touch of the lips and benediction of the Pope; and it has been even respected by and procured me a safe passage through a party of brigands who once stopped me in the passes of the Apennines.

Onu.—­The use you have made of this relic puts me in mind of a device of a very ingenious geological philosopher now living.  He was on Etna and busily employed in making a collection of the lavas formed from the igneous currents of that mountain; the peasants were often troublesome to him, suspecting that he was searching for treasures.  It occurred to him to make the following speech to them:  “I have been a great sinner in my youth and, as a penance, I have made a vow to carry away with me pieces of every kind of stone found upon the mountain; permit me quietly to perform my pious duty, that I may receive absolution for my sins.”  The speech produced the desired effect; the peasants shouted, “The holy man!  The saint!” and gave him every assistance in their power to enable him to carry off his burthen, and he made his ample collections with the utmost security and in the most agreeable manner.

The Stranger.—­I do not approve of pious frauds even for philosophical purposes; my rosary excited in others the same kind of feeling which it excited in my own bosom, and which I hold to be perfectly justifiable, and of which I shall never be ashamed.

Amb.—­You must have travelled in Italy in very dangerous times; have you always been secure?

The Stranger.—­Always; I have owed my security, partly, as I have said, to my rosary, but more to my dress and my acquaintance with the dialect of the natives.  I have always carried with me a peasant as a guide, who has been intrusted with the small sums of money I wanted for my immediate purposes, and my baggage has been little more than a Cynic philosopher would have carried with him; and when I have been unable to walk, I have trusted myself to the conduct of a vetturino, a native of the province, with his single mule and caratella.