in their attempts to force it, had been suffocated with the atmosphere.

In the garden was found a skeleton with a key by its bony hand, and near it a bag of coins. This is believed to have been the master of the house-the unfortunate Diomed, who had probably sought to escape by the garden, and been destroyed either by the vapours or some fragment of stone. Beside some silver vases lay another skeleton, probably of a slave.

The houses of Sallust and of Pansa, the Temple of Isis, with the juggling concealments behind the statues-the lurking place of its holy oracles,-are now bared to the gaze of the curious. In one of the chambers of that temple was found a huge skeleton with an axe beside it: two walls had been pierced by the axe-the victim could penetrate no farther. In the midst of the city was found another skeleton, by the side of which was a heap of coins, and many of the mystic ornaments of the fane of Isis. Death had fallen upon him in his avarice, and Calenus perished simultaneously with Burbo! As the excavators cleared on through the mass of ruin, they found the skeleton of a man literally severed in two by a prostrate column; the skull was of so striking a conformation, so boldly marked in its intellectual, as well as its worse physical developments, that it has excited the constant speculation of every itinerant believer in the theories of Spurzheim1 who has gazed upon that ruined palace of the mind. Still, after the lapse of ages, the traveller may survey that airy hall within whose cunning galleries and elaborate chambers once thought, reasoned, dreamed, and sinned, the soul of Arbaces the Egyptian.

Viewing the various witnesses of a social system which has passed from the world for ever-a stranger, from that remote and barbarian Isle which the Imperial Roman shivered when he named, paused amidst the delights of the soft Campania, and composed this history!

1 The inventor of phrenology.

58

THE DEATH OF ARTHUR OF BRITTANY.

A.D. 1203.

GEORGE PAYNE RAINSFORD JAMES.

Born, 1801; Died, 1860.

Following in the track of Sir Walter Scott, Mr. G. P. R. James was an able and skilful writer of historical romance. He used great research, wrote with much care, and though he had not Scott's fire of genius, his tales are very interesting, and give much of the spirit and manners of the period that he treats of.

His story of "Philip Augustus" is based on the irregular marriage of that French king with Agnes de Méranie, and on the interdict by which Pope Innocent III. compelled him to dismiss that lady, and take back his lawful wife. Therewith Mr. James has linked the misfortunes of Arthur of Brittany, and a chapter is here given in which that poor youth's imprisonment and death are described. In point of fact, the manner of Arthur's end is uncertain, and nothing is really known of him after he was taken from Falaise, though there was a general belief that he was murdered by John in person. Sir Guy de Coucy is an imaginary character, whom Mr. James has represented as captured together with Arthur at Mirabeau by William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, son to Fair Rosamond.

Mr. James also treats Arthur as claiming the crown of England, as son to Geoffrey, John's elder brother. This he did not do, since John was lawfully elected by the English. His claim was to his mother's duchy of Brittany, and to Normandy, which followed the feudal laws of inheritance.

I. THE TOWER OF ROUEN.

THERE stood in ancient days, on the banks of the river Seine, a tall strong tower, forming one of the extreme defences of the city of Rouen towards the water. It has long, long been pulled down; but I have myself seen a picture of that capital of Normandy, taken while the tower I speak of yet stood: and, though the painter had indeed represented it as crumbling and dilapidated, even in his day, there was still an air of menacing gloom in its aspect, that seemed to speak it a place whose dungeons might have chronicled many a misery—a place of long sorrows and of ruthless deeds,

In this tower, some four months after the events which we have already recorded, were confined two persons of whom we have already spoken much-Arthur Plantagenet and Guy de Coucy.

The chamber that they inhabited was not one calculated either to raise the spirits of a prisoner by its lightsome airiness, or to awaken his regrets by the prospect of the free world without. It seemed as if made for the purpose of striking gloom and terror into the bosoms of its sad inhabitants; and strong must have been the heart that could long bear up under the depressing influence of its heavy atmosphere.

Its best recommendation was its spaciousness, being a square of near thirty feet in length and breadth; but this advantage was almost completely done away by the depression of the roof, the highest extent of which, at the apex of the arches whereof it was composed, was not above eight feet from the floor. In the centre rose a short column of about two feet in diameter, from which, at the height of little more than a yard from the ground, began to spring the segments of masonry forming the low but pointed arches of the vault.

Window there was none; but at the highest part, through the solid bend of one of the arches, was pierced a narrow slit, or loop-hole, admitting sufficient light into the chamber to render the objects dimly visible, but nothing more.

The furniture which this abode of wretchedness contained was as scanty as could well be, though a pretence of superior comfort had been given to it over the other dungeons, when it was about to be tenanted by a prince. Thus, in one part was a pile of straw, on which De Coucy made his couch; and in another corner was a somewhat better bed, with two coverings of tapestry, placed there for the use of Arthur. There were also two settles-an unknown luxury in prisons of that day, and by the massy column in the centre stood a small oaken table.

At the side of this last piece of furniture, with his arms

stretched thereon, and his face buried in his arms, sat Arthur Plantagenet. It was apparently one of those fine sunny days that sometimes break into February; and a bright ray of light found its way through the narrow loophole we have mentioned, and fell upon the stooping form of the unhappy boy, exposing the worn and soiled condition of his once splendid apparel, and the confused dishevelled state of the rich, curling, yellow hair, which fell in glossy disarray over his fair cheeks, as his brow rested heavily upon his arms. The ray passed on, and, forming a long narrow line of light upon the pillar, displayed a rusty ring of iron, with its stanchion deeply imbedded in the stone. Attached to this hung several links of a broken chain; but though the unhappy Prince, when he looked upon the manacles that had been inflicted on some former tenant of the prison, might have found that comparative consolation which we derive from the knowledge of greater misery than our own, yet the other painful associations called up by the sight more than counterbalanced any soothing comparisons it suggested; and he seemed, in despair, to be hiding his eyes from all and everything, in a scene where each object he looked upon called up afresh some regret for the past, or some dread for the future.

A little beyond, in a leaning position, with his hand grasping one of the groins of the arch, stood De Coucy, in the dim half-light that filled every part of the chamber, where that ray already mentioned fell not immediately; and with a look of deep, mournful interest, he contemplated his young fellow-captive, whose fate seemed to affect him even more than his own.

During the first few days of their captivity, all the prisoners taken at Mirabeau had been treated by the crafty John with kindness and even distinction; more especially Arthur and De Coucy, at least while William Longsword, the Earl of Pembroke, and some others of the more independent of the English nobility, remained near the person of the King. While this lasted, the youthful mind of Arthur Plantagenet

recovered in some degree its tone, though the fatal events of Mirabeau had at first sunk it almost to despair.

On one pretence or another, however, John soon contrived that all those who might have obstructed his schemes, either by opposition or remonstrance, should be despatched on distant and tedious expeditions; and, free from the restraint of their presence, his real feelings towards Arthur and those who supported him were not long in displaying themselves.

Though ungifted with that fine quality which, teaching us to judge and direct our own conduct, as well as to understand and govern that of others, truly deserves the name of wisdom, John possessed that knowledge of human nature-that cunning science in man's weaknesses, which is too often mistaken for wisdom. He well understood, therefore, that the good and noble-even in an age when virtue was chivalrous, and when the protection of the oppressed was a deed of fame-would often suffer violence and cruelty to pass unnoticed, after time had taken the first hard aspect from the deed. He knew that what would raise a thousand voices against it to-day would to-morrow be canvassed in a whisper, and the following day forgotten; and he judged that, though the first rumour of his severity towards his nephew might for a moment wake the indignation of his barons, yet, long before they were re-united on the scene of action, individual interests and newer events would step in, and divert their thoughts to very different channels.

Lord Pembroke was consequently despatched to Guienne, with several of those unmanageable honest men whose straightforward honour is the stumbling-block of evil intentions. Lord Salisbury was left once more to protect Touraine with very inefficient forces; and John himself retreated across the Loire with the prisoners and the bulk of his

army.

Each day's march changed his demeanour towards Arthur and his unfortunate companions. His kingly courtesy became gradually scanty kindness, manifest neglect, and, at last, cruel ill-usage. The revolted nobles of Poitou had