devices by which he guarded them. In the mean
while, the sultan sought far and wide for his
child, without success; and he was amazed and
sorrowful. Some time having been passed by
the princess very pleasantly in the society of
Virgilius, she requested permission to return
home. The enchanter accordingly transported
the lady across his magic bridge into her father's
palace, and left her lying on the bed in her own
chamber, where she was found sleeping. The
sultan demanded an explanation of the mystery.
"Father," said she, " a fair man of a strange
land carried me through the air to his palace
and orchard; but I know not what land it is,
for I have spoken to no one but him." The
sultan then charged her, when next she was
taken away by her unknown visitor, to bring
back some of the fruit of the orchard, that he
might discover what country she was carried
to. At the first opportunity, she possessed
herself of some walnuts and other fruit; on beholding
which, the sultan exclaimed, " I see it is on
this side of France that he hath so often borne
you away." Then he told his daughter to give
her lover, when he came again, a certain drink,
which would have the effect of casting him into
a deep slumber, and, as soon as this was
accomplished, to let him know. The princess did
as she was directed, and Virgilius, having drunk
the potion, was overcome with sleep, and so was
taken. On recovering his senses, he was
brought before the sultan, who told him that
for what he had done he should suffer a shameful
death. The lady said she would die with him,
and her father replied that they should be burned
together. But Virgilius resorted to his enchantments
and so wrought upon the sultan and his
lords that they fancied themselves engulfed by
the great river of Babylon. Suddenly the magician
and the princess were seen high overhead on
the bridge of air, passing across the sea into the
distant land. The sultan was now delivered from
his illusion about the river, but his daughter was
beyond his grasp, and he never saw her again.

The castle of the enchanter was surrounded
by a stream, and guarded at the only entrance
by twelve iron men on each side, smiting dreadfully
with iron flails, so that no one could enter
without having his brains dashed out, unless the
flails were stopped, which could only be done
by Virgilius himself. One day it occurred to
him that he could make himself young again; he
therefore instructed his man in the method by
which the flails could be stilled, and, taking him
into a cellar, where there was a lamp burning
perpetually, and a barrel, said: " You must slay
me, cut me into small pieces, salt them, and
place them in the barrel, putting the head at
the bottom, and the heart in the middle. Then
set the barrel under the lamp, that night and
day it may leak and drop into the same; and
once a day for nine days you must fill the lamp,
and fail not. And when this is done, I shall be
renewed and made young again, and live many
winters more." The man, after divers protestations
tations, fulfilled his master's wishes, and day by
day went to the castle to replenish the lamp,
always taking care when he left to set the iron
flails going, so that the place might not be
entered. The emperor, however, having missed
Virgilius for seven days, summoned the man
before him, and asked what had become of his
master. The servant at first equivocated, but
at length, under a threat of death, said that he
had left him in his own abode. The emperor
and the man then departed for the castle, which
stood a little without the city walls, and the
monarch commanded that the flails might be
made to cease from smiting. The man said that
he knew not the way; but another menace of
instant death induced him to still those dreadful
engines, and both entered the castle, and
searched high and low for the magician, but
found him not. At last they came to the cellar,
and the emperor, seeing the remains of Virgilius
in the barrel, and divining that his man had slain
him, at once despatched the latter with his
sword. Immediately afterwards, a naked child
was seen to rise from the barrel, and to run
three times round about it, exclaiming, " Cursed
be the time that ever you came here!" Then
the child vanished like smoke, and was never
again seen; and Virgilius remained in the barrel,
dead, his hopes of renewed youth being
frustrated by the impatience of the monarch.

THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER.

IT is an unsettled question with me whether
I shall leave Calais something handsome in my
will, or whether I shall leave it my malediction.
I hate it so much, and yet I am always so very-
glad to see it, that I am in a state of constant
indecision on this subject.

When I first made acquaintance with Calais,
it was as a maundering young wretch in a
clammy perspiration and dripping saline
particles, who was conscious of no extremities but
the one great extremity, sea-sickness — who was
a mere bilious torso, with a mislaid headache
somewhere in its stomach— who had been put
into a horrible swing in Dover Harbour, and
had tumbled giddily out of it on the French
coast, or the Isle of Man, or anywhere. Times
have changed, and now I enter Calais self-
reliant and rational. I know where it is beforehand,
I keep a- look out for it, I recognise its
landmarks when I see any of them, I am
acquainted with its ways, and I know—and I can
bear—its worst behaviour.

Malignant Calais! Low-lying alligator, evading
the eyesight and discouraging hope! Dodging
flat streak, now on this bow, now on that,
now anywhere, now everywhere, now nowhere!
In vain Cape Grinez, coming frankly forth into
the sea, exhorts the failing to be stout of heart
and stomach; sneaking Calais, prone behind its
bar, invites emetically to despair. Even when
it can no longer quite conceal itself in its muddy
dock, it has an evil way of falling off, has Calais,
which is more hopeless than its invisibility.
The pier is all but on the bowsprit, and you
think you are there — roll, roar, wash! — Calais