Of the ecclesiastical colleges and existing
monasteries at Rome at the present day we
do not speak. Florence has become the capital
of Italy, and within her classical precincts a
great portion of the youth of Italy will meet
to pursue their studies, without detriment to
the universities and academies of the other great
cities of Italy.

   GOLD WORKS WONDERS.

RICHARD of spendthrifts was the chief,
   There ne'er was such another;
A barrister without a brief,
    No money, and no bother.
'Twas hard that he, so gay and free,
    Should have an elder brother.

He paid no tailor for his coat,
    His duty was to wear one.
He often lacked a five-pound note,
    But ne'er a friend to share one.
In bliss, his voice exclaimed "Rejoice,"
    In sorrow, "Grin and bear it."

His purse was empty,—yet he spent
    As though his path were sunny;
Borrowed at twenty-five per cent,
    And gave away the money.
(A fellow-drone could always own
    A little of the honey.)

Luck turned at last, the brother died,
    For Death will not spare any,
And Dick—the lord of acres wide,
    I dare not say how many,
Inherited, the gossips said,
    A very pretty penny.

His friends are now left in the lurch,
    His manner's dry and chilling,
He'll give a hundred to a church,
    A neighbour not a shilling;
But, as they go, he'll mumble low,
    "Unable, not unwilling."

Write him a tale of woe, his eye
    Turns upward in the socket;
And then he lays your letter by,
    With date and careful docket.
Call, and I doubt you'll find him out
    Of temper, town, or pocket.

Can gold work wonders? Yes it can:
    The cruel exerciser
Has changed an honest thriftless man
    Into a grasping miser;
Less foolish, true, than him we knew,
    But not a whit the wiser.

THE HISTORY OF A SACK OF CORN.

         FIRST CHAPTER.

VASSILI IVANOVITCH DOOYOUMALSKY is a
prince and a pedlar. It is not a forced expression
to call him a pedlar. He is a general
dabbler in other men's business; a marauder
on the border-lands of lawful trade, pocketing
its profits and shirking its responsibilities. He
will and can sell anything. I put the word
"will" first because there is no sort of doubt
about his willingness; but many men who
would cheerfully sell anything whatever, from
their words to their wardrobes, have frequently
some difficulty in settling for the purchase
money. The difference between Vassili Ivanovitch
and other men is that he has no difficulty
at all, and that he is not only ready but able to
find a market always open for his wares. They
are a queer assortment, if plainly catalogued.
A droschky, a fur pelisse, some furniture in
several cities, a few stray houses, a dozen forks
and spoons, a principality in Wallachia, a silver
teapot, a railway concession, any number of
grand crosses, stars, and ribands, a miscellaneous
stock of titles of nobility, a villa in the
Crimea, a trotting horse, a palace just built
(except the staircase and windows) and splendidly
furnished, a pianoforte by Erard, a Cremona
fiddle, a steam plough, a thrashing-machine, a
cigar-case, half a dozen standing crops of wheat,
over fifty thousand acres, each crop more or less,
a circular saw, a pardon for forging bank-notes
or for arson, commissariat contracts, a monopoly
for the sale of brandy among a population
warranted always tipsy, leave of absence from the
army, places, commissions, and promotions,
signal vengeance on one's enemy, judicial
sentences, reversals of the same or other
sentences, decisions on appeal cases, and all other
things that may be bought in Russia.

Being of no country in particular, excepting
that he trades only partly in Russia and partly
in the Moldo-Wallachian provinces of the
Lower Danube, where divorces are the rule
rather than the exception, he will even woo a
wife for somebody else, arrange all details of
property or settlements, and marry her himself
for a consideration, if the article is found
unsuitable after the preliminaries are concluded.
His terms are moderate, and he executes all
orders with promptitude and attention, if not
paid in advance, when it has been observed
that he is liable to some defects of memory.

But his especial glory is hunting up lawsuits,
and managing them. As there are no solicitors
in Russia, and as the code (in this respect not
altogether unlike a code nearer home) is in
such a wonderful state of confusion that
sound legal pretext may be found either
for doing or for not doing whatever sharp
folks have a mind to accomplish, this law-
hunting is a very profitable business. The
law-hunter is agent, solicitor, counsel, and
often judge, all rolled into one; which is
convenient, and prevents mistake or unnecessary
division of profits. The trade is so lucrative,
that large estates are sometimes got out of
a single suit. It thus happens that the princely
Dooyoumalsky has recently become possessed
of a fine property, situated most conveniently,
partly on the Bessarabian frontier, and partly
on the Moldavian, or partly in Russia and
partly out of it. He has selected it out of
three estates which he has just gained to the
amazement of the last plaintiff, and to the utter
bewilderment and consternation of the last
defendant, who have had dealings with him. He
has chosen this estate because a ripe experience
has convinced him that almost anything may be
done, or not done, with land so favourably
situated; and the beautiful intricacy of the law
becomes still more complicated when it has to