it is then that the western paper is seen in all
its glory. It is rampant, and scatters slaughter
on every side.

On the whole, I think that the most
objectionable feature I observed in the western
newspaper system, is the custom of " dead-
heading," that is, of the editors going free on
railways, steamers, stages, and even paying their
hotel bill and livery-stable keeper by praising
"the gentlemanly and high-toned proprietor."
I know that many papers will not permit of this
system. The New York Legislature passed an
Act for abolishing and forbidding the " dead-
head" system, as far as possible.

Taking them all in all, though the western
papers may be rough in their language, yet, with
rare exceptions, they are always decent. They
may he rude in their humour, but their rudeness
differs as much from the double entendre of the
low class of city papers as much as the honest
clay of their own prairie lands differs from the
slime of the street. On the whole, they work
for good; and if their literature be not very
refined, neither are their readers. So if it do
not civilise them, neither does it suffer them to
remain barbarous—as they would be very apt
to be in the rude society of the remote far
western glens.

QUITE A LOST ART.

WHAT have you there?" said Robinson.
"The draft of a deed or of a last will and
testament?"

"Nothing of the sort," replied Brown, " but
an odd sort of story in manuscript."

"Ancient?"

"By no means. When I took these lodgings
I found it in the cupboard, which had not been
opened for several months, and the landlady
recognised the handwriting of a former
occupant, who, constantly kept at home by stress
of weather, was driven to amuse himself by
reading all day long the books of an old-
fashioned circulating library. The library is
now shut up, but I found the catalogue in
company with the manuscript. Here it is."

"Ah, I see! Manfrone, the One-handed
Monk—Romance of the Pyrenees. The books
belong clearly to what may be called the fag-end
of the Radcliffe school," observed Robinson.

"Precisely; and it is my opinion that the
author of the manuscript, having nothing else
to occupy his mind, wrote under the immediate
inspiration of those remarkable works," replied
Jones.

"Will you lend it to me?"

"Certainly. Keep it as long as you like.
The landlady would only use it to light her fire,
and I assure you I don't want to read it twice."

So Robinson took the manuscript home and
read the following tale, entitled:

THE LAST OF THE COMNENI.
The heart of the young and noble Prince
Astolfo was ill at ease, as, without fixed
purpose or destination, he strode mournfully along
the lone path near the summit of Monte
Selvaggio. His beloved Bandelora had been
ruthlessly torn from his arms, and carried he
knew not whither by a band of ruffians, and
her piercing shrieks seemed to be still ringing
in his ears. Nor though the scene spread
beneath his feet was curious, did it present
many objects likely to cheer the pensive mind.
At the mountain's foot, near the Lago Doloroso,
stood the deserted abbey of San Corcoro, the
windows of which, reddened by the light of the
setting sun, showed that the hour was
approaching when, if the wild tales of the peasants
were true, the ghost of the lawless abbot, with
his ribald monks, would rise anew to repeat the
hideous orgies that had brought them to
destruction. Further onward, on the plain, was
the strange mound, with the dark aperture
near its base, which had so often awakened the
curiosity and awed the soul of the traveller,
who, as he saw the Moorish minarets protruding
through the earth, as if a building had been
buried by some ancient convulsion, could
scarcely conjecture whether they had been
produced by art, or were the fantastic result of
some demoniac freak of nature. This mound,
too, had been endowed with preternatural awe
by the wild tales of the peasants, who regarded
it as the abode chosen by the Evil One when
he sought to work mischief in the hills and
vales of lovely Italy. If to vary his sensations
the young prince looked upwards, he saw
perched on a sharp crag a small edifice of an
almost cubical shape, a rude opening in the
upper part of which served for a window, but
which presented no appearance of a door. He
had heard of this edifice from the peasantry.
It was the reputed home of a being simply
designated as the Mysterious. And the
designation was not ill chosen, for no one had ever
seen him, or heard him, or could say anything
about him whatever.

Sometimes as he wandered onwards, the mind
of the prince, when not occupied with the fate
of his Bandelora, would stray to the strange
story he had heard of that dreadful Tebaldo
della Crusca, who, when about to be decapitated
to satisfy the offended laws of his country, had
declared that his head, when severed, would
work more mischief than ever it had devised
while attached to his shoulders. On this
subject, however, he was not allowed to dwell long,
for a shout arose from beneath so loud and so
hideous that, valiant as he was, it caused his
heart to quail within him. Looking over the
precipice, he perceived on a path some twenty
feet below him, a repulsive figure, who, with
strange antics, roared and howled at the sky,
across the slope, which, by a not very abrupt
declivity, descended to the mountain's foot.
The only habiliment worn by this hideous
creature was a bottomless sack, fastened round
its waist with a thick cord, which left the legs
and arms free to disport themselves in the most
reckless gesticulations, while the spectral aspect
of the figure was heightened by the long