and another bottle of the effervescent wine,
how brightly the evening will pass away by
the blazing wood fire. Surely, I cannot do
better than go to Austrian Italy again, after
having met with such a first welcome to the
country as this. Shall I put down the cannel
coal, and decide without any more ado on
paying a second visit to the land that is
cheered by my comfortable inn? No, not too
hastily. Let me try the effect first of one or
two more scenes from my past travelling
experience in this particular division of the
Italian peninsula. Black Mirror! how did
I end my evening at the comfortable inn?

The cloud passes again, heavily and thickly
this time, over the surface of the mirror—
clears away slowly—shows me myself dozing
luxuriously by the red embers with an empty
bottle at my side. A suddenly-opening door
wakes me up; the landlord of the inn
approaches, places a long, official-looking book
on the table, and hands me pen and ink. I
enquire peevishly what lam wanted to write
at that time of night, when I am just digesting
my dinner. The landlord answers
respectfully that I am required to give the
police a full, true, and particular account of
myself. I approach the table, thinking this
demand rather absurd, for my passport is
already in the hands of the authorities.
However, as I am in a despotic country, I
keep my thoughts to myself, open a blank
page in the official-looking book, see that
it is divided into columns, with printed
headings, and find that I no more understand
what they mean than I understand
an assessed tax paper at home, to which,
by-the-by, the blank page bears a striking
general resemblance. The headings are
technical official words, which I now meet
with as parts of Italian speech for the first
time. I am obliged to appeal to the polite
landlord, and, by his assistance, I get
gradually to understand what it is the Austrian
police want of me.

The police require to know, before they
will let me go on peaceably to-morrow, first,
What my name is in full? (My name in
full is Matthew O'Donoghue M'Phinn Phipson
Dee; and let the Austrian authorities
read it if they can, now they have got it.)
Second, What is my nation? (British, and
glad to cast it in the teeth of continental
tyrants.) Third, Where was I born? (At
Merthyr Tydvil. I should be glad to hear
the Austrian authorities pronounce that,
when they have given up my name in
despair.) Fourth, Where do I live? (In London,
and I wish I was there now, for I
would write to the Times about this nuisance
before I slept.) Fifth, How old am I? (My
age is what it has been for the last seven
yers, and what it will remain till I have
married the lady whom I saw in my Magic
Glass—twenty-five exactly. Married did I
say! By all that is inquisitive! here are
the police wanting to know (Sixth) whether
I am married or single? Landlord, what is
the Italian for Bachelor? "Write Nubile,
Signor." Nubile? That means Marriageable.
There is an epithet to designate a
bachelor, which is sure to meet with the
approval of the ladies, at least. What next?
(O distrustful despots! what next?) Seventh,
What is my condition? (First-rate
condition, to be sure, full of rolled beef, toasted
larks, and effervescent wine. Condition!
What do they mean by that? Profession, is
it? I have not got one. What shall I
write? " Write Proprietor, signore." Very
well; but I don't know that I am
proprietor of anything except the clothes I stand
up in: even my trunk was borrowed of a
friend.) Eighth, Where do I come from?
Ninth, Where am I going to?  Tenth,
When did I get my passport? Eleventh,
Where did I get my passport? Twelfth,
Who gave me my passport? Was there ever
such a monstrous string of questions to
address to a harmless idle man, who only
wants to potter about Italy quietly in a
postchaise! Here, landlord, take the
Travellers' Book back to the police. I can
write no better answers to their questions.
Talke it away; and may the Emperor of
Austria feel all the safer on his throne, now
he knows that I was born at Merthyr
Tydvil, and that I have not yet been so
fortunate as to get any lady to marry me!
Surely, surely, such unfounded and injurious
distrust of my character as the production of
this book at my dinner-table implies, and
such perpetual looking after me as it
prognosticates for the future, while I remain in
this country, form two serious drawbacks to
the pleasure of travelling in Austrian Italy.
Shall I give up at once all idea of going
there again? No; let me be deliberate in.
arriving at a decision,—let me patiently try
the experiment of looking at one more scene
from the past. Black Mirror! how did I
travel in Austrian Italy after I had paid my
bill in the morning, and had left my comfortable
inn?

The new dream-scene shows me evening
again. I have joined another English
traveller in taking a vehicle that they call a
calèche. It is an unspeakably old and frowsy
kind of sedan-chair on wheels, with greasy
leather curtains and cushions. In the days
of its prosperity and youth it might have
been a state-coach, and might have carried
Sir Robert Walpole to court, or the Abbé
Dubois to a supper with the Regent Orleans.
It is driven by a tall, cadaverous, ruffianly
postilion, with his clothes all in rags, and
without a spark of mercy for his miserable
horses. It smells badly, looks badly, goes
badly; and jerks, and cracks, and totters as
if it would break down altogether, when it is
suddenly stopped on a rough stone pavement
in front of a lonely post-house, just as the sun
is sinking and the night is setting in.

The postmaster comes out to superintend