For his defence, Ardison retained the
celebrated advocate Mancini, of Milan, with whom
a contract was signed, to the effect that if he,
the defendant, were condemned to death,
Mancini should receive twelve thousand francs— four
hundred and eighty pounds—and all his
expenses. If his client escaped the extreme
penalty, the fee was to be raised to forty-five
thousand francs—eighteen hundred pounds—
and expenses aforesaid.

Mancini, in one of the most eloquent and
skilful defences on record, occupying two days,
so handled the immense mass ot evidence, that,
though the guilt of Ardison was as clear as day,
the judges dared not award the capital punishment;
but declared the charge of " sending to
kill" not proved. This seems to have especially
applied to the alleged murder of Sacchi, whose
death was asserted to have been produced by
mercury—a mineral taken in one form or other
by so many persons, that it is not surprising
that the laminae of gold used in two post-mortem
examinations should have exhibited its presence.

Judgment upon the whole case was awarded
as follows:

Ardison, fifteen years in the galleys. Satta
Poletta, the same. Advocate Umana, two
years' seclusion. Cossa, foreman, death. Poletta
(brother), the same. Podigac, the same.

Five others were acquitted. Ardison has the
right of appeal, and having, after some hesitation,
accepted it, the proceedings as regards
him will have to be renewed before the high
court at Genoa, a steamer having been already
chartered for the conveyance of the three
hundred witnesses to that city.

In closing this black page in Sardinia's island-
history, let it be again recorded that the guilty
authors of these atrocities were not of island
birth or nurture; they were men fostered in the
bosom of Italy. Driven out from thence, they
descended like a blight on peaceful Sassari, and
for two years held its inhabitants so completely
in awe, that the government found itself
compelled to remove the court of appeals, to
Cagliari, at the opposite end of the island, in order
that justice might be administered without the
lives of judge, advocates, or witnesses, being
placed in jeopardy.

LECTURED IN BASINGHALL-STREET.

To the mercantile world the name of Basinghall-
street is inseparably connected with the
Bankruptcy Court, and the title of the
present paper, cursorily glanced at, would argue
but badly for the respectability of its author.
Miserly uncles would shake their heads and
glorify at the fulfilment of their predictions
as to their nephews' ultimate end; good-
natured friends, and never-failing dinner
convives, supper droppers-in, pipe-smokers and
grog-drinkers, would shrug their shoulders and
call upon each other to testify how often they
had said that such a style of living could not
continue; the half-crown borrowers, charily
seekers, sick wife and children possessors, and
all those purse-blisters who form a portion of
every man's acquaintance, would crow and
chuckle over his fallen body, and quickly make
off to fatten on some other friend who yet
could be made to bleed. But, though it has
not come to this; though, being a simple clerk,
I have not yet taken brevet rank as a " trader"
for the purpose of evading my creditors under
the Bankruptcy Laws; though I have not sold
a few lucifer matches to a convenient friend for
the purpose of appearing as a timber-merchant,
nor made over to my aunt any of my undoubted
(Wardour-street) Corregios to figure as a
picture-dealer; though I have not been
"supported" by Mr. Linklater, or "opposed" by
Mr. Sargood; though Quilter and Ball have
not yet received instructions to prepare my
accounts; though the official assignee has had
nothing to do with me, and though the learned
commissioner has not been compelled, as a
matter of duty, to suspend my certificate for six
months, which is then to be of the third class
—yet have I been lectured in Basinghall-street,
and pretty severely too.

This is how it came to pass. Schmook, who
is the friend of my bosom, and an opulent
German merchant in Austin- friars, called on me
the other day, and, having discussed the late
fight, the new opera, the robbery at the Union
Bank, and other popular topics, told me he could
send me to a great entertainment in the City. I
replied, with my usual modesty, that in such
matters I had a tolerably large acquaintance. I
mentioned my experience of Lord Mayors'
banquets, and I enlarged, with playful humour as I
thought, on the tepid collation thereat spread
before you, on the ridiculous solemnity of the
loving-cup, with its absurd speech, its nods and
rim-wiping; on the preposterous stentorian
toastmaster, with his " Pray si-lence for the
chee-aw!" on the buttered toasts and the
drunken waiters, and the general imbecility of the
whole affair. Diverging therefrom, I discoursed
learnedly on the snug little dinners of City
companies, from the gorgeous display of the
Goldsmiths down to the humble but convivial
spread of the Barbers. Schmook was touched,
and it was some few minutes before he could
explain that it was to a mental and not a corporeal
feast that he wished to send me. At length he
stammered out, " The Cresham legshure! Ver'
zientifig! kost nichts! noting to bay!" and
vanished, overcome.

Schmook not coming to see me again, I had
forgotten the subject of our conversation, when
I lighted upon an advertisement in a daily paper
setting forth that the Gresham lectures for this
Easter term would be given—certain subjects
on certain named days—in the theatre of the
Gresham College in Basinghall-street, in Latin at
twelve o'clock, and in English at one. Wishing to
know something of the origin and intent of these
lectures, I applied to my friend Veneer, the well-
known archaeologist and F.S.A., but he was so
engaged on his forthcoming pamphlet on Cuneiform
Inscriptions that he merely placed in my
hands a copy of Maunder's Biographical Treasury