found his master acquainted with the truth, he attributed it to a talkative propensity on the part of his patroness the duchess. Nay, when next he had an interview with Flerida, he did not hesitate to upbraid her with want of good faith, and to tell her that he would no longer play the part of spy on her account. Nevertheless, she managed to worm out of him the information that Federigo possessed a portrait which might throw some light on the subject of his amour. This information gave Flerida a cue for a new plan. She summoned Federigo to her presence, and with that blind confidence in Laura, which she had always manifested, posted her at the door of the apartment to prevent any one from over-hearing the conversation. When the secretary had entered the room, she accused him of a treasonable correspondence with the Duke of Florence, and avowing that he had papers belonging to this correspondence concealed upon his person, ordered him to deliver them up immediately. The affrighted Federigo protested his innocence, and offered her his keys, his papers-and also, unwittingly, the case which contained Laura's portrait. This he instantly drew back, and attempted to conceal, but Flerida, with the instinct of a jealous woman, perceived that it was the very prize which she sought A contest ensued between the duchess and her secretary, which must have terminated in favour of the former had not her treacherous friend Laura feigned to step in to her assistance. This artful young lady rushed into the room, and upbraided Federigo for not showing a more ready compliance with the request of the duchess. Snatching the picture from his hand with feigned indignation, she managed to substitute for it the portrait of himself, which she had received the night preceding, and placed the latter in Flerida's hand. The duped duchess, who had expected to solve a world of mystery, by discovering the portrait of Federigo's mistress, was completely petrified on finding that she had only a likeness of Federigo himself. She carried it off, it is true, by bantering him as a Narcissus dying of self-love, but she felt that she made a marvellously ridiculous figure. CHAP. III. If we have crept through the two preceding chapters we shall gallop through the third. Laura, fretted by the jealousy of Flerida, and somewhat jealous of Flerida herself, for she felt that a duchess was a rival not to be despised, sent a letter to Federigo, in which she invited him to meet her on a certain bridge which lay between the park and the palace, and offered to elope with him. The delighted Federigo applied to his trusty friend, the disguised Duke of Mantua, for a passport into his dominions and a safe shelter, a request, which it need scarcely be told, the duke readily granted. Unluckily, his conversation was overheard by the indefatigable Fabio, who came to Flerida with two important facts, viz.—the plan of the elopement, and the real rank of Enrico. The consequence of Fabio's disclosure was, as might be expected, a serious impediment in the way of the lovers' escape. In the first place, Flerida made old Ernesto believe that Federigo was going to fight a duel, and despatched him to the secretary with the commission of detaining him, and of arresting him in case he should endeavour to quit his apartment. This order was executed with the aid of a chosen body of guards. In the next place, Flerida, still anxious to discover the object of Federigo's passion, sallied out by night to the trysting-place, where the first person she found was her own faithful Laura, who as usual, was at no loss for an excuse. With the admirable coolness which belonged to her peculiarly ingenuous nature, she declared that she was on the watch for the interest of the duchess, being too zealous in her cause to wait for particular orders. Had Federigo remained snugly locked up, the secret would have remained locked up likewise; but the secretary, with infelicitous luck managed to effect his escape, and entering the palace-garden mistook Flerida for Laura, and addressed her in language that left her in no doubt as to the manner in which she had been so grossly deceived. What did the enamoured, jealous Flerida do, when she discovered that her beloved secretary, and her confidant Laura, had been making her the victim of their stratagems for the last two days? Why, she generously joined their hands, to the small delight of Lisardo and consoled herself by marrying Enrico, Duke of Mantua. Thus did deceit and treachery successfully work their way in the good Duchy of Parma, and the world was marvellously edified by the tale of THE SPEAKING SECRET. HE WILL NA' GANG HIS GAET, MITHER. SCOTTISH BALLAD. BY J. E. CARPENTER, ESQ. He will na' gang his gaet, mither, He's early an' he's late, mither, My spinning-wheel gaes slowly His lot is nae so lowly, Though we are very poor. Yet he'll na gang, &c. He came thro' simmer sun, mither, Oh! say There's not a flow'r in blossom, The frost is in the ground; There's a whirlin' in my bosom As the weary wheel gaes round. You're smiling at your Kate, mither, If he'll nae gang his gaet, mither, He's bought a wee bit ring, mither An' early in the spring, mither, He's early an' he's late, mither, side, If he'll na' gang his gaet, mither, THE DANUBE AND THE NILE.* Ir is essential in order to fully appreciate the importance of the steam navigation of the Danube, to have seen the state of isolation in which some of the people still remain who dwell upon its borders. In Wallachia, in Servia, in Bulgaria, and in Moldavia, there are neither stagecoaches nor any thing but the rudest conveyances, and what is designated as a great road is often a mere line, traversing a soil that is all dust in dry weather, and impenetrable mud during the wet seasons. The Danube itself is the most majestic of all the navigable rivers in Europe. "Neither the Rhine, so much sung by the Germans," says M. Marmier, 66 nor the Rhone, often more beautiful than the Rhine, have the same character of majestic and terrible grandeur; and the pale rivers of the north, the Torneo and the Volga, do not present throughout their vast extent the aspect of so profound or so imposing a solitude." How long has this superb stream, this "king of the European rivers, as Napoleon termed it, been neglected? Yet in the middle ages it was the high-way between the East and Central Europe. The Crusaders, under the Emperor Conrad, and the Emperor Frederick followed its course, and the rich merchants of Cologne and Ratisbon plied its giant expanse. It was not till the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, that the vast steppes on its banks became so many battle-fields, and it is only with the decline of the Osmanli power that it has again, and under new and most promising circumstances, become once more one of the world's high roads. Truly, as M. Marmier remarks, on such a stream, watering so many different countries, a steamboat is not a mere instrument of commerce, it is a means of civilisation and of bringing into relations with one another half-barbarous people, who have hitherto dwelt in an isolation fatal to their improvement and to their amelioration. Before arriving at Linz the Danube is closed in by dark wooded mountains, and its navigation is rendered extremely difficult by rocks and rapids. At the entrance of this rocky district is the Castle of Werfenstein, which resisted for two hundred years the Imperial power. Beyond are the ruins of Durrenstein, where Leopold detained Richard Coeur de Lion prisoner. Beyond this again the extensive and picturesque ruins of the castle in which dwelt the revolted sons of Hadmar of Kuennering. In every direction, indeed, crumbling walls and dismantled towers are seen, and fierce mediæval traditions are connected with each of them. But if these castellated ruins are surpassingly picturesque, the magnificent convents that occupy the summits of the distant hills are the most imposing objects to be seen probably on any river. That of St. Florian is said to be the most ancient in Austria; that of Molk, constructed on the site occupied in the twelfth century by the Castle of Saint Leopold, resembles a vast palace. This convent was mulcted by the army of Napoleon in fifty thousand quarts of wine per diem. There are also the convents of Neubourg and Gottweihe, with respective traditions and unrivalled sites. It is needless to stop at Vienna, the city of good and happy subjects, * Du Rhin au Nil. Tyrol-Hongrie-Provinces Danubiennes-Syrie-Palestine-Egypte. Souvenirs de Voyages par X. Marmier. 2 vols. Arthur Bertrand, Paris. who, seated in the Sperle, with bottles of Mehlspeise before them, and the sound of an orchestra conducted by Strauss, father or son, are happily indifferent to the discussions of the parliaments of France and England. In fact, the point of the steeple of St. Stephen's is alone visible from the Danube, but by an arrangement peculiarly Austrian, between Nusdorf and the Prater, from whence the Lower Danube steamers take their departure, there is no communication. Going up or going down, the traveller must make his appearance at the central station of the Austrian police. Below Vienna, the Danube is at first little attractive in a picturesque point of view, but highly so in an historical. The plain is passed where the haughty Suleiman pitched his splendid tent, where Sobieski came a century and a half afterwards to save the empire, and here also are Essling and Lobau, so memorable in Napoleon's campaigns. But not the least interesting object is the church of Pretronell, erected in the tenth century by Constantine, destroyed by the Avars, and restored by Charlemagne. The four towers of a strange-looking ruin, standing upon a round hill, announce the approach to the city of the Hungarian Diet, Presburg. Proud of their liberty, and their enfranchisement from an Austrian police, that laxity of manners is now first seen which may be said to attain its maximum at the Hungarian capital itself. Beyond Presburg several small towns are successively passed; Raab, a city of the eleventh century; Komorn, with a prison fortress; Gran, distinguished by its noble cathedral, beyond which, plains of peculiarly Hungarian monotony stretch away to where the royal city of the Magyars occupies the two banks of the river; Pesth, with its noble quays, reminding one of Bordeaux, on the one side; Buden with its ramparts, and arsenals, and palaces rising up the hill side almost abruptly out of the river, and towered over by the volcanic looking Blocksberg; on the other, -but we cannot afford to be detained, even by Buden with its fine old buildings invested with so many historical reminiscences, or its younger and more commercial sister, Pesth, proud of her beauties and her progress, her Hungarian nobility and nationality, and full of hopes for the future. M. Marmier notices in terms of just condemnation the little decency observed at the hot springs; the bridge, to pass which the poor man alone pays toll-emblematic of the national condition where all the burdens fall upon the serf-and what he terms the unpardonable unbecomingness of Miss Pardoe's religious statements made in reference to the city of the Magyars. It is not till the traveller gets beyond Pesth, that he enters into the real spirit of the Danube. Every thing then is upon a large scale, the waters are deep and wide, the plains vast and interminable, the mountains rugged and lofty. He feels that he is entering upon new countries, and among people slowly emerging from a half savage condition. M. Marmier is but half a traveller. He begins by grumbling at the onset, when it would have been quite time to have done so at the conclusion. At night a plank was drawn from out of the sofa that ran round the cabin. This, he complains, was each person's bed, and upon this, hard as was, it was impossible to sleep from the snoring of gormandising Austrian functionaries, and wine-bibbing Hungarian barons. If M. Marmier had told the Kelner to lay his bed on the deck, he would have had fresh air, sound sleep, and dreams, to which the pure skies of these lati it tudes and the wide and boundless expanse by which the traveller is surrounded, invariably give a tone of pleasing solemnity. M. Marmier was not insensible to this influence when awake ;— "The navigation of the Danube," he says, " often disposes to melancholy. The long reaches of sand, the beds of rushes where the murmur of the wavelets mingled itself with the sighing of the wind, the wide desert plains, through which the impetuous stream is ever working new thoroughfares, the sudden fogs that fall so suddenly like a dark veil upon the river, have a strange aspect, that astonishes and subjugates the traveller's imagination." This result is, in fact, common to the navigation of all large and lonely rivers, especially in case of a first navigation, where mystery lends its aid to the enchantment of natural scenery. It is a feeling that is almost entirely dissipated by the presence of shipping, but M. Marmier has analised its nature most superficially. Passing Kaloutscha, the seat of the second prelate in the kingdom, Mohacz, whose name alone makes the Hungarian shudder, is attained. M. Marmier neglected to see what is most interesting at this spot, the portrait of the unfortunate Louis II., the most beautiful boy it is possible to imagine, and a large picture of the battle, with the young king perishing in a swamp in the foreground. They are both in the bishop's palace. Beyond Mohacz is the redoubtable prison fortress of Peterwardein, which was held for two centuries by the Turks. An Englishman shudders involuntarily as the boat glides by its dark ramparts, black-looking bastions, and innumerable strongholds; but the shudder is as well kept to one's-self. Peter wardein is one of the chief places of those well-known military colonies, which extend from the Adriatic to the Carpathian mountains, Semlin is another military colony, but of a very miserable character, neither good inns nor shops are to be met with, there is nothing but soldiers in long coats plying about in boats, to relieve those miserable sentinels who are to be seen perched up on a kind of platform in the marshes, perpetually fanning away the mosquitoes. The treadmill must be a treat to such a service. But close by is Belgrade, of sanguinary renown. M. Marmier hastened, on arriving at the first of the Turkish cities, to visit the Pasha. * * "It was," he says, "that courageous and unfortunate Hafiz pasha, who lost, at the battle of Nizib, his rank of Seraskier and the glory of his preceding campaigns. He is a man of sixty years of age, straight and robust, with a noble open physiognomy; he wore a blue surtout, buttoned up to the chin, a silvery beard fell upon his breast, and his head was covered with a red fez, adorned with a large blue tassel of silk. He approached us smiling, shook hands with M. de Saint-André (French consul), and without any preamble invited us to partake of his dinner, in a tone so affectionate that it was impossible to refuse him." This is not a bad portrait of Hafiz, and M. Marmier found that the worthy old general was as passionate after geographical knowledge as he has always been after every kind of information. Below Belgrade is Moldava, a mere station, and at this point the river opens like a great lake, to be almost immediately shut up amidst the vast limestone precipices and rocks which constitute the "Iron Gates." M. Marmier relates all the popular legends and traditions which are associated with certain points in this sublime river pass. The oft re |