jocose brilliancy, and his smile was full of humour and vivacity.

This personage wore a long crimson cloak, probably the ensign of some dignity, for the rest of his garb was of dark velvet, and, for an age delighting in rich garnitures, exceedingly plain. He was apparently amusing himself with watching the gambols of one of those unhappy attendants on ancient grandeur, whose office it was to entertain their rude lords with the vagaries of their disordered and reckless wits, whose brightest sparkles indeed were supposed to be caused by the flaw in the understanding, as a broken mirror distorts and splinters the light into effects more curious and brilliant than the smoothest surface.

The fool or jester in question, however, was evidently no ordinary member of the hairbrained fraternity. His figure, as displayed in his motley garb, was remarkable for its grace and suppleness, and although not powerful, and of common height, yet its exceeding limberness and serpent-like vivacity of movement would have made even a gladiator pause with the feeling with which the strongest eye any animal of the reptile species ere attacking it. His features, as well as could be ascertained amid the grotesque daubing and patches which covered it, were fine in outline and almost femininely delicate in finish. His mouth might have been called beautiful, but that when at rest, it remained parted with a slight, but very odious expression of bloodthirstiness. But the eyes were the most singular; they were set very deeply under

his perfectly arched brows, and might without any exaggeration been compared to diamonds in sparkle and infinite variety of tint-sometimes a glow merely with unmeaning glitter, at others flaming with strange wildness and the multitudinous feverish fancies of a mind diseased.

The jester was busied in playing with or rather teasing two enormous bloodhounds which shared the hearth with him, endeavouring with many antic tricks and allurements to induce them to put their great paws into the hot embers to draw out some chestnuts which he was roasting. The dignitary was so absorbed in laughing at this dangerous sport, that he scarcely noticed the arrival of the new guests, until the clank of armed feet startled him. Glancing round, and observing the chivalric strangers, he arose to salute them. The fool stared at them with a lack-lustre gaze, and then shaking his shaggy red hair over his face, as if the matter in nowise concerned him, resumed his divertisement with the dogs.

"Have I really the happiness, in this step of my painful pilgrimage, to encounter your worthiness, Messer Machiavelli of Florence?" exclaimed the canon, in a tone by no means so joyful as his words, but perceiving that subterfuge would be in vain, and that the ambassador had immediately recognised

him.

"And if he pleases not your reverence, there is only another to send for," said the jester, pointing downward with a very expressive gesture; then giggling

vacantly, he stirred the embers with an iron pole kept for the purpose.

"Mean you the devil or Cæsar Borgia, lad?" said the ambassador, smiling. "But do I behold the mirror of Parnassus, the quintessence of all learning and ingenuity, the Hercules of theology, in the person of Messer Bembo of Ferrara, lean canon of a fat cathedral?" he continued, in a highflown but somewhat ludicrous tone of compliment. "If I obtain no other reward for my journey across the Apennines, this is sufficient. But surely your party is not so much in favour at Rome, my dear Pietro, as to render a penitential journey thither of any particular advantage to your affairs?"

"I do not go to solicit a benefice, signor," replied the canon rather testily. "Neither are faith and good works so altogether out of date as to make mine and these noble knights' journey to Rome at this season so marvellous a miracle as to stare a man's eyes out. But how chances it that the secretary of the magnificent signory is on his way to the capital of the enemy?"

"We want not the Medici home in the republic, and as all the rest of you are making your peace with the church, I see not why we should be so unchristian, not to say so mad, as to hold out alone,” replied the ambassador. "And this their magnificences have deputed a plain man to say to the Holy Father. But what are the latest news in the north? I warrant they scent as far down the wind at Ferrara as in the Val d'Arno."

"All I know is, that I go to Rome for my sins, and on no embassy, unless I find occasion to apologise for our young prince's unavoidable journey to France," replied the canon.

"Nay, troth, he is better there than with t'other Don Alfonso, among the worms," said the zany, staring with his glittering and yet vacant eyes on the Knight of St. John.

"Why if you bring your sins to Rome, where are all the pretty damsels we might expect to see in your train, master canon?" said the Florentine, laughing.

"It makes no matter how many; there is room for all the world at Rome, and his wife, as well as paramour," continued the fool. "And then if Rome should sink with the weight of you, the bottomless pit would be long in filling, uncle-but, however, they would make room below, for they are very polite people there, as right they should be, being chiefly courtiers and great personages that have left their names in chronicles such as your king, your great general, your wit, and your poet-folks that would be knocking their heads against the stars."

"But have you faithfully, brother Pietro and schoolfellow, no business in Rome but to do your soul good?" said the Florentine, with an acute gaze.

"And if I had, brother Niccolò, I have been your schoolfellow to more purpose than to let my secrets flutter to every wind," replied the canon, with affected cheerfulness. "Yet truly I am glad to see you safe from the lion's den, as I call Monsignor Borgia's

camp. 'Tis a comfort to remark even one returning claw-print in the sand."

"And truly I am sorry to hear this news of your prince's running away from the gorgeous alliance offered him with the Cæsar's sister," replied the Florentine, with a vexed look. "The Orsini will have it all their own way, and if they conclude their marriage-woe to Tuscany."

"Yes, yes, let the bear try what sort of a wedge his paw will make," said the fool, laughing and chuckling. "Did his reverence the fox see aught of the Orsini claws in the sand, when he looked which way the beasts were going?"

"Now, by'r Lady, for a fool you have hit well in the bull's eye with a random bolt!" exclaimed Sir Reginald. "Do but hear, Signor Ambassador, what we have discovered, and judge if Cæsar's friends be any safer than his foes."

"Why, what history is this that hath a miserere before it?" said Messer Machiavelli, with an expression of sudden and strong interest; and even the fool leaned forward, but almost instantly resumed his careless attitude. "Now for a good tale, or let it not be about the Borgia; for our palates are high-seasoned with the tidings we hear of him at every step, said Machiavelli, with a glance at the jester, who joggled his head about, making the little silver bells ring a very gay and musical peal.

The canon was about to commence the narrative of their late singular adventure, when he was luckily spared the trouble of repeating it to two sets of listeners by the entrance of the prior and a long train of Car