ences, of what nature I shall say
no more than that they were not poisons--phosphor and ammonia entered
into some of them. There were also some very curious glass tubes, and a
small pointed rod of iron, with a large lump of rock-crystal, and
another of amber--also a loadstone of great power.

In one of the drawers we found a miniature portrait set in gold, and
retaining the freshness of its colours most remarkably, considering the
length of time it had probably been there. The portrait was that of a
man who might be somewhat advanced in middle life, perhaps forty-seven
or forty-eight.

It was a most peculiar face--a most impressive face. If you could fancy
some mighty serpent transformed into man, preserving in the human
lineaments the old serpent type, you would have a better idea of that
countenance than long descriptions can convey: the width and flatness of
frontal--the tapering elegance of contour disguising the strength of the
deadly jaw--the long, large, terrible eye, glittering and green as the
emerald--and withal a certain ruthless calm, as if from the
consciousness of an immense power. The strange thing was this--the
instant I saw the miniature I recognised a startling likeness to one of
the rarest portraits in the world--the portrait of a man of a rank only
below that of royalty, who in his own day had made a considerable noise.
History says little or nothing of him; but search the correspondence of
his contemporaries, and you find reference to his wild daring, his bold
profligacy, his restless spirit, his taste for the occult sciences.
While still in the meridian of life he died and was buried, so say the
chronicles, in a foreign land. He died in time to escape the grasp of
the law, for he was accused of crimes which would have given him to the
headsman.

After his death, the portraits of him, which had been numerous, for he
had been a munificent encourager of art, were bought up and
destroyed--it was supposed by his heirs, who might have been glad could
they have razed his very name from their splendid line. He had enjoyed a
vast wealth; a large portion of this was believed to have been embezzled
by a favourite astrologer or soothsayer--at all events, it had
unaccountably vanished at the time of his death. One portrait alone of
him was supposed to have escaped the general destruction; I had seen it
in the house of a collector some months before. It had made on me a
wonderful impression, as it does on all