his Wilton to a sort of Tour de Nesles where the
Countess Juliana, the Pope's mistress, gives herself up to excesses, by
the side of which those of Margaret of Burgundy are but child's play.
Murders, rapes, and scenes of robbery multiply under cover of the plague
that rages at Rome, and the horrors resulting from the pestilence are
described with a vigour that reminds us of Defoe, without however
equalling him. Carts containing the dead go up and down the streets, and
lugubrious cries resound: "Have you anie dead to burie? Have you anie
dead to burie?" The carts "had manie times of one house their whole
loading."

Wilton is accused of murders committed in his house; the rope almost
about his neck, he is saved by an English earl, in exile, who seems to
have been imbued with Ascham's teaching, and who reproaches him for
travelling, especially in Italy, where morals are so corrupt and where
immorality is so dangerous. "Take care," said the earl, "if thou doest
but lend halfe a looke to a Romans or Italians wife, thy porredge shall
bee prepared for thee, and cost thee nothing but thy life." The earl,
who proves to be a rather pedantic nobleman, passes in review all
nations, and proves that they are not worth the trouble of going to see.
Wilton, whose personal experience does not justify such unfavourable
prognostications, especially now that he is out of danger, is wearied by
this talk, and, pretending important business, gives his chattering
benefactor the slip. He is soon punished; he is captured by the Jews of
Rome; his adventures become more and more mysterious and alarming, and
more and more does melodrama invade the story.

Sometimes, however, in the midst of these abominations, Nash's tone
rises; his language becomes eloquent and his emotion infectious; he
shudders himself, horror penetrates him and seizes us; the jests of the
picaroon are very far from our mind, the drama is then as terrible as
with the most passionate romanticists of our century in their best
moments.

Few stories of our day are better contrived to give the sense of the
horrible than the story of the vengeance of Cutwolfe related by himself
just as he is going to be tortured. After a prolonged search, Cutwolfe
at last finds his enemy, Esdras of Granada, alone, in his shirt, and far
from all help. The unfortunate man implores Cutwolfe, whose brother he
had killed, to make it impossible for him to do any more harm, to
mutilate him, but to spare hi