condition. Come
later._ Judith."

I must confess to a sigh of relief. I am fond of Judith and sorry
for her domestic infelicities, though why she should maintain that
alcoholized wretch in her kitchen passes my comprehension. If there is
one thing women do not understand it is the selection, the ordering, and
the treatment of domestic servants. The mere man manages much better.
But, that aside, Antoinette has spoiled me for Judith's cook's cookery.
I breathed a little sigh of content and summoned Stenson to inform him
that I would dine at home.

A great package of books from a second-hand bookseller arrived during
dinner. Among them were the nine volumes of Pietro Gianone's _Istoria
Civile del Regno di Napoli_, a copy of which I ought to have possessed
long ago. It is dedicated to the "Most Puissant and Felicitous Prince
Charles VI, the Great, by God crowned Emperor of the Romans, King of
Germany, Spain, Naples, Hungary, Bohemia, Sicily, _etcetera_." Is there
a living soul in God's universe who has a spark of admiration for this
most puissant and most felicitous monarch crowned by God Emperor
and King of the greater part of Europe (and docked of most of
his pretensions by the Treaty of Utrecht)? We only remember the
forcible-feeble person by his Pragmatic Sanction, and otherwise his
personality has left in history not the remotest trace. And yet, on
the 12th February, 1723, a profoundly erudite, subtle, and picturesque
historian grovels before the man and subscribes himself "Of your Holy
Caesarean and Catholic Majesty the most humble and most devoted and most
obsequious vassal and slave Pietro Gianone." What ruthless judgments
posterity passes on once enormous reputations! In Gianone's admirable
introduction we hear of "_il celebre Arthur Duck, il quale oltro a' con
confini della sua Inghilterra volle in altri a piu lontani Paesi andav
rintracciando l'uso a l'autorita delle romane leggi ne' nuovi domini de'
Principi cristiani; e di quelle di ciascheduna Nazione volle ancora aver
conto: le ricerco nella vicina Scozia, e nell' Ibernia; trapasso nella
Francia, e nella Spagna; in Germania, in Italia, a nel nostro Regno
ancora: si stese in oltre in Polonia, Boemia, in Ungheria, Danimarca,
nella Svezia, ed in piu remote parti_." A devil of a fellow this
celebrated English Arthur Duck, who besides writing a learned treatise
_De Usu et Auth. Jur. Civ. Rom. in Dominiis Principum Christianorum_,
was a knight, a member of Parli