his startling catalogue
of volumes has left behind it a certain personal affection and
sympathy, though by no means admiration, for M. de l'Aubepine; and we
would fain do the little in our power towards introducing him favorably
to the American public. The ensuing tale is a translation of his
"Beatrice; ou la Belle Empoisonneuse," recently published in "La Revue
Anti-Aristocratique." This journal, edited by the Comte de Bearhaven,
has for some years past led the defence of liberal principles and
popular rights with a faithfulness and ability worthy of all praise.

A young man, named Giovanni Guasconti, came, very long ago, from the
more southern region of Italy, to pursue his studies at the University
of Padua. Giovanni, who had but a scanty supply of gold ducats in his
pocket, took lodgings in a high and gloomy chamber of an old edifice
which looked not unworthy to have been the palace of a Paduan noble,
and which, in fact, exhibited over its entrance the armorial bearings
of a family long since extinct. The young stranger, who was not
unstudied in the great poem of his country, recollected that one of the
ancestors of this family, and perhaps an occupant of this very mansion,
had been pictured by Dante as a partaker of the immortal agonies of his
Inferno. These reminiscences and associations, together with the
tendency to heartbreak natural to a young man for the first time out of
his native sphere, caused Giovanni to sigh heavily as he looked around
the desolate and ill-furnished apartment.

"Holy Virgin, signor!" cried old Dame Lisabetta, who, won by the
youth's remarkable beauty of person, was kindly endeavoring to give the
chamber a habitable air, "what a sigh was that to come out of a young
man's heart! Do you find this old mansion gloomy? For the love of
Heaven, then, put your head out of the window, and you will see as
bright sunshine as you have left in Naples."

Guasconti mechanically did as the old woman advised, but could not
quite agree with her that the Paduan sunshine was as cheerful as that
of southern Italy. Such as it was, however, it fell upon a garden
beneath the window and expended its fostering influences on a variety
of plants, which seemed to have been cultivated with exceeding care.

"Does this garden belong to the house?" asked Giovanni.

"Heaven forbid, signor, unless it were fruitful of better pot herbs
than any that grow there now," answered old Lisabetta. "No; that garden
is cultiva