quay; he stands at a bridge stairs, to afford support to passengers over the stones, slippery with the slime of the lagoons; he takes post in front of the Doge's palace, with a vessel of fresh water and a well-polished goblet, to supply passers-by. Many accept his stout arm, and drink his cool beverage, but none think of rewarding him. Not all his efforts and attention are sufficient to coax a sou from the pockets of his careless customers. At last, upon the third day, he receives a piece of copper, and trusts that the charm is broken. The coin proves a bad one. His seizure by the authorities, and transportation to Zara, relieve him of care for his subsistence. At last, pushed by misery, and in imminent danger of punishment for having struck a Venetian officer, Jean succumbs to temptation, and renews his infernal compact. A Venetian senator adopts him, and he discovers, but too late, that had he delayed for a few minutes his recourse to diabolical aid, he would have stood in no need of it. He proceeds to Spain, where he has many adventures and quarrels with his former secretary, Alberoni, now a powerful minister. His contract again at an end, he would gladly abstain from renewing it, but is hunted by the Inquisition into the arms of the fiend. After a lapse of years, he is again shown to us in Paris, and, finally, in Brittany, where he meets his death, but, at the eleventh hour, disappoints the expectant demon, (who in a manner outwits himself,) and re-enters the bosom of the church, his bad bargain being taken off his hands by an ambitious village priest. The book, which has an agreeable vivacity, closes with an attempt to explain a portion of its supernatural incidents by a reference to popular tradition and peasant credulity. Near the ramparts of the Breton town of Guérande, an antiquary shows M. de Musset a moss-grown stone, with a Latin epitaph, which antiquary and novelist explain each after his own fashion. "Let us see if you understand that, _M. le Parisien_," said the antiquary. "Up to the two last words we shall agree; but what think you of the _Ars. Inf._?" "It appears to me," I replied, "that the popular chronicle perfectly explains the whole epitaph--_Ars. Inf._ means _ars inferna_; that is to say,--'Here reposes Jean Capello, citizen of Venice, whose body was sent to the grave, and his soul to heaven, by infernal artifices.'"