In the correspondence to which I have already alluded there is a letter to the British Envoy at Florence, in which a reference is thus made to an incident in my story. Shall I own that without this historic allusion, I would scarcely have detained my reader by what is, after all, a mere episodical passage in the tale? Seymour writes—‘So far as I can learn, the woman arrested under this charge of sorcery is not a British subject at all, as I at first informed you, although great reason exists to believe her to be a spy in the Jacobite cause. All my efforts to obtain a sight of her have also failed; nor can I even ascertain where it is they have confined her. The common story goes, that she has bewitched the young Chevalier of whom they want to make a Prince of the House of Stewart, and thus entirely spoiled the game the Jesuits were plotting. Vulgar rumour adds the enormous rewards she demands for disenchanting him and so forth; but more trustworthy accounts suggest that all her especial subtlety will be needed to effect her own escape. That she possesses boundless wealth, and is of peerless beauty, a miracle of learning and accomplishment, you are, of course, prepared to hear. Would that I were enabled to add my own humble testimony on any of these points. Neither Alberoni nor Casali have seen her, so that you may easily imagine how hopeless are my chances.

‘It is very hard to believe these things in our age; but so they are, and this morning I was told that the “Prince,” pardon me the title, has been so much advantaged by her visit, that he has thrown off all his old melancholy, and goes about gay and happy. Of this I cannot pronounce, for his Royal Highness has gone down to Caraffa’s villa at Orvieto, by way of recovering his health completely, and lives there in the very strictest seclusion.

‘The affair has so many aspects, that in some one or other of them it has occupied all Rome during the last five or six weeks, and we go about asking each other will the Prince marry Guglia Ridolfi, Caraffa’s niece? Will he ever be King of England? When will they crown him? When will they burn the witch? Of the latter event, if it show signs of occurring, I am to give due tidings beforehand to our friend Horatio, who, gout permitting, would come out from England to see the ceremony.

‘It is my belief that Mr. Pitt would put this female to more profitable use than by making a fagot of her, if she had but half what the world alleges in craft and acuteness. Priests, however, tolerate no rivals, and permit no legerdemain but their own. Poor creature! is it not just possible that she may be more enthusiast than cheat?

‘About the Chevalier himself I have nothing to add. I saw him on Thursday a-horseback, and I must own he sat his beast gracefully and well; he is of right manly presence, and recalls the features of his family, if they be his family, most pleasingly. He dismounted near Trajan’s column to receive the benediction of the Holy Father, who was there blessing oxen, it being the festival of St. Martin, who protects these animals; and as he knelt down and rose up again, and then saluted the noble guard, who presented arms, there was a dignity and elegance in his deportment which struck all observers; nor did I marvel as Atterbury’s nephew whispered into my ear—the “Dutchman could never have done it like that.”’

C. L.