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that, oil the receipt of this letter, the sitting of the court be raised, andthe wretched men set free. Now, as the subject of this trial regards anattack upon my person , and the parties have not yet been pronouncedguilty, I do not think that 1 offend the laws of the state, if, even with-out consulting the Council of Grace, I do now make use of the greatestand best privilege of royalty.”

(Signed) Joachim.

These facts need no comment from me, or from any oneelse. At the proper place I shall sum up a few of thevulgar, legitimate misrepresentations of the character andacts of King Joachim, and place them in juxta-position withthose of his puny calumniators.

Previously to retouching the thread of my own trumpery,personal wanderings, observations, fishing, geology, &c., Iwill acquaint my readers with a case of most tragic interestthat was at the time dramatised at some theatre (I forgetwhich) in Italy. Just as the public of Naples had beenaffected and rejoiced by the noble magnanimity of theirking in the affair of the Mondragone assassins, the feelingsof those who heard of it were harrowed at a circumstanceinvolving axioms, feelings, and opinions of the most con-flicting and afflicting nature. I allude to men of feeling;not to those whose sentiments are assized only by the“ Corpus Legum.”

In the city of Acerenza, in the province of Basilicata ,there lived a small landed proprietor, named Rocco Sileo.He was in person tall and very handsome; he had many child-ren, both male and female, and an irreproachable reputa-tion, which was shared by all his progeny except the eldestson, who from his earliest youth had given earnest of avicious disposition, by the commission of several crimes.The tender father, while the venal judicial system of theBourbons endured, bought off his son by price of gold ; butthe son persisted in his evil courses, and the father continued

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