in all the languages of the earth. Thus,
shoved and pusht about, he had been driven on as far as the Lateran,
when he fancied that, as the crowd now and then opened a little, he
distinctly perceived, though some way off, that selfsame hideous old
woman, the mother of the beautiful maiden, who bore the name of his
Crescentia.

He endeavoured to get up to her, and seemed to be succeeding, when a
train of pilgrims came pouring from a cross street, who cut him off
entirely, and made all further advance impossible. While he was
struggling with all his might, and working his way up the steps of St
John's Church, that he might be able to overlook the multitude, he
felt a friendly slap on his shoulder, and a wellknown voice pronounced
his name. It was the Spaniard Alfonso.

"So I find you exactly in the place," said he joyfully, "where I lookt
for you."

"What do you mean by that?" askt Antonio.

"First let us get out of the way of this torrent of human flesh,"
cried the other: "in this place, from the myriads of tongues that are
wagging, from the ceaseless buz of this monstrous Babylonian beehive,
one can't hear a single word."

They took a walk out into the country; and here Alfonso confest to his
friend that, since he had been at Rome, he had devoted himself to the
science of astrology, divination, and other like things, which he had
formerly held in abhorrence, having been of opinion that they could
only be acquired by accursed means and by the help of evil spirits.
"But since the day," he continued, "when I made acquaintance with the
incomparable Castalio, this knowledge appears to me in a far higher
and purer light."

"And is it possible," exclaimed Antonio, "that after all those fearful
events at Padua, you can again expose your soul to such perils? Do you
not clearly see that whatsoever is to be attained in a natural way and
by means of our own reason does not repay the trouble, being nothing
more than a set of petty tricks that can only excite merriment and
laughter! that everything beyond on the other hand, which does not
turn upon empty delusion, cannot possibly be called into being, unless
by evil and damnable powers?"

"Declaiming," said the Spaniard, "is not proving. We are far too young
to understand the whole of our own nature; much less can we comprehend
the rest of the world and all its unexplored mysteries. When you once
see the man whom I have so much to thank for, all your doubts will
vanish. Pio