band, Mr. and Mrs. Cowden Clarke, and his eldest son and youngest daughter, both single and devoted to the happiness of each other. They lived in a villa about a mile out of the town of Nice, and not far from them the Count Gigliucci and his family spent half the year.

My first call at Mr. Novello's convinced me that I should enjoy the society of his gifted children. The name of Mrs. Cowden Clarke recalled to my mind that elaborate work, the Concordance to Shakespeare, which I now found to be the performance of the lady before me. The walls of the room in which I was received were covered with pictures of great merit, the works of a brother who died at twenty-three years of age, leaving these numerous paintings to tell of his genius and his industry. A remarkable chair in this room attracted my attention. It had on its carved back a small bust of Shakespeare, in ivory, and a silver plate with an inscription, and was covered with the richest damask. I found it was an offering to Mrs. Cowden Clarke from some gentlemen and ladies in New York, as a token of their appreciation of her Concordance. The day that I called, she had just received from the Appletons, in New York, a large volume containing engravings of sixteen "World-noted Women," for which Mrs. Cowden Clarke had furnished a biography of each. She lent the book to me, and I found her letterpress far superior to the pictures.

Among the numerous works of this lady, "The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines" appears to me the most original and a wonderful production of her imagination. To form a just idea of what those heroines must have been when young, from what the great dramatist depicts them in mature life, seems to me a most difficult task and very successfully accomplished.

Mr. Cowden Clarke was as true a worshipper of Shakespeare as his wife, and had been a popular lecturer in England on the subordinate characters of that author's plays.

The Novello family had a large circle of acquaintance among the inhabitants of Nice, as well as the winter visitors, and were invited to all their parties. These civilities they could not return in kind, owing to the ill health of their father; but Mr. Cowden Clarke devised a way of returning them tenfold, by having several morning receptions, in which he read his lectures to his friends, and a high treat it was. He read them with dramatic effect, and made his hearers feel that they had never before appreciated the subordinate characters of those plays.

Mr. and Mrs. Cowden Clarke have edited several editions of Shakespeare; and being admitted to their working-room, I saw the pains they took to ascertain the best reading of doubtful passages. A long table was covered with old and

modern editions of the play in hand, all open at the sentence they were upon; and after careful comparison and consideration, they adopted what seemed to them the genuine language of their author. The text so chosen is now considered the best, and I have heard from them that they are preparing three editions at once, according to their chosen version.

The Countess Gigliucci was a great favorite with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and when the Princess Royal was to be married, they wished her to sing at a court concert. It was in the winter, which season she always spent at Nice, and when some one about the court wrote to ask her if she would not come to the Royal wedding, she declined. On hearing that she was not coming, Prince Albert asked her correspondent to tell her that he could not enjoy the concert unless he heard her voice. This compliment had the force of a command, and she made the winter journey to London, was highly appreciated by the Royal family, and returned well pleased with her excursion.

Since the deliverance of Italy, Count Gigliucci has taken possession of his estates at Fermo, and represents that place in the Parliament at Turin. Fermo has become a part of the present Kingdom of Italy. The Countess no longer sings in public, but takes her proper place among the

Italian nobility and gentry, and introduces her accomplished daughters into society. One of her sons is in the army, the other in the navy. When Nice became a part of France, the Novello family, who could not live under a despotic government, removed to Genoa, and settled themselves in a grand old palace, transformed by the judgment and taste of Mr. Alfred Novello into a luxurious modern mansion, occupying the finest situation near the city, and commanding the most extensive and beautiful views of the Mediterranean, its coasts and promontories.

I

CHAPTER XXX.

VOYAGES.

HOLD in remembrance the peculiar features of nine voyages that I have made across the Atlantic, and am surprised to find on reflection the variety of the circumstances which mark each. The first one I made before it was believed that steam would ever carry a vessel across the ocean, and this sailing voyage was forty-eight days long, owing to gales in the Channel which obliged us to put into Ryde, in the Isle of Wight, and also to calms on the ocean.

Among the various incidents of this long voyage was that of a man overboard, and the exertions of a boat's crew who volunteered to go after him, at the risk of their lives, but failed to reach him. We also had the robbery of a steerage passenger's trunk, containing all his property in silver dollars. A court of inquiry was held, all the passengers had their baggage searched, but the missing silver was not found for some days. At last one of the sailors pulled it up through the bung of a water-cask, sewed up in a long, narrow piece of canvas. He had seen a man