that God-abandoned island.  Honour to whom honor is due!  The ostensible reason for this unique act of justice was that the said Perrelli had appeared at some palace function with paste buckles on his shoes, instead of silver ones.  The pretext was well chosen, inasmuch as the tyrant added to his other vices and absurdities the pose of being an extravagant stickler for etiquette.  We happen to know, nevertheless, that the name of a young dancer, a prime favourite at Court, cropped up persistently at the time in connection with this malodorous but otherwise insignificant episode.”

It were idle, at this hour of the day, to pursue the enquiry; the mutilation of Monsignor Perrelli’s person, however, would explain better than anything else his equivocal attitude as historian.  Nor is the incident altogether inconsistent with what we know of the Duke’s cheerful propensities.  “Nose after ears!” was one of his blithest watchwords.  Faced with so dispiriting a prospect and aware that His Highness was as good as his princely word, the sympathetic scholar, while too resentful to praise his achievements, may well have been too prudent to disparage them.  Hence his reticence, his circumspection.  Hence that monotonous enumeration of events.

This microscopic blot on the Duke’s escutcheon, as well as other more commendable details of his life, were duly noted down by the zealous Mr. Eames who, in addition, had the good fortune to receive as a gift from his kindly but unassuming friend Count Caloveglia a quaint portrait of the prince, hitherto unknown—­an engraving which he purposed to reproduce, together with other fresh iconographical material, in his enlarged and fully annotated edition of the antiquities.  The print depicts His Highness full face, seated on a throne in the accoutrements of Mars, with a gallant wig flowing in mazy ringlets from under the helmet upon his plated shoulders; overhead, upon a canopy of cloud, reclines a breezy assemblage of allegorical females—­Truth, Mercy, Fame with her trumpet, and so forth.  His nervous clean-shaven features do not wear the traditional smile; they are thoughtful, almost grim.  On his left is portrayed a huge cannon astride of which can be seen a chubby angel; the Duke’s hand reposes, in a paternal caress on the cherub’s head—­symbolical doubtless of his love of children.  His right elbow rests upon a table, and the slender bejewelled fingers are listlessly pressing open a lettered scroll of parchment on which can be deciphered the words “A Chi T’HA FIGLIATO” (to her who bare thee)—­a legend which the bibliographer, whose acquaintance with the vernacular was not on a level with his classical attainments, conjectured to be some fashionable courtly toast of the period.