LETTER FROM SIGNOR RICCABOCCA TO LORD L'ESTRANGE.

I thank you, my noble friend, for judging of me with faith in my honour,
and respect for my reverses.

No, and thrice no, to all concessions, all overtures, all treaty with
Giulio Franzini. I write the name, and my emotions choke me. I must
pause, and cool back into disdain. It is over. Pass from that subject.
But you have alarmed me. This sister! I have not seen her since her
childhood; but she was brought up under his influence,

--she can but work as his agent. She wish to learn my residence! It
can be but for some hostile and malignant purpose. I may trust in you,
--I know that. You say I may trust equally in the discretion of your
friend. Pardon me,--my confidence is not so elastic. A word may give
the clew to my retreat. But, if discovered, what harm can ensue? An
English roof protects me from Austrian despotism: true; but not the
brazen tower of Danae could protect me from Italian craft. And, were
there nothing worse, it would be intolerable to me to live under the eyes
of a relentless spy. Truly saith our proverb, 'He sleeps ill for whom
the enemy wakes.' Look you, my friend, I have done with my old life,
--I wish to cast it from me as a snake its skin. I have denied myself
all that exiles deem consolation. No pity for misfortune, no messages
from sympathizing friendship, no news from a lost and bereaved country
follow me to my hearth under the skies of the stranger. From all these
I have voluntarily cut thyself off. I am as dead to the life I once
lived as if the Styx rolled between it and me. With that sternness which
is admissible only to the afflicted, I have denied myself even the