which he replied, that he had very important intelligence for his mistress, and that, if he staid to drink, he feared that she would be gone to bed. The captain admitted the excuse, ordered the sailors to land, him in the town, and Johnstone with a lightened heart proceeded on his way.

After having been detained for two days at Harwich by the wind, the voyagers reached Helvoetsluys on the 3rd, and Johnstone could at length feel himself in safety. His subsequent life was a busy one, and clouded by misfortune. He entered the French service, endured many sufferings in it, was ill-treated by the ministry, and appears to have died in a state which bordered upon

penury.

THE ESCAPE OF J. J. CASANOVA FROM THE STATE

PRISON OF VENICE.

THE narrative of Casanova's incarceration in the state prison of Venice, and of his escape from thence, is, perhaps, one of the most interesting that has ever been made public. Remarkable as a man of talent, Casanova was at least as remarkable for his unbridled and unblushing libertinism. He seems to have been incapable of feeling shame for his misdeeds. The account which he has left of his own career, witty and animated as that account invariably is, almost tempts us to wish that the writer had found his Venetian jail impervious to his persevering efforts. He was, however, not without some redeeming qualities; and we must bear in mind, as a palliation of his faults, that he lived in a corrupt age, and among a licentious people. He has been characterised, and not unaptly, as "a sort of Gil Blas of the eighteenth century."

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Casanova, whose Christian name was John James, and who thought proper to add " de Seingalt" to his surname, was by birth a Venetian, but claimed to be descended from the ancient Spanish house of Palafox. Talent seems to have been largely bestowed upon his family; his two younger brothers, Francis and John Baptist, attained a high reputation as painters, and the latter is also advantageously known as a writer upon the pictorial art. John James was born at Venice in 1725, studied at Padua, and distinguished himself by his precocious abilities, and his rapid progress in learning. His wit and conversational powers made him a favourite guest among the patricians of his native city. He was designed for the church, and had the prospect of rising in it, but his amorous intrigues marred his fortune, and even brought imprisonment upon him. After a

variety of adventures, he embarked in 1743 for Constantinople, where he formed an acquaintance with the celebrated Count Bonneval. A quarrel at Corfu compelled him to return to Venice. There, for a while, he gained subsistence as a violin player. By a lucky chance he acquired the friendship of a rich and powerful Venetian. He happened to be present one day when the senator Bragadino was struck by a fit. Casanova boldly prohibited the use of the medicine which the physicians had prescribed, and by his own skill succeeded in recovering the patient. The grateful Bragadino took him into his house, and thenceforth seems to have almost considered him as a son. But the licentiousness of Casanova stood in the way of his permanent happiness. He was anew under the necessity of quitting his native place, and successively other cities which he visited, and he spent some years in wandering over Italy, and to Paris, devoting his time chiefly to gaming and to women.

Again Casanova found his way back to Venice, where his converse and his social powers procured for him a hearty welcome. But he did not long remain in safety. The malice of an enemy, aided by his own flagrant imprudence, at length brought him under the severe lash of the Venetian government. His dissolute character undoubtedly justified suspicion; he confesses, with a shameless candour, that "he was anything but pious, and that there was not a more determined libertine in Venice." It was, however, no love of morality that prompted the proceedings against him. Among the many individuals whom he had offended by his tongue, his pen, and his rivalry, there happened to be one of the state inquisitors, and that worthy personage availed himself of his office to take vengeance on the offender. Convenient witnesses were not difficult to be found in Venice. Three men came forward as Casanova's accusers, and in their depositions they mingled a small

portion of truth with much absurd falsehood. They swore that he ate meat on the prohibited days, and that he went to mass only to hear the music; two charges which no doubt were true. Their inventions were, however, more formidable than their facts. They swore that he was vehemently suspected of freemasonry; that the large sums lost by him in gaming he obtained by selling to foreign ambassadors the state secrets which he artfully wormed out of his patrician friends; and that he believed only in the devil-in proof of which last accusation they urged, that, when he lost his money at play, he never, as all good Christians did, gave vent to execrations against his satanic majesty. His addiction to magical and cabalistical studies was also adduced as evidence of his heretical guilt.

On the morning of the 25th of July 1755, the head of the Venetian police entered the chamber of Casanova, roused him from sleep, demanded his books and papers, and bade the astonished prisoner rise and follow him. When he was told that he was arrested by order of the tribunal of the State Inquisition, he acknowledges that, on hearing the name of the formidable tribunal, he was overpowered, and that his wonted courage gave place to the most implicit obedience. While the officer was securing the manuscripts and books, Casanova had his hair dressed, and put on a silken suit, as though he had been going to a ball instead of a prison. The papers and volumes, among the latter of which were his cabalistic books, being collected, he quitted the chamber with the head of the police, and was surprised to find that more than thirty policemen were in waiting. it not," he sarcastically observes, "extraordinary that in England, where courage is innate, one man is considered sufficient to arrest another, while in my country, where cowardice has set up her home, thirty are required for the purpose? Probably a coward is still more one when

"Is

he attacks, than when he is attacked, and that makes the person assaulted bolder; the truth is, in Venice one man is often seen opposing twenty sbirri: he gives them a good beating, and escapes.”

Four only of the officers were retained by the chief, who proceeded in a gondola to his dwelling with the prisoner, and locked him up in a room, where he remained for four hours. On his return, he informed Casanova that he was directed to convey him to the Camerotti; cells, which are known also by the name of I Piombi, from their being immediately under the leaden roof of the state prison*. This prison was

* A very graphic description of this edifice is given, in his "Crudities," by that strange compound of shrewdness and absurdity, Tom Coryate. "There is near unto the duke's palace a very faire prison, the fairest absolutely that ever I saw, being divided from the palace by a little channel of water, and again joined unto it by a marvellously faire little gallery, (the Bridge of Sighs,) that is inserted aloft into the middest of the palace wall eastward. I think there is not a fairer prison in all Christendome: it was built with very fine white ashler stone, having a little walke without the roomes of the prison, which is forty paces long and seven broad; for I meted it; which walk is fairly vaulted over head, and adorned with seven goodly arches, each whereof is supported with a great square stone pillar. The outside of these pillars is curiously wrought with pointed diamonde work. In the higher part of the front, towards the water, there are eight pretty pillars of freestone, between which are seventeen windows for the prisoners above to look through. In the lower part of the prison, where the prisoners do usually remaine, there are six windows, three on each side of the doore; whereof each hath two rowes of great iron barres, one without and the other within; each row containing ten barres, that ascend in height to the toppe of the window, and eighteen more that crosse these tenne: so that it is altogether impossible for the prisoners to get forth. Betwixt the first row of windows in the outside, and another within, there is a little spare entry, for people to stand in that will talke with the prisoners who lie within the inner windows that are but single barred. The west side of the prison, which is near the duke's palace, is very curiously wrought with pointed diamond worke, with three rows of crosse-barred iron windows in it, whereof each row containeth eleven particulars. It is reported that this prison is so contrived that there