with a shock of surprise that she saw him leaning on the parapet which bounds the piazza of San Miniato. The great open space beneath the church, was empty, save for his solitary figure. While Mrs. Lawrence hesitated he turned with an abrupt movement, and she saw his haggard young face outlined for a moment against the sky. Then, without seeing her, he moved quickly away, and plunging down the steps between the cypresses, was lost to sight.

Mrs. Lawrence crossed to the place where he had stood, and looked down over the city. The fires of the sunset had faded, and all the hollow valley was filled with a violet haze, through which the river gleamed pale, a magic stream, holding in its depths jewels and shafts of light: gold and silver, and emerald. Half veiled in swimming vapour, the spires and domes, campaniles and towers rose from a city, breathless and spellbound. Groups of cypresses lifted dark fingers towards the sky, which began to be pierced with trembling

stars.

NETTA SÝRETT.

BLINDNESS.

Since I have learned Love's shining alphabet,
And spelled in ink what's writ in me in flame,
And borne her sacred image richly set

Here in my heart to keep me quit of shame;

Since I have learned how wise and passing wise
Is the dear friend whose beauty I extol,

And know how sweet a soul looks through the eyes
That are so pure a window to her soul;

Since I have learned how rare a woman shows

As much in all she does as in her looks,
And seen the beauty of her shame the rose,

And dim the beauty writ about in books;

All I have learned, and can learn, shows me this—
How scant, how slight, my knowledge of her is.

JOHN MASEFIELD.

CVTILOBHIV

THE MERCHANT KNIGHT.

A Romance translated from the Portuguese of Gonsalo Fernandez Trancoso. (1585).

Scarcely anything appears to be known of the life of Gonsalo Fernandez Trancoso, the author of the following story, except that he was a native of the little town in Beira from which he derived his name, that he professed mathematics, and published a small book on the ascertainment of moveable feasts, and died between 1585 and 1596. Two parts of his "Profitable Tales" were published by himself in the former year, and a third was added after his death by his son.

The collective title of Trancoso's stories shows that they were written with a moral purpose, and some are merely anecdotes. A few are of greater compass, including a version of the tale of Griselda, and the story now translated. The great superiority of this to the others renders it probable that it is founded upon, and closely follows, some old romance now lost. This may well have originated in the time of Edward the Third, when the connection between England and Portugal was especially intimate, and the English frequently came to the assistance of the Portuguese in their wars with Castile. If written after the Spanish conquest of Portugal in 1580, it may even have been intended to remind the Portuguese of this ancient alliance, and suggest that help might be had from England.

This story is not, like most of Trancoso's, spoiled by tedious moralising. It does not attempt any delineation of character or vivid individual portraiture, nor has it anything of the poetical charm of "Aucassin and Nicolette." But it is inspired by a thoroughly romantic spirit, and in its transparent simplicity of style affords a refreshing contrast to the exaggerated conceits of so much of the prose fiction of its day. It was written in the most flourishing age of Portuguese literature, and its diction is worthy of the period.

Trancoso's stories were popular in their own country in their day, but have not, so far as we are aware, been hitherto translated or noticed out of Portugal. The last edition was in 1722. All are rare: one of the two in the British Museum is not mentioned by any bibliographer.