few days with some of his relations, by way of giving some entertainment to Morfu. They then set off for Geneva, to the great satisfaction of our author, who proposed to get some of his works printed there, which he had not been able to do in Italy. Morfu, however, instead of conducting him to Paris, took the road to Avignon; where, crossing the bridge of Soraces, in the county of Venassin, they were seized by a gang of shirri, or sheriff's officers, on pretence of carrying contraband goods, and confined. Morfu was quickly discharged, and very liberally rewarded; but Pallavicini, being carried to Avignon, was imprisoned; and notwithstanding, on his examination concerning some papers found upon him, he made a very artful defense, it was in vain. The sentence was already brought from Rome, and he was to undergo a trial merely for form's sake. For this purpose being put into a dark dungeon, he made another effort to escape. He managed matters so well with his keeper, as to procure wax candles to be allowed him, under pretence of amusing himself with reading, and when he had got a number of these, he set fire one night to the prison door, in order to get off by that means; but the stratagem did not succeed, and he was of course confined much closer and treated with great inhumanity. After a year's suffering, he was brought to trial, in which he made an excellent defense, and flattered himself with hopes of relief. He had even begun a whimsical piece on the subject of melancholy; but, contrary to his expectations, he was sentenced to die, and lost his head on a scaffold in the flower of his age.

He was of so heedless and profuse a disposition, that had he possessed an immense estate he would have spent it all. He was never engaged in a virtuous passion, being inflamed to a prodigious and unnatural degree with the love of the meanest and most infamous prostitutes. On the other hand, no one could be more sincere and faithful in his friendships, nor was ever a man a greater prey to treachery; insomuch that, when released from prison in Venice, he was told that a wretch had betrayed him, he could not be prevailed upon to believe it, saying, "How can this be, since he declared himself my friend, and I made him privy to all my concerns!" He used, while he wore a religious habit, to study or write two or three hours in bed every morning. The rest of the day he spent either in the company of idle persons, or else with the ladies; but after he had wholly left the monastic life, upon pretence of securing himself from the snares of his enemies, he lived in a very irregular manner. He was possessed of a fine genius, had a great facility in writing; and till he was corrupted by the commerce of mean lewd women, he wrote pieces worthy of immortality. He did not spend much time or pains either in composition or in revision, for he frequently sent to the press the very first exertions of his genius; yet nature had given him so noble a vein of eloquence, which he had greatly improved by perusing the best authors, that his first thoughts were often equal to the most laboured compositions. He was modest, and spoke of himself with diffidence; but his works are strongly tinctured with envy, malice, and gall. He made but a poor figure in conversation; and when with persons of worth and distinction, would often retire to a corner of the room, and seem quite wrapt in up in thought. He never exerted his wit and humour after his return from Germany, but when he was in the company of some mean women. Upon the whole, it is difficult to determine whether vice or virtue was the most predominant feature in his character. His death gave birth to a dialogue, entitled, "Anima erranti di Ferrante Pallavicini," or, "The wandering Ghost of Pallavicini." Besides his life at the head of his works in two volumes, there is another prefixed to the "Divortio celeste," at Amsterdam, 1696.