The Prince di -- was not a man whom Naples could suppose to be addicted
to superstitious fancies, neither was the age one in which the belief of
sorcery was prevalent. Still, in the South of Italy there was then, and
there still lingers, a certain spirit of credulity, which may, ever and
anon, be visible amidst the boldest dogmas of their philosophers and
sceptics. In his childhood the Prince had learned strange tales of the
ambition, the genius, and the career of his grandsire; and secretly,
perhaps influenced by ancestral example, in earlier youth he himself had
followed alchemy, not only through her legitimate course, but her
antiquated and erratic windings. I have, indeed, been shown in Naples a
little volume blazoned with the arms of the Visconti, and ascribed to
the nobleman I refer to, which treats of alchemy in a spirit half
mocking and half reverential.

Pleasure soon distracted him from such speculations, and his talents,
which were unquestionably great, were wholly perverted to extravagant
intrigues or to the embellishment of a gorgeous ostentation with
something of classic grace. His immense wealth, his imperious pride,
his unscrupulous and daring character, made him an object of no
inconsiderable fear to a feeble and timid court; and the ministers of
the indolent government willingly connived at excesses--, which allured
him at least from ambition. The strange visit and yet more strange
departure of Mejnour filled the breast of the Neapolitan with awe and
wonder, against which all the haughty arrogance and learned scepticism
of his maturer manhood combated in vain. The apparition of--Mejnour
served, indeed, to invest Zicci with a character in which the Prince had
not hitherto regarded him. He felt a strange alarm at the rival he had
braved, at the foe he had provoked. His night was sleepless, and the
next morning he came to the resolution of leaving Isabel in peace until
after the banquet of that day, to which he had invited Zicci. He felt