The Express.
London, England, 1851-01-25 00:00:00

ICIDNAPPINO ♦ CO-NVEHT..

A Spanish Jesuit gnarl., named Francis %ayler Serra,
whom I nev:r saw befor called on me a launder dress; and,
speaking the Italian Language well, he told Ise that ha was
an Italian layman, and, having heard that I was as Italian
too, he milled on me; but he did not remotion enything
about religion, saying be did not ate about it; and he was
very kind to me. He called on me four or five Sams ; till,
one day, being a very agreeable evening. he begged nos to
take a round with hiss, which I did And we went near
the catholic church, and, to my great surprise, I woe take.,
by four men, and forced to go to the vicar.g I,where they
forced as to write a letter to the protestant minister, Mr.
Valentine, in whose home I Ilved, slating my intem
tioa to return to the Roman catholic religion ; which, I am
very sorry to say I did. They then closed me in a roam till
danday, when the vicar lock me by force to the pulpit, and
dictated to me what I was toss] to the congregation ; and he
obliged me to declare that I left the catholic religion for
worldly motives; which was quite contrary to my sentiments.
When night came, they took me from the room in which I
was closed, and delivered me to a csp'ain of a French slip,
as a prisoner, with Or.; ord -r to Mke me to Marseilles,
where he delivered me to the bishop eto, with a French
priest, sent me to Rome. From Rome I was sent, as a
punishment, to a convent in reruAi I, where I rem tined for
five years, till I got twin my liberty and returned to Rome;
this was in Navember.lB4B.
" I am tare, eir, you are not surprised to hear the
treachery made to me at Bombay b: that Jesuit and by the
vicar. B• s.de I, you must know that the vicar, whose tame is
Father Michel° Antonio, for his bad character had bean put
in poi for six months, by the Britlsh government at Bombay.l
" Now, sir, I live in a most neserahls state of mind, being
from my heart a protestant, yet I am obliged to observe the
Roman catholic) forms, which Is quit, contrary to my
feelings. I ant very sorry that In India I had not the
Chnslan courage which you have demonstrated Just now in
Rome; but you most know that they threatened me with
brutal menaces, and that I was too young.
" I am at present firmly ruched to fly from this Babylon,
and embrace again the pure doctrine of the Gospel; to
remain in the faith, by the pose of God, till my ditto, and
to preach it throughout the world."

7 inte, the Are nger. By the author of "Emilia Wyndham,
" Tao Wlimingtons,' &c. 3 vole. Ciaurn.
Mrs. Marsh holds a high rank among the writers
of that class of fiction which is represented by
"Jane Eyre," and adorned by "the Ogy
1 Her characteristics are a keen insight and vi-
gorous carnestnesq„ worthy of Miss Austin,
devoted to higher themes, and depicting higher
emotions. Her new story is one of the most
favourable specimens of' her powers. Its characters
have the breadth and sturdy strength of life. In our
familiarity with them they ee• m to be everyday peo-
ple. It is when we search for something like them
in fiction that we discover their originality. They
I are no cut-and-dry impersonations. The story arises
out of them, and not they out of the story—an
Important distinction.
As in many novels of this school, the hero is not
chosen for his youth, his beauty, or his accomplish-
ments. A crude, harsh, middle-aged man, ho is made
to interest by his vitality—by his essential truth
and nature. A p'ain " city man," of plebeian
appearance and premise habits, Mr. Craiglethorpe,
had lived, like other city men, amidst toil and turtle,
prejudice and port,—his good and bad qualities
equally negative ; his sole principles of action those of
policy and expediency. And this without anything
innately bad in his composition, but simply from want
of thought and of an influence that might touch the
key-note to some loftier vibration.
The orphan daughter of a wealthy friend, who has
died in the East, is left to his charge, and tie man of
business has new anxieties. He meets her for the
first time on board the vessel on its arrival in the
port of London.
With a pretty affectation, daintily she stepped along the
deck;
were her years, in the society from which she had come she
had been considered sad treated quite as a woman grows;
and, innocent as was htr heart, she had been accustomed to
talcs her place in society, and to espect and receive unbounded
admiration. All this when she was, in fact, a mere child,
though a very forward and clever child; but IL was impos-
sible that such a training, acting upon the giddy head and
wild imagination of one so young, should not have been in-
jurious. She came, in fact, from the Levant—from the East
—where she had lived 'since her earliest childhood; and
there she had been accustomed to see the empire of personal
charms considered as invincible, ac d female education only di.
rented to the enhancing of such charms to the highest possible
degree The cultivation of • woman's intellect would, ia the ese-
MeV which she had frequested, bare been considered as too
enormous en absurdity; and moral discipline was almost as
little attended to as mental trainir g—that is to say, the mare
refined and higher principles of morals; for the obvious
dation of womanwood she had been taught as a matter of
course, supported by the mere ordinary sanctions of religion.
But this was all Lille had learned from those around her.
She had been told there was another world, but ste bad been
accustomed to live for this—that there were certain rules of
morality which it was a crime, or rather a disgrace, to break;
but ,the more delicate perception of what was right and
wrong, the sense of the depth and reality of religious oblige.
Hon, had not entered into the head of her tetcben, nor, of
were, been instilled Into her own.
—Mire Fleming, the airy, fairy coquette, amuses her-
self without mercy at her guardian's expense, and
plays off all her fascinations to puszle and perplex
him. He himself feels, as he believes, the love of a
a tether for her—a feeling which he manifests in a ra-
ther remarkable manner, by an unwonted attention to
dress, and the courtesies and gaieties of life. Here is
a specimen of his numerous perplexities:
' What can I have done with my bracelet? I de-
sists
Wast bracelet ?" said he, rather gruffly ; " What is it ?
Have you lost anything ?"
" Oh, ay darling—darling jewel of a bracelet; What
sea I have done with it ? I'm certain I pat it on after
bowing. Ob, my darling. darling little bracelet! What
dell I do—what shall I do ?"
" Weat is lilies ? What must one look for ?" beginning
to look about upon the floor for her.
"Oh, its the tiniest, tiniest chain you ever saw, fastened
with one little bit of clasp not bigger than a large pin's
head, and containing heir. Oh, 1 wouldn't Wee it for the
usiverse