little better than a Vandal in taste-one from | of a person who has come half-way up from
whom "knowledge at one entrance
"quite shut out.” —i. 5, 6.

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being questioned by a young English lady as | in roaming from one church to another, and to the cause of his late calamities, he appeal-winding up with the high mass in St. Peter's ed to the supposed universal weakness of her sex and nation by telling her that he had been sent to prison for distributing Protestant tracts!

But beggary is not confined to such persons as Beppo and his brotherhood. There are the mendicant friars, 'those dirty brown brutes,' as we once heard them styled by a young gentleman who was not particularly well versed in the distinctions of the monastic orders. There are the old women who at church-doors rattle coppers in tin boxes--not, as the stranger commonly fancies, for the purpose of showing him that, as they have some money already, he cannot do better than give them more, but in order to collect funds for the buying of charitable masses.

on Christmas-day. For ourselves, we must own that we are not disposed to partake of such things otherwise than in moderation, although we, like the rest of the world, have witnessed something of them-from the graud courtly ceremonial of St. Peter's and the brilliant operatic spectacle and music of St. Mary Major's to the pantomimic exhibitions of some pontifical masses, where the bishop, undressing and revesting himself in the sight of the people, irresistibly recalls to our minds the manner in which we have seen a theatrical clown array himself in the finery of some milliner's basket which had fallen in his way. Then there are the exhibition of the Bambino, and the preaching of the children at the Ara Cœli.

'Nor are these the only friends of the box. 'The whole of one of the side-chapels is deOften in walking the streets one is suddenly voted to this exhibition. In the foreground is a shaken in your ear, and, turning round, you grotto, in which is seated the Virgin Mary with are startled to see a figure entirely clothed in Joseph at her side and the miraculous Bambino white from head to foot, a rope round his waist, in her lap. Immediately behind are an ass and and a white capuccio drawn over his head and an ox. On one side kneel the shepherds and face, and showing, through two round holes, a kings in adoration; and above, God the Father pair of sharp black eyes behind them. He says is seen surrounded by clouds of cherubs and annothing, but shakes his box at you, often threat-gels playing on instruments, as in the early piceningly, and always with an air of mystery. This is a penitent Saccone; and as this confraternità is composed chiefly of noblemen, he may be one of the first princes or cardinals in Rome, performing penance in expiation of his sins; or, for all you can see, it may be one of your intimate friends. The money thus collected goes to various charities. The Sacconi always go in couples,-one taking one side of the street, the other the opposite,-never losing sight of each other, and never speaking. Clothed thus in secrecy, they can test the generosity of any one they meet with complete impunity, and they often amuse themselves with startling foreigners. Many a group of English girls, convoyed by their mother, and staring into some mosaic or cameo shop, is scared into a scream by the sudden gling of the box, and the apparition of the spectre in white, who shakes it.'-i. 55.

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tures of Raphael. In the background is a scenic representation of a pastoral landscape, on which all the skill of the scene-painter is expended. Shepherds guard their flocks far away, reposing under palin trees or standing on green slopes which glow in the sunshine., The distances and prspective are admirable. In the middle ground is a crystal fountain of glass, near which sheep, preternaturally white, and made of real wool and cotton-wool, are feeding, tended by figures of shepherds carved in wood. Still nearer come women bearing great baskets of real oranges and other fruits on their heads. All the nearer figures are full-sized, carved in wood, painted, and dressed in appropriate robes. The miraculous Bambino is a painted doll swaddled in 'a jin-white dress, which is crusted over with magnificent diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. The Virgin also wears in her ears superb diamond pendants.'

These and other classes of beggars make their way up the stairs of lodging-houses, and waylay you as you go out or in. But,' says Mr. Story, the greatest mendicant in Rome is the Government' (i. 59); and then follows a paragraph which, although perfectly true, would of itself be enough to exclude

the book from Rome.

The general effect of this scenic show is admirable, and crowds flock to it and press about it all day long. Mothers and fathers are lifting their little children as high as they can, and until their arms are ready to break; little maids are pushing, whispering, and staring in great delight; contadini are gaping at it with a wate

wonderment of admiration and devotion; and Englishmen are discussing loudly the value of the jewels, and wanting to know, by Jove, whether those in the crown can be real.

While this is taking place on one side of the church, on the other is a very different and quite as singular an exhibition. Around one of the beheld the splendours and crimes of the Cæsars' antique columns of this basilica-wl ich once palace-a staging is erected, from which little maidens are reciting, with every kind of pretty gesticulations, sermons, dialogues, and little

speeches, in explanation of the Presepio oppo- | site. Sometimes two of them are engaged in alternate question and answer about the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Redemption. Sometimes the recitation is a piteous description of the agony of the Saviour and the sufferings of the Madonna,-the greatest stress being, however, always laid upon the latter. All these little speeches have been written for them by their priest or some religious friend, committed to memory, and practised with the appropriate ges tures over and over again at home. Their little piping voices are sometimes guilty of such comic breaks and changes, that the crowd about them rustles into a murmurous laughter. Sometimes, also, one of the very little preachers has a dispetto, pouts, shakes her shoulders, and refuses to go on with her part;-another, however, always stands ready on the platform to supply the vacancy, until friends have coaxed, reasoned, or threatened the little pouter into obedience, These children are often very beautiful and graceful, and their comical little gestures and intonations, their clasping of hands and rolling up of eyes, have a very amusing and interesting effect.'-i. 68-70.

Next follows the Epiphany, with the Befana presents to children, bought in the piazza of St. Eustachio on the eve; and the polyglott exhibition of the Propaganda. The chapel of the college is crowded. At one end rise rows of benches occupied by the students, among whom are represented many varieties of the human race, and each nation contributes a poem suitable to the occasion, while the whole performance is wound up by a scene in which a dozen languages are heard at once. There is naturally a tendency to multiply as much as possible the number of dialects thus, among the pieces last year were one in Lowland Scotch (recited by a youth from Prince Edward's Island), one in Swiss-German, and one in Rhaetian,' which sounded like a mere Italian patois. The poets for the most part endeavoured to connect the Epiphany with the politics of the day; Rome was figured under the names of Jerusalem and Sion, Victor Emmanuel was girded at in the character of Herod, and the most sacred of parallels was bestowed on Pius IX. The greatest sensation was produced by two very black Africans, who followed up the recitation of their verses by ing some specimens of their native music, and convulsed the audience-students, professors, and all-with laughter, while they themselves preserved the most solemn com

posure.

ancient church. At a certain stage in the
service, two white lambs, adorned with rib-
bons, and lying on cushions, with their legs
tied together, are carried up to the altar,
while the faces not only of the congrega
tion, but of the officials who carry them,
and the clergy who receive them, are relaxed
into the broadest smiles; and when, at the
moment of the benediction, one of the poor
little animals utters a ba-a-a, the gravity of
It is certainly
every one is entirely upset.
one of the oddest religious rites to be seen
anywhere in Christendom.

The Carnival was this year a somewhat
dismal time, thanks to political causes.
The leaders of the Roman world held aloof
from it; masks were allowed only in so far
showers of confetti; and, instead of the wild
as necessary to defend the face from the
excitement which used to attend the light-
ing of the moccoli, when every one in the
crowded Corso tried to blow out his neigh-
bour's light, and to defend his own, they were
confined to the balconies of houses. But let
us suppose that, as Mr. Story says in the be-
ginning of his fifth chapter, the gay confu-
sion of the Carnival is over,' or as a learned
German Jesuit expressed the same fact to us

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Die Narrenzeit ist vorüber'-and that Lent has set in. The inexperienced traveller expects a dull time; and, if you cannot live without dancing, which at this season is forbidden by the police, no doubt you will fiud it dull. But in other respects the Roman Lent is really a very lively season-very far different, indeed, from the Lent of a decorous English cathedral town. Evening parties are more plentiful than ever-the only difference from other seasons being that our Roman Catholic friends hold themselves bound, it is said, to confine themselves to water-ice, and to eschew cream. If theatres are closed, concert-rooms are open all the more; and every day there is a 'station' at some church or other which is indicated in the Diario Romano. For many a little church which is perhaps shut up almost all the rest of the year, this Lenten station is the gayest day of the three hundred and sixty-five. The street near it is strewed with sand and boxsing-wood; the unfailing beggars line the approach and take up their position on the steps; carriages are seen before the door, and the pavement within is crowded with kneeling people, among whom the visitor who is led by curiosity rather than by devotion winds in and out in search of what is to be seen. At such times it is that you may best see the round church of St. Stephen, the meatmarket of Imperial Rome, with its hideous pictures of martyrdoms, looking like the early woodcuts in Foxe run mad: St.

Mr. Story, we believe, does not mention this performance, nor does he say much of the benediction of the lambs, which takes place in the basilica of St. Agnes, without the walls, on the 21st of January. On this occasion pontifical mass is performed in the

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Nereus and Achilleus, where the great ecclesiastical annalist Baronius, once its titular cardinal, studied to restore the primitive arrangement of a church, and by an engraved prayer implored his successors to leave it as he had left it; St. Cecilia in the Trastevere, with its rich reliquaries and plate, and the beautiful statue of the saint; St. Pudentiana, the ancient church which gives his title to Cardinal Wiseman; St. Mary of Egypt, formerly the temple of For-climb the heights of Tusculum, picnic, pertuna Virilis, and now belonging to the Armenians of the Roman communion; St. Theodore (popularly called St. Toto), on the site of a temple of Romulus or Vesta; St. George in Velabro, where Rienzi proclaimed the return of the Romans to the ancient good estate; St. Saba, St. Bibiana, St. Balbina, and a multitude of other curious and interesting places, which at other times you might find it hard to enter. True it is that the architecture is disguised for the time by those crimson draperies in which it is the odd custom of Rome to swathe the pillars of churches on festival days. But then you probably come in for some sight peculiar to the day such as the relics of St. Cecilia's, or of St. Mary's in Cosmedin. And often in some quiet little church there are on the stationday very elaborate vespers, which, if you are curious in such things, you may like to hear. Here and there, even in the midst of Lent, are interposed festivals on which the most conscientious Romanist may relax his austerity; such as that of St. Joseph, on the 19th of March-a day celebrated, among other things, by vast preparation and consumption of fritters, which Mr. Story derives from a festival of Bacchus at the same season of the year. And on the 25th of March-the Annunciation-there is the fair of Grotta Ferrata, to which all English Rome pours forth across the wide Campagna. Such a crowd one seldom sees! Country people in all sorts of picturesque varieties of dress-which are the professed object of our visit to the fair; booths with all sorts of things for sale that can enter into the rustic list of wants or luxuries-clothing, male and female-boots, shoes, hats; cutlery, combs, kitchen utensils, so much more scientfic than our own, that English housekeepers of far higher condition than the customers of Grotta Ferrata might well covet them; jewellery not quite equal to Signor Castellani's workmanship, and other articles of personal adornment; hains and huge sausages for store, and for present consumption, enormous roast pigs, stuffed with chesnuts and garlic, baskets on baskets of coloured eggs, and appetising fries of fish and other materials, such as Mr. Story often dwells on with delight (i. 90). With difficulty you

make your way into the conventual church, where, under the penitent Otho III., about the year 1000, the Greek liturgy of St. Basil was established by the Calabrian herinit St. Nilus; you admire the beautifully-preserved frescoes in which Domenichino has represented scenes from the life of the founder; and, after elbowing your way back to your carriage (perhaps with the loss of your purse), you are driven to Frascati, from which you

haps, among the remains of the beautiful little ancient theatre, and return to Rome amidst a multitude of vehicles in the cool of the evening.

As Easter approaches, the ecclesiastical gaieties become more formidable. If any one should suppose the Holy Weck to be a time for solemnly collecting the thoughts by way of preparation for Easter, he will find himself utterly mistaken. From Palm-Sunday onwards there is a continual succession of shows, and even those who in their own persons keep out of them as much as possible find themselves constantly beset by the bustle of their friends around them. 'What is there that I can see this morning? what in the forenoon, what in the afternoon, what in the evening, what at midnight? How many places can I be in at once? What is the hour of everything, and how long must I be. ready before? Such are the questions which are heard on every side. It is to be hoped that for the devout members of the Roman Church the ceremonies of the season serve to their proper purpose; but for those who can look on them only from the outside they are merely a distraction, of which the effect is anything but good. The scenes of crushing and confusion are terrible, and the impression made by ceremonies witnessed under such difficulties must be the very reverse of edifying.

It is a great relief to quiet people when the Easter ceremonies are wound up by the illumination of St. Peter's; and then the crowds which for the last fortnight had filled the hotels, the lodgings, and the streets of Rome begin to disperse very rapidly. In a few weeks there is hardly an Englishman to be seen in the whole place; but it is just then, according to Mr. Story, that the plea santest time of the Roman year begins :

'The month of May is the culmination of the spring and the season of seasons at Rome. No wonder that foreigners who have come when winter sets in, and take wing before April and ask if this is the beautiful Italian clime. shows her sky, sometimes growl at the weather, They have simply selected the rainy season for their visit; and one cannot expect to have sun the whole year through, without intermission.

Where will they find more sun in the same season; where will they find milder and softer air? Even in the middle of winter, days, and sometimes weeks, descend, as it were, from heaven to fill the soul with delight; and a lovely day in Rome is lovelier than under any other sky on We pass on to the chapter on Cafés and earth. But, just when foreigners go away in Theatres.' The untravelled reader would crowds, the weather is settling into the perfec- hardly understand from this how inferior the tion of spring, and then it is that Rome is most Roman cafés are to those of other great cities; charming. The rains are over, the sun is a daily but on the subject of theatres Mr. Story has blessing, all Nature is bursting into leaf and more to say. He knows them all, high and flower, and one may spend days on the Cam-low, from the chief opera-house, the Apollo, pagna without fear of colds and fever. Stay in Rome during May, if you wish to feel its beauty. The best rule for a traveller who desires to enjoy the charms of every clime would be to go to the North in the winter, and to the South in the spring and summer.'-i. 162-3.