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to the needs of a modern city, one must still in fairness return to the old conclusion that there is no nation in Europe, and no municipality within any nation, which, judging by their results in far less difficult undertakings, would have made fewer mistakes than have been made in carrying out a task which has had no parallel in the previous record of cities. Something has been lost undoubtedly; at given points more has been lost perhaps than need have been; but preservation, not annihilation, has been on the whole the keynote of the transformation. The cry which goes up from other countries, but especially from England, from time to time, that Italy is indifferent to and negligent of her art and her antiquities, is curiously unjust to a nation which, out of a not overflowing exchequer, spends very large sums upon these objects, and occasionally spends a portion of it badly. It is perhaps in one sense fortunate for us that Italians do not travel in large numbers in our country. An educated Italian who wandered through England and noticed how the restorations of the last fifty years have robbed us of some two-thirds of our noblest memorials as effectively as if they had been swept into the rivers, might be inclined to ask on what superiority in these matters we in England rest our claim to tell Italy how a nation ought to deal with her national birthright.

Having said this, I shall not be misunderstood when I express regret for the loss, the inevitable loss, of so much that gave to Rome its peculiar charm, its flavour-I fear the word may be used in more senses than one-in the days when, forty years ago, she was still looking back in many respects to the Renaissance rather than forward to the twentieth century. It was then still the Rome of Nathaniel Hawthorne, of Charles Dickens, of William Story. Mark Twain's jest that you could not fall out of a two-pair window in Rome without killing a monk or a soldier had some point in it then, for the streets still swarmed with the various orders. They were a typical feature, naturally, of Rome. Numerous in the city ever since the days of St. Francis and St. Dominic, they were perhaps never more numerous than in the years which immediately preceded the fall of Rome. In the mornings the lay brothers went forth armed with their large copper vessels of hat-box shape to gather in the gifts of the faithful or the charitable. Naturally the rich strangers' quarter about the Piazza di Spagna was a favourite hunting-ground for them, though the poorest quarters were not omitted. A very familiar figure to those who lived in Rome at

that time was a magnificent dark-bearded Capucino, whose beat in the early mornings lay along the Babuino. The brown-cowled, stately figure drew many an admiring stare from the passing forestieri, a compliment which he never failed to acknowledge by crossing himself, either as a protection against the inroads of vanity or, more probably, as a safeguard against the evil eye. I often wonder what his fate was at the suppression of the monasteries, whether he was one of those who went forth into the world again, or whether he had already found a quiet rest in the city of his soul before the evil day came. One may be allowed to hope that the latter was his fate. To-day these picturesque figures are as rare in Rome as in any other town of Italy. They may be seen, silent kneeling figures, in the church of Araceli, most Roman of all Roman churches, but the streets and public places of Rome know them no more save as occasional visitors.

The markets of Rome, in old days almost the most interesting of Europe, have fallen into line with the less picturesque but more regulated markets of the great capitals. The great cattlemarket just outside the Porta del Popolo, a position which it shared with the extemporised Anglican Church-for no Protestant place of worship was allowed within the walls-has migrated to a corner of Rome not far from the old Protestant cemetery, but nearer to the Tiber. The wild Campagna horsemen, with their goatskin aprons and long ox-goads, no longer form a feature of the Piazza del Popolo, nor do the unseemly vehicles piled high with the quaking carcases of pigs and oxen any longer rumble down the Ripetta or the Babuino. Gone, too, is the people's market in the Piazza Navona, where everything that flew or ran or crawled, from turkeys and pheasants to porcupines and hedgehogs, squirrels and tortoises, and even green snakes, could be purchased by the frugal housewife in search of variety. It was a favourite resort, too, of the coin-hunter and bibliophile, for here the simple-minded dealer set forth his 'Roba di Campagna,' and here the equally simpleminded buyer bought his bargains or his experience. For though the peasant did no doubt often deliver here the coins which he had ploughed up from the soil of the Campagna, the antiquity dealer likewise used it for the output of his industries. The stalls have migrated now to the Campo dei Fiori, at no great distance. But the forger of to-day is either less skilful or more unblushing-perhaps both.

But even more interesting was the market, hardly reckoned as such, in the Piazza Montanara, under the Theatre of Marcellus,

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where every Sunday morning from time immemorial the weekly hiring of labourers had taken place, and on a smaller scale does so still. But those were the days of Italy's analfabetismo,' when few of the field labourers could be trusted to write his own name and none his own love-letter. And the letter-writing scribe did a roaring trade at a little table on the corner of the piazza, while an open-air barber or two shaved their victims with a celerity which savoured of sleight of hand. The skill of these practitioners was equal to any emergency which could arise in their craft, but at times the hollow cadaverous cheeks of the victims of malaria, chiefly from Ostia and its neighbourhood, tried their resources very highly. But even this difficulty had vanished before the discovery that a walnut inserted in the cheek restored the general level of the countenance. There was no more entertaining spot in Rome in the morning hours; but before midday the blue-coated conicalhatted throng had melted away. There were few after that hour left sitting idle in the market because no man had hired them, and as the various groups, with their sacks flung over one shoulder and a long staff filled with ringloaves on the other, had tramped forth to fresh fields and pastures new, one could realise that the raw material of Italy is as fine as that of any country in the world.

But nowhere has a cleaner sweep been made of houses, men, and manners than in the Ghetto. Of this nest of dirt and unsavouriness, of apparent poverty which often concealed wealth, of squalor inconceivable, of picturesqueness unforgettable, the Government have now made an almost entire clearance. The fish market within the portico of Octavia-to the artist's eye Rome had hardly such a subject as that went years ago. Gradually the rookeries which lay around have followed, and to-day there is very little to tell that this was once the place where the Jews of Rome, herded together like swine, insulted, hated, robbed, and even locked in at night into their ill-savoured prison, multiplied and grew rich through many a century. The church of S. Angelo in Pescheria, in which in former days the elders were compelled once a year to listen to a sermon preached against their own faith, still remains, but the whole of the quarter which lay between that church and the river has disappeared. In severe floods there was no part of Rome which suffered so much as the Ghetto. In the flood of 1869 I saw the sight, which has been so often described, of the inhabitants shifting their goods in boats in the Via della Pescheria, into the upper storeys of the houses. Men said that these same upper storeys concealed treasures of bric-à-brac known

only to those daring connoisseurs who had penetrated thither ready in more senses than one to pay through the nose.' I know not. I knew it only through its ground-floor squalors, which were open to the eye of every passer-by. In the cavern-like recesses sat old and wolf-eyed hags amid piles of sour clothing and cheap second-hand furniture. They are scattered now fairly evenly through the various quarters of Rome, save that a good many still hang fondly about their ancient home.

But not in the Ghetto alone, though there chiefly, were sanitary methods conspicuous by their absence. There were side streets leading even out of the best thoroughfares, where walking was well-nigh impossible; one such in the Piazza Trajana especially comes to my mind. The primitive method of casting all domestic refuse into the open street had come down with many allied habits from very ancient days. Even to-day they are by no means extinct in Rome, but they have retired from the more fashionable thoroughfares. In those days they gave occupation, or at any rate an interest, to an army of effete and very incapable dustmen who with heart-shaped shovels and Noah's Ark hand-carts, and wearing the inspiring inscription 'S.P.Q.R.' upon their red hat-bands, followed the contemplative rather than the active life, and longed for the day when they should be promoted to be licensed beggars, and rich beyond the dreams of avarice. The life of the Roman dustman of to-day has been made more strenuous for him, and it is only fair to say that Rome is now a clean town, as well looked after as most capitals of Europe. I do not know of one in which life can be more comfortable. It is of course easy to cry that 'Rome is spoilt' every time that we find that something has disappeared from the Rome which we knew when we were young, and before it had once more renewed its everlasting youth. Rome will take a great deal of spoiling. It is safe to prophesy that a thousand years hence it will still be the most interesting city in the world, no matter what changes may have come to it in that time. It has indeed already a very long start-a city of continuous and vital historical interest from its birthday till to-day, and not likely to play a less interesting part in the history that lies ahead than any other capital in the modern world. The Romans do well when they show that they cherish every stone that can remind them of their ancient greatness; they do equally well to fit their city to take its part in the greatness that yet awaits it in the days to come. GERALD S. DAVIES.

MILITARY SMALL BEER.

I've had my share of pastime, and I've done my share of toil,
And life is short-the longest life a span;

I care not now to tarry for the corn or for the oil,

Or the wine that maketh glad the heart of man.

For good undone and gifts misspent and resolutions vain,

"Tis somewhat late to trouble. This I know

I should live the same life over, if I had to live again.

THREE of the Field Marshals who are now most deservedly at the head of the British Army have written their reminiscences, telling of the great events in which they have played a distinguished part and of the many adventures which they have met and individuals whom they have encountered in their several careers. It may be permitted therefore to an old soldier of a humbler rank to occupy a few pages of the CORNHILL in chronicling the small beer of his military life.

'The old order changeth, yielding place to new,' and the incidents of a long bygone time, however little important in themselves, may give some amusement to old fellows like the writer, and possibly even to the present generation, who are fortunate in knowing that the vast possibilities of the future are all their own.

Before going any further, I must here acknowledge a very useful leg-up' which was indirectly given to me by the CORNHILL on my entrance into the Service. Even in 1860 a lengthy examination had to be passed before a commission could be purchased, and every day for a week I was seated at Burlington House, grappling with Latin, history, mathematics, fortification, arithmetic, French, and other subjects in which qualifying marks could be gained. I never had any doubt of passing the examination, but I wanted to pass extra well, for certain advantages were thereby to be secured. My French was not my strongest point, and I thought it worth while to rub it up with a tutor before presenting myself for the ordeal. Naturally, the first thing the tutor did was to tell me to translate some English into French, and he produced a book of exercises, one of which he wanted me to tackle. Fresh from college, I loathed conventional text-books, and suggested that I would rather translate a page from the Four Georges,' a notable

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