him. The Ignorante speaks the common Roman dialect, and from this cause, and the rapidity of his utterance, is rather hard for a foreigner to understand; but the cleverness with which his talk is suited to the hearers is sufficiently evidenced by the bursts of laughter which he continually calls forth. On the first occa sion when we were present at the Dialogue,' the Dotto was an old man, with a very loud voice, and of very decided opinions. The Ignorante began,- Last week, father, you told me that, in order to salvation, we must hold the Catholic faith. If we do this, I suppose we need not trouble ourselves about anything further. Far from it,' replies the Dotto; you must also observe the Christian law; you must love all men, live honestly, give alms, &c.' 'But,' objects the Ignorante, 'people who are not Catholics do these things.' You don't understand the matter,' rejoins the Learned Man; the almsgiving of a Protestant is no true charity. A Protestant gives alms to a person because she is pretty, or for some other such reason. The charity of Protestants is like the charity of brute beasts towards their kind; it comes from no true motive, and can tend to no good end.' After going on for some time in this strain, the old gentleman turned in a very marked way towards the only two Englishmen who were in the church-conspicuous, probably, by their better dress, as it was in a poor neighbourhood, and on a wet afternoon in January-and broke out into a violent tirade against Protestantism in general, which he charged with insidiously attempting to sap the faith of true believers; and he denounced the most dreadful doom against all Protestants-greatly to the amusement of some little boys and girls, who turned round and laughed in the faces of the persons denounced. On another day the same old gentleman was found raving against excommunicates, and hinting that everybody in the kingdom of Italy was or ought to be excommunicate. On a third occasion, when the audience was generally of a higher class, the Ignorante was the same as before, but the violent old gentleman's place was taken by a younger and very acute-looking Dotto, who met the Ignorante's humour in his own style. The Dialogue was always listened to with great attention, and must probably be found very useful as an instrument of popular instruction. But we need not say that such performances would be utterly out of keeping with the decorum which the Church of England wisely preserves in dealing with holy things.

From modern theatres Mr. Story passes to the Colosseum. His description of it in its present state is well done; but this chapter is the first considerable specimen of the sort of matter which we have already objected to as out of place, and which, unhappily,

unhappily, fills a very large part of the rest of the work. In such a book as 'Roba di Roma' professes to be, we do not expect to meet with a solemn history of the Colosseum-of its building and of its decay (for the best account of which we may refer to Lord Broughton's Illustrations of Childe Harold,' or to his later work on Italy) ;* we do not expect to meet with details about the gladiators and their fights, about combats with wild beasts, mirmilli, retiarii, and all the rest of it.

The next chapter, the account of Pasquin and Pasquinades, contains little beyond what is familiar to the readers of Murray ; † but the description of puppet-shows is in Mr. Story's better style, and we wish that we could find room for some part of it.

We are now supposed to have reached summer, when all who can afford it go into the country. Of country life at this season Mr. Story gives us very pleasant sketches:-

The villeggiatura in Rome differs much from the country life in England. It is not the habit here to keep open house or to receive friends within one's household on long visits. The family generally lives by itself, in the most retired manner. There is, however, no lack of society, which is cordial and informal in its character. If the villa belong to a princely house, or be the principal palazzo in a small town, there is generally a reunion of the chief personages of the village every evening in its salons--the bishop, physician, curate, sindaco and avvocato meeting there nightly to discuss the affairs of the place and the prospects of the harvest, or to play cards. If there be several families in contiguous houses, the intercourse between them is constant. Visits are made to and fro, little excursions and picnics are formed, and now and then there are rustic dances, to which the contadini are invited, when the princes and peasants dance together and enjoy themselves in a naïve and familiar way. Several of these I remember with much pleasure that took place during a delightful villeggiatura I once made in Castel Gandolfo. On these occasions the brick floor of the great hall was well watered and cleanly swept, and the prettiest girls among the neighbouring contadini came with their lovers, all arrayed in the beautiful Albanese costume, and glittering with golden necklaces and earrings. A barrel of wine was set in one corner of the hall, and a large tray, covered with giambelle and glasses, stood beside it, where any one who wished helped himself. principal families in the vicinity were also present, some in Albanese dress, and all distinctions of position and wealth and title were set aside. The village band made excellent music, and we danced toge

The

* Italy: Remarks made on several Visits. London, 1861. Mr. Story's learning on the subject seems to be chiefly taken from Lord Broughton.

The latest production of the Pasquinesque kind with which we are acquainted is the following, by a well-known Queen's Counsel :

'A Gallis Romam servaverat anser; ab ipsis

Romanis Romam Gallica servat avis.'

ther

ther polkas, waltzes, quadrilles, and the Roman saltarello. These dances took place in the afternoon, commencing at about five o'clock and ending at nine, when we all broke up.'-i. 291-2.

Again :

The grilli now begin to trill in the grass, and the hedges are alive with fire-flies. From the ilex groves and the gardens nightingales sing until the middle of July; and all summer long glow-worms show their green emerald splendour on the grey walls, and from under the roadside vines. In the distance you hear the laugh of girls, the song of wandering promenaders, and the burr of distant tambourines, where they are dancing the saltarello. The civetta hoots from the old tombs, the barbigiano answers from the crumbling ruins, and the plaintive, monotonous ciou owls call to each other across the vales. The moonlight lies in great still sheets of splendour in the piazza, and the shadows of the houses are cut sharply out in it, like blocks of black marble. The polished leaves of the laurel twinkle in its beams and rustle as the wind sifts through them. Above, the sky is soft and tender: great, near, palpitant stars flash on you their changeful splendour of emerald, topaz, and ruby. The Milky Way streams like a delicate torn veil over the heavens. The villa fronts whiten in the moonlight among the grey smoke-like olives that crowd the slopes. Vines wave from the old towers and walls, and from their shadow comes a song to the accompaniment of a guitar: it is a tenor voice, singing "Non ti scordar, non ti scordar di me."—i. 297.

Harvest follows (i. 299), and after harvest the vintage:

'In we go among the vines. There are scores of picturesque peasants plucking grapes, with laughter and jest, and heaping them into deep baskets, till their purple bunches loll over the edge moist with juice. Some are mounted on ladders to reach the highest-some on foot below gathering the lowest-and the heavy luscious buckets, as soon as they are filled, are borne off on the head to a great basket wain, into which they are all tumbled together. The very oxen themselves seem to enjoy it, as they stand there among the vines decorated with ribbons, and waiting to bear home their sunny freight of grapes. The dogs bark, the girls laugh and slip out of the arm of the swains, who threaten them with a kiss. Stalwart creatures they are too, and able enough to guard themselves; and the smack of their hand on his cheek or back I willingly yield to him, though he takes the practical reproof with a good-natured laugh, and is ready to try his luck again when a chance offers.

'When the grapes are all gathered they are heaped into great stone vats, and, crowned with vine leaves, the peasants, bare-legged to their thighs, leap into them, and with joke and song tread down the grapes, whose rich juice runs out below into a great butt. As they crush them down new heaps are emptied in, and it is no small exercise to keep them under. The juice spurts over them and stains them crimson—the perspiration streams from their forehead-they pant

with excitement, and as they brush away their wet hair they streak their faces with purple. When one is wearied out by this fatiguing work another takes his place, and so the dance goes on until the best of the juice is expressed. The skins are then subjected to the wooden press, which gives a second and ordinary quality of wine, and water is frequently poured over them as they dry.'-i. 303-4.

The grapes, says Mr. Story, are delicious; but although the vines are well cultivated, the wine is spoilt through want of care in the making. No pains are taken in the selection and distribution of the grapes, so as to obtain different qualities of wine; but good and bad, stems and all, are cast pell-mell into one great vat, and the result of course is a wine far inferior to that which may be produced' (i. 306). Let us hope that in this, as in many other ways, we shall soon see a reform by which Italy may do justice to herself.

6

The Campagna is described by Mr. Story with great enthusiasm. 'To me,' he says, 'it seems the most beautiful and the most touching in its interest of all the places I have ever seen; but there are those who look with different eyes.' Not only did a Frenchman of Mr. Story's acquaintance style it 'un pays détestable,' but we also-we English and Americans-but too often call the Campagna by bad names, and speak of it as desolate and deserted, if not ugly' (i. 325). Mr. Merivale, for instance (whose great work seems to be unknown to our author), calls it the most awful image of death in the bosom of life anywhere to be witnessed.'* If this phrase relates to the frequent appearance of ruins in the Campagna, or to the scantiness of its population, or to the malaria which renders it unwholesome for residence, we can only say that the language is a little too solemn. But if Mr. Merivale means to convey the idea that the Campagna has a stricken look, we are quite unable to agree with him. Perhaps Mr. Merivale's impressions may have been received in winter, when the Campagna, like everything else, is at its worst. But in spring its appearance is remarkably cheerful. Far from being an uniform flat-as it appears to the eye looking across it from a height to the grand background of the Sabine and the Alban mountains-it is full of undulations, and has its quiet green valleys, each animated by its little stream, with overhanging willows and alders, which might be in some pastoral district of England or of Scotland. Much of it is already cultivated, and cultivation is spreading, although the system on which the land is let is unfavourable to the progress of agriculture, and in everything relating to implements, and the like, the Campagna

* Hist. of the Romans under the Empire,' iv. 479.

farmers

farmers of the present day are considerably behind those of the reign of Augustus (i, 325-333).

The ruins of the Campagna lead Mr. Story to discuss the population of Rome in the Imperial days (i. 343); and this discussion is more fully carried out in an appendix to the second volume. How little Mr. Story is fitted for treating such questions may appear from the fact that he represents Tacitus as estimating the inhabitants of the city at no less than six millions' (i. 343); whereas the historian's statement really relates to the number of citizens in the whole empire, as ascertained at the census taken by Claudius. It is not for us to enter into such a controversy; but as Mr. Story advocates the old orthodox calculation of four millions, we should have been glad to see how he would dispose of Mr. Merivale's arguments, by which the population of Rome, including the suburbs, and making the most liberal allowance for soldiers and strangers,' is reckoned at 'something less than seven hundred thousand.'†

The markets of Rome are the next subject. We have an account of the markets for provisions, for curiosities, and for all other sorts of things. There is an amusing dialogue showing how, if an ignorant John Bull will buy pictures, of which he knows nothing, through the medium of a courier whom he is obliged to use as interpreter, the courier may make a good thing of it by cheating both his master and the vendor who cheats his master (ii. 14-5). But more alarming even than this are some of the details as to what the Romans will eat. Among other things, cat is esteemed as a delicacy; so that those of our countrymen who depend on a traiteur for their dinner, may do well to be cautious as to eating 'hare,' which generally appears without the distinguishing head and ears! Here is a picture of the Sunday labour-market in the Piazza Montanara; and let us observe in passing that there is a wonderful contrast between the Sunday of the English quarter and the Sunday of the more purely Roman parts of the city :

Every Sunday you will find it thronged with peasants from all the mountain towns in the vicinity, who come down from their homes to labour on the Campagna. As they are generally hired by the week, they return to the city every Sunday to renew their old engagements or enter into new ones. This piazza is one of their chief places of

*Censa sunt civium quinquaginta novem centena octaginta quatuor millia septuaginta duo' (Annal. xi. 25). In his Appendix Mr. Story shows something more like a right understanding of the matter (p. 348).

Hist. Rom., iv. 521. We may remind our readers that Gibbon estimates the population of Rome at 1,200,000 (iii. 119, ed. 1846), and that his editor, Dean Milman, prefers this estimate both to that of Dureau de la Malle, which is even lower than Mr. Merivale's, and to that of Zumpt-two millions.

resort,