resort, and Sunday is their day of 'change. Here they make their petty purchases, transact their small business, make merry together in the osterias, lounge about in the streets and sun themselves, and go to the puppet theatres, where there are at least two performances every day. Men, women, and children, in every variety of costume, crowd the place, some with their rude implements of husbandry, some with the family donkey, on which they will return, "ride and tie," to the Campagna towards night-fall, making very picturesque "flights into Egypt" along the road, and some carrying their whole wardrobe on their head in a great bundle. Most of them are stalwart, broadshouldered, and bronzed with the sun; but here and there may be seen the bleached, saffron face of one who has been stricken down by the fever, and whose smile is pale and ghastly. The men are dressed in home-spun blue cloth, and wear on their legs long white stockings and small-clothes, heavy leathern gaiters strapped up to the knee, or the shaggy skins of white goats. As the cold weather comes on, a huge blue cloak with a cape is flung over the shoulder, and the contadino, firm as an old Roman, stands like a statue for hours in the piazza. The women are dressed in the vivid colours of their ". "paese," with scarlet busti, and snowy panni on their heads, broad-shouldered, full-bosomed, straight-backed, large-waisted, and made to bear and to endure. Their faces beam with health like russet apples glowing in the autumn sun, and the circulation is decidedly good. So, too, is the digestion, if one judges from the appetite with which they eat their raw onions and salads, and bite great curves out of their wedges of black bread.

'At the corner of the piazza, in the open air, with a rickety table before him, on which are a few sheets of paper, and an inkstand, sand, and pens, is the scrivano or letter-writer, who makes contracts and writes and reads their letters for them. He is generally an old man, bearded, and with great round iron-rimmed spectacles on his nose.'ii. 22-3.

6

The Piazza Montanara is close to the Ghetto, into which Mr. Story plunges with delight. Here, unhappily, he thinks it necessary to display his learning; and, although there is no mention of Sir Thomas Browne's chapter on the opinion that Jews stink,' we have an extract to the same purpose from Casalius, in which Mr. Story turns the canonist Balsamon into Balsamum ; calls the Saracens Agerini, instead of Agareni ; and identifies the Council in Trullo' (in the end of the seventh century) with the Council of Sardica (in the middle of the fourth). Nor ca we give the praise of accuracy to his account of the Pierleone family, which came out of Judaism in the eleventh century, and produced an anti-Pope in the twelfth.

In the second volume we grieve to say that compilation bears a far greater proportion to original writing than in the first. There is an account of the aqueducts, which seems to belong to

some

some methodical book of topography, rather than to such a sketch-book as this ought to be. There is a chapter entitled 'Good Old Times,' which is, of course, derived from older books, and abounds in such mistakes as Mr. Story delights in when he meddles with history. There is a chapter on 'Saints and Superstitions,' which is not only in great part a compilation, but, even where it treats of modern things, has more to do with other places than with Rome.* And there is one professedly on The Evil Eye,' which runs out into a discussion of all sorts of fascination and magical influences, while as to the 'Evil Eye' itself it gives us very little information. The account of Births, Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials' is better worth reading, as being in a greater degree drawn from observation.

We have an account of the great cemetery of San Lorenzo,—to our thinking a very unlovely place, although it is no longer disgraced by the abominations which Mr. Story reports from former times. The monuments are generally in wretched taste, both as to design and as to inscriptions; and nothing can be more strongly in contrast with the bare and staring enclosure of San Lorenzo than the deep shadows and the quiet retirement which mark the resting-place of the English and other Acattolici,' beside the pyramid of Caius Cestius. There, too, there are things other than could be wished, especially in the older monuments; † but in

no

*We need hardly say that Mr. Story has no toleration for the common legends as to the miracles of saints. But at page 147, in speaking of the late Princess Borghese (Lady Guendoline Talbot), he says:Of this beautiful and accomplished woman a remarkable and well-accredited story is privately told, which shows that her charities did not end with her life.' And we are required to believe that the Princess, after her burial in St. Mary Major's, appeared, dressed in black, to a poor woman who was praying near the family chapel in that church, asked her why she was weeping, and, on being told the cause, said, 'Be of good comfort; you shall be taken care of; silver and gold have I none, but such as I have I give unto you.' Whereupon she gave her a ring, which Prince Borghese recognized as having been buried with his wife; and the old woman was for the rest of her days pensioned by the Prince!

+ As a specimen of the last-century epitaph, we know of nothing more wonderful than the following, which commemorates a very young ladyof Roman Catholic family in the English College at Rome: Martha Swinburne, born Oct. X. MDCCLXVIII, died Sept. viiij. MDCCLXXVIII. Her years were few, but her life was long and full. She spoke English, French, and Italian, and had made some progress in the Latin tongue; knew the English and Roman Histories, arithmetic, and geography; sang the most difficult music at sight, with one of the finest voices in the world; was a great proficient on the harpsichord; wrote well; danced many sorts of dances with strength and elegance. Her face was beautiful and majestic, her body a perfect model, and all her motions graceful. Her docility and alacrity in doing everything to make her parents happy could only be equalled by her sense and aptitude. With so many perfections, amidst the praises of all persons, from the sovereign down to the beggar in the street, her heart was incapable of vanity. Affectation and arrogance were unknown to her. Her beauty and accomplishments rendered her the admiration of all beholders, the love of all that enjoyed

her

no place of burial that we have ever visited is there so much of beauty, or of touching and soothing influence.

Rome, it is said by those who have known it long, is not improving as a place of sojourn. The influx of English has doubled the price of everything within the last thirty years. A great part of the visitors go to Rome, not for its own sake, but for the sake of what they might find better at Brighton: the English society is broken up into various sets, and is not so free from the spirit of clique, with its foolish little assumptions and jealousies, as in former days. But these are evils which must be endured, even if, as seems probable, they should increase in proportion to the greater facilities of travelling which are now in progress. Notwithstanding all the drawbacks that can be occasioned by the faults either of the natives or of our own countrymen, Rome, with its antiquities and history, its grand natural position, its churches, palaces, galleries and studios, its splendid pomps, and its strange medley of life, so unlike all other life in this nineteenth century, is the most interesting city in the world; and every book which enables us to understand it better deserves a hearty welcome. In how far Mr. Story's volumes fulfil this purpose-in how far, by aiming at too much, they fail of it—we have endeavoured honestly to point out. His opinions are such, and the expression of them is so strong, that 'Roba di Roma' is not likely to find indulgence at the hands of the censors, so as to be procurable in the Roman bookshops. At present it is a good deal too bulky; but if Mr. Story, by sacrificing what is superfluous, will reduce it to one compact volume, it will well deserve a corner in the traveller's coat-pocket, while the rest of his select little library is undergoing the awful ordeal of the customhouse.

her company. Think, then, what the pangs of her wretched parents must be at so cruel a separation. Their only comfort is in the certitude of her being completely happy, beyond the reach of pain, and for ever freed from the miseries of this life. She can never feel the torments they endure for the loss of a beloved child. Blame them not for indulging an innocent pride in transmitting her memory to posterity, as an honour to her family and to her native country, England. Let this plain character, penned by her disconsolate father, claim a tear of pity from every eye that peruses it.'

Vol. 114.-No. 227.

ART.

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ART. IX.-1. Address delivered at the Anniversary Meeting of the Royal Geographical Society of London, 1863. By Sir Roderick I. Murchison, K.C.B., President. London, 1863.

2. Map of the Route explored by Captains Speke and Grant, from Zanzibar to Egypt, showing the Outfall of the Nile from the Victoria Nyanza (Lake) and the various Negro Territories discovered by them. London, 1863.

3. Who discovered the Sources of the Nile? By Charles T. Beke, Ph.D., F.S.A., F.R.G.S., &c. London, 1863.

THE

HE great problem which has perplexed the learned of all ages from the days of Sesostris, and even from an earlier period-for it is referred to in the hieroglyphics of Egypt;which the earliest of historians and the most learned of geographers vainly strove to fathom; which Alexander the Great was never weary of discussing; which tempted Julius Cæsar to spend nights and days with the Egyptian priests, striving to acquire from them the information which they did not possess; which Napoleon left unsolved, notwithstanding his passion for scientific as for military conquests; and which in modern days baffled the enterprise of Mohammed Ali ;-this perplexing mystery, which has maintained its interest unimpaired almost from the commencement of civilisation in the East, has at length been dispelled by two British officers, who have acquired for themselves a world-wide celebrity, reflecting at the same time honour on their country, and giving one of its prominent features to the age in which they live.

In a former article on African Discovery,* we remarked that the region yet unexplored, in which the true sources of the Nile must lie, had become so circumscribed that there was every reason to expect a speedy solution of the problem. The furthest point which had then been reached on the White Nile, by ascending its course, was about 34° N. lat., by Signor Miani, a Venetian, who had resided for some time in Egypt, and who believed that he had reached 2° N. lat., where he cut his name upon a tree; but Captain Speke, on passing this tree in his homeward journey, found it by observation to be 33° N. lat., and therefore about 200 miles from the head waters of the Nile. Captains Burton and Speke, in 1859, worked their way to the north by laborious journeys from Zanzibar, and fell in with the lake Tanganyika. The Nyanza was seen and partially explored only by Captain Speke, who, with remarkable sagacity, immediately arrived at

'Quarterly Review,' No. 218, p. 496.

the

the conclusion that in it would be found the source of the Nile. That opinion, unfortunately, was not shared by the chief of the expedition and companion of his labours, who had been prevented by illness from accompanying Captain Speke to the Nyanza; and the enterprise, which had hitherto been attended with remarkable success, terminated at a point of high geographical interest, and at a time when a little farther perseverance would undoubtedly have led to the great discovery of the age, and have conferred on the united names of Burton and Speke, the renown which will now attach to those of Speke and Grant.

Rarely has the scientific world been more aroused than by the brief telegram, the Nile settled,' which Sir Roderick Murchison received from Cairo; and the excitement was increased, rather than allayed, as the details transpired from time to time, and the conjecture was converted into certainty that the great river to which Egypt owes its place in history and its civilisation, had been at length proved to have its source in a vast lake more than two degrees south of the Equator, the southern shore of which had only once before been trodden by the foot of an European. Before, however, we notice the particular incidents relating to this great discovery, it may be useful to refer briefly to what had been done both in former and in modern times to solve the great enigma.

But why should the Nile have especially attracted the attention of geographers, and have excited the increasing curiosity of the world? Other grand rivers have failed to interest mankind in anything like the same degree; and when their sources have been discovered, they have caused no emotion beyond that of a passing interest and a calm appreciation of a new fact added to the domain of geographical knowledge. The Nile alone has excited wonder bordering on astonishment, and inspired an interest verging on enthusiasm. It is the one cause of the fertility and former greatness of a country the civilisation of which is of a mysterious antiquity, and intimately associated with the sacred history of our race. Its source was an object of great curiosity in Egypt from the remotest periods. It was a frequent subject of discussion among the learned of all nations, and occasionally considered worthy of attention by the government of Egypt itself. Psammitichus I. organised an expedition for exploring the country in which the river was supposed to have its origin, but it did not penetrate very far into the interior; and in the absence of authentic data for determining the difficult geographical

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