into dusty, gravel-strewn open places, and dark,
louring houses—save, indeed, up by that quarter
called Spanish, where the English pale is, and
where there is an artificial gaiety, and scenic
houses get up spurious smiles for the sake of
that wealthy community. So I wind on and on,
coming back often to the same spot in sore
disappointment, through lane, and alley, and many
crooked paths, now again bursting on some
strange surprise, some startling effect in that
tawny yellow stone. Here, turning this corner
sharply, I come upon a whole palace—
front fasmoned into a monster fountain, with
the water tumbling boisterously from about
the attic-window, and riotously cascading over
huge cliffs, green with slime, and gigantic river
gods, sitting on the cliffs in a foaming seething
basin below. Far-famed Trèves fount, concerning
which the pretty tradition runs that if you
drink of its waters you are certain to return to
the city. A little more blind wandering, and
we plunge upon a small funereal arcade, its
stones black as ink, and in shape affecting to
be a sort of dwindled Coliseum. Most mournful
and most mysterious, the street narrowing
specially here, and the sky darkening. Old
decayed houses abut on it, and seem crusted
to it; and looking through a grated vault
entrance, which serves as archway, I catch a
glimpse of a dark, dismal court and gloomy
arcades, all breathing an inexpressible loneliness
and desertion. Then I wind on still further,
getting clearly in the Liberties, or Seven Dials
of the city, where the population thickens and
the general squalor deepens, and, curious to say,
business seems riper. For the ground floorstories
of all houses seem here gutted through and
through for traffic and workshop, and men sit
there and turn the thrumming lathes and ply the
clattering loom. Prying closely into their
grimed, blackened fronts, mouldering like gaunt
old tombstones, the details of an old palace come
out richly under my eyes;—defaced scutcheons,
quaint legends, and corbels eaten away.

Kindred trades herd together here by a
mysterious law, and the walls are studded high up,
even to the second floor, with ranges of Guy
Fawkes hats in symmetrical files, with points
foremost. It is whispered that the Masseronis
of the hills come down and purchase this
portion of their picturesque gear in this locality.
Boots! yes, an army of bootmakers sitting like
Leprechauns at their own door, tapping,
hammering musically for the bare life—nowhere will
you purchase shoes to match these. Drinking
shops are very thickly sown in this quarter.
A frightful drink compounded of turpentine and
spirits and such fierce stimulants, is retailed at
a farthing a glass. Eating-houses, too, where rich
fritters are eternally simmering, and a light wholesome
supper of an artichoke exquisitely dressed,
with a bit of bread and succulent sauce, may be
served to the temperate artisan for one halfpenny.

Mysterious temples, labelled "Spacio dei
Tabacchi è Sale," where salt and tobacco are vended
together in a comic companionship, turn up very
frequently also. And to the little workshops for
those delicate miscellanies of tender pinks and
soft blues and yellows, yclept Roman scarfs,
must reference have been pointed in the legend
addressed to English eyes, "Laboratory of
Roman Scarfs." A wild, bandit-looking population,
with fierce eyes and black, half-shaven lips, bent
over their work in the darkened corners of their
shops. They glower at you (perhaps unconsciously)
as you go by; so you think that, when
night falls and there is only the one dim, dingy
light swinging at the street-corner before the
Madonna's image, you will not be found in that
quarter.

Through a freer and healthier thoroughfare, out
upon the spacious open Piazza Navona, where, if
it be Wednesday, there is the quaintest, busiest
market that can be conceived. Motley is truly
the only wear here. Walk round all those little
tables spread under the open air, and admire
the comic jumbling of the wares. Your choice,
signor, from regiments of old vellum-bound
books, at five baiocchi—twopence halfpenny—
indiscriminately. Pockets not so well lined may
be suited from a loose miscellany marked at one
baioccho. With so much quartz, gold is often
found. Treasures turn up periodically; and
jealous bookworms try to steal marches on each
other, coming with the dawn to have the earliest
choice, and glare at each other with hostility
from contiguous stands. Not alone books, but
choice prints, coloured drawings, and sketches
by famous men of the brush, with select tables
for precious stones, and bits of marble and intaglios,
and bits of statues and antiques in general;
in short, a rude sort of art bazaar. Then, for a
change, you may turn to the hardware department,
and select anything—from rusty nails and
bolts, ranged symmetrically, to an anchor (Heaven
knows how it got there). You can recreate
yourself with choice fruits and vegetables, and
every edible; choice being only too distracting.
By the curious market code that prevails, you
may have the wing of a chicken or the leg of a
hare cut off and sent home, or, indeed, any
special limb you may fancy. Here you see ranks
of suspicious little birds, which I fear me much
are innocent robins, sparrows, and such fry, our
sportsman not discriminating too exactly as to
tne quality of his game; and here I see a
villainous-looking savage busy plucking the feathers
from a live fowl, who is struggling and flapping
between his legs.

A fragrance scarcely aromatic attends me in
all this progress. Our Holy City is, in truth,
a savoury capital. It has a special bouquet of
its own, which awaits you in fine perfection at
the corner of a grand palazzo, where a little stable
lane is setting in. As the Dutch capital is
individualised in its own particular effluvium, which
makes the heart sick unto death, so here is found
a delicate stench, from which the voyager flies,
his cloak streaming behind him. But, when
toiling up the weary stair of the Vatican, and just
hovering with a mysterious awe at the threshold
of those fairy-like corridors—where the gentle
girl-faced Raphael, of the flowing hair and velvet
cap, luxuriated in arabesques, and poured his