soul over the walls in the divinest fancies—
when you are thinking of the bold pontiff Julius
looking over his shoulder, and of the other
noble figures that crowd so thickly into that Art
age; when you are being overpowered with
these reverent fancies, an unclean zephyr comes
brushing rudely by you, so salient, so fearfully
appreciable, that the gossamer webs of your art
fancies are burst through cruelly, and, holding
desperately by the reality of a handkerchief, you
see nothing beyond a bare cold stair, with yellow
walls, and enter sourly into what your chilled
fancy holds to be no better than glazed reformatory
galleries, painted indeed, but all chipped and
peeled, with the colours sadly washed out and rubbed,
as if by careless elbows. That the Aladdin's
palace is thus changed must be laid to the account
of the reeking zephyrs aforesaid. To what
degradation does this overlooking of vulgar sanitary
laws bring down the most sacred things!

Dispiriting truly are those blank monster
piles—palazzi dead or sleeping—which you
come upon in narrow lanes. Great melancholy
blocks; grim palatial Newgates with mailed
windows and fierce lowering eaves, that seem
like frowning eyebrows, they rise smoked and
blackened with an awful solitary majesty.
They are utterly inappreciable in height and
dimensions, for you have but a few feet to step
back; being cramped into a mean, narrow street.
They look down on us, forlorn dismal riddles—
reduced edifices that have seen better days.

Now, through more unsavoury streets, where
shattered diligences lie up in ordinary along the
footway, and vetturino bravoes burst from
ambush and strive with contention as to who shall
take you down to Naples. Now past a long
yellow building, much defaced, as if giants'
children had been drawing their chubby fingers
down its walls, and very green at the bases, as if
seaweed had been washed up there; which,
with a sort of rakish look about the little dark
side door, together with a gaseous fragrance
therefrom issuing, lets me into the secret that
this must be a theatre. It proves to be the
one dedicated to Apollo—the Roman Opera.
These Temples are truly of the one family all
the world over; and have a certain unmistakable
dissipated aspect. So do I find out its
sister, called La Valleé, a flaunting painted
lady: frowned down severely from over the way
by austere St. Andrea de la Vallée.

Gare! gare! and there comes on behind—
toiling and straining through the narrow street,
beating up those straits with difficulty—a heavy
berline, with Flemish drays, stepping in a solemn
trot. Passers-by stand close as it reels on;
and thus bestowed, I wonder whose can be this
old sheriff's coach of a flaming fire-engine tint,
very red, and very much down behind: why are
hearse horses, in brass-studded harness, and
crimson bosses on their foreheads, attached to
the berline, and why are three mutes in cocked-hats,
and shabby blue cloaks down to their feet,
hanging on behind?

Ah, there is a glimpse of a snow-sprinkled
head, very reverend and venerable, with a flash
of purple, and I know that here is a cardinal
ind his equipage. The ancient vehicle quivers
on its gilded springs as it goes by, and a soldier
on guard, presenting arms, the glass descends
softly half way—quaint fashion of acknowledging
a salute. Captains-general of religious
orders, whom I meet at times trudging it afoot
—for the most part stalwart, powerful figures,
of splendid proportions, towering over their
attendant chaplains—when they go up to court,
fetch out of their convent yards strange and
undignified job chariots of uncertain age, and
hung preternaturally high. This Dominican,
or Barnabite, or Carmelite progress may be
known miles off by a jingle, as if an armourer's
shop were in full work inside.

Here, just at St. Angelo's Bridge, where the
company of smoked statues keep everlasting
watch, is something classical and pastoral;
sixteen dusty, slate-coloured buffaloes drawing
home a monster granite pillar—fragment of
an ancient temple—far outside the city. Some
have dropped with fatigue, and distil foam
upon the crowd, while Rosa Bonheur's herdsmen,
armed with the long sharp goad, stand
round and discuss the difficulty. A little
further down, about the wine-shop door,
are more countrymen, perhaps of the same
party, burnished and sunburnt to a brick colour,
clad in the favourite deep indigo jackets and
breeches, garnished plentifully with silver buttons.
Some wear, in lieu of boots, a thick leathern
casing crossed with straps, such as posting-riders
use for protection against the pole; and beside
them are positive satyrs, in long-haired goatskin
trousers. Some have the strangest likeness
to Irish reaping-men who cross the sea to gather
in the harvest. I have seen such men driving
little kine for Kerries. One of them desires to
purchase bread, and has stopped a man carrying
loaves in the shape of rings strung upon a
long pole.

And to you, kind sir, or gentler lady, let
me put this question respectfully: Is this
the pet picture of Rome you have had by
you, all these years back, drawn from Doctor
Goldsmith's Abridgment, and the amiable
Doctor Adam's Antiquities? No more than
this mingle-mangle of dirty lanes, solemn,
sorrow-stricken gaols, a muddy river "rolling
rapidly," heavy yellow churches, blue-coated
countrymen, flaming cardinals' coaches? No:
I will answer for you that the pet picture
which hangs in your mind-boudoir, and which you
feast yourself with the fancy of beholding one
day in the reality, is a gathering of broad streets,
heavy houses, built with an iron-grey stone much
overlaid with moss; of dark temples and porticos,
picturesquely ruined, rising at street corners;
of broken shafts and capitals strewn here and
there, lying across the road, with peasants
using them for seats; of curious trenching and
rough earthworks; lines of old Roman circumvallation,
together with bright garish dresses,
cheerful blue and scarlet, moving among the old
grey stones, as displayed on the delicate drop-scenes
at our Royal Operas. Such do we roughly