have been having a pleasant day of it, and have
been gasping through the famous Roman sights
within a limited period. They have been adapting
the notorious pedestrian feat, and have
walked their thousand sights in a thousand consecutive
seconds. Their hired showman sits on
the box, and is still doing his office—pointing;
while his victims have their necks craned back,
and with a dull and stony stare, gaze on the details
of what seem to be only the cornices and
house-tops. Poor souls! their day's work is
nearly at an end; and, gorged with huge undigested
lumps of statues, painting, churches, and
general antiquity, are returning very full and
uncomfortable. Only conceive of this miserable
peine forte et dure! Fancy their being driven
through the happy fields of Elysium with an
avenging fury, or hired showman, scourging
them on from behind. That drooping gladiator,
the noblest figure in the world, lies there all
brown and dusty, piteously and silently invoking
an irresistible sympathy; but the fury
behind will only allow one second to the gladiator,
and hoarsely whispers, "Move on!"
Antinous, one second; Apollo, a glance; Laocoon,
no more than a wink; Coliseum, a bow.
What a horrible Tantalus feast for a true
child of Art! enough to tease and goad him to
lunacy.

The three answers made by a pontiff of a
sprightly turn of mind to the three American
gentlemen on their travels, has furnished an
apologue, quite Arabesque in turn and thought,
as applied to this melancholy disease of greedy
sight-seeing. Once on a time three American
kalenders were presented to the Pope, and the
Pope received them very graciously. The Pope
said unto the first American kalender, " My good
friend, how long will you tarry with us in this
Eternal City?" But the first kalender, opening
his mouth, said, with grief, " O holy father! no
more than one week." And the Pope smiled on
him, and said, " Then you shall see a very great
deal." Then, turning to the second kalender,
he asked him, " My good friend, how long will
you tarry with us in this Eternal City?" But
the second kalender, opening his mouth, said,
with grief, " O holy father! no more than one
month." And the Pope looked doubtfully on
him, and said, " Then you shall see a very little
indeed." Then, turning to the third kalender,
he asked him, " My good friend, how long will
you tarry with us in this Eternal City?" But
the third kalender, opening his mouth with joy,
said, "O holy father! as long as six months."
But the Pope looked frowningly on him, and
said, " Then you shall see nothing at all." So
the three American kalenders went home to their
caravanserai foolishly. The moral: this fable
showeth how, when we go out to see the lions,
it is always wise to take Time by the forelock,
and to drag him by it very fast.

The little Frenchmen again, as I live, turning
up at every corner in threes and fours, looking
in at the windows, chattering, laughing, smoking,
scoured and burnished as bright as their very
bayonets—the Fortieth and the Twenty-second
Regiments of the Line. They have been here for
ten or twelve years, and are heartily sick of the
place. In the whole contingent taken together,
I will venture to say, they cannot muster a page
of decent Italian. Habitually they do not corrupt
their own easy idiom by the admixture of
Italian, but address the population fearlessly
in loud Parisian French. "Peste!" cry
out, angrily, two officers purchasing gloves in a
shop, one rolling his r's in frightful reduplication;
"see! we are here two years now, and these
coquins have not learnt a word of French!"
This speech is delightful, and worth a sack of
scudi; deliciously characteristic of the Great
Nation and its unconscious vanity. All things
are in an exquisite keeping. The grand French
Bird has swooped (with an Idea in its head), and
this, gentle sirs, is no more than the department
of the Tiber, with prefect and sub-prefect,
making allowance, of course, for some little native
formalities in the matter of rule just tolerated.
With what a superb disdain do the little
red-limbed men, who trip along with hands
plunged into their brick-red pantaloons, measure
the native canaille! They do not know
them. But the colonels and officers—can words
convey the pitying contempt of the superior
captain returning the salute paid with such
humility by the poor native soldiery? Ask a
red-limbed gaillard to direct you to the General
Post-office, and with much courtesy the goodnatured
child of France will send you on your
way rejoicing, up this sinuosity, down that intricacy,
until you flounder at last upon the
wished-for temple. Here it is, beyond mistake,
with the soldiers on guard at the door, and the
inscription, " POSTE DE L'ARMEE." Most satisfactory: and this precaution of the soldiery
shows a jealous care and watchfulness we cannot
too much admire. Alack, and alack a-day!
this is only the French post for the soldiers'
letters; and the child of France, being questioned
touching a post, reasonably concludes
that allusion is made to his institution—to the
Post of la Belle France—in fact, to the one
only true and genuine establishment of the
world—and the army! See the refined point,
the delicate exclusion; there being, as the world
knows, but one grand people and one army.
Italian nomenclature of streets is too troublesome:
so, again asking topographical assistance
from the red-limbed child of France, he will set
you forward by the Place d'Espagne (not by
any means Piazza di Spagna), thence down by
La Course (he does not know the Corso),
thence by the Rue de la Fontaine (what gibberish
is this about Via della Fontanella?), and
so happily on to Saint-Pierre. It is a little troublesome
this process, but the honour of France
is untarnished.

They swarm thickly as locusts, these redlimbed
insects. That noble Place of the
Column, so broad and spacious, with its grand
rusted pillar, wound round with its spiral riband,
now made orthodox and christianised by a,
saint's statue, vice heathen Jove or Pallas, is
hopelessly Gallicised by these aliens. They are