to be seen sitting in long files on long benches,
in whatever sun there is, when that generous
warmth is but feebly distributed; in the shade,
when he is rampant and inconveniently warm.
Theirs is then the thin red line (of culottes)
tipped with blue. They turn unexpectedly at
all corners. They are eternally sitting in the
sun or in the shade. At the huge Convent of
the Domicans, where there are squares and
squares of building, and courts and squares
again, and huge cold corridors where cold
figures flit by you in the white and black
plumage of the order (even in this sultry zone
it imparts an unpleasant creeping feel seeing
these holy men in their airy uniform), where,
too, is that famous temple-church of the Goddess
Minerva, now Santa Maria sopra MInerva,
and the unique Gothic church of an Eternal
City—here again, I say, will this sanctuary
have the locusts with the red antennae intruded,
obtaining barrack accommodation in some of the
brethren's disused cells. They sit out in the
sun at the very grand entrance, on a bench,
smoking their pipes, and I have no doubt are
contemptuous enough at the expense of "ces
Robins blancs" who pass them by. They scowl,
too, at the strong Englishman who strides by them
every day and surveys the little men patronisingly.
They know him to be English, and
the feeling, by that daily habitual encounter, is
esasperated into a silent acrimony. They would
like to lave him in that picturwsque pond in the
centre of a square, where braves are washing
their linen, pounding them with stones, as is the
custom on beloved Seine. But here is most
sweet retrubution in the shpae of these wains
with the braves (in dishabille) sitting atop, and
on huge chests of British buscuit, marked legibly
with the name of a Liverpool firm. The Liverpool
firm in an Eternal City, among the Caesars,
ministering to the Gallic cock!

Someway, they bring brightness with them, do
the red-limbed invaders. Most welcome is it to
see them flashing down the street with their
polished steel and brass, their gay worsteds, red
and green, and their handsome intelligent faces.
So gay, so obliging, too! they will go round
with you some furlongs to point out the way.
These braves are matchless in their acting of
preux chevaliers. Where shall we ever hear of
so touching a little trait of delicate politeness
as I once saw hard by the fields of Elysium
(Parisian, not Paradisal, though both are almost
convertible)? Two ranks of the braves are
keeping a lane open for the Imperator to pass
by, of a cold dismal morning. Suddenly the
sun breaks out cheerlessly, and sends down a
kind of icy sunbeam aslant, crossing the ranks
of the braves. An English lady, comically
enough, puts out a small foot into the sloping
sunbeam, striving to fetch out of it suck warmth
as she can; and these braves positively dress up
close, and make a gap in their ranks, to give the
chilly sunbeam clear passage to madame's foot!
Garvarni or Cham should have been there with
his crayon

Another but different little scene, charmingly
French, which these eyes have witnessed, in Rome,
must not be passed by unsung. I am well in the
front of a battling, squeezing, seething crowd,
who have struggled to the barriers at Saint Peter's
choir to see the venerable John Labre beatified.
A superb church in itself, it is to-day a miracle of
golden hangings and illumination. There is a
perfect army of candles in the air, to be counted
by the hundred thousand. The relatives and
descendants of the venerable John have come
forward, regardless of expense; for, reasonably
enough, they take a just pride in this spiritual
ennoblement of their ancestor, a little of which
is reflected upon themselves. Here is a significant
fact, worthy of being considered at the
funerals of Iron Dukes and such awful notabilities.
The lighting dispensation is not left to
the elegant caprices of lampmen and ball-room
contractors, nor to the gloomy art canons which
regulate the decoration of the catafalque, but
to an architect of eminence, who furnishes an
elaborate design which shall harmonise with
the building. No running wild and stopping
up of vacant spaces with surfeits of candle-light
as it shall seem good to nice Undertaking eye.
Here everything is elegant, harmonious, and
architectural. Nay, this is yet more curious:
two other saints will have their turn on the two
next Sundays and their architects will come in,
each with his design, demolishing and striving
to outshine his predecessor. As I have struggled
to the front, the lighting of the fifty thousand
has just set in: and surely such desperate,
frantic gymnastics in that line, could not be so
musch as dreamt of. It must be done within,
say, a quarter of an hour; and here are figures
fluttering in the air among the candles, swinging
in the clouds of the roof, now flying down
ropes and lighting as they go. It makes one
dizzy to see these fearful acrobatic performances.
Others skip up strange-jointed ladders, carrying
fresh joints upon their backs and fitting them on
hurriedly as they ascend, until they are posied
at a terrible height upon a pair of long slender
reeds, bending and springing like fishing-rods.
the lighting of the fifty thousand thus proceeds,
and the clouds of twinkling stars spread and
grow yet wider. Presently, the work being
done, the flying figures have dropped to earth
one by one, contriving, by some mysterious
agency, or, at least, a suspension of the laws of
statics, to bring down with them their pulleys,
tackle, and general gear.

Now—when the Te Deum is singing, buffted
back and forward between two hostiles choirs,
and the cannon is heard booming away at Saint
Angelo, resounding hollowly through each versicle,
and the Spanish ladies (not in prison on
this occasion, but in a state of semi-seclusion)
are standing up in their ranks, rustling those
prints of the venerable John and the neatly
printed biographies, handed round like ices,
distributed from trays, at the charges of his
descendants, and there is general rejoicing
abroad—I note a stout Capuchin monk beside
me, who had fought his way up with his stalwart
arms. The sharp elbows attached to the