breastplate, and she turns slowly round on a
pivot, this terrible little old lady, to furnish
astonished beholders with the best view. There
are other noble ladies thickly encrusted too,
but they are, on the whole, minor nebulæ.

Such a tangled yarn of bishops, monsignori,
cardinals, soldiers, priests, ladies, and the
unadorned black privates of the drawing-room,
all jammed and huddled together in one seething
mass! There are dainty bishops all violet,
with light violet silk mantles fluttering behind,
and violet limbs, and shading black hat with
gold cord entwined with a wreath of green
velvet leaves. There are monsignori, daintier
still, the very dandies of their cloth, some
unordained and untonsured, being conspicuous at
parties questing the well-endowed English belle.
Most reasonably do their stricter brethren
protest against their being credited with these
light doings, these gay bachelors belonging to
their guild only in respect of dress. One
hundred years back, it was à la mode for every one
to wear the dress ecclesiastical; and all such as
enjoyed the patronage or protection of a cardinal
or any influential authority in the Church, were
privileged to masquerade it in grave sacerdotal
robes. Barbers, apothecaries, and others,
went abroad in decent black, and made the
Eternal streets positively teem with clergymen.

I see a tall and imposing figure, rustling and
flaming in scarlet, capped by a round, florid, and
amiable face not wholly unfamiliar to London
streets, and the famous English Cardinal whose
seat is at Westminster breaks out of the crowd.
I admire how, at one moment, he is all Italian
redundancy; at another, plain English; shifting
swiftly, according to his company, from lively
animated gesticulation of arm and finger and
feature, and from a liquid and most musical
fluency, into sober, tranquil, and severe Saxon.
How his crimson flashes, and rustles noisily as
he turns, and the light is reflected from broad
round forehead, russet also! He is taller by a
head than all these. And do I not know,
and recognise with a start, this little figure,
now gliding by, in violent contrast to the
scarlet cardinal! Familiar the ivory face, and
the shadows and caves in the ivory face, and
the massive black hair, and the bar mouth with
the shining teeth all on view, and the plain
unassuming black habit set off so daintily with the
thick sprinkling of tiny scarlet buttons: set off,
too, more effectively by the blazing diamond
star upon his right breast. But that little patch
of scarlet upon his coal-black hair is more effective
still, and should fill a painter's heart with
gratitude and refreshing comfort. He glides by
with his head bent a little forward, and brushes
by opposing figures ever so softly, and with a
liquid "Perdona" sliding from the shining
teeth. Inert military clothes-blocks look over
their shoulders disdainfully as they feel the
touch, and shrink back with a cowering humility
as they discover who passes. Golden
dolls of diplomacy salute him with the smirk of
their order, and he flings them back a superb
nod. Some dare to accost him with a sort of
timorous servility, and to each he casts a
sentence or two, with a magnificent insolence I
could hug him for. Eyes meet eyes furtively
as he glides, and many times are whispered the
words, "II famoso cardinale!" A poor little
shrivelled ancient, with a "civil " air about
him, and who has plainly hung on at some courts
time out of mind, and at whose button-hole
jingles a whole string of little medals and orders,
like a bunch of keys, has with a frightful
audacity ventured to stay the progress of "II
famoso." I tremble for the little grizzled ancient,
but he goes to his work manfully. He pours
some hurried tale in at the ivory ear. More
precious than the best bit of comedy is the
impatient roving of the black eyes travelling on their
course, though the dark body be stopped. The
bar mouth lengthens sourly. The firm fleshy nose
is drawn downwards, and I catch the words
"E fatto! è fatto!" as who should say, "'Tis
done, I tell you, old man; plague me no more!
let me by!" ground out. Ancient retires with
joy on his wizened face, and with his bunch of
keys jingling.

To men thus deliciously overbearing, he
tramples his way onward. Grammont, the
Werther-faced, true "Alfredo mio," smiles on him
sweetly, and it strikes me half sarcastically; but
is flung back with a bare nod of defiance.
And now, touching his goal, reaching to the
soft fringe of fluttering muslin, and clouds
of lace and shining silks, whence Madame la
Princesse has been smiling smile of invitation
and wooing with her face, bar mouth fades away
and dissolves utterly, and a sweet soft expression
takes its place. Presently he is sitting
opposite the two noble ladies, distilling the
sweetest honey of small-talk, most fascinating,
insinuating, and seducing.

Stalks by, now, the gigantic Edinburgh
Volunteer: whom bystanders civil and military
survey curiously and with a sense of awful
mystery. Friends, privileged to such familiarity,
take hold of his dirk and hairy pouch, feeling
them all over, as do Indians the dress of the
white men. But to the august princesses and
other ladies, that needless exposure of lower
limbs is a terrible scandal. Brush by me, too,
many ministers and envoys, not one of whom, I
will venture to affirm, is fitted with the odd
exceptional no-mission which belongs to the
short black-bearded little man, whom foreigners
call "Odoroosell." He is the envoy unaccredited,
in diplomatic relation to the state with
whom we have no diplomatic relations. He is
a plenipotential contradiction and diplomatic
anomaly. He officially exists, and has his being
as Secretary of Legation, far down at Florence;
but comes up on little amateur missions prying
about, and questing little facts and damaging
matters which he shall embody in a despatch to
"my government." Wise legislators, who shrink
from any contact with the scarlet hats that reign
on the Seven Hills, and who fought the good
fight, years since, in that famous debate on the
Diplomatic Relations with Rome Bill, now little