Trips in each day, the bright lady of the violet
robe, whose rich black hair shines and eddies
like a mountain brook; glide in, too, with an
unfailing regularity, the cloud of black-robed
sisters, with the single brother to divide among
them, most moping and melancholy party. I
relish a little at first, the amiable clergyman
(Vicar of Crumpley-in-the-Drains), who has
come out with a stern fixed purpose of doing
the thing thoroughly, who has prepared himself
by elaborate grounding (perhaps grinding) in
the works of the fathers and of the late
Edmund Gibbon, Esquire, in Montfaucou, Casaubon,
Muratori, and the amusing speculations of
Doctor Adam, author of the well-known Roman
Antiquities. Conscientiously he does his work,
making parochial visits to each object, as he
does to the householders at home in Crumpley-
in-the-Drains. At first I envy him his noble
ardour; I feel a burning admiration for the man
who can restore the Forum exactly as that noble
miscellany stood in its first days. But when he
plucks forth his rubicund text-book between
the courses, and sends me across the table a
dry cut of Murray along with a slice of
delicate mountain mutton; and into that sweet fruit
sauce which suits the wild flavour of the boar,
infuses gritty figures as to the height of the
Column of Trajan, with sly allusions to the
Empress Faustina and Cecilia Metella, I begin
to rise in outspeaking protest against the man
and his works and pomps—a feeling ere long
nursed into bitter loathing and hostility. He
becomes for me a positive Old Man of the Sea
in the matter of antiquities. He bursts upon
me, from ambuscades of classical details, nice
speculation as to the site of the temple—was it of
the winds? He balances for me, Nibbi and Vasi,
competent authorities on stones, but leans rather
to the Vicar of Crumpley-in-the-Drains. Junior
old men of the sea, but still diverting, are the
two long gaunt youths with stolid faces and
windmill arms, sent to foreign parts to furnish
their brains with such ideal upholstery as they
can find, and come back, not monkeys, but
Ourangs proper, who have seen the world. They
return every day, bursting with what they have
seen and heard, and discharge their impressions
across the table, with uncouth signs and loud
hee-haws, much as Caspar Hauser or other wild
man would have done. At times, conversation
rises into hurly-burly and scraps of incongruous
polyglot fly thick:

"Mr. Stang, sir! Mr. Stang, sir! yew have
seen the Capitol, sir?"

"Yes, sir; I were there toe-day!"

"I ay-lude, sir, to the Capitol at Washin'ton
—and——"

Undercurrent of vicar of Crumpley-in-the-
Drains: "—Bones, removed by order of the
Empress Helena, and placed in a marble
sarcophagus adorned with sculptures, attributed
to——"

"Oh, the Poe-ope!"(from the gaunt youths)
—"oh, yes, I saw the Poe-ope, and then we went
down into the Ca-ta-co-o-o-mbs—oh, yes!"

Bullington (breaking in angrily): "The
arrangements, sir, were beastly—yes, sir,
beastly. Where were the police? This rotten,
degraded——"

Vicar of C.-in-the-D. (very softly): "The
whole of the right arm and a great portion of
the left leg have been restored. This exquisite
fragment was found, many——"

Elderly Frenchman, who has resided much in
England: "Vis pleshar! I vill be dere yesterday."

"Sir! the whole thing must blow up, for——"

"As Winckleman says, the ancients never
made——"

"Vile soup——"

And then gushes in an overpowering Babel,
wherein Cecilia Metella, Empress Faustina,
Antoninus Pius, Cato the Censor, and Our Minister,
jostle each other in unseemly confusion.

From a little gallery on the stair we may
look down into the hall; and it is amusing of an
evening, when the lamps are lighted, to lean on
the rail and look down into the hall, and see the
dramatic business that goes forward. Now, it
is waiterdom clustered very thick, and discussing
a point in their own social economy with much
noise and vigorous action. Now, it is a great
four-horse vetturino just come up from Naples,
and being unloaded. Most picturesque vehicle,
it was signalled long before it came in sight.
Its jingling bells were heard afar off down
the street; the loud sounding whip, and the
"High! high!" of driver, and the screams of
delighted urchins scampering on in front, all
gave cheerful notice. I look down from the
gallery and see the little piece played. Enter
the dusty travellers, and defile past—father,
wife, sisters, children, it may be; babies,
perhaps; nurse, very likely; round whom dance
expectant gnats and midges in the shape of
fluttering waiterdom. Emerges presently, host
Fritz, in character of Inn-keeping Jove, and
anxious interview follows, as to rooms,
accommodation, and so forth; waitering interest
crowding round with one ear bent inwards with
an eager attention. It is settled; cloud breaks,
floats up stairs: and then blue-robed porters
file by, bending under heavy trunks. Finally,
enters picturesque postboy, in pale sky-blue
jacket, and silver medallion embroidered on his
right arm, and fanciful hat: and picturesque
postboy has, presently, his hand out and is
declaiming furiously, and stamping with his
jackboots, and pointing to the quarter where the city
of Naples may be supposed to lie, and looks
contemptuously at the moneys tendered to him,
asking, I suppose, in his own idiom, "Wot's
this for? And you calls yourself a gen'lman!" &c.
Courier, who is on the other side, is frightfully
vehement, stamps too, clenches his hands,
making as though he would spit in postboy's face;
points also to the quarter of the horizon where
Naples may be supposed to lie, and turns red
with rage. I feel sure that stilettoes will be
drawn presently, and that the marble floor of
host Fritz will trickle with blood. Astonishing
that host Fritz, who is smoking his cigar
tranquilly, and the waiting interest standing round