table, and to rustle out papers, and, in fact, generally
to intimate that the hour is come when the
year's subscriptions ought to be paid. Honorary
members must retire even from Royal Samaritan
dinners, at some time or other, so I and Squire
Hanger, with much hand-shaking and more cheering,
mount our traps and roll homeward.

These solemn events take place in an hour or
two. I am suddenly, as I sit at tea with my
children, reminded of the existence of the
Royal Samaritans, by a distant drumming
scarcely louder than the drowsy buzz of the
great orange-striped humble-bee, who frets in a
large moss-rose that hangs against my window.
But soon it widens out, and I gradually distinguish
the wavering drone of the clarionets, the
squeak of the "wry-necked" fifes, the blare of
the sliding trombone, the "dub dub" of the
baggy drum, and the blatant roar of the enormous
serpent. Next I distinguish the top of
the Royal Samaritan banner, and, through the
laurels in the shrubbery, discern gleams of the
well-known red and blue ribands. The sounds
increase; the pleasant chatter and the cries
of marshalling stewards draw nearer to the
garden gate. It is flung open, and the Royal
Samaritans enter. One or two have rather a
fixed and watery stare about the eyes, which they
attempt to turn into an expression of combined
respect, wisdom, and admiration. The twos and
twos widen out on the lawn, and the band begins
to settle down to serious work. A grave barber
runs up and down the flute; a blacksmith officiates
at the clarionet, as like a blunderbuss as a harmless
instrument can well be; the old serpent has
a chair brought him, as his instrument is fatiguingly
large, and requires support; the little
drummer, with a slight aberration about the
legs, plays with mechanical heedlessness, and
perhaps with rather a want of force and emphasis
in the staccato passages. The other performers
have music-books held out before them by little
country boys, who hold them above their heads
with a fixed, religious, and undeviating care.
Anon the gardener appears with a tray and glasses,
a smiling handmaid follows with frothing jugs,
and the aberrated eyes, passim, acquire for the moment
a certain steadiness, and are fixed magnetically
on the said jugs. I permeate among the crowd
of Royal Samaritans and Royal Samaritans' wives
and daughters, and talk about the dinner, and
make conjectures about the weather, which is
of a wintry-spring character, gusty and rainy,
with a gleam of sunshine as brilliant and fitful as
if it were turned on from a dark-lantern with the
slide now pushed on and now pushed off; and
all this time that I make great efforts to pump
up small-talk, and show this Samaritan my cabbages,
and that Samaritan my cabbages, a
third Samaritan my cabbage-roses, and a fourth
Samaritan my rosy-red cabbages, the treasurer
pursues one traditional and unchanging line of
patriotic action; he plants himself firmly with
his heels screwed into my turf, and his back to
my drawing-room window; he fixes the pole of
the Royal Samaritan banner on his left hip, and
then commences to wave the flag from left to
right as regular as a clock beats, whipping it
round with a dexterous catch that so nearly resembles
fly-fishing, that it might almost be mistaken
for that amusement on a large scale, especially
as the royal angler seems to exhaust all
his skill in trying to fish off the tall white hat of
an old shepherd who stands near him unmoved:
efforts which at last are happily crowned with
complete success.

Eventually, with three cheers and God save
the Queen, the Royal Samaritans march off to
supper at the Dark Sun. There, the wives and
children join them, and there will be much jolting
of skittles, great exhaustion of beer-casks,
much ribanding of cold beef, much laughing,
chattering, and fun; then, too, will come off the
national dance of England, that tiresome heel-tapping
shuffle of two rivals, who try to tire each
other out, and who certainly tire out all but the
most enthusiastic of the bystanders. Then, too,
will take place a deal of ogling, and flirting, and
heart-capturing, and jealousy, and sociability.

Nor will even this satisfy these untiring
Royal Samaritans; for all to-morrow is to be
holiday too, and to-morrow night there will be
another supper, and after that, according to a
curious old custom, the remainder of the meat
will be put up to auction, and carried home for
quiet and thoughtful discussion; and only, with
the last mouthful of that meat, will end the
Whitsuntide holiday at Chicklebury.

ITALIAN BRIGANDAGE.

THE ministerial papers, and indeed a large
number of other journals, have uniformly asserted
that this brigandage was fed, paid, and armed,
from Rome; that Rome was its head-quarters
and its refuge; that it was a Bourbonist scheme
to maintain a state of trouble and disorder in
the southern provinces of the kingdom, so that
the scandal of this condition might serve to
screen the iniquities of the past rule, and shame
the severities of the present. They declared
that the presence of the ex-king at Rome was a
powerful support to this infamous warfare, and
they more than hinted that the French garrison
never lent that aid to its suppression which
they might or could in their capacity of faithful
allies of the kingdom of Italy.

This statement found its way into our own
newspapers, and, indeed, figured in blue-books.
Like most of such sweeping charges, it was a mixture
of truth and falsehood. There was unquestionably
imparted to the disturbances of the south
such aid and encouragement as a baffled party
and an exiled court could supply either in arms,
money, or distinctive rewards. The Bourbonists
saw very clearly that no more stunning refutation
could be given to the boastful declarations of
new Italy, than to point to the lawlessness of a
vast region, and all the frightful cruelties practised
to reduce it to obedience. If the press were to
revert to the bygone atrocities of King Ferdinand,
what answer could be so meet as to say,
"Look at the Basilicata! Were whole villages