are, to be black-haired, to smoke in the streets,
and to speak only Italian.

It would be well if there was only Beppo and
his kin to overpower and bleed you; but Rome
is the city of beggars, from the Pope (who begs
for Peter's pence) downwards. You cannot
move ten steps without being asked for money
by some one. Franciscans and Capucins, in
their brown serge dresses, corded round the
waist, their dirty feet and grimy hands and
faces, pounce upon you in the street, or in
your drawing-room, or your studio, wherever
you may be; either with a basket, asking for
food, or rattling before your eyes a tin box
with a slit in it, into which you are to drop
what of your bounty you can spare. The Sacconi
—those shrouded, white-robed spectres, who stalk
about Rome in most unpleasant mufti, shrouded
from head to foot, with nothing but holes left
for their eyes; who may be your most intimate
friends, and who are surely noblemen, church
dignitaries, and men of high rank, generally
doing such strange penance for their sins—steal
upon you quietly like ghosts in mid-day, or enter
into your most private chamber suddenly; and
with warning voices and threatening accent, ask
alms for the glory of God and the welfare of the
souls of the faithful. These Sacconi always go
in pairs, one on each side of the way, never
speaking and never losing sight of each other,
but begging furiously of every one they meet,
and all the more securely, because so thoroughly
disguised. Then there are the pilgrims who
beg; and your friends' servants, who come to
you on Christmas and New Year's days, and
wish you many happy days like to the present,
for the response of a few pauls; indeed, this
custom of giving Christmas-boxes and New
Year's gifts to your friends' servants is so
universal, that many men much in the world have
a whole army of unpaid domestics, on the chance
of the wages to be had at these seasons and in
this manner. There are the servants out of
place, who beg as the most honourable and
profitable employment open to them; and troops of
Raffaelesque little children, and stalwart men
and decrepid ones, women in their prime and
women in the decadence.

Sometimes the beggars are the victims, as
when the gardens of the Franciscans lie handy
to certain windows, and buxom Roman wives
form friendly relations with the gardeners, to
whom they signal with the "Pst, pst!"—the
national "Hi there!"—when, leaning out of
the window, they dangle a long cord enticingly
from their hands. At which sight and sound
the gardener knots a huge cabbage to the end
of the cord, and the woman hauls up her
purchase, or his gift, according to the closeness of
their relations. If the monks were not so
intolerably lazy they might attend to their own
kail-yard, but being too pious for labour, they
hire instead, and get cheated, as they deserve.
This is poetical justice, and as it should be.
There is another bit of poetical justice in that
strange hour of Saturnalia which takes place in
a cardinal's establishment, when he is, or is said
to be, elected Pope. His servants break into
his wardrobe, and rifle every chest and drawer
he possesses, taking all his clothes away, even to
his very shirt. Symbolising, probably, the new
apparel of the soul, and the renunciation, even,
of the cardinal's nature, which would take place
when a man is made Papa of the Christian
generations. This custom is not pleasant at
any time, but it is singularly unpleasant when
the report has been unfounded, and the cardinal
returns home, not only not elected, but without
a vestige of wardrobe remaining. There are a
few expletives and blasphemies on such
occasions, even from the mildest; and not
unfrequently that terrible but most universal curse
of "accidente," "May an apoplexy seize you!"
which is for your soul what "May you die of a
prato!" (our common mushroom) is for your
body. The one meaning, may you be cut off so
suddenly that you cannot receive the last
sacraments, or make confession, whereby you will
be eternally lost; the other, may you be
reduced to such poverty that you will be obliged
to eat the prato, which the Italians hold to
be poisonous, and which nothing but the
most abject misery would induce one of them
to touch.

The festivals of Rome are too well known to
be repeated here again. The magnificent services
in that grand old temple; the quaint uniform of
the Swiss Guards; the picturesque costumes of
the peasantry, mingled with the frightful dress
of civilised Europe and the uniforms of the
French soldiers; the strange effect when all the
cold blue steel makes one simultaneous flash
and one synchronous clang on the pavement as
the soldiers drop suddenly on their knees at the
raising of the Host, and the great crowd sways
forward like a field of corn beneath the wind:
the burst of heavenly music, the high soprano
soaring above all the other voices, and every
now and then the clear musical voice of the Pope
breaking through like a silver bell; later, the
blessing of the people with his two fingers
extended as he is borne aloft in his chair between
the high white waving fans; at Christmas-time
the honour paid to the Santissimo Bambino; at
Carnival the fun and the moccoletti; at Easter
that matchless high mass and the illumination of
Saint Peter's—who does not know them all by
heart? By heart, indeed! by the very heart of
love! That Santissimo Bambino of Christmas-time,
whose jewels are worth a nation's revenue,
and who, once when he was stolen away, walked
back in the night to his own place in the most
knowing manner possible, is supposed to heal all
manner of diseases, and to avert all manner of
evil, though he is nothing better than an ugly,
dull, spiritless, wooden doll, carved, says the
legend, by a certain pilgrim out of some wood
on the Mount of Olives, and painted during his
sleep by Saint Luke. Both sculptor and painter
have been equally bad artists; but the doll is a
good physician notwithstanding, and of great
repute, and when taken to any of the afflicted in
his own peculiar tan-coloured coach, with a
vermilion flag outside, and two frati minori to take