"On the evening of the same day, I was sitting by the window, enjoying the freshness of the air and the beauty and stillness of the hour, when I heard the distant and solemn hymn of the Catholic burial-service, at first so faint and indistinct that it seemed an illusion. It rose mournfully on the hush of evening,-died gradually away, then ceased. Then it rose again, nearer and more distinct, and soon after a funeral procession appeared, and passed directly beneath my window. It was led by a priest, bearing the banner of the church, and followed by two boys, holding long flambeaux in their hands. Next came a double file of priests in their surplices, each with a missal in one hand, and a lighted wax taper in the other, chanting the funeral dirge at intervals,-now pausing, and then again taking up the mournful burden of their lamentation, accompanied by others, who played upon a rude kind of bassoon, with a dismal and wailing sound. Then followed various symbols of the church, and the bier borne on the shoulders of four men. The coffin was covered with a velvet pall, and a chaplet of white flowers lay upon it, indicating that the deceased was unmarried. A few of the villagers came behind, clad in mourning robes, and bearing lighted tapers. The procession passed slowly along the same street that in the morning had been thronged by the gay bridal company. A melancholy train of thought forced itself home upon my mind. The joys and sorrows of this world are so strikingly mingled! Our mirth and grief are brought so mournfully in contact ! We laugh while others weep,-and others rejoice when we are sad! The light heart and the heavy walk side by side and go about together! Beneath the same roof are

spread the wedding-feast and the funeral-pall! The bridal-song mingles with the burial-hymn! One goes to the marriage-bed, another to the grave; and all is mutable, uncertain, and transitory."

The next passage comes from the chapter entitled "Rome in Midsummer." The unsanitary, but beautiful aquatic, sport described as going on in the Piazza Navona is no longer to be observed at Rome :

"My mornings are spent in visiting the wonders of Rome, in studying the miracles of ancient and modern art, or in reading at the public libraries. We breakfast at noon, and dine at eight in the evening. After dinner comes the conversazione, enlivened with music, and the meeting of travellers, artists, and literary men from every quarter of the globe. At midnight, when the crowd is. gone, I retire to my chamber, and, poring over the gloomy pages of Dante, or 'Bandello's laughing tale,' protract my nightly vigil till the morning star is in the sky.

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Our windows look out upon the square, which circumstance is a source of infinite enjoyment to me. Directly in front, with its fantastic belfries and swelling. dome, rises the church of St. Agnes; and sitting by the open window, I note the busy scene below, enjoy the cool air of morning and evening, and even feel the freshness of the fountain, as its waters leap in mimic cascades down the sides of the rock.

"The Piazza Navona is the chief market-place of Rome, and on market-days is filled with a noisy crowd of

the Roman populace, and the peasantry from the neighbouring villages of Albano and Frascati. At such times the square presents an animated and curious scene. The gaily decked stalls, -the piles of fruits and vegetables, —the pyramids of flowers,—the various costumes of the peasantry, the constant movements of the vast, fluctuating crowd, and the deafening clamour of their discordant voices, that rise louder than the roar of the loud ocean, -all this is better than a play to me, and gives me amusements when naught else has power to amuse.

"Every Saturday afternoon in the sultry month of August, this spacious square is converted into a lake, by stopping the conduit-pipes which carry off the water of the fountains. Vehicles of every description, axle-deep, drive to and fro across the mimic lake; a dense crowd gathers around its margin, and a thousand tricks excite the loud laughter of the idle populace. Here is a fellow groping with a stick after his seafaring hat; there another splashing in the water in pursuit of a mischievous spaniel, who is swimming away with his shoe; while from a neighbouring balcony a noisy burst of military music fills the air, and gives fresh animation to the scene of mirth. This is one of the popular festivals of midsummer in Rome, and the merriest of them all. It is a kind of carnival unmasked; and many a popular bard, many a poeta di dozzina, invokes this day the plebeian Muse of the market-place to sing in high-sounding rhyme, ‘Il Lago di Piazza Navona.'

"I have before me one of these sublime effusions. It describes the square, the crowd,-the rattling carriages, -the lake, the fountain, raised by the superhuman

genius of Bernini,'-the lion,-the sea-horse, and the triton grasping the dolphin's tail. 'Half the grand square,' thus sings the poet, 'where Rome with food is satiate, was changed into a lake, around whose margin stood the Roman people, pleased with soft idleness and merry holyday, like birds upon the margin of a limpid brook. Up and down drove car and chariot; and the women trembled for fear of the deep water; though merry were the young, and well, I ween, had they been borne away to unknown shores by the bull that bore away Europa, they would neither have wept nor screamed !'

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"On the eastern slope of the Janiculum, now called, from its yellow sands, Montorio, or the Golden Mountain, stands the fountain of Acqua Paola, the largest and most abundant of the Roman fountains. It is a small Ionic temple, with six columns of reddish granite in front, a spacious hall and chambers within, and a garden with a terrace in the rear. Beneath the pavement, a torrent of water from the ancient aqueducts of Trajan, and from the lakes of Bracciano and Martignano, leaps forth in three beautiful cascades, and from the overflowing basin rushes down the hill-side to turn the busy wheels of a dozen mills.

"The key of this little fairy palace is in our hands, and as often as once a week we pass the day there, amid the odour of its flowers, the rushing sound of its waters, and the enchantments of poetry and music. How pleasantly the sultry hours steal by! Cool comes the summer wind from the Tiber's mouth at Ostia. Above us is a sky without a cloud; beneath us, the magnificent

panorama of Rome and the Campagna, bounded by the Abruzzi and the sea. Glorious scene! one glance at thee would move the dullest soul,-one glance can melt the painter and the poet into tears!

"In the immediate neighbourhood of the fountain are many objects worthy of the stranger's notice. A bow-shot down the hill-side towards the city stands the convent of San Pietro in Montorio; and in the cloister of this convent is a small, round, Doric temple, built upon the spot which an ancient tradition points out as the scene of St. Peter's martyrdom. In the opposite direction the road leads you over the shoulder of the hill, and out through the city-gate to gardens and villas beyond. Passing beneath a lofty arch of Trajan's aqueduct, an ornamented gateway on the left admits you to the Villa Pamfili-Doria, built on the western declivity of the hill. This is the largest and most magnificent of the numerous villas that crowd the immediate environs of Rome. spacious terraces, its marble statues, its woodlands and green alleys, its lake, and waterfalls, and fountains, give it an air of courtly splendour and of rural beauty, which realizes the beau-ideal of a suburban villa.

Its

"This is our favourite resort when we have passed the day at the fountain, and the afternoon shadows begin to fall. There we sit on the broad marble steps of the terrace, gaze upon the varied landscape stretching to the misty sea, or ramble beneath the leafy dome of the woodland and along the margin of the lake

'And drop a pebble to see it sink

Down in those depths so calm and cool.'

"O, did we but know when we were happy! Could