Chapter III: On the Campagna (1)

There was an indefinable charm, to a lively man like Caper, in spending a day in the open country around Rome. Whether it was passed, gun in hand, near the Solfatara, trying to shoot snipe and woodcock, or, with paint-box and stool, seated under a large white cotton umbrella, sketching in the valley of Poussin or out on the Via Appia, that day was invariably marked down to be remembered.

On one of those golden February mornings, when the pretty English girls tramp through the long grass of the Villa Borghese, gathering the perfumed violets into those modest little bouquets, that peep out from their setting of green leaves, like faith struggling with jealousy, Caper, Rocjean, and a good-natured German, named Von Bluhmen, made an excursion out in the Campagna.

They hired a one-horse vetturo in the piazza di Spagna, and packing in their sketching materials and a basket well filled with luncheon and bottles of red wine, started off, soon reaching the Saint Sebastian gate. Further on, they passed the tomb of Cecilia Metella, and saw streaming over the Campagna the Roman hunt-hounds, twenty couples, making straight tails after a red fox, while a score of well-mounted horsemen--here and there a red coat and white breeches--came riding furiously after. Along the road-side were handsome open carriages, filled with wit and beauty, talent and petticoats; and bright were the blue eyes, and red the healthy cheeks of the English girls, as they saw how well their countrymen and lovers led off the chase. Englishmen _have_ good legs.

Continuing along the Appian way, either side of which was bordered by tombs crumbling to decay; some of them covered with nature's lace, the graceful ivy, others with only a pile of turf above them, others with shattered column and mutilated statue at their base--the occupants of the vetturo were silent. They saw before them the wide plain, shut in on the horizon by high mountains, with snow-covered peaks and sides, while they were living in the warmth of an American June morning; the breeze that swept over them was gentle and exhilarating; in the long grass waving by the way-side, they heard the shrill cries of the cicadas; while the clouds, driven along the wide reach of heaven, assuming fantastic forms, and in changing light and shadow mantling the distant mountains, gave our trio a rare chance to study cloud-effects to great advantage.

'I say, driver, what's your name?' asked Rocjean of the _vetturino_.

'Cæsar, _padrone mio_,' answered the man.

'Are you descended from the celebrated Julius?' asked Caper, laughing.

'Yes, sir, my grandfather's name was Julius.'

''That every like is not the same, O Cæsar!
The heart of Brutus yearns to think upon,''

soliloquized Caper; and as by this time they had reached a place where both he and Rocjean thought a fine view of the ruined aqueduct might be taken, they ordered the driver to stop, and taking out their sketching materials, sent him back to Rome, telling him to come out for them about four o'clock, when they would be ready to return.

While they were yet in the road, there came along a very large countryman, mounted on a very small jackass; he was sitting side-saddle fashion, one leg crossed over the other, the lower leg nearly touching the ground; one hand held a pipe to his mouth, while the other held an olive branch, by no means an emblem of peace to the jackass, who twitched one long ear and then the other, in expectation of a momentary visit from it on either side of his head. Following, at a dutiful distance behind, came a splendid specimen of a Roman peasant-woman, a true _contadina_: poised on her head was a very large round basket, from over the edge of which sundry chickens' heads and cocks' feathers arose, and while Caper was looking at the basket, he saw two tiny little arms stuck up suddenly above the chickens, and then heard a faint squall--it was her baby. An instantaneous desire seized Caper to make a rough sketch of the family group, and hailing the man, he asked him for a light to his cigar. The jackass was stopped by pulling his left ear--the ears answering for reins--and after giving a light, the man was going on, when Caper, taking a _scudo_ from his pocket, told him that if he would let him make a sketch of himself, wife, and jackass, he would give it to him, telling him also that he would not detain them over an hour.

'If you'll give me a _buona mano_ besides the _scudo_, I'll do it,' he answered.

The _buona mano_ is the ignis fatuus that leads on three fourths of the Italians; it is the bright spark that wakes them up to exertion. No matter what the fixed price for doing any thing may be, there must always be a something undefined ahead of it, to crown the work when accomplished. It makes labor a lottery; it makes even sawing wood a species of gambling. Caper promised a _buona mano_.

The man told his wife that the Signore was to make a _ritratto_, a picture of them all, including the jackass, at which she laughed heartily, showing a splendid set of brilliantly white teeth. A finer type of woman it would be hard to find, for she was tall, straight, with magnificent bust and broad hips. Her hair, thick and black, was drawn back from her forehead like a Chinese, and was confined behind her head with two long silver pins, the heads representing flowers; heavy, crescent-shaped, gold earrings hung from her ears; around her full throat circled two strings of red coral beads. Her boddice of crimson cloth was met by the well-filled out-folds of her white linen shirt, the sleeves of which fell from her shoulders below her elbows, in full, graceful folds; her skirt was of heavy white woolen stuff, while her blue apron, of the same material, had three broad stripes of golden yellow, one near the top and the other two near each other at the bottom; the folds of the apron were few, and fell in heavy, regular lines. A full, liquid-brown pair of eyes gazed calmly on the painter, as she stood beside her husband, easily, gracefully; without a sign from the artist, taking a position that the most studied care could not have improved.

'_Benissimo_!' cried Caper, 'the position couldn't be better;' and seizing his sketch-book and pencils, unfolding his umbrella and planting its spiked end in the ground, and arranging his sketching-stool, he was in five minutes hard at work. As soon as he could draw the basket, he told the woman she might take it from her head and put it on the ground, for he believed the weight must incommode her. This done, she resumed her position, and Caper, working with all his might, had his sketch sufficiently finished before the hour was over to tell his group that it was finished, at the same time handing the man a _scudo_ and a handsome _buona mano_.

Rocjean and Von Bluhmen, who had assiduously looked on, now and then joking with the _contadino_ and his wife, proposed, after the sketch was finished, that Caper should ask his friends to help them finish their luncheon; this was joyously agreed to, and the party, having left the road and found a pleasant spot, under a group of ilex-trees, were soon busy finishing the eatables. It was refreshing to see how the handsome _contadina_ emptied glass after glass of red wine. The husband did his share of drinking; but his wife eclipsed him. Having learned from Caper that his first name was Giacomo, she shouted forth a rondinella, making up the words as she went along, and in it gave a ludicrous account of Giacomo, the artist, who took a jackass's portrait, herself and husband holding him, and the baby squalling in harmony. This met with an embarrassment of success, and amid the applause of Rocjean, Caper, and Von Bluhmen, the _contadino_, wife, and baggage departed. She, however, told Caper where she lived in the Campagna, and that she had a beautiful little sister, whose _ritratta_ he should take, if he would come to see her.

[It is needless to inform the reader that _he went_.]

Lighting cigars, Rocjean and Caper declared they must have a siesta, even if they had to doze on their stools, for neither of them ever could accustom himself to the Roman fashion of throwing one's self on the ground, and sleeping with their faces to the earth. Von Bluhmen, a fiery amateur of sketching, walked off to take a 'near view' of the aqueduct, and the two artists were left to repose.

'I say, Caper, does it ever come into your head to people all this broad Campagna with old Romans?' asked Rocjean.

'Yes, all the time. Do you know that when I am out here, and stumble over the door-way of an old Roman tomb, or find one of those thousand caves in the tufa rock, I often have a curious feeling that from out that tomb or cave will stalk forth in broad daylight some old Roman centurion or senator, in flowing robe.'

'Do you ever think,' asked Rocjean, 'of those seventy thousand poor devils of Jews who helped build the Coliseum and the Arch of Titus? Do you ever reflect over the millions of _slaves_ who worked for these same poetical, flowing-robed, old senators and centurions? _Ma foi_! for a Republic, you men of the United States have a finished education for any thing but republicans. The great world-long struggle of a few to crush and destroy the many, you learn profoundly; you know in all its glittering cruelty and horror the entire history, and you weave from it no god-like moral. Nothing astonished me more, during my residence in the United States, than this same lack of drawing from the experience of ages the deduction that you were the only really blessed and happy nation in the world. Your educated men know less of the history of their own country, and feel less its sublime teachings, than any other race of men in the world. The instruction your young men receive at school and college, in what way does it prepare them to become men fit for a republic?'

'You are preaching a sermon,' said Caper.

'I am reciting the text; the sermon will be preached by the god of battles to the roar of cannons and the crack of rifles, and I hope you'll profit by it after you hear it.'

'Well,' interrupted Caper, 'what do you think of the English?'

'For a practical people, they are the greatest fools on the earth. Thoroughly convinced at heart that they have no _esprit_, they rush in to show the world that they have a superabundance of it.... It interferes with their principles, no matter; it touches their pockets, behold it is gone, and the cold, flat, dead reality stares you in the face.'

'You are a Frenchman, Rocjean, and you do them injustice. Had Shakspeare no _esprit_?' asked Caper.

'Shakspeare was a Frenchman,' replied Rocjean.

'We--ll!'

'Prove to me that he was not?'

'Prove to me that he was!'

'Certainly. The family of Jacques Pierre was as certainly French as Raimond de Rocjean's. Jacques Pierre became Shakspeare at once, on emigrating to England, and the 'Immortal Williams,' recognizing the advantages to a poor man of living in a country where only the guineas dance, took up his abode there and made the music for the money to jump into his pockets.'

'Very ingenious. But in relation to Byron, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, and--as we are in Italy--Rogers?'

'_Mon ami_, if you seriously prefer ice-cream and trifle to venison and _dindon aux truffes_, choose. If either one of the four poets--I do not include Rogers among poets--ever conceived in his mind, and then produced on paper, a work, composed from his memory, of things terrible in nature, more sublime than Dante's _Inferno_, I will grant you that he had _esprit_ and imagination; otherwise, not. It is of the English as a nation, however, that I make my broad and sweeping assertion, one that was fixed in my mind yesterday, when I saw a well-dressed and well-_educated_ Englishman deliberately pick up a stone, knock off the head of a figure carved on a sarcophagus, found in one of those newly-discovered tombs on the Via Latina, and put the broken head in his pocket.... What man, with one grain of _esprit_ or imagination in his head, would mutilate a work of ancient art, solely that he might possess a piece of stone, when memory had already placed the entire work forever in his mind. _Basta_! enough. Look at the effect of the sunlight on the Albanian mountains. How proudly Mount Gennaro towers over the desolate Campagna! Hallo! Von Bluhmen down there is in trouble. Come along.'

Throwing down his umbrella, under which he had been sitting in the shade, Rocjean grasped the iron-pointed shaft, into which the handle of the umbrella fitted, and, accompanied by Caper, rushed to the rescue of the German. It was none too soon. While sketching, a shepherd, with a very large flock of sheep, had gradually approached nearer and nearer the spot where the artist was sitting at his task; his dogs, eight or ten in number, fierce, shaggy, white and black beasts, with slouching gait and pointed ears and noses, followed near him. As Von Bluhmen paid no attention to them, the shepherd had wandered off; but one or two of his dogs hung back, and the artist, dropping a pencil, suddenly stooped to pick it up, when one of the savage creatures, thinking or 'instincting' that a stone was coming at him, rushed in, with loud barking, to make mince-meat of the German noble. He seized his camp-stool, and kept the dog at bay; but in a moment the whole pack were down on him. Just at this instant, in rushed Rocjean, staff in hand, beating the beasts right and left, and shouting to the shepherd, who was but a short distance off, to call off his dogs. But the _pecorajo_, evidently a cross-grained fellow, only blackguarded the artists, until Rocjean, whose blood was up, swore if he did not call them off, he would shoot them, pulling a revolver from his pocket and aiming at the most savage dog as he spoke. The shepherd only blackguarded him the more, and, just as the dog grabbed him by the pantaloons, Rocjean pulled the trigger, and with foaming jaws and blood pouring from his mouth, the dog fell dead at his feet. The shot scared the other dogs, who fled, tails under. The shepherd ran for the entrance of a cave, and came out in a minute with a single-barreled gun: coming down to within twenty feet of Rocjean, he cocked it, and taking aim, screamed out: 'Give me ten _scudi_ for that dog, or I fire.'

'Do you see that pistol?' said Rocjean to the shepherd, while he held up his revolver, 'I have five loads in it yet.' And then advancing straight toward him, with death in his eyes, he told him to throw down his gun, or he was a dead man.... Down fell the gun. Rocjean picked it up. 'To-morrow,' said he, 'inquire of the chief of police in Rome for this gun and for the ten _scudi_!'

They were never called for.

'You see,' said Caper, as, shortly after this little excitement, the one-horse vetturo, bearing Cæsar and his fortunes, hove in sight, and they entered and returned to Rome; 'you see how charming it is to sketch on the Campagna.'

'Very,' replied Von Bluhmen; 'but, my dear Rocjean, how long were you in America?'

'Twelve years.'

'_Main Gott!_ they were not wasted.'

BACCHUS IN ROME.

It is not at all astonishing that a god who was born to the tune of Jove's thunderbolts, should have escaped scot-free from the thunders of the Vatican, and should prove at the present time one of the strongest opponents to the latter kind of fire-works. We read, in the work of that learned Jesuit, Galtruchius, that--

'Bacchus was usually painted with a mitre upon his head, an
ornament proper to Women. He never had other Priests but Satyrs
and Women; because the latter had followed him in great Companies
in his Journeys, crying, singing, and dancing continually. Titus
Livius relates a strange story of the Festivals of Bacchus in
Rome. Three times in a year, the Women of all qualities met in a
Grove called Simila, and there acted all sorts of Villainies;
those that appeared most reserved were sacrificed to Bacchus; and
that the cries of the ravished Creatures might not be heard, they
did howl, sing, and run up and down with lighted Torches.'

The May and October Festivals in Rome, at present, are substituted for the Bacchanalian orgies, and are, of course, not so objectionable, in many particulars, as the ancient ceremonies; still, no stranger in Rome, at these times, should neglect to attend them. Caper entered Rome at night, during the October festival, and the carriage-loads of Roman women, waving torches and singing tipsily, forcibly reminded him that the Bacchante still lived, and only needed a very little encouragement to revive their ancient rites in full.

Sentimental travelers tell you that the Romans are a temperate people--they have never seen the people. They have never seen the delight that reigns in the heart of the _plebs_, when they learn that the vintage has been good, and that good wine will be sold in Rome for three or four cents _la foglietta_, (about a pint, American measure.) They have never visited the _spacii di vini_, the wine-shops; they have never heard of the murders committed when the wine was in and the wit out. None of these things ever appear in the _Giornale di Roma_ or in the _Vero Amico del_ _Popolo_, the only newspapers published in Rome.

'Roman newspapers,' said an intelligent Roman to Caper, 'were invented to conceal the news.'

The first thing that a foreigner does on entering Rome is to originate a derogatory name for the juice of the grape native to the soil, the _vino nostrale_. He calls it, if red wine, red ink, pink cider, red tea; if white wine, balm of gooseberries, blood of turnips, apple-juice, alum-water, and slops for babes; finally ... if not killed off with a fever, from drinking the adulterated foreign wines, spirits, and liqueurs sold in the city, he takes kindly to the Roman wines, and does not worry his great soul about them.

The truth is, that while other nations have done every thing to improve wine-making, Italy follows the same careless way she has done for centuries. Far more attention was bestowed on the grape, too, in ancient times than now; and we read that vineyards were so much cultivated, to the neglect of agriculture, that, under Domitian, an edict forbade the planting of any new vineyards in Italy.

One brilliant morning, in October, Caper, who was then living in a town perched atop of a conical mountain, descended five or six miles on foot, and passed a day in a vineyard, in order to see the vintage. The vines were trained on trees or on sticks of cane, and the peasant-girls and women were busy picking the great bunches of white or purple grapes, which were thrown into copper _conche_ or jars; these _conche_, when filled, were carried on the head to a central spot where they were emptied on fern leaves, placed on the ground to receive them. And from these piles, the wooden barrels of the mules returning from the town were filled with the grapes which were carried up there to be pressed.

The grape-crop had been so affected by the _malattia_ or blight, that the yield being small, the fruit to an extent was not pressed in the vineyards, and the juice only brought up to the town in goat-skins as usual; but the fruit itself was carried up, by those having the proper places, and was pressed in tubs in the _cantine_ or rooms on the ground-floor, where the wine is kept. Across the huge saddles of the mules, they swung a couple of truncated cone-shaped barrels, and filled them with grapes; these were tumbled into tubs, ranged in the _cantina_, good, bad and indifferent fruit all together; and when enough were poured in, in jumped the _pistatore d'uve_ or grape-presser, with bare legs and feet, and began pressing and stamping, until the juice ran out in a tolerable stream. This juice was then poured into a headless hogshead, and when more than half-full, they piled on the grapeskins and stones and stems that had undergone the pressure, until the hogshead was full to the top. A weight was then placed over all. In twenty days, fermentation having taken place, they drew from the hogshead the new wine, which was afterward clarified with whites of eggs.

In this rough-and-ready way, the common wine is made. Without selection, all grapes, ripe, unripe, and rotten, sweet and sour, are mashed up together, hurriedly and imperfectly pressed, and the wine is sent to market, to sell for what it will bring. Having thus seen it made, let us see it disposed of.

Of all the monuments to Bacchus, in Rome, the one near the pyramid of Caius Cestius, and still nearer the Protestant burying-ground, is by far the most noticeable. Jealous of the lofty manner in which it lifts its head above the surrounding fields and walls of the city, the church has seen fit to crown its head with a cross, which it seems inclined to shake off. This small mountain of a monument is conical in shape, and is composed entirely of broken crockery; hence its name, _Testaccio_. In its crockery sides, they have found a certain coolness and evenness of temperature exactly suited to the storage of wine, and to maturing it; hence, all around the mountain are deep vaults, filled with red and white wines, working themselves up for a fit state to enter into the joy and the gullets of the Roman _minenti_.

If the reader of this sketch is at all of a philosophical frame of mind, and should ever visit Rome, it is the writer's advice that, in the first place, having learned Italian enough, and in the second place, having his purse fairly filled--silver will do--he should, during the month of October, on a holyday, go out to Monte Testaccio alone, or at least in company with some one who knows enough to let him he alone when he wants to be with somebody else, and then and there fraternizing for a few hours with the Roman _plebs_, let him at his ease see what he shall see. Then shall he sit him down at the door of the _Antica Osteria di Cappanone_, at the rough wood table, on a rougher wooden bench; talk right and left, with tailors, shoemakers, artists, soldiers, and God knows what, drinking the cool, amber-colored wine of Monte Rotonda, gleaming brightly in the sunlight that dashes through his glass, and so cheerfully winning the good-will of them all--and of some of the young women who are with them--that he shall find himself at some future time either the sheath for a Roman knife, or the recipient of a great deal of affection, and the purchaser of indefinite _bottiglie_ of _vino nostrale_.

In his ardent pursuit of natural art, Caper believed it his duty to hunt up the picturesque wherever it could be found, and it was while pursuing this duty, in company with Rocjean, that he found himself at Monte Testaccio, one October day, and there made his _débût_. After a luncheon of raw ham, bread, cheese, sausage, and a _bottiglia_ of wine, they ascended the mountain, and sitting down at the foot of the cross, they quietly smoked and communed with nature unreservedly.

Crumbling old walls of Rome that lay below them; wild, uncultivated Campagna; purple range of mountains, snow-tipped; thousand-legged, ruined aqueducts; distant sea, but faintly revealed through the vail of haze-bounded horizon; yellow Tiber, flowing along crumbling banks; dome of St. Peter's, rising above the hill that shuts the Vatican from sight; pyramid of Caius Cestius; Protestant burying-ground, with the wind sighing through the trees a lullaby over the graves of Shelley and Keats; distant view of Rome, slumbering artistically, and not manufacturingly, in the sunlight of that morning--ye taught one man of the two wild hopes for Rome of the future.

At the foot of the mountain, and adjoining the Protestant burying-ground, there is a powder-magazine. Here a French soldier, acting as sentry, paced his weary round. It was not long before a couple of Roman women passed him. They saluted him; he saluted them. They passed behind the magazine. The sentry, with the courtesy which distinguishes Frenchmen, evidently desired to make his compliments and pay his addresses to the _dames_. How could this be done? Before long, two of his compatriots, evidently out for a holiday, passed him. He beckoned to one of them, who at once took his gun and turned sentry, while the relieved guard flew to display to the _dames_ his national courtesy. Before Caper had time to smoke a second cigar, the soldier returned to duty, and the one who had relieved him sprung to pay his addresses. During the two hours that Caper and Rocjean studied the scenery, guard was relieved four times.

'Ah!' said Rocjean, 'we are a gallant nation. Let us therefore descend and mingle with what the high-minded John Bulls call 'the lower orders.''

Down they went, and at the first table they came to, they found their shoemaker, the Signore Eugenio Calzolajo, artist in leather, seated with three Roman women. They all resembled each other like three pins. The eldest one held a baby, the _caro bambino_, in her arms; she was probably twenty years old. The next one was not over eighteen; while the youngest had evidently not passed her sixteenth year.

The artist in leather saluted Caper and Rocjean with the title of _Illustrissimi_, (they both paid their bills punctually,) and, as he saw that the other tables were full, he at once made room for them, introducing them to his wife and her two sisters. Caper, who saw that the party had just arrived, and had not as yet had time to order any thing from the waiters, told them that the day being his birthday, it was customary among the North-American Indians always to celebrate it with a feast of roast dogs and bottled porter; but, as neither of these articles were to be found at Monte Testaccio, he should command what they had; and arresting a waiter, he ordered such a supply of food and wine, that the eyes of the three Roman girls opened wide as owls'. Their tongues were all unloosened at once, as if by magic, and Caper had the satisfaction of seeing that for what a bottle of Hotel Champaigne costs in the United States, he had provided joy unadulterated, and happy memories for many days, for several descendants of the Caesars.

While the wine circulated freely, the eldest, of the unmarried girls, named Eliza, began joking Caper about his being a heretic and 'a little devil,' and asked him to take off his hat, to see if he had horns. Caper told her he was as yet unmarried, ... and that among the Indians, bachelors were never allowed to take their hats off before maidens. 'But,' said he, 'what makes you think I am a heretic? Wasn't I at Saint Peter's yesterday, and at the confessionals?'

'Yes, you were at them like an old German gentleman I once knew,' said Eliza. 'Some of his friends saw him one morning at the German confessional-box, and knowing that he was a heretic, asked him what he was doing there? '_Diavolo!_' said he, 'can't a man have a comfortable mouthful of German, without changing religions?''

'For my part,' said Rita, the youngest sister, 'I only go to confessional, because I _have_ to, and I only confess what I want to.'

'Bravo!' exclaimed Rocjean, 'I must _paint your portrait_.'

'_Benissimo!_ and who will paint mine?' asked Eliza.

'I will,' said Caper, 'but on condition that you let me keep a copy of it.'....

Arrangements completed, Rocjean ordered more wine; and then the artist in leather ordered more; then Caper's turn came. After this, the party--which had been gradually growing jolly and jollier, would have danced, had they not all had a holy horror of the prison of San Angelo. The married sister, Dominica, was a full-blooded _Trasteverina_, in her gala dress, and had one of those beautiful-shaped heads that Caper could only compare to a quail's; her jet-black hair, smoothed close to her head, was gathered in a large roll that fell low on her neck behind, and held by a silver _spadina_ or pin, that, if occasion demanded, would make a serviceable stiletto; her full face was brown, while the red blood shone through her cheeks, and her lips were full and ripe. Her eyes of deep gray, shaded with long black lashes, sparkled with light when she was aroused. Her sisters resembled her strikingly, except Rita, the youngest, whose face was of that singularly delicate hue of white, the color of the magnolia-flower, as one of our American writers has it; or like the white of a boiled egg next to the yolk, as Caper expressed it. Be this as it may, there was something very attractive in this pallor, since it was accompanied by an _embonpoint_ indicating any thing but romantic meagerness of constitution.

Dominica had, without exaggeration, the value of a dozen or two pairs of patent-leather boots hung on her neck, arms, fingers, ears, and bosom, in the shape of furious-sized pieces of gold jewelry; and it was solid gold. The Roman women, from the earliest days--from the time when Etruscan artists made those ponderous chains and bracelets down to this present date--have had the most unbridled love for jewelry. Do we not know[D] that--

Sabina's garters were worth,... $200,000
Faustina's finger-ring,... 200,000
Domitia'a ring,... 300,000
Cæesonia's bracelet,... 400,000
Poppæa's earrings,... 600,000
Calpurina's (Cæsar's wife) earrings,
'above suspicion,'... 1,200,000
Sabina's diadem,... 1,200,000

And after this, is it at all astonishing that the desire remains for it, even if the substance has been plundered and carried off by those _forestieri_, the Huns, Vandals, Goths, Visigoths, Norsemen, and other heretics who have visited Rome?

While they were all busily drinking and talking, Caper had noticed that the wine was beginning to have its effects on the large crowd who had assembled at the Osterias and Trattorias around the foot of the Bacchic mountain. Laughing and talking, shouting and singing, began to be in the ascendant, and gravity was voted indecent.

'Ha!' said Rocjean, 'for one hour of the good old classic days!'

'What!' answered Caper, 'with those seventy thousand old Jews you were preaching about the other day?'

'Never!--with the Bacchante. But here our friends are off: let us help them into the carriage.'

As the sun went down, the _minenti_ began to crowd toward Rome. More than one _spadina_ flashed in the hands of the slightly-tight maidens who were on foot. Those of the men who had carriages, foreseeing the inflammable spirit aroused, packed the women in by themselves, gave them lighted torches, and cut them adrift, to float down the Corso; they following in separate carriages.

* * * * *

'Ah! really, and pray, Mrs. Jobson, don't you think that it's--ah! a beautiful sight; they tell me--ah! it's the peasants returning from visiting the shrine of the--ah! Madonna--ah?'

'And I think it is _most_ charming, Mister Lushington; and I remember me now that Lady Fanny Errol, poor thing, said it would be a _charming_ sight. And the poor creatures seem _much_ happier than our own lower orders; they do, to be sure.'

* * * * *

'O Lord!' groaned Caper, as he overheard the above dialogue, 'allow me to retire.'

CAPER 'STARTS' A MENAGERIE.

As an animal-painter, Mr. Caper was continually hunting up materials for sketches. He made excursions into the Campagna, to see the long-horned gray oxen and the hideous buffaloes; watching the latter along the yellow Tiber, when, in the spring-time, they coquetted in the mud and water. He sketched goats and sheep, tended by the picturesquely-dressed shepherds and guarded by the fierce dogs that continually encircled them. In four words, he studied animal-ated nature.

On his first arrival in Rome, he had purchased one of those sprightly little _vetturo_ dogs, all wool and tail, that the traveler remarks mounted on top of the traveling carriages that enter and leave Rome. With a firm foothold, they stand on the very top of all the baggage that may be piled on the roof of the coach; and there, standing guard and barking fiercely, seem to thoroughly enjoy the confusion attendant on starting the horses or unloading the baggage. They are seen around the carriage-stands where public hacks are hired, and as soon as one moves off, up jumps the _vetturo_ dog alongside the driver, and never leaves the vehicle until it stops; then, if he sees another hack returning to the city, he will jump into that, and be carried back triumphant. This sounds like fiction; but its truth will be confirmed by any one who has ever noticed the peculiarities of this breed of dogs, which love to ride.

Caper kept this dog in his studio, and had already made several very life-like studies of him. One morning, leaving his lodgings earlier than usual, he met on the stairway of his house a countryman driving a goat up-stairs to be milked; the Romans thus having good evidence that when they buy goat's milk, they don't purchase water from the fountains. As Caper was going out of the door that led into the street, he saw among the flock of goats assembled there, a patriarchal old Billy, whose beard struck him with delight. He was looking at him in silent veneration, when the goats'-milk man came down-stairs, driving the ewe before him. He asked the man if he would sell the patriarch; but found that he would not. He promised, however, to lend him to Caper until the next day, for a good round sum, to be paid when the goat was delivered at the studio, which the man said would be in the course of an hour.

Our artist then went down to the Greco, where he breakfasted; and there met Rocjean, who proposed to him to go that morning to the Piazza Navona, as it was market-day, and they would have a fine chance to take notes of the country-people, their costumes, etc. They first went around to Caper's studio, where they had only to wait a short time before the milk-man came, driving the old Billy-goat up-stairs before him. Caper made him fast with a cord to a heavy table, the top of which was a vast receptacle of sketch-books, oil-colors, books, and all kinds of odds and ends.

Rocjean and he then strolled down to the Piazza Navona, where, while walking around, Caper suddenly stumbled over the smallest and most comical specimen of a donkey he had ever seen. The man who owned him, and who had brought in a load of vegetables on the donkey's back, offered to sell him very cheap. The temptation was great, and our animal artist bought him at once for five _scudi_, alias dollars; but with the understanding that the countryman would deliver him at his studio at once. In twenty minutes' time, the donkey was climbing up a long flight of stairs to Caper's studio, as seriously as if he were crossing the _pons asinorum_. Once in his studio, Caper soon made arrangements to have the donkey kept in a stable near by, when he was not sketching him. This matter finished, Rocjean helped Caper pen him up in a corner of the studio, where he could begin sketching him as soon as he had finished portraying the billy-goat. The patriarch had made several attempts to rush at the vetturo-dog; but the string held him fast to the table. Rocjean mentioned to Caper that he ought to feed his menagerie, and the porter being called and sent out for some food for the goat and donkey, soon returned with a full supply.

Both artists now set to work in earnest; Caper with paints and brushes, and Rocjean with crayons and sketch-book, determined to take the patriarch's portrait while he was in a peaceful frame of body and spirit.

With an intermission for luncheon, they worked until nearly four o'clock in the afternoon, when Rocjean proposed taking a walk out to the Villa Borghese, and as they returned, on their way to dinner, they could stop in at the studio, and see that the donkey and goat were driven out to the stable, where they could be kept until wanted again. Accordingly, both artists walked out to the villa, and had only taken a short turn toward the Casino, when they met a New-York friend of theirs, alone in a carriage, taking a ride. He ordered the driver to stop, and begged them both to get in with him, and after passing through the villa and around the Pincio, to come and take dinner with him sociably in his rooms in the Via Frattina. They accepted; and at ten o'clock that night, while going home in a very happy frame of mind, it suddenly occurred to Caper that his menagerie ought to have been attended to. Rocjean consoled him with the reflection that, having the key in his pocket, they could not possibly get out; so the former thought no more about it.

Early in the morning, having met as usual at the Greco, and breakfasted together, Caper and Rocjean walked round to the former's studio. Before they entered the door of the building, they noticed a small assembly of old women surrounding the porter, and as Caper entered the passage-way, they poured a broadside into him.

'_Accidente, Signore_, nobody around here has been able to sleep a wink all night long. _Santa Maria!_ such yells have come from your studio, such groans, such horrible noises, as if all the devils had broken loose. We are going to the police; we are going to the _gendarmeria_; we are going to--'

'Go there--and be hanged!' shouted Caper, breaking through the crowd, and running up-stairs two steps at a time, he nearly walked into the lap of a tall female model, named Giacinta, dressed in Ciociara costume, who was calmly seated on the stair-case, glaring at another female model, named Nina, who stood leaning against the door of his studio.

'Signor Giacomo, good morning!' said Giacinta, 'didn't you tell _me_ to be here at nine o'clock?'

'To be sure I did,' replied he.

'Then,' continued she, 'what is _that person_ there taking the bread out of my mouth for? _Cospetto!_'

'_Iddio giusto!_' cried Nina, 'hear her; she calls _me_, ME, a person! I who have a watch and chain, and wear a hooped petticoat! _I_ take the bread out of her mouth. I a person! I'm a lady, _per Bacco!_'

'Tace!' said Rocjean to Nina, 'or the Signore Giacomo will send you flying. What do you want, Nina?'

'I only wanted to see if the Signore intended to paint the Lady Godeeva, that he told me about the other day.'

'Wait till I open the studio-door, and get out of this noise. Those old women down below, and you young ones up here, are howling like a lot of hyenas. Here, come in!' ... As Caper said this, he unlocked the studio-door and threw it open; the two models were close at his elbows, while Rocjean drew to one side to let them pass in.

In the next minute, Caper, the two models, a he-goat, a dirty little donkey, and a yelping dog, were rolling head over heels down-stairs, one confused mass of petticoats and animals.

Rocjean roared with laughter; he could do nothing but hold his sides, fearful of having an apopletic fit or bursting a blood-vessel.

The small donkey slid down-stairs on his back, slowly, gradually, meekly; his long ears rubbing the way before him. But the billy-goat was on his feet in an instant, and was charging, next thing, full force into the knot of old women at the foot of the stairs, who, believing that their last hour had come, and that it was old Nick in person, yelled out,' 'Tis he; the devil! the devil!' and fled before the horns to come.

Giacinta was the first one on her legs, and after picking up the _caro_ Giacomo, _alias_ Caper, and finding he was not hurt, she then good-naturedly helped Nina to arrange her tumbled garments.

Rocjean rushed to open the studio-windows, to air the room, for it had not the odors of the Spice Islands in it. Caper hastened to pick up paints, brushes, books, easel; but they were too many for him, and at last, giving it up in despair, he sat down on a chair.

'_Well!_' said he, 'there _has_ been a HARD fight here! The dog must have tackled the billy-goat; the goat must have upset this table, broken his string, and pitched into that dirty little donkey; and the donkey must have put his heels through that canvas; and all three must have broken loose and upset us ... I say, Rocjean, send out for some wine; _I_ am dry, and these girls are, I know.'

Peace was soon made. Nina was promised that she should sit for Lady Godiva, as soon as the donkey was caught; for she was to be represented seated on him instead of a horse. Giacinta poséd for a _contadina_ at a fountain. Rocjean passed round the wine, and helped put the studio in order; and Caper, brush in hand, painted away, determining that under any circumstances, he never would open another menagerie, until he was able to pay a keeper to look after the animals.

* * * * *

FAIRIES.

Our fathers, when the race was young,
And therefore some say better,
With fresh simplicity, believed
In Dryad, Faun, and Satyr.
The Zephyrs breathéd throughout the air,
And when the scene was fitting,
The Naiads combed their golden hair,
Beside the waters sitting.

And we ourselves in childhood loved
A faith so sweet as this is;
We felt the touch of rose-leaf palms,
And almost felt their kisses:
We tracked them through the shadowy grass,
Or when the evening glistened,
We lay in wait to see them pass,
And to their singing listened.

The hawthorn stretches wide its arms,
And all the woods are fragrant,
But Fancy walks in high-heeled shoes,
And is no more a vagrant.
No Satyrs from the greenwood peer,
No more we see at gloaming,
The Naiads sit, their golden hair
Beside the waters combing.

Alas! our early faith is cold,
And all things are so real!
Now, grown too wise, we shut our eyes,
And laugh at the ideal.
The charméd dusk still settles down
Upon the happy prairies;
But twilight's chiefest charm is flown,
For where are now the fairies?

* * * * *

JOHN BRIGHT.

The late misunderstanding between this country and Great Britain, relative to Mason and Slidell, elicited a free expression of opinion from the statesmen of the mother country, as to the contest now proceeding in this country; and while we regretted to witness so many proofs of the prejudice and jealousy which seem to hold possession of the minds of our transatlantic cousins, we were gratified by the heroic and brilliant defense of our cause by one so eminent in intellectual and moral qualities as JOHN BRIGHT. The boldness and vigor of his efforts to dispel the hostility of his compatriots toward America, and the masterly ability with which he disarmed the weapons of our opponents, elicited the respect of our people and have made his name one of veneration among them. His position in our favor, amid the many discouragements which beset him, justifies an attempt to lay before our readers an account of his career and character, which, we doubt not, they will be interested to hear.

John Bright, Member of Parliament for the great city of Birmingham, is the son of respectable Quaker parents, and was born at Greenbank, near Rochdale, in the year 1811. His family being largely interested in the cotton manufacture, he was bred to a participation in this employment, and is now the senior member of an extensive and enterprising firm, in company with his brothers. It is hardly to be expected that one whose early youth had been devoted to the restricted sphere of a counting-room, would be remarkable for an extensive knowledge of men and events, liberal opinions, freshness of intellect, and vigorous brilliancy of declamation; and yet Mr. Bright has always manifested superiority in these qualities. Known, while occupied exclusively in the details of his proper avocation, for skill, promptness, and enterprise, he has also been distinguished, since his sphere of usefulness has been extended to the national councils, for the scope and accuracy of his general information, the comprehensiveness of his mind, the richness of his imagination, and the effective energy of his eloquence. He early manifested an interest in politics, which was intensified by the agitation of questions nearly affecting his own business interests. The celebrated Anti-Corn-Law League, which was instituted in the time of Lord Melbourne's ministry, by some eminent Whigs, for the purpose of opposing the tariff erected by the corn-laws, excited his enthusiastic coöperation, and afforded him an early opportunity of entering political life. The enlightened ideas of the Reformers had already effected a glorious renovation in the machinery of the government; and the regeneration of the commercial system was next to be accomplished, by a successful resistance to the selfish restrictions imposed upon trade by the landed proprietors. In such a cause, John Bright embarked in his twenty-seventh year; and his subsequent career has been a consistent adherence to the same views which marked his entrance into public notice. He espoused with ardor the principles avowed by the League, and leaving the management of his private interests in the hands of the junior members of the firm, began to discuss them publicly, with great force and effect. The League soon perceived the valuable acquisition they had made in the young Quaker, and not only encouraged him to exertion but gave him opportunities to appear before many important assemblages. On the list of orators whom the League commissioned to go into the agricultural districts to advocate their cause, Mr. Bright's name soon became prominent. By the irresistible cogency and energetic expression which characterized his speech before many thousands in Drury Lane Theatre, his reputation became national, and printed copies being distributed throughout England, a desire to hear him on the important question of the day became every where manifest. He went about among the farmers and gentry, instilling with ability the principles of free trade, developing arguments with telling effect, and rapidly organizing branches of the League throughout the kingdom. The distrust of the lower classes, which was awakened in some degree against the nobles and nabobs who sustained the League, did not operate against him, who, as a man directly from the people, educated in the stern school of labor, and as the daily witness of and sympathizer with the suffering of the poor, at once elicited their confidence in his honesty and their respect for his intellectual power. Political advantage, which might be sought by life-long politicians and hereditary nobles, could, they well knew, offer no inducement to nor corrupt the ingenuous principles of one who showed so little respect to party distinction, and who was entirely independent of great connections.

The statesmen with whom he acted, in favor of free trade, were unwilling to be without so valuable an ally on the floor of the House of Commons; and, in April, 1843, he was placed in nomination by his numerous friends at Durham, for the seat to which that city was entitled.

On the first trial, he was defeated; but a new election for the same city becoming necessary in the following July, he was returned, by a gratifying majority, to represent a place noted for its conservative proclivities. He continued the member for Durham until 1847.

His first efforts, after entering Parliament, were directed to the repeal of the Corn-Laws, in which beneficent measure he coöperated with such men as Charles P. Villiers, brother of Lord Clarendon, Lord Morpeth, now Earl of Carlisle, Lord John Russell, and his friend, Mr. Richard Cobden. Sir Robert Peel, who was at that time Prime Minister, had always adhered to the protective doctrines of Pitt and Wellington; and it was mainly due to the clear and cogent reasoning of Bright and his associates, that the illustrious statesman at the head of the Treasury finally yielded, with a magnanimity never surpassed in the annals of ministerial history, to the enlightened policy of free trade in respect to corn. The distress which had for years resulted from the stringent enactments of Lord Liverpool's government to the lower class, was, by this patriotic sacrifice of the first minister, done away with; and not least among those who contributed to the accomplishment of so auspicious a result, we must reckon the subject of this sketch. The Tory party, headed by such chiefs as Wellington and Lyndhurst, in the Lords, and Stanley and Disraeli, in the Commons, made a stern and pertinacious resistance to the repeal; and no one was more feared by the intellectual giants of that party than was Bright. His severe wit, his plain, blunt manner of exposing the defects of his opponents, and his impulsive and overwhelming declamation, were hardly exceeded by the fluent exuberance of Stanley and the keen sarcasm of the Hebrew novelist, Disraeli.

While he generally acted with the party of which Lord Russell and Lord Landsdowne were the chiefs, he did not place himself supinely under the dictation of the caucus-room. Professing to be bound by the precepts of no faction, acting frequently with the conservatives, although oftener with the liberals, independent of ministerial control, and disdaining to attain power by the sacrifice of any principle, he was excluded from a participation in the government, when those with whom he in general sympathized succeeded to the administration in 1846. He early adopted ultra-liberal views, and has always been known as the advocate of universal suffrage, the separation of Church and State, and the diminution of the influence of hereditary nobles; and although he could not but be aware that many of his doctrines were repugnant to those of his auditors, and a majority of his countrymen, he has not hesitated to uphold and express them with great perseverance and ingenuousness.

Had he lived in the days of Russell and Sidney, he had perhaps shared their fate, and paid the penalty of unpopular politics on the scaffold. That bold spirit which he has ever manifested, exciting his great talents in the advocacy of repugnant theories, would not have feared the restraints which a ruder age encouraged despotic kings to put upon freedom of political action. Luckily, he has been living in an age which respects independent thought and proscribes the conscience of no man. While he is certainly premature in his theories of equality, the tendency of popular feeling is toward him rather than from him. Tory policy to-day was Whig policy a century ago. Walpole would have sustained the younger Pitt, and Derby and Lyndhurst will hardly dispute the benefits of the reform of 1832.

Mr. Bright was returned to Parliament for Manchester, in 1847, and again in 1852. This great town, which is the market for Rochdale, and consequently in which he was well known, sent him to the Commons by a handsome majority of eleven hundred. In the early session of 1857, Mr. Cobden introduced a motion condemning the war into which the administration had entered with China, on which the government was defeated. Mr. Bright, though absent on account of ill-health, used his influence in favor of the motion, by reason of which, on the appeal of Lord Palmerston to the country, during the summer of that year, he was defeated in his constituency by over five thousand votes; his successful opponent, though agreeing with him in general, being a supporter of the Chinese war.

In 1859, he was reinstated in Parliament, by the electors of Birmingham, of whose manufacturing interests he had always shown himself a consistent and ardent friend. For this constituency he is now member. He has been twice married; first, to the daughter of Jonathan Priestley, Esq., of Newcastle-on-Tyne, who died in 1841; and secondly, to his present wife, the eldest daughter of W. Leatham, Esq., of Wakefield, York.