Popolo. This was, I believe, a reform of Leo XII., who, at the same time, turned out the English Protestant church, as another nuisance in the holy city; considerately allowing the heretics, however, to re-establish themselves near the new slaughter-houses.

The butchers have a mode of proceeding "in cutting up," quite different to ours. After dividing the carcass into four or five grand masses, the rest is quite ad libitum, according to the taste of the buyer. A purchaser is asked how many pounds he wishes, and where he will have it (the price varies with the part, and proportion of bone); and he receives a square lump, or a lump of any other geometrical figure he may fancy, just where he chooses. There are no back loins and sirloins, short ribs and long ribs, fillets, rounds, rumps, barrons, saddles, spare ribs, haunches, or conventional joints of any other denomination. This, at first, appears confusing: you cannot order a leg of mutton or a sirloin of beef, and have your commands executed without further trouble, it is true; but, much better than that, you can have a piece cut precisely where and how you like an advantage by no means enjoyed by us; for where all is once divided into certain understood joints, your cook must take them as they are, whether they suit or not; it is usual to cut them so, and they cannot be changed. But I must leave Messrs. Giblet and Co. to controvert this point with Signor Grossapanza, of the Corso, and should much like to see the correspondence. The supply of beef, which is so good as long as the Perugian beasts are to be had, suddenly ceases about April, the season when most visitors leave Rome; and the meat is very indifferent from that time till the ensuing October. How it is that the Romans do not contrive to get a good supply for themselves during the summer months, I do not know; it would seem that they cannot appreciate the difference, and yet, in their own way, they are great epicures. The mutton is always indifferent: the beauty of the flocks that once browsed the velvet banks of the Clitumnus is heard of no more; and I would recommend an invalid, who wishes a light dinner, to beware of a Roman mutton chop.

The fish market, which is well supplied, is held partly among the tottering columns of the Portico of Octavia, and partly upon the Piazza della Rotunda, the modern appellation of the celebrated Pantheon of Agrippa. The spicola, a fish somewhat resembling salmon in shape, but differing in the colour of the flesh, is considered one of the greatest delicacies; but I prefer the trillet, a small red-scaled fish, resembling mullet. They are usually fried in oil, but served up quite dry, with the exception of the juice of a fine fresh lemon or two expressed over them, and are-delicious! They have river fish, too, which are taken in

the Tiber, of the chub species, which, cooked alla Romana, are very excellent; but the onions, oil, and garlic, used in the dish, would at first frighten an Englishman out of his wits, or, at all events, his appetite. He would prefer the cefalo (grey mullet), which they simply broil, and of which there is great abundance. Some small fish are taken in the neighbouring lakes at certain seasons, which are very delicate; the lasca in particular, which is fried without opening, the inside being considered the best part. The intestines somewhat resemble a few convolutions of vermicelli; and, imparting something of the same flavour to the fish, have given rise to the cry, la lasca! la lasca! col maccaroni dentro. Then the shell-fish-the frutti mare-are abundant, and of many species unknown except in the Mediterranean; and there are various molusci which make excellent stews, and are much sought by gourmands. It would be endless, however, to make a list of all fish to be procured in the Roman market; suffice it to say, there is variety enough to suit every taste; yet, despite this profusion, I once tasted at Venice some frutti mare of the Adriatic, which surpassed all I have yet partaken of from the list obtainable on the Piazza della Rotunda.

I have mentioned, I think, most of the articles ministering to the table, that may be considered as peculiarly Roman, except the wines; which are good, various, abundant, and cheap.. I scarcely know whether they would please a palate too long inured to those potent liquids, port and sherry; but to all who can feel satisfied with pure natural wines, there are many which cannot fail to be agreeable, though none are celebrated, and few equal to the primest wines of other parts of Italy, which are to be found, with one or two exceptions, at the foot of the Alps, or among the Neapolitan and Sicilian growths; although the latter are too fiery and inflammatory for my own taste. The Orvieto is grown at some distance from Rome, on the Sienna road; and as the volcanic environs are very picturesque, particularly about Bolseno, where a crystal lake fills the crater of an extinct volcano, almost as round and smooth as a punchbowl, many Roman parties are made in the summer, to drink the Orvieto wine at its growth-place; where, on account of the gabella it pays on entrance into Rome, they obtain it for about half the price that is charged to them at home. This is, as I have said before, the champaigne of the Romans, and is a sparkling and delicious wine; possessing more fruitiness, yet greater delicacy, than champaigne. It has not however, sufficient stamina to bear carriage, scarcely sustaining the shock of removal even to Rome, less than thirty miles distant; so that those who would taste a flask of Orvieto, must make a pilgrimage to its native vineyards, or to the holy city. Of the ordinary table wines, many are made upon those seven hills of Rome, once

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busy with their crowded thousands, and now occupied by silent vineyards; though still within the walls. I had a barrel from the Franciscan monks on the Esquiline; a good and pleasant red wine, which my landlady pronounced, and she was by no means a contemptible judge, a bichier' di vino stupendo. Nearly all grown within the walls, or in the immediate vicinity, is red, the white grape not succeeding so well in that soil; but these wines are little esteemed, and, indeed, much finer qualities are grown on parts of that chain of rocky hills which, commencing at La Riccia, form a grand semicircle round the desert Campagna di Roma, and rise into mountains towards Rieti and Terni. The white wine of Frascati is very pleasant, but does not bear well the removal to Rome. That of Monte Compatri is stronger, almost equal to Bucellas, and is one of the best wines in general consumption; selling in Rome as high as three-pence, or even four-pence, the foglietta (about a quart), whilst inferior wines, quite equal to a great deal of claret imported to the London market, may be had at one penny the bottle. At Gensano, between twenty and thirty miles from Rome, on the Naples road, a delicious sweet wine is grown, equal to the finest Lisbon I ever tasted. It is commonly sold in the village at two-pence per quart, but can scarcely be placed among the list of the wines of Rome; as, from some want of care in the making, (certainly not want of stamina) it does not admit of removal. If it could be produced so as to bear a sea voyage, which, with care and the application of a little more science in the principles of making, it no doubt would, it is a wine that would find many amateurs in England; and, provided there were no duties, this delicious beverage might be sold there at a lower price than small beer!

CHAPTER IX.

PALACES, VILLAS, FOUNTAINS, &c.

I CAN scarcely begin to note down my impressions respecting the dwellings of the Roman nobles, and the ruins from which their most precious materials were torn, without saying something of their inhabitants; but so much has already been both rumoured and written upon the society of Italy, and I upon the manners, customs, and pursuits, as well as morals of Italians, from one end of the peninsula to the other, that I will abstain from adding to the mass; and thus avoid the disagreeable task of unsaying (not to use the harsher term, disproving) much that has been advanced on that subject; and, frequently, by those who had the least opportunity of judging. Those who would know more of the matter I refer to the graphic pages of Beckford, the lively descriptions of Lady Morgan, the entertaining diary of Matthews, &c. Avoiding this part of the subject, I may, however, still say something of the origin of the existing nobility of Rome, at the head of which, unquestionably, stands the house of Borghesi, of Genoese extraction; though, in point of mere wealth, perhaps the Piombini take the precedence, in whose present representative are centered the honours and estates of three other great families; namely, the Ludovisi, the Buoncompagni, and the Ottoboni; besides which, the principality of Piombino, when sold to the grand Duke of Tuscany, produced the prince a sum in itself a treasury. Some others of the leading nobility are, the princes Ruspoli, Rospigliosi, Barberini, Braschi, Panfili-Doria, Altieri, Sciara Colonna, Sforza Cesarini, and Massimi; the two latter of whom claim lineal descent from ancient Roman stock, and assert that the blood of the Cæsars still flows in their veins.

Many of the old historic names of the middle and lower ages, the Conti, the Orsini, the Lancelotti, the Frangipani, are still found, but generally among the inferior nobility; and the heads of many of the greatest families, during the predominance of the imperial interest, settled in Germany, and their descendants are now to be found ranged among the harsher names of the Austrian aristocracy.

Nearly all the nobles of Rome, who are now really great and wealthy, derived their importance from the Popes who were fortunate enough to fill the papal chair in those palmy days of popery, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The last of the Popes who possessed much temporal power and influence, was Pius VI., whom the French revolution surprised in the possession of the see of Rome. His subjection gave the final blow to the sinking splendour of the triple crown, and the cardinals now elect, not one of the aristocracy, to make a fortune, but one whose origin places him under the control of the sacro collegio, and in whose name they can dispose of a cardinal's hat, or other patronage, among their own connections and interests. Such is said to be the case of the present Gregorio XVI.

The old baronial names are so completely eclipsed by the system of nepotism which enriched the families of each successive Pope, of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that they scarcely enter into the list of the modern leading nobles; and I therefore mention in preference the date of the rise of a few of the great families who owe their elevation to papacy and nepotism.

In 1605, Borghesi, a Genoese, was elected Pope, as Paul V.; during whose pontificate the estates of the Cenci were confiscated, under tragic circumstances, which are too well known to need repetition. Since that period, the Borghesi family has been considered one of the first of Rome; and few strangers are aware, whilst they take their evening drive through the enchanting groves of the beautiful villa, that now bears this name, that they are upon the patrimonial estate of the unfortunate Cenci, oft traversed by the fair Beatrice, whose charms still live in the soft touches of the pencil of Guido, and whose fearful history has been made familiar to our nation by the impassioned drama of Shelley.

The importance of the Barberini may date from the election of one of the family to the Popedom, under the name of Urban VIII., in 1623; that of the Pamphili, from Innocent X., 1664; of the Rospigliosi, from Clement IX., 1667; of the Altieri, from Clement X., 1670. To similar events may be traced the origin of a majority of the present wealthy families of central Italy, who have nearly all of them Palazzi in Rome. Having ventured the above somewhat hasty, and rash conclusions, as the result of my own imperfect researches, respecting the Roman nobility, I come to the subject of this memorandum—their habitations. It was the custom of a pope, as soon as he was elected, to commence a splendid Palazzo, which became, as it were, the escutcheon of his family, and descended to his " nephew," who was, not unfrequently, a natural Thus the 300 churches of Rome are surpassed in number by her more

son.