They are formed of a species of opaque glass, coloured in general by means of metallic oxides, and seventeen hundred different shades are in use; they are manufactured in Rome, and are first formed into long slender rods, which are cut into the required lengths.

The small Venetian beads are produced in a similar way, except that the rods are hollow, and after being cut into little square pieces are shaken together in sand till the angles are destroyed.

The Roman painter Cammucini, one of the relics of the Mengs and David school, is director of the Studio del Musaico, in the Vatican, and has taken advantage of this situation to have some of his own cold productions immortalized by the labours of mosaic; which appears a sad prostitution of the art; for although Baron Cammucini is an amiable and clever man, and quite the greatest native artist, yet while masterpieces of Raphael and Guido are fast perishing without a record, one has no sympathy with the labour bestowed on inferior works.

The excellence with which articles of modern art have been lately produced, has quite superseded the taste for antique fragments; and the magazines of broken arms, and legs, and noses, and other morceaux, too shapeless for a name, with which Rome formerly abounded, have disappeared.

Those who would know something of the habits and peculiarities of the youth congregated in Rome, for the study of the arts, should go some evening to the Café Greco, the principal rendezvous of the genus; he will hear more about arts and artists, ancient and modern, Greek and Roman, in half an hour, than he could glean in his reading in a year. One night I repaired thither, and as I entered, found a tall Scotsman holding forth in Italian, upon the proportions of the columns of the temple of Jupiter Stator. Italian, with a broad Scotch accent! This alone was worth the pilgrimage. The room was as full as it could be crammed, and the smoke of the German pipes gave a fine atmospheric effect to the assemblage. I took my seat, which was a small space made for me by the politeness of two Germans, and shouting bottega! ordered a cup of coffee. You may cry garcon ! for ever, and no attention is paid: waiter will not do either in Italy: bottega is the open cessamé at the coffee-house, like cammeriere at the hotel. The French were the most loquacious, and treated the greatest artistic names of the day with a familiarity quite amusing. I spoke to one rough-looking rascal, with a barbe de sapeur, of Horace Vernet. Ah! mon ami, said he, Horace avait du talent, mais il a coulé. It appears that his pictures of Arabs, now his

favourite subject, (every thing Algerine is popular in Paris) have been surpassed, in the opinion of the rising youth, by the sketches of a young fellow who has just returned from a residence in Algiers. David and Girodet are by general consent pronounced perruqué. The only man of established fame they acknowledge, is Paul Delacroix, just about to be married to the elegant and accomplished daughter of Horace Vernet, who, it is said, swore, like Rubens, that his daughter should marry none but a painter. The Germans say little, but are attentive observers, and signify their assent, or dissent, or doubt, by a puff; they have the puff acquiescent, the puff dissentient, and the puff doubtful. The puff acquiescent is given downward, from a small round aperture formed in the centre of the lips accompanied by a slight inclination of the head forward; the puff dissentient, on the contrary, is given upward; the body thrown slightly back, the chest expanded, and the column of smoke broader and somewhat more vehement. For the puff doubtful, the head is slightly inclined toward the right shoulder, and from the left corner of the mouth curls gently upwards, as fine as a cobweb, this dubious whiff. I soon discovered that the character of a German is as much exposed to an attentive observer, by his manner of smoking, as it would be to a phrenologist upon examination of his bumps, (to use a term of the scoffers). The puff dissentient, was most frequent with the bilious and pugnacious temperament; the puff acquiescent, with the credulous and sanguine; whilst the puff doubtful, proceeded generally from the colder or melancholic temparament; one of whom, like the renowned Burgomaster of New York, fell into so deep a doubt, that all the company had retired, and he was reminded that the premises were about to be closed, ere he rose with a start, and without finishing his cold coffee, or recollecting it was not paid for, walked away with an air of embarrassment which universally accompanies this organization. Many water-colour sketches were produced, in the course of the evening-some of considerable merit. One, was a view from the Villa Pamfili, a favourite subject, as it is the best point to get St. Peter's well into the landscape; and the sketch was pronounced by the Scotsman, to come very square and nice: he was a very merry fellow, and having all the pictorial slang at his command, was quite entertaining. A Frenchman drew forth twelve copies of the Beatrice Cenci, laughing heartily at the idea that they would all be sold to different English connoisseurs as originals. A Roman dealer the dealers attend the Café Greco to pick up things of this sort-gave him two scudi each for them. Voilà, said my Gallic friend, pocketing the

dollars, cela est pour la cuisine; next week must be for fame. The rest of the

evening's discussion turned upon frescoes, and a young German proposed to be my guide in Rome to those wonders of art, as he in his enthusiasm termed them, and felt all he expressed. These enthusiastic Germans are imbibing the very spirit of Raphael and Michael Angelo from the frescoes of Rome; and transferring it to Munich and Vienna; where the apartments of the great palaces are fast covering with works that promise to rival those of the great Italian eras. I could wish eventually to see English students pursuing a similar course, but the taste of the country is not yet ripe for the introduction of the great style of the Italian frescoes.

CHAPTER VIII.

NOTES ON COMESTIBLES.

SURROUNDED on all sides for many miles by the desert campagna, Rome is nevertheless provided abundantly with all that a genial clime and prolific soil can produce, though almost daily transported from a considerable distance. In this respect Rome reminds me of Venice, where every drop of that common requisite, fresh water, is brought from Mestre, the nearest point of terra firma, eight or ten miles distant: and yet no place is so well supplied with the luxuries as well as the necessaries of life. Nearly 50,000 gondoliers live by their occupation of provision carriers to the ocean city.

The farmers on the confines of the campagna which begirds Rome, as the Lagune does Venice, are as industrious as the boatmen of St. Marco; and have acquired as great skill in the construction of the light carriages which bear their produce to the Roman markets, as the former in their unrivalled gondolas.

It is a picturesque sight, every morning about seven, at the Porta del Popolo, or San Giovanni, to watch the string of vehicles, that I can scarcely call carts, arriving in quick succession at the gate; and their drivers in their peculiar dress, settling their various gabelle (town dues) with the doganieri. These vehicles, loaded with oil, wine, olives, cheeses, butter, gourds of every description, grapes, pomegranates, and various species of vegetables, are most admirably constructed, each for its particular purpose. An English cart, while still empty, is already a load for a horse; but an Englishman's ideas of solidity and durability in all things, however unnecessary, must be satisfied; and so to the continued purgatory of British draft horses, (who must often curse their task-masters, if they know how things are managed on the continent) our solid, durable, ponderous carts and waggons will be persevered in as long as the reign of prejudice endures; though by taking a lesson from the Germans, or Italians, we might decrease the labour of the horse by one-fourth, and decrease the expense of construction by

seven-eighths. For if those lighter and more convenient vehicles would perhaps not last quite so long, we must recollect that they might be renewed many times, for the expense of one good, solid, well-built, durable, but horse-killing English waggon. I cannot suppress a smile when I think how a good, solid, practical, respectable, Kentish farmer, would chuckle at my ignorance, were he to meet with these remarks.

To return to my Roman carriages. Their simplicity of construction is extreme ; two light spars of tough, well-seasoned wood, resting upon the axletree, form the shafts one way, and the body of the cart the other. If to carry wine, the space between the spars is increased laterally, so as to suit the size of the casks; for which, if small and light, a frame is sometimes fitted, that admits of a second layer above, or even a third, if necessary. In a similar manner, fruit carts, butter carts, or milk carts, are with the assistance of a little stout basket-work, or stronger frames of wood, if necessary, adapted each in its own peculiar manner to the purpose for which it is required; thus giving the horse only the weight of the produce to take to market, and not a ponderous cart also. Having noticed the utile, which is the grand trait of the cart, I must now find room for a word upon the picturesque, which is the leading characteristic of the horse-trappings and harness; not to mention the Spanish-looking hat and bandiera of the driver. The mode of harnessing is inferior to ours, both in lightness and simplicity, but above all in neatness; and yet perhaps it enables the animal to do his work with greater ease. The shafts rest upon two richly decorated branches or supports, which spring from the pad or saddle; thus disencumbering his flanks, and leaving his motion much more free and unshackled than it could possibly be with a stiff pole suspended on either side. Then there is the immense draperied and badgerskinned collar! which, besides its picturesque appearance, possesses perhaps other advantages. May it not bring the pressure of draft more equally on all parts of the shoulder, and never gall, as in hard work is almost invariably the case with our more light and elegant collars, by confining a continued pressure to one point of contact. Such at all events were my conclusions in these early promenades to the gates, which was a favourite lounge with me during my residence in Rome. There is a freshness in the morning that never fails to shed a corresponding gleam over the spirits; unless indeed the feelings be dead to the beauties of nature, and that I can scarcely conceive. People may become blazé with the world, (the social world) the glitter of ball rooms, the tinsel of theatres; but let such arise and go forth in the newness of the morning, and they will find that with nature they are not cloyed; her eternal freshness, her eternal youth, has a softening charm

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