Roba Di Roma

[Continued.]

CHAPTER V.

CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS.

THE Christmas Holidays have come, and with them various customs and celebrations quite peculiar to Rome. They are ushered in by the festive clang of a thousand bells from all the belfries in Rome at Ave Maria of the evening before the august day. At about nine o’clock of the same evening the Pope performs High Mass in some one of the great churches, generally at Santa Maria Maggiore, when all the pillars of this fine old basilica are draped with red hangings, and scores of candles burn in the side chapels, and the great altar blazes with light. The fuguing chants of the Papal choir sound into the dome and down the aisles, while the Holy Father ministers at the altar, and a motley crowd parade and jostle and saunter through the church. Here, mingled together, may be seen soldiers of the Swiss guard, with their shining helmets, long halberds, and party-colored uniforms, designed by Michel Angelo,—chamberlains of the Pope, all in black, with their high ruffs, Spanish cloaks, silken stockings, and golden chains,—contadini from the mountains, in their dully brilliant costumes and white tovaglie,—common laborers from the Campagna, with their black mops of tangled hair,—forestieri of every nation, —Englishmen, with long, light, pendant whiskers, and an eye-glass stuck in one eye,—Germans, with spectacles, frogged coats, and long, straight hair put behind their ears and cut square in the neck, —then Americans, in high-heeled patent-leather boots, a black dress-coat, and a black satin waistcoat,—and wasp-waisted French officers, with baggy trousers, a goat-beard, and a pretentious swagger. Nearer the altar are crowded together in pens a mass of women in black dresses and black veils, who are determined to see and hear all, treating the ceremony purely as a spectacle, and not as a religious rite. Meantime the music soars, the organ groans, the censer clicks, steams of incense float to and fro. The Pope and his attendants kneel and rise,—he lifts the Host, and the world prostrates itself. A great procession of dignitaries with torches bears a fragment of the original cradle of the Holy Bambino from its chapel to the high altar, through the swaying crowd that gape and gaze and stare and sneer and adore. And thus the evening passes. When the clock strikes midnight all the bells ring merrily, Mass commences at the principal churches, and at San Luigi dei Francesi and the Gesù there is a great illumination (what the French call un joli spectacle) and very good music. Thus Christmas is ushered in at Rome.

The next day is a great festa. All classes are dressed in their best and go to Mass,—and when that is over, they throng the streets to chat and lounge and laugh and look at each other. The Corso is so crowded in the morning, that a carriage can scarcely pass. Everywhere one hears the pleasant greeting of “Buona Festa,” “Buona Pasqua.” All the basso popolo, too, are out,—the women wearing their best jewelry, heavy gold ear-rings, three-rowed collane of wellworn coral and gold, long silver and gold pins and arrows in their hair, and great worked brooches with pendants,— and the men of the Trastevere in their peaked hats, their short jackets swung over one shoulder in humble imitation of the Spanish cloak, and with rich scarfs tied round their waists. Most of the ordinary cries of the day are missed. But the constant song of “Arancie ! arancie dolci!” is heard in the crowd ; and everywhere are the sigarari, carrying round their wooden tray of tobacco, and shouting, “Sigari! sigari dolci! sigari scelti!” at the top of their lungs; the nocellaro also cries sadly about his dry chestnuts and pumpkin-seeds. The shops are all closed, and the shopkeepers and clerks saunter up and down the streets, dressed better than the same class anywhere else in the world,—looking spick-and-span, as if they had just come out of a bandbox, and nearly all of them carrying a little cane. One cannot but be struck by the difference in this respect between the Romans on a festa-day in the Corso and the Parisians during a fete in the Champs Elysées,—the former are so much better dressed, and so much happier, gayer, and handsomer.

During the morning, the Pope celebrates High Mass at San Pietro, and thousands of spectators are there,—some from curiosity, some from piety. Few, however, of the Roman families go there today;—they perform their religious services in their private chapel or in some minor church; for the crowd of forestieri spoils St, Peter’s for prayer.¹ At the elevation of the Host, the guards, who line the nave, drop to their knees, their side-arms ringing on the pavement,—the vast crowd bends,—and a swell of trumpets sounds through the dome. Nothing can be more impressive than this moment in St. Peter’s. Then the choir from its gilt cage resumes its chant, the high falsetti of the soprani soaring over the rest, and interrupted now and then by the clear musical voice of the Pope,— until at last he is borne aloft in his Papal chair on the shoulders of his attendants, crowned with the triple crown, between the high, white, waving fans; all the cardinals, monsignori, canonici, officials, priests, and guards going before him in splendid procession. The Pope shuts his eyes, from giddiness and from fasting,— for he has eaten nothing for twenty-four hours, and the swaying motion of the chair makes him dizzy and sick. But he waves at intervals his three fingers to bless the crowd that kneel or bend before him, and then goes home to the Vatican to dine with a clean conscience and a good appetite.

It is the universal rule among priests to fast before saying Mass, and never to take the wafer or body of Christ upon a full stomach. The law is de rigueur, and is almost never broken. But sometimes the temptation of the appetite, it may be supposed, will overcome even a pious man; for priest though one be, one is also fleshand-blood. An anecdote lately told me by the Conte Cignale (dei Selvaggi) may not be out of place in this connection, and I instance it as an undoubted exception to the general rule. A friend of his, an English artist, enamored of Italian life, was spending the summer in one of the mountain towns. Finding little society there except the physician and the parish priest, he soon became on intimate terms with them. One morning the priest called on him before he had finished breakfast. A savory dish was smoking on the table, and the fumes of the hot coffee filled the room. “ I wish you could take breakfast with me,” said he ; “but I know you are to say Mass, and that it would be contrary to rule for you to eat until it is performed.” The priest shrugged his shoulders and looked deprecatorily at the artist and at the breakfast. “Still,” continued the latter, “if your scruples would allow you, I should be delighted if you would help me with this capital dish.” The temptation was great; the smell was savory. The priest made a strong internal defence, but the garrison was forced at last to capitulate. ”Eh!” said he, as he took his seat, “in fatto è il costume generale di non mangiare prima di dire la messa e diprendere l’ ostia. Ma—in quests circostanze,”—here he looked to see that the door was well fastened,—”mi pare che si potrebbe far un letto per nostro Signore, Gesù Cristo.”

It is the custom in Rome at the great festas, of which Christmas is one of the principal ones, for each parish to send round the sacrament to all its sick; and during these days a procession of priest and attendants may be seen, preceded by their cross and banner, bearing the holy wafer to the various houses. As they march along, they make the streets resound with the psalm they sing. Everybody lifts his hat as they pass, and many among the lower classes kneel upon the pavement. Frequently the procession is followed by a rout of men, women, and children, who join in the chanting and responses, pausing with the priest before the door of the sick person, and accompanying it as it moves from house to house.

At Christmas, all the Roman world which has a baiocco in its pocket eats torone and pan giallo. The shops of the pastry-cooks and confectioners are filled with them, mountains of them incumber the counters, and for days before Christmas crowds of purchasers throng to buy them. Torone is a sort of hard candy, made of honey and almonds, and crusted over with crystallized sugar; or in other words, it is a nuga with a sweet frieze coat;—but nuga is a trifle to it, for consistency. Pan giallo is perhaps so called quasi lucus, it being neither bread nor yellow. I know no way of giving a clearer notion of it than by saving that its father is almond-candy and its mother a plum-pudding. It partakes of the qualities of both its parents. From its mother it inherits plums and citron, while its father bestows upon it almonds and consistency. In hardness of character it is half-way between the two,—having neither the maternal tenderness on the one hand, nor the paternal stoniness on the other. One does not break one’s teeth on it as over the torone, which is only to be cajoled into masticability by prolonged suction, and often not then; but the teeth sink into it as the wagoner’s wheels into clayey mire, and every now and then receive a shock, as from sunken rocks, from the raisin-stones, indurated almonds, pistachio-nuts, and pine-seeds, which startle the ignorant and innocent eater with frightful doubts. I carried away one tooth this year over my first piece; but it was a tooth which had been considerably indebted to California, and I have forgiven the pan giallo. My friend the Conte Cignale, who partook at the same time of torone, having incautiously put a large lump into his mouth, found himself compromised thereby to such an extent as to be at once reduced to silence and retirement behind his pocket-handkerchief. An unfortunate jest, however, reduced him to extremities, and, after a vehement struggle for politeness, he was forced to open the window and give his torone to the pavement — and the little boys, perhaps. Chi sa ? But, despite these dangers and difficulties, all the world at Rome eats pan giallo and torone at Christmas,—and a Christmas without them would be an egg without salt. They are at once a penance and a pleasure. Not content with the pan giallo, the Romans also import the pan forte di Siena, which is a blood cousin of the former, and suffers almost nothing from time and age.

On Christmas and New Year’s day all the servants of your friends present themselves at your door to wish you a “ buona festa,” or a “ buon capo d’ anno.” This generous expression of good feeling is, however, expected to be responded to by a more substantial expression on your part, in the shape of four or five pauls, so that one peculiarly feels the value of a large visiting-list of acquaintances at this season. To such an extent is this practice carried, that in the houses of the cardinals and princes places are sought by servants merely for the vails of the festas, no other wages being demanded. Especially is this the case with the higher dignitaries of the Church, whose maestro di casa, in hiring domestics, takes pains to point out to them the advantages of their situation in this respect. Lest the servants should not be aware of all these advantages, the times when such requisitions may be gracefully made and the sums which may be levied are carefully indicated,—not by the cardinal in person, of course, but by his underlings; and many of the fellows who carry the umbrella and cling to the back of the cardinal’s coach, covered with shabby gold-lace and carpetcollars, and looking like great beetles, are really paid by everybody rather than the padrone they serve. But this is not confined to the Eminenze, many of whom are, I dare say, wholly ignorant that such practices exist. The servants of the embassies and all the noble houses also make the circuit of the principal names on the visiting-list, at stated occasions, with good wishes for the family. If one rebel, little care will be taken that letters, cards, and messages arrive promptly at their destination in the palaces of their padroni; so it is a universal habit to thank them for their politeness, and to request them to do you the favor to accept a piece of silver in order to purchase a bottle of wine and drink your health. I never knew one of them refuse; probably they would not consider it polite to do so. It is curious to observe the care with which at the embassies a new name is registered by the servants, who scream it from anteroom to salon, and how considerately a deputation waits on you at Christmas and New Year’s, or, indeed, whenever you are about to leave Rome to take your villeggiatura, for the purpose of conveying to you the good wishes of the season or of invoking for you a “ buon viaggio.” One young Roman, a teacher of languages, told me that it cost him annually some twenty scudi or more, to convey to the servants of his pupils and others his deep sense of the honor they did him in inquiring for his health at stated times. But this is a rare case, and owing, probably, to his peculiar position. A physician in Rome, whom I had occasion to call in for a slight illness, took an opportunity on his first visit to put a very considerable buona mano into the hands of my servant, in order to secure future calls. I cannot, however, say that this is customary; on the contrary, it is the only case I know, though I have had other Roman physicians; and this man was in his habits and practice peculiarly un-Roman. I do not believe it, therefore, to be a Roman trait. On the other hand, I must say, for my servant’s credit, that he told me the fact with a shrug, and added, that he could not, after all, recommend the gentleman as a medico, though I was padrone, of course, to do as I liked.

On Christmas Eve, a Presepio is exhibited in several of the churches. The most splendid is that of the Ara Celi, where the miraculous Bambino is kept. It lasts from Christmas to Twelfth Night, during which period crowds of people flock to see it; and it well repays a visit. The simple meaning of the term Presepio is a manger, but it is also used in the Church to signify a representation of the birth of Christ. In the Ara Celi the whole of one of the side-chapels is devoted to this exhibition. In the foreground is a grotto, in which is seated the Virgin Mary, with Joseph at her side and the miraculous Bambino in her lap. Immediately behind are an ass and an ox. On one side kneel the shepherds and kings in adoration; and above, God the Father is seen surrounded by clouds of cherubs and angels playing on instruments, as in the early pictures of Raphael. In the background is a scenic representation of a pastoral landscape, on which all the skill of the scene-painter is expended. Shepherds guard their flocks far away, reposing under palm-trees or standing on green slopes which glow in the sunshine. The distances and perspective are admirable. In the middle ground is a crystal fountain of glass, near which sheep, preternaturally white, and made of real wool and cottonwool, are feeding, tended by figures of shepherds carved in wood. Still nearer come women bearing great baskets of real oranges and other fruits on their heads. All the nearer figures are full-sized, carved in wood, painted, and dressed in appropriate robes. The miraculous Bambino is a painted doll swaddled in a white dress, which is crusted over with magnificent diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. The Virgin also wears in her ears superb diamond pendants. Joseph has none; but he is not a person peculiarly respected in the Church. As far as the Virgin and Child arc concerned, they are so richly dressed that the presents of the kings and wise men seem rather supererogatory,— like carrying coals to Newcastle,— unless, indeed, Joseph come in for a share, as it is to be hoped he does. The general effect of this scenic show is admirable, and crowds flock to it and press about it all day long. Mothers and fathers are lifting their little children as high as they can, and until their arms are ready to break; little maids are pushing, whispering, and staring in great delight; contadini are gaping at it with a mute wonderment of admiration and devotion ; and Englishmen are discussing loudly the value of the jewels, and wanting to know, by Jove, whether those in the crown can be real.

While this is taking place on one side of the church, on the other is a very different and quite as singular an exhibition. Around one of the antique columns of this basilica — which once beheld the splendors and crimes of the Cæsars’ palace — a staging is erected, from which little maidens are reciting, with every kind of pretty gesticulation, sermons, dialogues, and speechifications, in explanation of the Presepio opposite. Sometimes two of them are engaged in alternate question and answer about the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Redemption. Sometimes the recitation is a piteous description of the agony of the Saviour and the sufferings of the Madonna,— the greatest stress being, however, always laid upon the latter. All these little speeches have been written for them by their priest or some religious friend, been committed to memory, and practised with the appropriate gestures over and over again at home. Their little piping voices are sometimes guilty of such comic breaks and changes, that the crowd about them rustles into a murmurous laughter. Sometimes also one of the very little preachers has a dispitto, pouts, shakes her shoulders, and refuses to go on with her part; — another, however, always stands ready on the platform to supply the vacancy, until friends have coaxed, reasoned, or threatened the little pouter into obedience. These children are often very beautiful and graceful, and their comical little gestures and intonations, their clasping of hands and rolling up of eyes, have a very amusing and interesting effect. The last time I was there, I was sorry to see that the French costume had begun to make its appearance. Instead of the handsome Roman head, with its dark, shining, braided hair, which is so elegant when uncovered, I saw on two of the children the deforming bonnet, which could have been invented only to conceal a defect, and which is never endurable, unless it be perfectly fresh, delicate, and costly. Nothing is so vulgar as a shabby bonnet. Yet the Romans, despite their dislike of the French, are beginning to wear it. Ten years ago it did not exist bere among the common people. I know not why it is that the three ugliest pieces of costume ever invented, the dress-coat, the trousers, and the bonnet, all of which we owe to the French, have been accepted all over Europe, to the exclusion of every national costume. Certainly it is not because they are either useful, elegant, or commodious.²

If one visit the Ara Celi during the afternoon of one of these festas, the scene is very striking. ‘The flight of one hundred and twenty-four steps, which once At last, ascending, we reach the door which faces towards the west. We lift the great leathern curtain and push into the church. A faint perfume of incense salutes the nostrils. The golden sunset bursts in as the curtain sways forward, illuminates the mosaic floor, catches on the rich golden ceiling, and flashes here and there over the crowd on some brilliant, costume or shaven head. All sorts of people are thronging there, — some kneeling before the shrine of the Madonna, which gleams with its hundreds of silver votive hearts, legs, and arms,— some listening to the preaching,—some crowding round the chapel of the Presepio,—old women, haggard and wrinkled, come tottering along with their scaldini of coals, drop down on their knees to pray, and, as you pass, interpolate in their prayers a parenthesis of begging. The church is not architecturally handsome; but it is eminently picturesque, with its relics of centuries, its mosaic pulpits and floor, its frescoes of Pinturicchio and Pesaro, its antique columns, its rich golden ceiling, its Gothic mausoleum to the Savelli, and its mediæval tombs. A dim, dingy look is over all,— but it is the dimness of faded splendor; and one cannot stand there, knowing the history of the church, its exceeding antiquity, and the changes it has undergone since it was a Roman temple, without a peculiar sense of interest and pleasure.

³ That cultivated gentleman, John Evelyn, two centuries ago wrote some amusing words on this subject. After quoting the witty saying of Malvezzi, — “I vestimenti negli animali sono molto securi segni della loro natura, negli uomini del lor cervello,” — he goes on to say, “ Be it excusable in the French to alter and impose the mode on others, ’ tis no less a weakness and a shame in the rest of the world, who have no dependence on them, to admit them, at least to that degree of levity as to turn into all their shapes without discrimination; so as when the freak takes our Monsieurs to appear like so many farces or Jack Puddings on the stage, all the world should alter shape and play the pantomimes with them. Methinks a French tailor, with an ell in his hand, looks like the enchantress Circe over the companions of Ulysses, and changes them into as many forms...... Something I would indulge to youth; something to age and humor. But what leave we to do with these foreign butterflies? In God’s name, let the change be our own, not borrowed of others; for why should I dance after a Monsieur’s flageolet, that have a set of English viols for my concert? We need no French inventions for the stage or for the back.”— From a pamphlet entitled Tyrannus, or the. Mode.

“ Si le costume bourgeois,” says George Sand, in Le Pèche de M. Antoine, “ de notre èpoque est le plus tristè, le plus incommode et le plus disgracieux, que la mode ait jamais inventè, e’est surtout au milieu des champs que tous ses inconvcnients et toutes ses laideurs revoltent. . . . Au milieu de ce cadre austere et grandiose, qui transporte l’imagination au temps de la poèsie primitive, apparaisse cette mouche parasite, le monsieur aux habits noirs, au menton rasè, aux mains gantèes, aux jambes maladroites, et ce roi de la sociète n’est plus qu'un accident ridicule, une tache importune dans le tableau. Votre costume gènant et disparate inspire alors la pitiè plus que los haillons du pauvre, on sent que vous ètes dèplacè au grand air, et que votre livrèe vous ècrase.” led to the temple of Venus and Rome, is then thronged by merchants of Madonna wares, who spread them out over the steps and hang them against the walls and balustrades. Here are to be seen all sorts of curious little colored prints of the Madonna and Child of the most ordinary quality, little bags, pewter medals, and crosses stamped with the same figures and to be worn on the neck,—all offered at once for the sum of one baiocco. Here also are framed pictures of the Saints, of the Nativity, and, in a word, of all sorts of religious subjects appertaining to the season. Little wax dolls, clad in cotton-wool to represent the Saviour, and sheep made of the same materials, are also sold by the basketful. Children and contadine are busy buying them, and there is a deafening roar all up and down the steps of “Mezzo baiocco, bello colorito, mezzo baiocco, la Santissima Concezionc Incoronata”—Diario Romano, Lunario Romano Nuovo”—" Ritraito colorito, medaglia e quadruccio, un baiocco tutti, un baiocco tutti,” — “Bambinelli di cera, un baiocco.” ⁴ None of the prices are higher than one baiocco, except to strangers, — and generally several articles are held up together, enumerated, and proffered with a loud voice for this sum. Meanwhile men, women, children, priests, beggars, soldiers, and villani are crowding up and down, and we crowd with them.

It was here that Romulus, in the gray dawning of Rome, built the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. Here the spolia opi~ ma were deposited. Here the triumphal processions of the Emperors and generals ended. Here the victors paused before making their vows, until the message canto from the Mamertine Prisons below to announce that their noblest prisoner and victim, while the clang of their triumph and his defeat rose ringing in his ears as the procession ascended the steps, had expiated with death the crime of being the enemy of Rome. Over these very steps, nineteen centuries ago, the first great Cæsar climbed on his knees after his first triumph. At their base, Rienzi, “ last of the Roman tribunes,” fell. And, if the tradition of the Church is to be trusted, it was on the site of the present high altar that Augustus erected the “ Ara primogenilo Dei,” to commemorate the Delphic prophecy of the coming of our Saviour. Standing on a spot so thronged with memories, the dullest imagination takes fire. The forms and scenes of the past rise from their graves and pass before us, and the actual and visionary are mingled together in strange poetic confusion. Truly, as Walpole says, “ memory sees more than our eyes in this country.”

And this is one great charm of Rome, — that it animates the dead figures of its history. On the spot where they lived and acted, the Cæsars change from the manikins of books to living men ; and Virgil, Horace, and Cicero grow to be realities, as we walk down the Sacred Way and over the very pavement they may once have trod. The conversations “ De Claris Oratoribus ” and the “ Tusculan Questions ” seem like the talk of the last generation, as we wander on the heights of Tusculum, or over the grounds of that charming villa on the banks of the Liris, which the great Roman orator so graphically describes in his treatise “ De Legibus.” The landscape of Horace has not changed. Still in the winter you may see the dazzling peak of the “ gelidus Algidus,” and “ ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte”; and wandering at Tivoli in the summer, his description,

is as true and fresh as if his words were of yesterday. Could one better his compliment to any Roman Lalage of to-day than to call her “ dulce ridentem ” ? In all its losses, Rome has not lost the sweet smile of its people. Would you like to know the modern rules for agriculture in Rome, read the “Georgics”; there is so little to alter, that it is not worth mentioning. So, too, at Rome, the Emperors become as familiar as the Popes. Who does not know the curly-headed Marcus Aurelius, with his lifted brow and projecting eyes, from the full, round beauty of his youth to the more haggard look of his latest years ? Are there any modern portraits more familiar than the pensive, -wedge-like head of Augustus, with his sharp-cut lips and nose, — or the dull phiz of Hadrian, with his hair combed down over his low forehead, — or the vain, perking face of Lucius Verus, with his thin nose, low brow, and profusion of curls,— or the brutal bull head of Caracalla,— or the bestial, bloated features of Vitellius ?

These men, who were but lay-figures to us at school, mere pegs of names to hang historic robes upon, thus interpreted by the living history of their portraits, the incidental illustrations of the places where they lived and moved and died, and the buildings and monuments they erected, become like the men of yesterday. Art has made them our contemporaries. They are as near to us as Pius VII. and Napoleon. I never drive out of the old Nomentan Gate without remembering the ghastly flight of Nero,—his recognition there by an old centurion,— his damp, drear hiding-place underground, where, shuddering and quoting Greek, he waited for his executioners,— and his subsequent terrible and cowardly death, as narrated by Tacitus and Suetonius; and it seems nearer to me, more vivid, and more actual, than the death of Rossi in the court of the Cancelleria. I never drive by the Cæsars’ palaces, without recalling the ghastly jest of Tiberius, when he sent for some fifteen of the Senators at dead of night and commanded their presence ; and when they, trembling with fear, and expecting nothing less than that their heads were all to fall, had been kept waiting for an hour, the door opened, and he, nearly naked, appeared with a fiddle in his hand, and, after fiddling and dancing to his quaking audience for an hour, dismissed them to their homes uninjured. The air seems to keep a sort of spiritual scent or trail of these old deeds, and to make them more real here than elsewhere. The old horrors of the Amphitheatre can be made real to any person of imaginative mind in the Colosseum. He has but to lend himself to the contagion of the place, and he will see the circle of ten thousand eager eyes thirsting for his blood, fill up the ruined benches and arched tiers as of yore, and hear the savage murmur of human voices, worse than the dull roar of the beasts below. The past still lives in these old walls. It is in vain to say that the ghosts of history do not haunt their ancient habitations. Places, as well as persons, have lives and influences; and the horror of murder will not away from a spot. Haunted by its crimes, oppressed and debilitated by the fierce excesses of its Empire, Rome, silent, grave, and meditative, sighs over its past, wrapped in the penitent robes of the Church.

Besides, here one feels that the modern Romans are only the children of their ancient fathers, with the same characteristics,— softened, indeed, and worn down by time, just as the sharp traits of the old marbles have worn away ; but still the same people,— proud, passionate, lazy, jealous, vindictive, easy, patient, and able. The Popes are but Church pictures of the Emperors,— a different robe, but the same nature beneath; — Alexander the VI. was but a second Tiberius,— Pius the VII., a modern Augustus. When I speak of the Roman people, I do not mean the class of hangers-on upon the foreigners, but the Trasteverini and the inhabitants of the provinces and mountains. No one can go through the Trastevere when the people are roused, without feeling that they are the same as those who listened to Marcus Antonins and Brutus, when the bier of Cæsar was brought Into the streets,— and as those who fought with the Colonna and stabbed Rienzi at the foot of the Capitol steps. The Ciceruacchio of ‘48 was but an ancient, Tribune of the People, in the primitive sense of that title. I like, too, to parallel the anecdote of Cains Marius, when, after his ruin, he concealed himself in the marshes, and astonished his captors, who expected to find him weak of heart, by the magnificent self-assertion of “ I am Caius Marius,” with the story which is told of Stefano Colonna. After this great captain met with his sad reverses, and, deprived of all his possessions, fled from Rome, an attendant asked him,— “ What fortress have you now?” He placed his hand on his heart and answered,— “ Eccola ! ” The same blood evidently ran in the veins of both these men ; and well might Petrarc call Colonna “ a phœnix risen from the ashes of the ancient Romans.” But, somehow or other, I have wandered strangely from my subject. Scusi, —but what has all this to do with the Bambino ?

The Santissimo Bambino is a very round-faced and expressionless doll, carved, as the legend goes, from a tree on the Mount of Olives, by a Franciscan pilgrim, and painted by Saint. Luke while the pilgrim slept. It is difficult to say which was the, worse artist of the two, the sculptor or the painter. But Saint Luke’s pictures generally do not give us a high idea of his skill as a painter. The legend is a charming anachronism, unless, indeed, Saint Luke was only a spiritual presence ;—but, as the whole incident was miraculous, the greater the anachronism, the greater the miracle. The Bambino, however he came into existence, is invested, according to the assertions of priests and the belief of the common people, with wonderful powers in curing the sick; and his practice is as lucrative as any physician’s in Rome. His aid is in constant requisition in severe cases, and certain it is that a cure not unfrequently follows upon his visit ; but as the regular physicians always cease their attendance upon his entrance, and blood-letting and calomel arc consequently intermitted, perhaps the cure is not so miraculous as it might at first seem. He is borne by the priests in state to his patients ; and during the Triumvirate of ’49, the Pope’s carriage was given to him and his attendants. I was assured by the priest who exhibited him to me at the church, that, on one occasion, having been stolen by some irreverent hand from his ordinary abiding-place in one of the side-chapels, he returned alone, by himself, at night, to console his guardians and to resume his functions. Great honors are paid to him. He wears jewels which a Colonna might envy, and not a square inch of his body is without a splendid gem. On festal occasions, like Christmas, he wears a coronet as brilliant as the triple crown of the Pope, and, lying in the Madonna’s arms in the representation of the Nativity, he is adored by the people until Epiphany. Then, after the performance of Mass, a procession of priests, accompanied by a band of music, makes: the tour of the church and proceeds to the chapel of the Presepio, where the bishop, with great solemnity, removes him from his Mother’s arms. At this moment, the music bursts forth into a triumphant march, a jubilant strain over the birth of Christ, and he is borne through the doors of the church to the great steps. There the bishop elevates the Holy Bambino before the crowds who throng the steps, and they fall upon their knees. This is thrice repeated, and the wonderful image is then conveyed to its original chapel, and the ceremony is over.

The Eve of Epiphany, or TwelfthNight, is to the children of Rome what Christmas Eve is to us. It is then that the Bifana comes with her presents. This personage is neither merry nor male, like Santa Claus, nor beautiful and childlike, like Christ-kindchen,—but is described as a very tall, dark woman, ugly, and rather terrible, “ d’ una fisionomia piuttosto impanenle,” who comes down the chimney, on the Eve of Epiphany, armed with a long canna and shaking a bell, to put playthings into the stockings of the good children, and bags of ashes into those of the bad. It is a night of fearful joy for all the little ones. When they hear her bell ring, they shake in their sheets ; for the Bifana is used as a threat to the wilful, and their hope is tempered by a wholesome apprehension. It is supposed to be a distorted image of the visit of the kings and wise men with their presents at the Nativity, as Santa Claus may be of the shepherds, and the Christ-kindchen of Christ himself. However this may be, it is curious to observe the different characters this superstition assumes among different nations and under different influences.

The great festival of the Bifana (a corruption, undoubtedly, of Epifania) takes place on the Eve of Twelfth-Night, in the Piazza di San Eustachio, — and a curious spectacle it is. The Piazza itself, (which is situated in the centre of the city, just beyond the Pantheon,) and all the adjacent streets, are lined with booths covered with every kind of plaything for children. Most of these are of Roman make, very rudely fashioned, and very cheap ; but for those who have longer purses, there are not wanting heaps of German and French toys. These booths are gayly illuminated with rows of candles and the three-wicked brass lucerne of Rome ; and, at intervals, painted posts are set into the pavement, crowned with pans of grease, with a wisp of tow for wick, which blaze and flare about. Besides these, numbers of torches carried about by hand lend a wavering and picturesque light to the scene. By eight o’clock in the evening, crowds begin to fill the Piazza and the adjacent streets. Long before one arrives, the squeak of penny-trumpets is heard at intervals; but in the Piazza itself the mirth is wild and furious, and the din that salutes one’s ears on entering is almost deafening. The object of every one is to make as much noise as possible, and every kind of instrument for this purpose is sold at the booths. There are drums beating, tamburelli thumping and jingling, pipes squeaking, watchmen’s-rattles clacking, pennytrumpets and tin horns shrilling, and the sharpest whistles shrieking everywhere. Besides this, there are the din of voices, screams of laughter, and the confused burr and buzz of a great crowd. On all sides you are saluted by the strangest noises. Instead of being spoken to, you are whistled at. Companies of people are marching together in platoons, or piercing through the crowd in long files, and dancing and blowing like mad on their instruments. It is a perfect witches’ Sabbath. Here, huge dolls dressed as Polichinello or Pantaloon are borne about for sale, — or over the heads of the crowd great black-faced jumping-jacks, lifted on a stick, twitch themselves in fantastic fits,—or, what is more Roman than all, men carry about long poles strung with rings of hundreds of giambelli, (a light cake, called jumble in English,) which they scream for sale at a mezzo baiocco each. There is no alternative but to get a drum, whistle, or trumpet, and join in the racket,— and to fill one’s pockets with toys for the children and absurd presents for one’s older friends. The moment you are once in for it, and making as much noise as you can, you begin to relish the jest. The toys are very odd,— particularly the Roman whistles ;—some of these are made of pewter, with a little wheel that whirls as you blow; others are of terra-cotta, very rudely modelled into every shape of bird, beast, and human deformity, each with a whistle in its head, breast, or tail, which it is no joke to hear, when blown close to your ears by a stout pair of lungs. The scene is very picturesque. Above, the dark vault of night, with its far stars, the blazing and flaring of lights below, and the great, dark walls of the Sapienza and Church looking grimly down upon the mirth. Everywhere in the crowd are the glistening helmets of soldiers, who are mixing in the sport, and the chapeaux of white-strapped gendarmes, standing at intervals to keep the peace. At about half-past eleven o’clock the theatres are emptied, and the upper classes flock to the Piazza. I have never been there later than half-past twelve, but the riotous fun still continued at that hour; and, for a week afterwards, the squeak of whistles may be heard at intervals in the streets.

At the two periods of Christmas and Easter, the young Roman girls take their first communion. The former, however, is generally preferred, as it is a season of rejoicing in the Church, and the ceremonies are not so sad as at Easter. In entering upon this religious phase of their life, it is their custom to retire to a convent, and pass a week in prayer and reciting the offices of the Church. During this period, no friend, not even their parents, are allowed to visit them, and information as to their health and condition is very reluctantly and sparingly given at the door. In case of illness, the physician of the convent is called; and even then neither parent is allowed to see them, except, perhaps, in very severe cases. Of course, during their stay in the convent, every exertion is made by the sisters to render a monastic life agreeable, and to stimulate the religious sensibilities of the young communicant. The pleasures of society and the world are decried, and the charms of peace, devotion, and spiritual exercises eulogized, until the excited imagination of the communicant leaves her no rest, before she has returned to the convent and taken the veil as a nun. The happiness of families is thus sometimes destroyed; and I knew one very united and pleasant Roman family which in this way was sadly broken up. Two of three sisters were so worked upon at their first communion, that the prayers of family and friends proved unavailing to retain them in their home. The more they were urged to remain, the more they desired to go, and the parents, brothers, and remaining sister were forced to yield a most reluctant consent. They retired into the convent and became nuns. It was almost as if they had died. From that time forward, the home was no longer a home. I saw them when they took the veil, and a sadder spectacle was not easily to be seen. The girls were happy, but the parents and family wretched, and the parting was very tearful and sad. They do not seem since to have regretted the step they then took; but regret would be unavailing,— and even if they felt it, they could scarcely show it. The occupation of the sisters in the monastery they have joined is prayers, the offices of the Church, and, I believe, a little instruction of poor children. But gossip among themselves, of the pettiest kind, must make up for the want of wider worldly interests. In such limited relations, little jealousies engender great hypocrisies; a restricted horizon enlarges small objects. The repressed heart and introverted mind, deprived of their natural scope, consume themselves in self-consciousness, and duties easily degenerate into routine. We are not all in all to ourselves ; the world has claims upon us, which it is cowardice to shrink from, and folly to deny. Self-forgetfulness is a great virtue, and selfishness a great vice. After all, the best religions service is worthy occupation. Large interests keep the heart sound; and the best of prayers is the doing of a good act with a pure purpose.