tends to blows, and would otherwise terminate in pitched battles, that a File of Soldiers squeezes, to and fro, among the Crowd, with shouldered firelocks, to keep the Citizens and the Country People from falling together by the ears.

In the Corso itself-the chief street of Rome, lined as it is with Churches and Palaces, we are stunned every morning, by day-break, with the shrill cries of those who sell fried minews or roasted chesnuts, the price of which I shall never forget, for my ears ring with the discordant sounds of

Quattro Baiocc! Quattro Baiocc! Quattro Baiocc!

We learn to count Italian, whether we will or no, from a Butchers Stall,

just

just under our windows, where we overhear continually an idle custom, I believe peculiar to these noisy People, of counting aloud every penny of change— one by one.

For instance, Beef is fourpence a pound, and supposing a slip-shod Slattern (for such is the appearance of low life in Italy) has bought a pound and a quarter, she will be sure to count out her broad copper Baioccs,

Uno! due! tre! quattro! chinque !

in the tones of a Bell-man, or a BalladSinger.

The Italians still estimate the beginning of the day from the end of it, and

count

count the circling hours from sunset to four and twenty. At noon, accordingly,

in the Summer solstice, the clock strikes sixteen-in the winter, nineteen; and as the increase or decrease is often several minutes in a day, the town-clocks are hardly ever right, they being only corrected as often as this difference amounts to a quarter of an hour. Thus, for instance, you are gravely advertised by the almanack, that from the 16th. of February till the 24th. it will be noon at a quarter past eighteen; but that on the 24th. it will be noon at eighteen o'clock, precisely, and so continue till the 6th. of March.

THE Beggars seldom turn out to earn their daily bread till toward noon, when they begin to be hungry, and then you are occasionally serenaded with loud and

continual

continual moans, most probably from some Impostor more shameless than ordinary, who will exhibit an appearance of accident or disease too shocking to be examined, from which those who choose to drop any thing into his hat turn away their eyes, and those who do not are fain to cross over the way, or turn about and take up the next street.

This however is too great an exertion to be continued long, and too bold an imposition to be suffered twice in the same place—a silent display of palpable wretchedness is much more frequent, like that of Lazarus at the door of Dives.

Of such there were several in my daily walks, whose well-known stations I always avoided by going about-if I

had it not in my power to deal out to them the customary tribute: for one must be loaded with pence at Rome, as well as at London, to satisfy all the Beggars one meets.

When I first arrived at Rome I resolved to give nothing to any of the Tribe, whose age, or decrepitude, did not interest my feelings; but this resolution cost me more than I gained by it; and I am convinced I should have done better to have taken the opposite extreme, and kept my pocket ready for every Applicant as the cheapest way to get rid of them.

But, for my life, I could not help being scrupulous of supporting such worthlessness; and my English temper was besides