rest; but whether opera be connived at or not, or the theatres be open or closed, the visit to the Caffé Novo is an essential preliminary; to neglect which is nearly the same as being altogether razed out of the list of the living.

This is the hour for funerals in Florence: in Rome they are a little earlier, and poetically accompany the setting of the sun. From time to time, however, we meet groups and detachments from the confraternities of the Misericordia, on their way from the grave home. In every part of Italy, the nobles form a large proportion of these societies, and, as their duties are performed gratis, they are generally performed conscientiously and well-they subscribe little, but dispense much, and charity is not dried up in the channel, through which it has to pass. The Lutherans have wisely, perhaps, retained their convents; and sighs are now and then heard even in England for Protestant Oblati and Sœurs de la Charité, to supersede the necessity of such taxes as the poor and other rates, which constantly beset the castle of an Englishman. They do good without the assistance of the police, and their costume of itself, as long as there are artists at Rome, ought to save them from sneers and abolition.

The moon illuminated the upper story of this street of palaces, a name to which it has as much title as its celebrated rival in Genoa. The rest of the mass was in solemn shade. I passed several of these leviathans, of whose appellation and founders I yet knew nothing, and soon found myself at the entrance of one, which in England might rank as one side of a square, and in Rome was respected and respectable enough among its brethren. There was no Suisse or guarda portone, evidence in limine of the multifarious character of the inhabitants, a colony rather than a family; and the nearest to heaven of the little community was the Signora Dherself. I had no guide. There was no servant to correct me; even at Florence I had been taught not always to expect light. I was left to my own discretion and enquiries; but fortunately, on advancing, I found that the enormous unglazed windows on the landing-places afforded me moonshine enough. Not a single stir betokened the least sentiment of life in this extensive edifice; and I found myself, after travelling by just stages to the top, in face of the apartments of the D, without any evidence that I had yet entered an inhabited palace. I groped in vain for the iron bell at the first door which presented itself-my appeal was not answered until repeated. A little wicket was then withdrawn with some caution, and a sibylline-looking visage advancing slowly, and scarcely lit by her brazen lamp, proposed at the orifice the usual preliminary question, in the shrillest accent of the country. My hesitation, as much as my Italian, explained my nation and wishes, and I was admitted, with a ghostly smile, to the anti-chamber. A large “focone” burnt, or rather slumbered in the centre. A few drowsy figures, the servants of the chief invited, nodded at each other over the white ashes: the walls were hung with whole yards of dismal-looking paintings, which were only less bad than the dingy whitewash beneath. A gloomy lamp burnt near, and behind it a tall ivory crucifix, placed with much negligence on an old table, which had been once gilt and vineered. The first impression was unfavourable to all but to a professed traveller. The salone was only a folio edition of the anti-chamber. The room was large and dusky, and, like the preceding, black with painting, and freezing with all its population of tapestry and frescos. The Signora herself was seated on a thrice-washed satin sofa in the centre, surrounded by empty chairs, from which all symptoms of gilding had long since disappeared. A brasier was strangely exiled to the middle of the apartment; for here there is no fireplace in snow or rain: the single misty brazen lamp, the antique palsied table, a few marble fragments, two or three cinque cento looking quaitos, and a small fat spaniel called "Farfaletta," whom nothing could awake or provoke, were the only furniture of this favourite presence chamber. The obscurity, as may be supposed, could hardly be dispersed by this scanty twilight, and the eye with difficulty reached the ceiling; ito ornaments rather

enhanced than enlivened the gloom-it was deeply carved and caverned with coffers and embroidered with heavy gilt rosettes, and sprawling subjects from the interminable mythologic allegories of the later Latins, improved by the cumbrous concetti of the modern Italians, from Polydore Caravaggio down to Luca Giordano and his school, but all so blotted by damp and time, that they served for little other purpose, than as a fit ground, or accompaniment to the circle, which had already been assembled below.

The composition of this coterie, or "conversation," was not less peculiar than the apartment. There was nothing patrician in its appearance, either in dress or manner; neither had it the coarse egoism, and narrow homeliness, of the bourgeoisie of the North. There is much less solidity and adaptation to the real and positive, than in our middle classes; but, in return, we find more polish, the workmanship surpasses the material, considerable acquisition, and frequently considerable capacity, an intimate relish of intellectual pleasures, the affectation in the absence of the reality of these excellences: such in general are the distinctives of the "mezzo ceto" of Rome. So far they may be considered superior to the same class, in other Italian cities; and this superiority is principally attributable to the powerful and universal influence of the Arts. The Arts are every thing, country, patriotism, politics, power, at Rome; they absorb or develope the whole national intellect; they are the sources of their virtues and defects. Antiquities ascend a little higher in the scale; but treated as they are, with the solitary exceptions of Visconti and Cancellieri, they conduct to no enlarged historic or philosophic result, but lead rather to the petty erudition of detail. Every hillock is pregnant, for these microscopic eyes, with some unexplored mystery; every stone of their city, as every line of their classics, is a good ground for a warfare or alliance. Theory is built out of theory, to be blown down in its turn, like a pack of cards, by the first adventurer; and the geography changes like the heart in the Comedian, at the choice or convenience of every new speculator. These transitions are piquant and exciting to a population, who have scarcely any other stimulant, and are so dependant on every new discovery, that it is not to be marvelled that expectation should be on the tiptoe at every new excavation. They form the events of the day, and, with the ceremonies of her four hundred churches, are the principal items in the jejune fasti of the modern city. The workers of these wonders, like the magicians of Egypt, are regarded with corresponding respect by the people,

No one can ever forget, who has been once at Rome, the bulletins, the true bulletins of the Medusa. They are the best instance of the "parturiunt montes," &c. on record. It was "dreamt" and "dreamt" that there were treasures lost in the siege under Belisarius, and preserved since in the mud of the Tyber. Authorities were quoted, to prove, as usual, a great deal in favour of every side; and this dream, "which was not all a dream," in consideration of the high person who dreamt it, was ordered to be converted forthwith into fact. The miracle was more difficult than such things generally are; and her Grace, after enquiring in vain for what she dreamt, after the manner of Pharaoh, thought it judicious to explore. Turning the Tyber has been thought a bad plan since the time of Julius Cæsar, and it was resolved, "permissu superiorum," to drag. A vessel stationed on the river, and called with peculiar felicity the Medusa, was to fish, fine, or at least convert, every thing into stone. A Roman understands how these things are managed, and Rome was contented to admire and wait. Our Englishmen, jointstock mad, rushed at once into the net, and brought home shares. The Tyber was dragged, and the first day a great quantity of mud was drawn. Curiosity was excited; the second day produced a limb or two; the bulletin of the third announced a full-grown statue, weighing a very proportionable weight. Unfortunately an artist near recognized in the nouveau venu, an old acquaintance, and proceeded to point out the fatal scars, which more than once have driven heroes out of their incognitos. The evidence was conclusive: the Medusa and her discoveries were compelled to disappear, and the barbarism of Belisarius and his companions once more returned "sub judice."

who have a superstition in literature, as well as in religion, and are likely to be considered so for many years longer, until the re-appearance of such men as Winklemann, Lessing, and Visconti, whose spirit of true philosophy in the Arts, like the rod of Moses, is destined to devour the pretensions and jugglery of their predecessors.

La Signora D-- was one of the acknowledged stars of this system of antiquarians. Blue stockings are hardly known in Italy, for ladies are learned, and preserve their sex; they read, write, and often think, as well for themselves as for others. But their influence is, perhaps, more felt than admitted; female senates, though they have changed their attributes since the time of Heliogabalus, and are no longer to be regarded as a sort of "Parlement d'Amour," have not altogether lost their sway over the graver sex. The Revolution created or permitted the explosion of some oratorical talent, and the Academy of Tyberina is indebted not only for their Sala, but for other contributions of a more intellectual kind, to the Marchesa, to whom it belongs. I cannot decidedly determine whether this be traditional; the race of the Vittoria Colonnas is not quite extinct, but they have preferred the North to the South, and in the persons of the Albrizzi, &c. have long since emigrated to Lombardy and Venice. Personal charms are as much as possible separated from all this: the owl is a natural accompaniment to age and gravity, the spear and caduceus are seldom seen (at least in Italy) in the hands of Venus. La D—— could not have come, if at any period of her life, under the latter category. She had been for many years attainted with suspicions of increasing ugliness; the last five years had grievously added to the imputation. She was, moreover, of that strict scientific or sibylline contour, which approaches the sign of interrogation which so scandalized Pope, and the interrogative inquisitiveness and penetration about all her person might well have justified the fears of the ignorant. She was bent, pointed, and pinched; and the habitual black rendered her still more diminutive, but in her face there was a certain bonhommie lying among the acerbities of her literary physiognomy, and in her eye a sparkle of the past, a twilight remembrance of earlier life, which showed the spirit was not decaying with the body, but had risen above it, and was quietly enough seated upon its ruins. She was just the link between the protector and the protegé, or rather she was alternately each, and whilst she gave "conversazioni" to those to whom she was as a sun, she was satellite in her turn to other suns above her. She was a singular antiquary amongst women, and a singular woman amongst antiquarians. Her glory was her Latium," it was her history, with the learned, but her political history was

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* Female Jacobinical societies, one of the improvements of the Revolution in France, were introduced by the reforming bayonets of Massena into Rome. A lady of high rank in the city was pointed out to me, who, a model of domestic duty in all its relations, was so seized by the epidemic of the day as to appear amongst the first in the opening of one of these arenas of debate, and, contrary to expectation, burst into a violent panegyric on "the blessings of polygamy," and a prophecy of the effects it was calculated to produce in the approaching regeneration of Europe; but, added my informer, "after an eloquent harangue, in which her beauty and animation convinced the gentlemen, she returned home to her family to refute by her conduct, the absurdity of the evils of her oration."

+ The Marchesa M- to whose house the Tyberina have now migrated from their rooms near the Pantheon. She is a female academician of the first water, known by "a voice" which for its delicacy may rival with the gentle organ of the Countess A-—, I had the felicity to see her once enter the Sala, where she was received with honours, which she could only claim on the ground of intellectual beauty. Her exterior is no evidence of midnight vigils, or fasting, after the manner of the ancients, but may well be entitled to the designation of the "crassa Minerva." The immediate cause of her present popularity is the asylum which she gave to the Academicians, on their secession, to the vicinity of the Campidoglio. The history of this occurrence is curious, and may deserve some notice on a future occasion.

not less known or remembered: during the occupation of the French, and though altogether without the motives of the higher classes, she was distinguished for her adherence, inflexible and daring, to their cause. She refused every kind of communication with the generals of the republic or the empire; and Miollis (an exaggeration, perhaps, of her own coterie) is said to have solicited, and solicited in vain. This assumption of aristocratic attitudes is amusing enough in a female philosopher, a little above the bourgeoisie of a depopulated town; but here there is so much of the decorous and the Mayakompans of the old legitimates in every thing, that we are not to be surprised at finding it, even in an antiquarian of the mezzo ceto.

After the ceremonial of my presentation-but I fear I shall trespass too much on the space allotted me in these pages, and I must reserve the conclusion of the scene until the next number.

IRISH PORTRAITS.-NO. 111.

Miss Celestina Mac Swadlum.

"MARRIED by special licence, on the first inst. at Kilmaclush, by the Dean, Brabazon Dashwood Brady, Esq. eldest son and heir of Hercules Brady, Esq. of Knock-down Lodge, in the county of Tipperary, grandson of the late Sir Rhadamanthus Dashwood, Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, and cousin to the present Lord Eaglemount, to Flaminda Dorothea Murphy, youngest daughter of Theophilus Murphy, Esq. of Bloom-park, in the county of Mayo, and niece to the present Sir Orlando Casey. After the ceremony the happy couple, &c. &c." The above announcement, which figured some time back in the matrimonial corner of the Freeman's Journal, is a perfect sample of Irish domestic oratory. The public are indebted for it to the genius of Miss Celestina M'Swadlum, bridemaid in ordinary to the parish of Kilmaclush, in the county of Mayo, and who in that capacity has cultivated with peculiar zeal the art of emblazoning the most interesting of family events. The merits of this composition do not appear "upon the surface," as the modern phrase is: for the benefit, therefore, of the uninitiated, I shall proceed with the dogged dulness of any commentator to analyse and expound them. I foresee that I may be voluminous; but the fair daughters of Erin, for whose edification this graphic effort is especially intended, will bear with me.

"Married." That's a fact, briefly and simply told by "a proper word in its proper place."

"By special licence." A fact also, but skilfully put forward with an eye to effect. Whether Flaminda Dorothea Murphy were married by special licence or by bans, the contract was equally binding on the parties; but Miss M'Swadlum well knew, that great indeed was the difference in point of eclat with which the tidings of the memorable event would burst upon every tea-party in the county of Mayo, according to the one or the other form of the ceremony. It was important to inform them and the empire at large, first, that the happy couple were Protestants; secondly, that the cost of a licence was no object to them; and thirdly, that Miss Flaminda's maiden sensibility had been spared the cruel exposure, to say nothing of the delay, of three public announcements of the state of her affections.

"By the Dean of Kilmaclush." A rhetorical flourish. The ceremony was not performed by the Dean of Kilmaclush. That pious and

able churchman had set out the day before for the spiritual camp at Carlow, to co-operate in the noble project of healing the bleeding wounds of Ireland, by the soothing balm of theological controversy.

"Eldest son of Hercules Brady, Esq. of Knock-down lodge, in the county of Tipperary, and (Miss Celestina might have added) of the Marshalsea of the Four Courts, in the city of Dublin-for there it was that the elder Mr. Brady constantly resided for several months preceding the marriage of his son, and there it was that he signed the settlements; and had it not been for the timely relief afforded by a part of Miss Murphy's fortune (which by the way was only 7501., and therefore not 40007. in the funds, besides expectations from an aunt at Bath, as her bridemaid represented it) there he must have continued to the present hour, or else have submitted to see Knock-down Lodge knocked down to the highest bidder.

"Grandson to Sir Rhadamanthus." This learned and remarkable, of whom it may truly be said that

*

"Cousin of Lord Eaglemount."-True-not, however, a first, or second, or third, or fourth, or fifth cousin--but an Irish cousin.

"Youngest daughter"-only daughter, and therefore both youngest and eldest but the former as suggesting ideas of juvenility was skilfully preferred.

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"Bloom Park."-There is little truth in the common assertion, that Iman has done so little for Ireland." He has, on the contrary, given to the bleakest spots, in the bleakest districts, such picturesque and fascinating names, that every county would appear in description to be a paradise of villas. How cheering to the fancy--how associated with ideas of ornament and shelter, and rural elegance and ease; her Beechgroves, and Fir-groves, and Grove-mounts, and Rose-mounts, and Woodparks, and Bloom-parks! Bloom-park, the seat of Theophilus Murphy, Esq. is to be seen about two miles to the right of the mail-coach road leading from Bally-smashem to Killbotherum, in the county of Mayo. The site of this commodious mansion, (one of the most picturesque in that part of Ireland) is on the acclivity of a primeval mountain, supposed to be among the most ancient in the three kingdoms, which ascends in proud and barren sublimity to the rear of the house, and several hundred feet above the level of the sea. In front, almost as far as the eye can reach, is an expanse of noble bog-diversified here and there by clusters of turf-stacks, and presenting on its western border, far in the distance, yet distinctly visible from the windows of the breakfast-parlour, the still perfect skeletons of two houses that were burnt down during the rebellion of ninety-eight. The mansion itself has been constructed upon the chastest principles of Irish architecture-walls with gable-ends, high slanting roof, hall-door in the centre, and a window for every room. Its western aspect and elevated position give it the full benefit of the bracing gales, that during the winter months sweep across the Atlantic, and moan pathetically through every crevice of the building, like the sounds of a distant death-cry. The trees of the Park, from which the mansion takes its name, have not yet grown up : but there are some acres of thriving young plantations of fir and larch, which, in about twenty years more (if not previously cut down for pikehandles, or to pay off incumbrances) will justify the present designation of the place. The immediate vicinity of Bloom-park is not with