heterodox appetite by their industry and sea air, are extremely restive on the subject of fasting. They make pathetic representations to the Archbishop respecting beef and pudding, and allege their health and their household economies. Fish is luckily dear. I have seen in a Genoese Gazette, an extract from the circular of the Archbishop respecting the Lent indulgencies. "The Holiness of our Lord," he says (for so the Pope is styled), “has seen with the greatest displeasure, that the ardent desire which he has always cherished, of restoring the ancient rigour of Lent, is again rendered of no effect by representations which he finds it impossible to resist." He therefore permits the inhabitants of the Archbishop's diocese to make "one meal a day of eggs and white-meats (latticini) during Lent; and to such persons as have really need of it, he allows the use of flesh:" but he adds, that this latter permission "leaves a heavy load on his conscience," and that he positively forbids the promiscuous use of flesh and fish. I must add, for my part, I thought the Pope had reason in this roasting of eggs.

As to the political uneasiness, I should have so much to say about it, if I entered upon the subject, that I dare but occasionally allude to it in this volume. It would require a book to itself. The whole of this volume, however, may be said to be about it, inasmuch as it concerns the transition state of the human mind. I shall advert again to the religious part of the subject before I conclude.

Meantime, I shall only say that Italy is a wonderful nation, always at the head of the world in some respect, great or small, and equally full of life. Division among its children is its bane; and Mazzini's was the best note that has been struck in its favour in modern times, because he struck it at Rome, in the place of the very Pope, and thus gave it the best chance of rallying under one summons. Heaven forgive the French for the shameless vanity of their interference! for it has delayed, under the most unwarrantable circumstances, what must assuredly take place before long, as far as priests and priestly government are concerned. The poor good Pope can no more keep it down, than he could tread out a volcano with his embroidered slippers.

I differ with Mazzini, inasmuch as I prefer a republic

under a limited monarch, to a republic without one. It seems to me to promise better for order and refinement, and for the security, against reactions, of progression itself. Still I should have rejoiced to see his noble experiment at Rome completed: for the throne which he and his compeers occupied, and from which, in accordance with his own awful words, he had made falsehood descend, was occupied by justice and reason, and infamous was the intervention that broke it up. But if poor, divided, and still in great measure (as far as the uneducated classes are concerned) priest-ridden Italy is not yet strong enough or worthy enough to complete an experiment so noble, then the best thing to be desired is, that the gallant king of Sardinia should succeed with his constitutional experiment, which would end in something far better than absolutism of any kind, and might ultimately crown republicanism itself with the superior grace and security, of which mention has just been made.

CHAPTER XXII.

RETURN TO ENGLAND.

ON our return from Italy to England, we travelled not by post, but by vettura, that is to say, by easy stages of thirty or forty miles a-day, in a travelling carriage; the box of which is turned into a chaise, with a calash over it. It is drawn by three horses, occasionally assisted by mules. We paid about eighty-two guineas English, for which some ten of us (counting as six, because of the children,) were to be taken to Calais; to have a breakfast and dinner every day on the road; to be provided with five beds at night, each containing two persons; and to rest four days during the journey, without further expense, in whatever places and portions of time we thought fit. Our breakfast was to consist of coffee, bread, fruit, milk, and eggs (plenty of each), and our dinner of the four indispensable Italian dishes, something roast, something boiled, something fried, and what they call an umido, which

"YOU ARE A LIE: DESCEND!"-Mazzini to the Papal Power.

is a hash, or something of that sort; together with vegetables, wine, and fruit. Care, however, must be taken in these bargains, that the vetturino does not crib from the allowance by degrees, otherwise the dishes grow fewer and smaller; meat disappears on a religious principle, it being magro day, on which "nothing is to be had;" and the vegetables, adhering to their friend the meat in his adversity, disappear likewise. The reason of this is, that the vetturino has two conflicting interests within him. It is his interest to please you in hope of other custom; and it is his interest to make the most of the sum of money which his master allows him for expenses. Withstand, however, any change at first, and good behaviour may be reckoned upon. We had as pleasant a little Tuscan to drive us as I ever met with. He began very handsomely; but finding us willing to make the best of any little deficiency, he could not resist the temptation of giving up the remoter interest for the nearer one. We found our profusion diminish accordingly; and at Turin, after cunningly asking us whether we cared to have an inn not of the very highest description, he brought us to one, of which it could only be said that it was not of the very lowest. The landlord showed us into sordid rooms on a second story. I found it necessary to be base and make a noise; upon which little Gigi looked frightened, and the landlord became slavish, and bowed us into his best apartments. We had no more of the same treatment.

Our rogue of a driver had an excellent temper, and was as honest a rogue, I will undertake to say, as ever puzzled a formalist. He made us laugh with his resemblance to Lamb, whose countenance, a little jovialized, he engrafted upon an active little body and sturdy pair of legs, walking about in his jack-boots as if they were pumps. But a man must have some great object in life, to carry him so many times over the Alps: and this, of necessity, is money. We could have dispensed easily enough with some of the fried and roasted; but to do this would have been to subject ourselves to other diminutions. Our bargain was reckoned a good one. Gigi's master said (believe him who will) that he could not have afforded it, had he not been sure, at that time of the year,

that somebody would take his coach back again; such is the multitude of persons that come to winter in Italy.

We were told to look for a barren road from Florence to Bologna, but were agreeably disappointed. The vines, indeed, and the olives disappeared; but this was a relief to us. Instead of these, and the comparatively petty ascents about Florence, we had proper swelling Apennines, valley and mountain, with fine sloping meadows of green, interspersed with wood.

[Starting from Maiano at an early hour on the 10th of September, 1825,] we stopped to refresh ourselves at noon at an inn called Le Maschere, where there was an elegant prospect, a mixture of nature with garden ground; and we slept at Covigliaio, where three tall buxom damsels waited upor us, who romped during supper with the men-servants. One of them had a better tone in speaking than the others, upon the strength of which she stepped about with a jaunty air in a hat and feathers, and "did the amiable." A Greek came in with a long beard, which he poked into all the rooms by way of investigation, as he could speak no language but his own. I asked one of the girls why she looked so frightened; upon which she shrugged her shoulders and said "Oh Dio!" as if Bluebeard had come to put her in his seraglio.

Our vile inn knocked us up; and we were half-starved. Little Gigi, on being remonstrated with, said that he was not aware till that moment of its being part of his duty, by the agreement, to pay expenses during our days of stopping. He had not looked into the agreement till then! The rogue ! So we lectured him, and forgave him for his good temper; and he was to be very honest and expensive for the rest of the journey.

Next morning we set off at five o'clock, and passed a volcanic part of the Apennines, where a flame issues from the ground. We thought we saw it. The place is called Pietra Mala (Evil Rock). Here we enter upon the Pope's territories; as if his Holiness were to be approached by an infernal door. We refreshed at Poggioli, in sight of a church upon a hill, called the Monte dei Formicoli (Ant Hill). Sitting outside the inn-door on a stone, while the postilion sat on another, he

told us of an opinion which prevailed among travellers respecting this place. They reported, that on a certain day in the year, all the ants in the neighbourhood come to church in the middle of the service, and die during the celebration of the mass. After giving me this information, I observed him glancing at me for some time with a very serious face, after which he said abruptly, "Do you believe this report, signore?" I told him, that I was loath to differ with what he or any one else might think it proper to believe; but if he put the question to me as one to be sincerely answered

"Oh, certainly, signore."

"Well, then, I do not believe it."

66

"No more," said Little Gigi, " do I."

I subsequently found my postilion very sceptical on some highly Catholic points, and he accounted for it like a philosopher. Seeing that he made no sign of reverence in passing the images of the Virgin and Child, I asked him the reason. "Sir," said he, "I have travelled."

These were literally his words. (Ho viaggiato, signore.) He manifested, however, no disrespect for opinions on which most believers are agreed; though whenever his horses vexed him, he poured forth a series of the most blasphemous execrations which I ever heard. Indeed, I had never heard any at all resembling them; though I was told they were not uncommon with persons unquestionably devout. He abused the Divine presence in the sacrament. He execrated the body and—but I must not repeat what he said, for fear of shocking the reader and myself. Nevertheless, I believe he did it all in positive innocence and want of thought, repeating the words as mere words which he heard from others all his life, and to which he attached none of the ideas which they expressed. When a person d―ns another in English, he has no real notion of what he condemns him to; and I believe our postilion had as little when he devoted the objects of his worship to malediction. He was very kind to the children, and took leave of us at the end of our journey in tears.

The same evening we got to Bologna, where we finished for the present with mountains. The best streets in Bologna are furnished with arcades, very sensible things, which we