Still another indication of the approach of Holy Week is the Easter egg, which now makes its appearance, and warns us of the solemnities to come. Sometimes it is stained yellow, purple, red, green, or striped with various colors; sometimes it is crowned with paste-work, representing, in a most primitive way, a hen, her body being the egg, and her pastry-head adorned with a disproportionately tall feather. These eggs are exposed for sale at the corners of the streets and bought by everybody, and every sort of ingenious device is resorted to, to attract customers and render them attractive. This custom is probably derived from the East, where the egg is the symbol of the primitive state of the world and of the creation of things. The new year formerly began at the spring equinox, at about Easter; and at that period of the renewal of Nature, a festival was celebrated in the new moon of the month Phamenoth, in honor of Osiris, when painted and gilded eggs were exchanged as presents, in reference to the beginning of all things. The transference of the commencement of the year to January deprived the Paschal egg of its significance. Formerly in France, and still in Russia as in Italy, it had a religious significance, and was never distributed until it had received a solemn benediction. On Good Friday, a priest, with his robes and an attendant, may be seen going into every door in the street to bless the house, the inhabitants, and the eggs. The last, colored and arranged according to the taste of the individual, are spread upon a table, which is decorated with box, flowers, and whatever ornamental dishes the family possesses. The priest is received with bows at the door, and when the benediction is over he is rewarded with the gratuity of a paul or a scudo, according to the piety and purse of the proprietor; while into the basket of his attendant is always dropped a pagnotta, a couple of eggs, a baiocco, or some such trifle.*

* Beside the blessing of the eggs and house, it is the custom in some parts of Italy, (and I

It is on this day, too, that the customary Jew is converted, recants, and is baptized; and there are not wanting evil tongues which declare that there is a wonderful similarity in his physiognomy every year. However this may be, there is no doubt that some one is annually dug out of the Ghetto, which is the pit of Judaism here in Rome; and if he fall back again, after receiving the temporal reward, and without waiting for the spiritual, he probably finds it worth his while to do so, in view of the zeal of the Church, and in remembrance of the fifteenth verse of the twenty-third chapter of Matthew, if he ever reads that portion of the Bible. It is in the great basaltic vase in the baptistery of St. John Lateran, the same in which Rienzi bathed in 1347, before receiving the insignia of knighthood, that the converted Jew, and any other infidel who can be brought over, receives his baptism when he is taken into the arms of the Church.

It is at this season, too, that the pizzicarolo shops are gayly dressed in the manner so graphically described by Hans Andersen in his "Improvvisatore." No wonder, that, to little Antonio, the interior of one of these shops looked like a realization of Paradise; for they are really splendid; and when glittering with candles and lamps at night, the effect is very striking. Great sides of bacon and lard are ranged endwise in regular bars all around the interior, and adorned with stripes of various colors, mixed with golden spangles and flashing tinsel; while over and under them, in reticulated work, are piled scores upon scores of brown cheeses, in the form of pyramids, columns, towers, with eggs set into their interstices. From the ceiling, and all around the doorway, hang wreaths and necklaces of

have particularly observed it in Siena,) for the priest, at Easter, to affix to the door of the chief palazzi and villas a waxen cross, or the letter M in wax, so as to guard the house from evil spirits. But only the houses of the rich are thus protected; for the priests bestow favors only "for a consideration," which the poor cannot so easily give.

sausages, or groups of the long gourdlike cacio di cavallo, twined about with box, or netted wire baskets filled with Easter eggs, or great bunches of white candles gathered together at the wicks. Seen through these, at the bottom of the shop, is a picture of the Madonna, with scores of candles burning about it, and gleaming upon the tinsel hangings and spangles with which it is decorated. Underneath this, there is often represented an elaborate presepio,-or, when this is not the case, the animals may be seen mounted here and there on the cheeses. Candelabra of eggs, curiously bound together, so as to resemble bunches of gigantic white grapes, swung from the centre of the ceiling, and cups of colored glass, with a taper in them, or red paper lanterns, and terra-cotta lamps, of the antique form, show here and there their little flames among the flitches of bacon and cheeses; while, in the midst of all this splendor, the figure of the pizzicarolo moves to and fro, like a high-priest at a ceremony. Nor is this illumination exclusive. The doors, often of the full width of the shop, are thrown wide open, and the glory shines upon all passers-by. It is the apotheosis of ham and cheese, at which only the Hebraic nose, doing violence to its natural curve, turns up in scorn; while true Christians crowd around it to wonder and admire, and sometimes to venture in upon the almost enchanted ground. May it be long before this pleasant custom dies out!

At last comes Holy Week, with its pilgrims that flock from every part of the world. Every hotel and furnished apartment is crowded,-every carriage is hired at double and treble its ordinary fare, every door, where a Papal ceremony is to take place, is besieged by figures in black with black veils. The streets are filled with Germans, English, French, Americans, all on the move, coming and going, and anxiously inquiring about the funzioni, and when they are to take place, and where,-for everything is kept in a charming condition of perfect uncertainty, from the want of

any public newspaper or journal, or other accurate means of information. So everybody asks everybody, and everybody tells everybody, until nobody knows anything, and everything is guesswork. But, nevertheless, despite impatient words, and muttered curses, and all kinds of awkward mistakes, the battle goes bravely on. There is terrible fighting at the door of the Sistine Chapel, to hear the Miserere, which is sure to be Baini's when it is said to be Allegri's, as well as at the railing of the Chapel, where the washing of the feet takes place, and at the supper-table, where twelve country-boors represent the Apostolic company, and are waited on by the Pope, in a way that shows how great a sham the whole thing is. The air is close to suffocation in this last place. Men and women faint and are carried out. Some fall and are trodden down. Sometimes, as at the table this year, some unfortunate pays for her curiosity with her life. It is "Devil take the hindmost!" and if any one is down, he is leaped over by men and women indiscriminately, for there is no time to be lost. In the Chapel, when once they are in, all want to get out. Shrieks are heard as the jammed mass sways backward and forward,veils and dresses are torn in the struggle,-women are praying for help. Meantime the stupid Swiss keep to their orders with a literalness which knows no parallel; and all this time, the Pope, who has come in by a private door, is handing round beef and mustard and bread and potatoes to the gormandizing Apostles, who put into their pockets what their stomachs cannot hold, and improve their opportunities in every way. At last, those who have been through the fight return at nightfall, haggard and ghastly with fear, hunger, and fatigue; and, after agreeing that they could never counsel any one to such an attempt, set off the next morning to attack again some shut door behind which a "function" is to take place.

All this, however, is done by the strangers. The Romans, on these high festivals, do not go to Saint Peter's, but

perform their religious services at their parish churches, calmly and peacefully; for in Saint Peter's all is a spectacle. "How shall I, a true son of the Holy Church," asks Pasquin, "obtain admittance to her services?" And Marforio answers, "Declare you are an Englishman, and swear you are a here

tic."

The Piazza is crowded with carriages during all these days, and a hackman will look at nothing under a scudo for the smallest distance, and, to your remonstrances, he shrugs his shoulders and says, "Eh, signore, bisogna vivere; adesso è la nostra settimana, e poi niente. Next week I will take you anywhere for two pauls,—now for fifteen." Meluccio, (the little old apple,) the aged boy in the Piazza San Pietro, whose sole occupation it has been for years to open and shut the doors of carriages and hold out his hand for a mezzo-baiocco, is in great glee. He runs backwards and forwards all day long, -hails carriages like mad,-identifies to the bewildered coachmen their lost fares, whom he never fails to remember,-points out to bewildered strangers the coach they are hopelessly striving to identify, having entirely forgotten coachman and carriage in the struggle they have gone through. He is everywhere, screaming, laughing, and helping everybody. It is his high festival as well as the Pope's, and grateful strangers drop into his hand the frequent baiocco or half-paul, and thank God and Meluccio as they sink back in their carriages and cry, "A casa."

Finally comes Easter Sunday, the day of the Resurrection; and at twelve on the Saturday previous all the bells are rung, and the crucifixes uncovered, and the Pope, cardinals, and priests change their mourning-vestments for those of rejoicing. Easter has come. You may know it by the ringing bells, and the sound of trumpets in the street, and the jar of long trains of cannon going down to the Piazza San Pietro, to guard the place and join in the dance, in case of a row or rising among the populace; for the right 31

VOL. IV.

arm of the Church is the cannon, and Christ's doctrines are always protected by the bayonet, and Peter's successor "making broad his phylacteries," and his splendid cortége "enlarging the borders of their garments" and going up to "the chief seats in the synagogues" "in purple and fine linen" to make their "long prayers," crave the protection of bristling arms and drawn swords.

By twelve o'clock Mass in Saint Peter's is over, and the Piazza is crowded with people to see the Benediction,—and a grand and imposing spectacle it is! Out over the great balcony stretches a huge white awning, where priests and attendants are collected, and where the Pope will soon be seen. Below, the Piazza is alive with moving masses. In the centre are drawn up long lines of soldiery, with yellow and red pompons and glittering helmets and bayonets. These are surrounded by crowds on foot, and at the outer rim are packed carriages filled and overrun with people mounted on the seats and boxes. There is a half-hour's waiting while we can look about, a steady stream of carriages all the while pouring in, and, if one could see it, stretching out a mile behind, and adding thousands of impatient spectators to those already there. What a sight it is!—above us the great dome of Saint Peter's, and below, the grand embracing colonnade, and the vast space, in the centre of which rises the solemn obelisk thronged with masse. of living beings. Peasants from the Campagna and the mountains are moving about everywhere. Pilgrims in oil-cloth cape and with iron staff demand charity. On the steps are rows of purple, blue, and brown umbrellas; for there the sun blazes fiercely. Everywhere cross forth the white hoods of Sisters of Charity, collected in groups, and showing, among the party-colored dresses, like beds of chrysanthemums in a garden. One side of the massive colonnade casts a grateful shadow over the crowd beneath, that fill up the intervals of its columns; but elsewhere the sun burns down and flashes everywhere. Mounted on the colonnade

are masses of people leaning over, beside the colossal statues. Through all the heat is heard the constant plash of the two superb fountains, that wave to and fro their veils of white spray. At last the clock strikes. In the far balcony are seen the two great snowy peacock fans, and between them a figure clad in white, that rises from a golden chair, and spreads his great sleeves like wings as he raises his arms in benediction. That is the Pope, Pius the Ninth. All is dead silence, and a musical voice, sweet and penetrating, is heard chanting from the balcony; the people bend and kneel; with a cold, gray flash, all the bayonets gleam as the soldiers drop to their knees, and rise to salute as the voice dies away, and the two white wings are again waved;

then thunder the cannon,- the bells dash and peal,—a few white papers, like huge snowflakes, drop wavering from the balcony; these are Indulgences, and there is an eager struggle for them below; then the Pope again rises, again gives his benediction, waving to and fro his right hand, three fingers open, and making the sign of the cross,-and the peacock fans retire, and he between them is borne away, and Lent is over.

As Lent is ushered in by the dancing lights of the moccoletti, so it is ushered out by the splendid illumination of Saint Peter's, which is one of the grandest spectacles in Rome. The first illumination is by means of paper lanterns, distributed everywhere along the architectural lines of the church, and from the steps beneath its portico to the cross above its dome. These are lighted before sunset, and against the blaze of the western light are for some time completely invisible; but as twilight thickens, and the shadows deepen, and a gray pearly veil is drawn over the sky, the distant basilica begins to glow against it with a dull furnace-glow, as of a wondrous coal fanned by a constant wind, looking not so much lighted from without as reddening from an interior fire. Slowly this splendor grows, until the mighty building at last stands outlined against

the dying twilight as if etched there with a fiery burin. As the sky darkens into intense blue behind it, the material part of the basilica seems to vanish, until nothing is left to the eye but a wondrous, magical, visionary structure of fire. This is the silver illumination; watch it well, for it does not last long. At the first hour of night, when the bells sound all over Rome, a sudden change takes place. From the lofty cross a burst of flame is seen, and instantly a flash of light whirls over the dome and drum, climbs the smaller cupolas, descends like a rain of fire down the columns of the façade, and before the great bell of Saint Peter's has ceased to toll twelve peals, the golden illumination has succeeded to the silver. For my own part, I prefer the first illumination; it is more delicate, airy, and refined, though the second is more brilliant and dazzling. One is like the Bride of the Church, the other like the Empress of the World. In the second lighting, the Church becomes more material; the flames are like jewels, and the dome seems a gigantic triple crown of Saint Peter's. One effect, however, is very striking. The outline of fire, which before was firm and motionless, now wavers and shakes as if it would pass away, as the wind blows the flames back and forth from the great cups by which it is lighted. From near and far the world looks on,-from the Piazza beneath, where carriages drive to and fro in its splendor, and the band plays and the bells toll,-from the windows and loggias of the city, wherever a view can be caught of this superb spectacle, and from the Campagna and mountain towns, where, far away, alone and towering above everything, the dome is seen to blaze. Everywhere are ejaculations of delight, and thousands of groups are playing the game of "What is it like?" One says, it is like a hive covered by a swarm of burning bees; others, that it is the enchanted palace in the gardens of Gul in the depths of the Arabian nights,

palace of the fairies in the dreams of childhood,-like the stately pleasure-dome of Kubla Khan in Xanadu,—and twenty other whimsical things. At nearly midnight, when we go to bed, we take a last look at it. It is a ruin, like the Colosseum,-great gaps of darkness are there, with broken rows of splendor. The lights are gone on one side the dome,-they straggle fitfully here and there down the

other and over the façade, fading even as we look. It is melancholy enough. It is a bankrupt heiress, an old and wrinkled beauty, that tells strange tales of its former wealth and charms, when the world was at its feet. It is the once mighty Catholic Church, crumbling away with the passage of the night,—and when morning and light come, it will be no

more.

ONE morning in Naples, in the spring of, I was practising over some operas of Rossini with a musical friend. He had known the great maestro personally, and his intelligence on musical matters, his numberless anecdotes and reminiscences, made him a charming companion; he was a living, talking Scudo article, full of artistic mots and ana. We had just finished looking over the "Tancredi," and, as I sat down to rest in an arm-chair near the window, he leaned back in the deep window-embrasure, and looked down into the fine old garden below, from which arose the delicious odor of orange and young grape blossoms.

"I was in Venice," he said, "when this opera was composed, in 1813. Mon Dieu! how time flies! Rossini wrote it for one of the loveliest women God ever made, Adelaide Montresor. I knew her very well. She was the wife of a French gentleman, a friend of mine, M. Montresor, at one time very prosperous in fortune. Adelaide was a Veronese, of good family, and had studied music only en amateur. Her maiden name was Malanotte. Oh, yes, of course, you have heard of her. She was famous, poor child, in her day, which was a short one."

The old gentleman sighed, and threw the end of his cigar out of the window. I handed him another; for his age and

charming conversation entitled him to such indulgences. He remained silent a little while, puffing away at his cigar until it was well lighted; then he continued: ·

“I think I'll tell you poor Adelaïde's story. She was a delicious young creature when Montresor married her, scarcely more than a child. For some years they lived delightfully; they had plenty of money, and were very fond of each other. She had two charming little children; one was my godson and namesake, Ettore. Montresor, her husband, was surely one of the happiest of men.

"They were both musical. Montresor had a clever barytone voice, and sang with sufficient grace and memory for an amateur. Adelaïde was more remarkable than her husband; she had genius more than culture, and sang good old music with an unconscious creative grace. At their house we used to get up 'Il Matrimonio Segreto,' scenas from ‘Don Giovanni,' and many other passages from favorite operas; and Adelaïde was always our admired prima donna; for she, as Fétis says of genius, invented forms, imposed them as types, and obliged us not only to acknowledge, but to imitate them.'

"I had to go to Russia in 1805, and leave my home and friends for an indef