snatch of an Appenine song turned our eyes up, and there, straggling through the brush, was the long train-a foot-slip would have brought mule and wine cask rolling upon us. I kept still, holding by the brushwood to let them pass. An hour more, and they were twining slowly, mule and muleteer-big dots and little dots-far down, where we had been before. The sun was hot, and smoking on them in the bare valleys;-the sun was hot, and smoking upon the hill side, where we were toiling over the broken stones; I thought of little Enrica, when she said, "the spring was coming."

But there came a breeze, fresh and inspiring, when we gained the top, that looks down on Rojata. Vegetation of healthy greenness began to creep between the stones, and bright fields of spring grain waved in platoons amid the barrenness. Below the town stood balanced on a rock, and a plain, as it seemed, though it proved a succession of valleys, swept around it, with something that looked like cultivation among them. We stopped, and sat down; I, to eat an orange that came from the Piazza Navona at Rome, and try the wine of Subiaco, at a baioc (cent) the foglietto; and my guide to mumble at his panatelle (little bread).

When we were down, the path divided, and at a loss, Filippo shouted to some workmen upon the top of the tower of the church in the town, at least a quarter of a mile distant; and strange to say again, so quiet and so soft was that mountain air, that their reply came down from the church top as distinctly as if they had stood beside us! Up the sharp and smooth-faced rock we clambered into the town-nothing but bare rock for streets, and these so narrow, that four could not walk in them abreast. On them, dirty children, half clad, were lying in the sun, and the lizards, without fear, scudding among them! No life; no stir; not a hammer's stroke in the town, save the two at the top of the church. All idleness and filth in the midst of scenery, that would seem to make the brutes superior to their rank in the scale of creation, and man alive to everything that is beautiful, and noble, and earnest! From the town we wandered down, a few listless gazes, a few idle remarks, all that our presence excited; so they have lived for centuries; and so, how long will they not live? Following the chain of hills through country gradually

improving in cultivation, and disclosing rich valley views on every side, we came at length upon the hill overlooking Olevano. It is an old town, with a mossy, and ivy covered remnant of a castle springing out of its middle. Through vineyards in which we lost our way, and were directed, and re-directed by queer-dressed vineyard dressers, we wound down, and we wound up over the brook where the women were washing-up the rocky pathway they were coming down with huge piles of clothes upon their heads, and finally through the narrow gateway-the gateway of the noble old fallen family of Colonna, into the dirty street of the town itself. One side, the rough walls of the ancient castle of the Frangissani springing from the jagged rock a hundred feet of brown, weather-stained face into the air;-the other side, over the parapet, first the house tops, poor and meagre, then gentle descent, then a sweeping plain of fertility, with tips of the Appenines in the distance.

Going higher, we came to a low archway, seeming to conduct to subterranean regions; but turning a sharp angle as we entered, there came through the thick set houses, a little glimpse of light, leading us by angle turning upon angle, down what, for want of another name, must be called the street of the town sometimes absolutely roofed over, and conducting under arch-ways-never offering a vista of more than twenty feet in length, and never less steep than would make a Swiss muleteer to tremble-always seeming to end, and always offering a peep-hole into some succeeding section. Pigs, children, and mothers sit together on the rocks, that everywhere show their jagged surface through the accumulated filth of years. Stared at by all, and half frightened by the scrutiny, I at length emerged from this corkscrew passage into the town square, three hundred feet below the castle.

A little fountain spouted at one side, and scores of idlers stood sunning themselves against the wall. I had made, what one might call a fair day's work for spring-time, having passed over twelve miles of the roughest possible road, and had counted wishfully on a clever lunch of bread and wine in some osteria of Olevano; but the dirt and the ill-looks frightened me on. Filippo looked beseechingly at me, and the casks of a cucino that we passed, and told me dole

fully the report that twelve long miles more lay between us and Palestrina. But it was two hours past noon, too late to think of stopping in the face of such a hideous distance, so I gave the word"Andiamo!" and we left castle, and town, and loungers behind; but before us, all was as beautiful as a dream! The sun was four or five hours above the horizon, and a soft, luxurious haze, which makes one love to idle, was flung over all that part of the heavens where the sunset was making, and over the limb of the Campagna, that stretched like an ocean under it. Nearer by, the hills, behind which lay Palestrina, still blue in distance, swept round in a rich circuit, joining at length, stealthily, the huge rocky promontory on which stood Olevano. The other way-to the left, and leaving the first-named hills by only a little gap, through which the Campagna appeared-swept other mountains to greater distance, until they became blue as the sky, except one little speck which Filippo pointed out to me, and rolled into a sweet Italian name, which bore snow glistening on its top, looking in the soft, warm atmosphere, like a gravestone in a garden! The great basin of fields between-so rich in their cultivation that one might imagine himself looking over the meadows of Somersetshire-was divided in the middle by a ridge, sloping away from one side of the rocky town we had left. Down this ridge we wandered to the plain. Filippo whispered, that there was some one who followed us. I was startled, and looked back: there, sure enough, was a lean, hungry looking fellow, in a steeple-crowned hat, whom I had noticed in the piazza, and who had, I thought, looked curiously on my little London carpet-bag, lounging carelessly after us. I quickened my pace somewhat, and my guide kept even with

"Does Signore doubt me? I am brave."

To tell the truth, I had little fear: true, I was not armed, but the fellow, like most Italians, had a cowardly look, and I had taken the precaution of leaving my watch and everything of real value at Rome. Filippo was, I believe upon my soul, terribly frightened; at any rate, he made a very long story of it to the landlady at Palestrina, and tired as he was, went up that evening to vespers.

We outmarched our brigand, at any rate we lost sight of him. Filippo said he turned back. Long miles across the plain, and longer ones of ascent beyond, but through country under even Scotch tillage, brought us to the town of Cavi— beautifully situated, and worthy more time than our hurried paces through it permitted. The scenery changed again to a more quiet, subdued rural aspect as we left the place, and not until we gained a height overlooking Palestrina, and the Campagna, and the city of Rome, did the Italian character recur. So, in a day's walk had we seen every variety of view: -at morning, the wild beauty of a Swiss gorge, with an Italian sun to light it; a little after, the savage desolation of the Scotch mountains, set off by a valley group of olives; at noon, the stern old castle of Rhenish landscape, that was standing before the stones of German strongholds were quarried; then, the luxurious stretch of fruitful meadow, more rich than the plains of Burgundy, and hemmed in by wilder mountains than the Juras;-after all, the Campagna-the sea of land-with the sun setting on its edge

throwing into relief the great dome of St. Peters, and blazing in a long, red stripe upon the waters of the Tiber.

Pleasantly sits the old city of Palestrina on its spur of the Appenines. Very old it is, for it was a city before Rome was built-before the bronze wolf was cast, or Romulus or Remus suckled. Hannibal went up its heights to look over Rome, and Cincinnatus conquered it. Emperors dwelt there, poets praised it, philosophers honored its temples.*

The old Colonna kept it when Rienzi came out from Rome to beat it down, and the fragments of the walls are there yet. One can see over the Albanian mountains from the church door, and the proud town of Colonna perched on its crag; and Rome, except when the mists are sailing over the Campagna, is ever in its eye. For all this, the streets of Pales. trina are dirty and narrow, and twice Filippo and I walked through them that evening, though the sun was fairly down, and we tired, searching for a tidy seeming osteria. Twice I looked with keen scrutiny into the door of the only Locanda that bore a sign, and twice drew Filippo off on a new search. Staggering with fatigue, I at length appealed to an old woman who was sitting on her door-step, at the lower end of the town: I asked if there were no private lodgings which a stranger might find for the night. Following her directions, we went through two or three crooked alleys, and at a strange, suspicious looking door-way, were received by a neat old lady, who promised, and showed me a good bedbut as for a dinner, she had none. Filippo dropped in a chair disheartened. A snub-looking priest came out to condole with us.

Could Palestrina-the " frigidum Proneste" of Horace, which had entertained, over and over, the noblest of the Colonna, and the most noble Adrian-could Palestrina not furnish a dinner to a tired traveler? "Si, Signore," said the snub-looking priest.

66

Si, Signorino," said the neat old lady, forgetting in her pride the bargain for her bed; and following their combined advices, we went up long stone steps, and through a frightfully dirty street, and knocked at a door, that seemed hardly made to open. A middle-aged lady, big and sprightly, and not bad featured, in the picturesque red boddice of the country, gave us the favoriscono, and to my first question for dinner was most ready with a yes.

The bed proved not bad; Filippo put down my bag and sought for his own quarters. In half an hour I was sitting down in the room behind the kitchen, round which hung sundry Christian martyrs and some family portraits, at a dinner of maccaroni stewed in oil, beef in the same, a remnant of a goat's haunch and a fresh salad, with a good bottle of wine. The landlady, who proved a veritable Dame Quickly, was not chary of her favors at the table,

and pointed me out in the several dishes, the choice morsels, and prescribed order of eating, and dressed the salad, and fingered the cold ham, and helped herself to the wine-all with an air that showed she knew what good living was, and what should be done with it. As I ate, the family dropped in, and by the time 1 had lighted my cigar over the remnant of the wine, I had counted ten: and the old lady with a just pride, told me she had thirteen;-and bright, and happy, and pretty faces they all had; especially the little girl of twelve years, who came close by me, and who strung a garland of marigolds, and took off my hat to put it on my forehead. Then there was a bright-eyed boy of fourteen, who wrote his own and the names of the whole family in my guide-book, and a pretty, saucy-looking girl of sixteen, who peeped a long time from behind the kitchen-door, but before the evening was gone, she was in the chair beside me, and had written her name on the first leaf of my book, where it stands yet.

In short, I made part of the familyteaching one of the boys a little Frenchtelling another about Paris and Londontalking with the mother of her fine family-with the eldest daughter, of the Carnival and beautiful women-and with the youngest, of her pretty Italian eyes. So passed three hours, when, with the hearty good wishes of all, I stole off to bed; attempting first to set down something in my note-book, but the attempt was vain, and in ten minutes I was dreaming of home!

When I woke, the sun was up. From my bed I could see over the town the thin lazy mists lying on the old camp ground of Pyrrhus, and the mountains beyond, with bright green sides, that hide Frascati and Monte Cavi. I could see Colonna, that

"Like an eagle's nest, hangs on the crest Of purple Appenine."

I could see, as the mist lifted, and the sun brightened the plain, the streak of road along which Sylla came fuming and maddened after the Mithridaten war. I could see—as I half dreamed, half slept— the frighted peasantry whooping to their long-horned cattle as they drove them on tumultuously up through the gateways of the town, and women with babies in their arms, and children scowling with fear and hate, all trooping fast and madly,

to escape the hand of the Avenger: alas! ineffectually, for Sylla murdered them, and pulled down the walls of their town -the proud Palestrina!

I had a queer fancy of seeing the nobles of Rome, led on by Stefano Colonna, grouping along the plain, their corselets flashing out of the mists, their pennants dashing above it--coming up fast and still as the wind, to make the Mural Preneste their stronghold against the last of the Tribunes. And strangely mingling fiction with fact, I saw the brother of Walter de Montreal, with his noisy and bristling army, crowd over the Campagna, and put up their white tents, and hang out their showy banners, on the grassy knolls that lay nearest my eye that morning-just out of the walls of the town. But the knolls were quiet; I do not know that there was so much as a strolling contadino in them to whistle a mimic fife note. Two hours later one might have seen Filippo and myself strolling over them, and down the Roman road upon the plain;-he, with his brown Ancona jacket,and budget, and wine flask, and I, with my sombréro and cudgel.

Coffee was ready for me when I went down; the old lady as gracious as the night before; my guide smiling, and waiting the orders of the day. I bade my landlady good morning, and the daughter wished me a "buon viaggio" that sounded in my ears half way up the hill; for up the hill I went, with one of the boys as guide, to see what was left of Præneste. Strange Pelasgic foundations, and mosaics, and palaces, and bits of sculpture drew me here and there. But the sight over the Campagna, toward Rome, was worth them all. I sat down on a rock above the town; and whether it was the soft, warm April sun, or whether the grouping gray ruins below me, or whether the wonderful silence of the scene, or whether some wild gust of memory, I do not know, but something made me very sad.

"Perché cosi penseroso?" said the quickeyed boy. "The air is beautiful, the scene is beautiful, Signore is young, why is he sad ?"

"And is Giovanni never sad?" said 1. "Quasi mai," said the boy, "and if I could travel as Signore, and see other countries, I would be always gay."

May you be always that," said I. The good wish touched him; he took me by the arms, and said, "Go home with me, Signore-you were happy at

the inn last night; go back, and we will make you gay again.”

It was one of the richest illustrations I had had of Italian thought, and of Italian feeling.

I thanked him in a way that half saddened the boy. I sent Filippo back to the inn to fill his wine flask, for I had not forgotten its good flavor. down

With Giovanni I strolled through the town, and out at the Porta del Sole, and I shook his hand, and parted from that Italian boy with a stronger heart feeling than I have felt at parting with many who are called friends.

Filippo was to come after me. Our path lay along a narrow road, that was skirted by hedges and passed through green fields. I idled along, turning frequently back to look over the rocky heights at the ruined houses of Palestrina-a city that defied Rome, that had a king before a ploughshare had touched the Capitoline or the Janiculan hill! The ivy was coming up richly the Etruscan foundations, and there was a quiet over the whole town;-the smoke was rising straight into the sky from one or two chimneys, a peasant or two were going along the road with donkey-loads of vegetables-beside this, the city was, to all appearance, a dead city. And it seemed to me that an old monk, whom I could see with my glass, near the little chapel above the town, might be going to say mass for the soul of the dead city.

I walked a mile, and Filippo had not come, nor was he anywhere in sight. A half mile more I walked, and sat down under some grand old chestnuts by the road-still he did not come. At length, when I had nearly despaired, and thought he might have run away with my bag, I

saw a black object in the direction of the town. Soon I could make out the broad grin of Filippo; but it was strangely exaggerated, and there was a conscious look about him I could not account for. As he came nearer, his earnestness seemed wonderfully to increase; and a long distance off he commenced shouting, Signore Signore"

"Ods!" thought I, "there is some one in pursuit of the fellow; or," and my heart misgave me, "Filippo has been drinking my wine!"

But he had not, and when he had fairly recovered breath, and seated himself on one of the roots of the old chestnuts, he told me his story. CAIUS.

THE MERCHANT has come to be, in the minds of all clear-sighted men, whether statesmen, political economists, or Christian philosophers, a name of power. His pursuit has always, indeed, been recognized as a great and sure source of wealth. From the time when the Phonicians (Canaanites, that is, merchants,) spread their purples by the Tyrian seaside, and stretched the white sails of traffic along the shores of Italy and Spain, and beyond the pillars of Hercules to the tin mines of the Scilly Islands and coasts of Cornwall, down to this new century, when the New-Englander, quite as fearless and thrift-loving, finds his way with canvas to any distant arm of the ocean where a tenpenny nail can be sold, or a harpoon darted to advantage-commerce has been felt to be a chief accumulator of riches. But this is not all that commerce has done, just as riches in themselves are not the best possession of a people. It bas borne a principal part in the great humanizing changes that have from time to time taken place in Society. An excellent and finished address, delivered by Mr. Winthrop lately before the "Boston Mercantile Association"-a practical discourse, but finished and classical, the thoughts at once of a scholar and man of the world-has some passages that touch rightly upon this subject, and might do something to make the despisers of trade among us change the "rude current of their opinions."

"If one were called on to say," remarks Mr.Winthrop, "what upon the whole, was the most distinctive and characterizing feature of the age in which we live, I think he might reply, that it was the rapid and steady progress of the influence of Commerce upon the social and political condi

tion of man. The policy of the civilized world is now everywhere and eminently a commercial policy. No longer do the nations of the earth measure their relative consequence by the number and discipline of their armies upon the land, or their armadas upon the sea. The tables of their imports and exports, the tonnage of their commercial marines, the value and variety of their home trade, the sum total of their mercantile exchanges, these furnish the standards by which national power and national importance are now marked and measured. Even extent of territorial dominion is valued little, save as it gives scope and verge for mercantile transactions; and the great use of colonies is what Lord Sheffield declared it to be, half a century ago, the monopoly of their consumption, and the carriage of their produce.'

"Look to the domestic administration, or the foreign negotiation of our own, or any other civilized country. Listen to the debates of the two houses of the Imperial Parliament. What are the subjects of their gravest and most frequent discussions? The successon of families? The marriage of princes? The conquest of provinces? of trade, the sliding scale, corn, cotton, The balance of power?-No, the balance sugar, timber-these furnish now the homespun threads upon which the statesmen of modern days are obliged to string the pearls of their parliamentary rhetoric.

"Cross over to the continent. What is

the great fact of the day in that quarter? Lo, a convention of delegates from ten of the independent states of Germany, forgetting their own political rivalries and social feuds, flinging to the winds all the fears and jealousies which have so long sown dragon's teeth along the borders of neighboring states of disproportioned strength and different forms of government-the lamb lying down with the lion-the little city of Frankfort with the proud kingdom of Prussia-and all entering into a solemn league to regulate commerce and secure