bracing the whole peril in a single glance, | lee quarter, shook the water from her drenchand his hand bringing the head of the gallant ed head as if in delight to find her shelter little boat on each high sea that otherwise again. The chains were fastened, and I would have swamped her. I watched them never pulled with such right good will on a till nearly two miles astern, when they lay to rope as on the one that brought that boat up to look for the lost sailor. Just then I turned the vessel's side. As the heads of the crew my eye to the Southern horizon and saw a appeared over the bulwarks, I could have squall blacker and heavier than any we had hugged the brave fellows in transport. As before encountered rushing down upon us. they stepped on deck not a question was The Captain also saw it, and was terribly ex- asked-no report given-but Forward, men !' cited. He afterwards told me that in all his broke from the Captain's lips. The vessel sea life he never was more so. He called for was trimmed to meet the blast, and we were a flag, and springing into the shrouds, wav- again bounding on our way. If that squall ed it for their return. The gallant fellows had pursued the course of all the former ones, obeyed the signal and pulled for the ship. we must have lost our crew; but when nearBut it was slow work, for the head of the est the boat (and it seemed to me the foam boat had to be laid on to almost every was breaking not a hundred rods off) the wave. It was now growing dark, and if the wind suddenly veered, and held the cloud in squall should strike the boat before it reached check, so that it swung round close to our the vessel there was no hope for it. It would bows. The poor sailor was gone; he came either go down at once, or drift away into the not back again. It was his birth-day (he was surrounding darkness, to struggle out the 25 years old.) and alas, it was his death-day. * We saw him no more-and a gloom night as it could. I shall never forget that * scene. All along the southern horizon be- fell on the whole ship. There were but few of tween the black water and the blacker heav- us in all, and we felt his loss. It was a wild ens was a white streak of tossing foam. Near- and dark night; death had been among us, er and clearer every moment it boiled and and had left us with sad and serious hearts." roared on its track. Between it and us apThis will serve, at least, to convince the peared at intervals that little boat like a black speck on the crest of the billows, and then reader that in Mr. Headley's hands nothing sunk away apparently engulphed for ever. that he thinks worth telling at all is likely One moment the squall would seem to gain on it beyond the power of escape, and then to be ill told. The value of this corresdelay its progress. As I stood and watched pondence consists neither in the importnor novelty of its contents. A wellthem both, and yet could not tell which would ance reach us first, the excitement amounted to known trifle, if it illustrates his feelings, is perfect agony. Seconds seemed lengthened to him as good as a miracle-perhaps betinto hours. I could not look steadily on that ter; for of miracles he speaks every where gallant little crew now settling the question with contempt-but we are compelled, of life and death to themselves and perhaps to us, who would be left almost unmanned in notwithstanding, to leave untouched the the middle of the Atlantic, and encompassed too-often-touched Rock of Gibraltar and by a storm. The sea was making fast, and yet that frail thing rode it like a duck. Every time she sunk away she carried my heart down with her, and when she remained a longer time than usual, I would think it was "Clara Novello has been the Prima Donna all over, and cover my eyes in horror-the next moment she would appear between us for the last half of the Carnival. Rome and and the black rolling cloud, literally covered Genoa had both, as they thought, engaged her with foam and spray. The Captain knew, as for the season, and hence when each claimed he said afterwards, that a few minutes more her there was a collision. The two Governwould decide the fate of his officers and crew. ments took it up, and finally it was referred to He called for his trumpet, and springing up the Pope. It was a matter of some consethe rattlings, shouted out over the roar of the quence to his Holiness where the sweet singer blast and waves, Pull away, my brave bul- should open her mouth for the season. lies, the squall is coming-give way, my magnanimity he decided that she should stay hearties and the bold fellows did give at Rome. The managers, however, comway' with a will. I could see their ashen promised the matter by each city having her oars quiver as they rose from the water, while half the time. She had formerly been exthe life-like boat sprung to their strokes down ceedingly popular here, but contrary to the the billows, like a panther on the leap. On will of the chief bass singer and the leader of she came, and on came the blast. It was the the orchestra, she attempted at her first apwildest struggle I ever gazed on, but the gal-pearance, an air unsuited to her voice, and lant little boat conquered. Oh, how my heart leaped when she at length shot round the stern, and rising on a wave far above our

Gulf of Genoa; nay, even Genoa itself, some few incidents which illustrate Italian character and the despotism of the government excepted :—

In his

which she was told she could not perform. Of course she failed, and was slightly hissed. Her English blood mounted at so unequivo

mensely large, black, and melancholy eyes on me, and attempted to reply. But his chin began to tremble, his voice quivered and stopped, his eyes filled with tears, and he turned away to hide his feelings. Oh, when I think of the cursed tyranny man practises on man— the brutal chain Power puts on Genius-the slavery to which a crowned villain can and does subject the noblest souls that God lets visit the "earth-I wish for a moment that supreme power were mine, that the wronged might be righted, and the noble yet helpless be placed beyond the reach of oppression and the torture of servility."

cal a demonstration of their opinion of her ever, has, in its magnanimity, condescended singing, and Dido like, bowing haughtily to to permit the artist to sell it to any one who the crowd, she turned her back on the audi- will carry it out of the country. Where shall ence and walked off the stage. The tenor it go? I would that some American might and the bass both stopped-the orchestra-purchase it. I spoke with him on the subject, indeed all stopped except the hissing, which and sympathized with him on the wrongs he waxed louder every moment. She was im- had suffered. I spoke to him of my country, mediately taken to her rooms by the police of and the sympathy such a transaction would the city, and for three days the gens-d'armes awaken in every grade of society, and invited stood night and day at her door, keeping the him to go home with me, where he could breathe fair singer a prisoner for her misconduct. free, and his pencil move free. I promised This is a fair illustration of this government. him a welcome, and a reputation, and home in Even an opera singer cannot pout without a republic, whose struggle for freedom had having the gens d'armes after her. On the never yet been in vain, and whose air would promise of good behaviour, however, she was unfetter his spirit and expand his genius. released from confinement, and again appear- Such language from a foreigner and a repubed on the stage, where the good-natured, mu-lican, he felt to be sincere. He turned his imsic-loving Italians hailed her appearance with deafening cheers, and repaid their want of gallantry with excess of applause. Poor Clara Novello is not the first who has suffered from the tyranny of this military despotism. The other day I went to see the first painter of Genoa. He is a young man, modest, amiable, and courteous, so much so that I became immediately deeply interested in him. His name is Isola. He, too, has fallen once under the ban of the government. Like all geniuses he loves liberty, and the first great historical piece he painted, and on which he designed to base his claim to be ranked among the first artists of his country, was a representation of the last great struggle Genoa made for free- Now take a highly-colored (we hope, and dom. He showed me the design; in the fore-believe, too highly colored) picture of the ground, with his horse fallen under him, Italian's love of music :struggled the foreign governor that had been imposed on the people, while the excited mul"I have seen and heard much of an Italtitude were raining stones and missiles on ian's love of music, but nothing illustrating it him, and trampling him under foot. Farther so forcibly as an incident that occurred last back, and elevated on the canvass, stood the evening at the opera. In the midst of one of Marquis of Spinola, cheering on the people, the scenes, a man in the pit near the orchesone hand grasping the sword, the other wav-tra was suddenly seized with convulsions. ing aloft the flag of freedom. Excited men His limbs stiffened; his eyes became set in were running hither and thither, through the his head, and stood wide open, staring at the crowded streets, and all the bustle and hurry ceiling like the eyes of a corpse; while low of a rapid, heavy fight, were thrown upon the and agonizing groans broke from his strugcanvass. It was a spirited sketch, and one gling bosom. The prima donna came foralmost seemed to hear the battle cry of free- ward at that moment, but seeing this livid, men, and the shout of victory. Such a pic-death-stamped face before her, suddenly stopture immediately made a noise in Genoa, ped, with a tragic look and start, that for once where yet slumber the elements of a republic. was perfectly natural. She turned to the It was finished, and admired by all, and bass-singer, and pointed out the frightful spectreasured by the painter. But one day, tacle. He also started back in horror, and while Isola was sitting before it, contemplat- the prospect was that the opera would termiing his work, and thinking what corrections nate on the spot; but the scene that was just might be made, his door was burst open, and opening was the one in which the primatwo gens-d'armes stood before him. Seizing donna was to make her great effort, and the picture before his eyes they marched him around which the whole interest he pl off behind it, to answer for the crime of hav- was gathered, and the spectators were detering painted his country battling for her mined not to be disappointed because one man rights. The painting was locked up in a was dying, and so shouted, 'go on! go on!' room of the government, where it has ever Clara Novello gave another look towards the since remained. Isola was carried between groaning man, whose whole aspect was two gens-d'armes a hundred and twenty enough to freeze the blood, and then started miles, to Turin, and thrown in prison. He off in her part. But the dying man grew was finally released, but his picture remains worse and worse, and finally sprung bolt upunder lock and key. The government, how-right in his seat. A person sitting behind

him, all-absorbed in the music, immediately lowed Homer as closely as he has Isaiah, he placed his hands on his shoulders, pressed would have been accused long ago of downhim down again, and held him firmly in his right plagiarism. Alfieri he loved for his fiery place. There he sat, pinioned fast, with his and tempestuous nature, so much like his own. pale, corpse-like face upturned, in the midst There was also in Alfieri the same haughty of that gay assemblage, and the foam rolling scorn that entered so largely into Byron's charover his lips, while the braying of the trum-acter. He had stormed through half of Eupets, and the voice of the singer, drowned the rope, without deigning to accept a single invigroans that were rending his bosom. At tation into society, treating the proudest nobillength the foam became streaked with bloodity of England with supreme contempt. He as it oozed through his teeth, and the convul- had also the same passion for horses, and the sive starts grew quicker and fiercer. But the same fierce hatred of control. Shakspeare he man behind held him fast, while he gazed admired in common with every man of feeling in perfect rapture on the singer, who now or intellect. My teacher told me also, that like the ascending lark was trying her loftiest in all his frequent visits to the poet's house, he strain. As it ended, the house rang with ap-had never seen him walk. How like a spear plause, and the man who had held down the in the side that club foot always was to him. poor writhing creature could contain his ec- His appearance on horseback, with his pale stacy no longer, and lifting his hands from his face, long hair, and velvet cap, he said, was shoulders, clapped them rapidly together three very striking. The Countess Guiccioli seldom or four times, crying out over the ears of the appeared in public with him, but her brother, dying man, 'Brava, brava!' and then hurried- Byron's private secretary, usually accompaly placing them back again to prevent his nied him in his rides." springing up in his convulsive throes. It was a perfectly maddening spectacle, and the mu- Our next extract is dated from Naples: sic jarred on the chords of my heart like the "The streets were filled with loungers, all blows of a hammer. But the song was ended, the effect secured, and so the spectators could expressing in their manners and looks the attend to the sufferer in their midst. The Neapolitan maxim, dolce far niente' (it is gens-d'armes entered, and carried him speech-bright eyes and raven tresses and music-like sweet to do nothing.) You have heard of the

less and lifeless out of the theatre."

We have some account of Shelley, Leigh Hunt, and Byron, during their residence in Genoa, given on the testimony of Byron's Italian teacher:

language of the Neapolitans; but I can assure you there is nothing like it here, i. e. among the lower classes. The only difference that I can detect between them and our Indians is, that our wild bloods are the more beautiful of the two. The color is the same, the hair very like indeed, and as to the soft bastard Latin' "He fully confirms the assertion of Hunt they speak, it is one of the most abominable that Byron was a penurious man, and capable dialects I ever heard. I know this is rather of great littleness. His generous actions were shocking to one's ideas of Italian women. I usually done for effect, and if followed out were am sure I was prepared to view them in a found to be so managed as not to bring personal favorable, nay, in a poetic light; but amid al! loss in the end. Shelley, he says, was a nobler the charms and excitements of this romantic man than either Hunt or Byron. Hunt was land, I cannot see otherwise. The old women cold and repulsive-Byron irritable, and often are hags, and the young women dirty, slipvery unjust, while Shelley was generous and shod slatterns. Talk about bright-eyed open-hearted. He had a copy of the Libe- Italian maids!' Among our lower classes ral,' which they presented to him, and which I there are five beauties to one good-looking looked over with no ordinary feelings. In visit woman here. It is nonsense to expect beauty ing Byron in his room, he said that he noticed among a population that live in filth, and eat four books always lying on the table. No the vilest substances to escape the horrors matter what others might have been with them of starvation. Wholesome food, comfortable and taken away, these four always remained. apartments, and cleanly clothing, are indispenIt struck him they must be peculiar favorites sable to physical beauty; and these the Italof the poet, and so he had the curiosity to ex-ians, except the upper classes, do not have. amine them, and found them to be the Bible, The filthy dens in which they are crammed, Machiavelli, Shakspeare, and Alfieri's trage- the tattered garments in which they are but half dies. It immediately struck me, that these hid, and the haggard faces of hundreds of unfour volumes were a perfect illustration of By-fed women and children that meet me at every ron's character. Machiavelli he loved for his step as I enter the city at night, overthrow all contempt of mankind, making them all a flock the pleasures of the day, and I retire to my of sheep, to be led or slaughtered at the will room angry with that political and social sysof one haughty man. It harmonized with his tem that requires two-thirds to die of starvaown undisguised scorn. The Bible he read tion, that the other third may die of surfeit. and admired for its lofty poetry, and which By-The King of Naples has five palaces, while ron by the way never scrupled to appropriate. thousands of his subjects have not one blanIf in his great ode on Bonaparte, he had fol-ket."

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Our author cherishes a low opinion of them. They never tire you with the same the beauty of Italian women; in form, monotonous aspect, but yield in tone and look to the passing thought, whether it be sad or however, he confesses that the Italian girls mirthful; and then they are so free from all forexcel. Large and full, he acknowledges mality, and so sensitively careful of your feelthat they acquire a fine gait and bearing. ings. I shall never forget one of the first acWe commend the following remarks to the quaintances I made in Italy. I was at the tight-laced among the fair sex, as well of Marquis of 's one evening, conversing England as of America: with some gentlemen, when the Marquis came up and said, 'Come, let me introduce you to "It is astonishing that our ladies should a beautiful lady '—indeed she was the most persist in that ridiculous notion that a small beautiful Italian woman I had ever seen. waist is, and, per necessita, must be, beauti- declined, saying I did not understand the Italful. Why, many an Italian woman would ian language well enough to converse with so cry for vexation, if she possessed such a waist brilliant a creature, 'for you know (I said) one as some of our ladies acquire only by the wants to say very clever things in such a case, longest, painfullest process. I have sought and a blunder would be crucifying.' 'Pooh, the reason of this difference, and can see no pooh,' said he, 'come along'—and taking me other than that the Italians have their glorious by the shoulders led me along, and forced me statuary continually before them, as models; down into a chair by her side, saying, 'Now and hence endeavor to assimilate themselves talk.' If she had been half as much disconto them; whereas our fashionables have no certed as I was, I should have blundered bemodels except those French stuffed figures yond redemption: but the good-natured laugh in the windows of milliners' shops. Why, if with which she regarded the Marquis's peran artist should presume to make a statue formance entirely restored my confidence, and with the shape that seems to be regarded I stumbled along in the Italian for half an with us as the perfection of harmonious pro-hour, without her ever giving the least intimaportion, he would be laughed out of the city. It is a standing objection against the taste of our women the world over, that they will practically assert that a French milliner understands how they should be made better than Nature herself."

With the manners of the Italian ladies Mr. Headley is enraptured, and contrasts them favorably with those of his own countrywomen:

you

*

The dark

tion, by look or word, that I did not speak it with perfect propriety. This same naïveté of manner extends itself everywhere. If you meet a beautiful peasant girl, and bow to her, instead of resenting it as an insult, she shows a most brilliant set of teeth, and laughs in the most perfect good humor. * * Indeed, this same freedom from the ridiculous frigidity, which in my country is thought an indispensable safeguard to virtue, is found everywhere in Europe. It has given me, when a solitary stranger, many a happy hour on the Rhine, and on the Mediterranean. *The Italian has another attraction peculiar to the beings of warm climes-she possesses deeper emotions than those of colder latitudes, while she has less power to conceal them. Have eye flashes out its love or its hatred as soon as felt; and in its intense and passionate gaze is an eloquence that thrills deeper than any language. She is a being all passion, which gives poetry to her movements, looks, and words. It has made her land the land of song, and herself an object of interest the world over. A beautiful eye and eyebrow are more frequently met here than at home. The brow is peculiar ly beautiful-not merely from its regularity, but singular flexibility. It will laugh of itself, and the slight arch always heralds and utters beforehand the piquant thing the tongue is about to utter; and then she laughs so sweety! Your Italian knows how to laugh, and, by the way, she knows how to walk, which an American lady does not. An American walks better than an English woman, who steps like a grenadier, but still she walks badly. Her movements lack grace, ease and naturalness."

"There is no country in the world where woman is so worshipped and allowed to have her own way as in America, and yet there is no country where she is so ungrateful for the place and power she occupies. never in Broadway, when the omnibus was full, stepped out into the rain to let a lady take your place, which she most unhesitatingly did, and with an indifference in her manner as if she considered it the merest trifle in the world you had done? How cold and heartless her thank ye,' if she gave one! Dickens makes the same remark with regard to stage coaches-so does Hamilton. Now, do such a favor for an Italian lady, and you would be rewarded with one of the sweetest smiles that ever brightened on a human countenance. I do not go on the principle that a man must always expect a reward for his good deeds; yet, when I have had my kindest offices as a stranger, received as if were almost suspected of making improper advances, I have felt there was little pleasure in being civil. The 'grazie, Signore,' and smile with which an Italian rewards the commonest civility, would make the plainest woman appear handsome in the eyes of a foreigner. They also become more easily animated, till they make it all sunlight around

In all this there is much obvious but harmless heresy, since it may be so easily

corrected by any reader of ordinary intelli- | fury perfectly appalling; white clouds of sulgence. The fact is, the American ladies phureous smoke roll up the sky, accompanied have been so laughed at by foreigners for with molten fragments and detonations that shake the very earth beneath you. It is the their prudery, that American writers have representation of a volcano in full eruption, a tendency now to fly to the opposite ex- and a most vivid one too. Amid the spouting treme. In his opinion, however, on the fire, and murky smoke, and rising fragments, Neapolitan peasantry, Mr. Headley is a tho- the cannon of the castle are discharged, out rough Yankee; to his eyes, they were all, of sight, almost every second. Report follows to a man, Republicans-not a beggar but report with stunning rapidity, and it seems for knew the history of Masaniello" he is a moment as if the solid structure would shake to pieces. At length the last throb of the volthe people's Washington." Thus, also, to cano is heard, and suddenly from the base, and an eloquent description of the illumination sides, and summit of the castle, start innumerof St. Peter's he adds, "There are hun-able rockets, and serpents, and Roman candles, dreds who go to witness it, and return to while revolving wheels are blazing on every their homes with dark and bitter thoughts side. The heavens are one arch of blazing in their bosoms :"

meteors-the very Tiber flows in fire, while the light, falling on ten thousand upturned faces, "The age of interrogation has commenced. presents a scene indescribably strange and beMen begin to ask questions in Rome as well wildering. For a whole hour it is a constant as in America, and every one tells on the fate blaze. The flashing meteors are crossing and of papacy more than a thousand cannon shot. recrossing in every direction-fiery messenPhysical force is powerless against such ene-gers are traversing the sky overhead, and mies, while pageantry and poinp only increase the clamor and discontent."

The following description of the Girandola, we need not say, is sufficiently vivid :

amid the incessant whizzing, and crackling, and bursting, that is perfectly deafening, comes at intervals the booming of cannon. At length the pageant is over, and the gaping crowd surge back into the city. Lent is over-the last honors are done to God by his revealed representative on earth, and the Church stands Is it asked again if the people are deceived by acquitted of all neglect of proper observances. this magnificence? By no means. A stranger, the spectacle, and we soon fell into conversaan Italian, stood by me as I was gazing on tion. He was an intelligent man, and our topic was Italy. He spoke low but earnestly of the state of his country, and declared there was as much genius and mind in Italy now as ever, but they were not fostered. An imbeall the wealth of the state, and expended it in cile, yet oppressive government monopolized just such follies as these, while genius starved the poor Pope so berated in my own counand the poor died in want. I have never heard

try."

"The next night after the grand illumination is the Girandola,' or fire-works of his Holiness, and we must say that he does far better in getting up fire-works than religious ceremonies. ThisGirandola' does credit to his taste and skill. It is the closing act of the magnificent farce, and all Rome turns out to see it. About half-way from the Corso-the Broadway of Rome-to St. Peter's, the famous marble bridge of Michael Angelo crosses the Tiber. The castle of St. Angelo, formerly the vast and magnificent tomb of Adrian, stands at the farther end. This castle is select ed for the display of the fire-works. None of the spectators are permitted to cross the bridge, so that the Tiber flows between them and the exhibition. Towards evening the immense The conversation is continued, but it crowd begin to move in the direction of St. Angelo, and soon the whole area, and every passes into profanity. Notwithstanding his window and house-top, is filled with human anti-Catholic propensities, Mr. Headley beings. About eight the exhibition com- does justice to the "Chanting of the Misemences. The first scene in the drama repre-rere " sents a vast Gothic cathedral. How this is accomplished I cannot tell. Every thing is buried in darkness, when suddenly, as if by the touch of an enchanter's wand, a noble Gothic cathedral of the size of the immense castle, stands in light and beauty before you The arrangement of the silver-like lights is perfect, and as it shines on silent and still in the surrounding darkness, you can hardly believe it is not a beautiful vision. It disappears as suddenly as it came, and for a moment utter darkness settles over the gloomy castle. Yet it is but for a moment. The next instant a sheet of flame bursts from the summit with a

"The ceremonies commenced with the chanting of the Lamentations. Thirteen candles, in the form of an erect triangle, were lighted up in the beginning, representing the different moral lights of the ancient church of Israel. One after another was extinguished as the chant proceeded, until the last and brightest one at the top, representing Christ, was put out. As they one by one slowly disappeared in the deepening gloom, a blacker night seemed gathering over the hopes and fate of man, and the lamentation grew wilder and deeper. But as the Prophet of prophets,