battered with use, but witnessing that it had once been the
heart of a home. It was far more touching than any thing in the
elder ruin; and I think nothing could have so vividly expressed the
difference which, in spite of all the resemblances noticeable in
Italy, exists between the ancient and modern civilization, as that
family-box at the theatre and this simple fireside.

I do not now remember what fortunate chance it was that discovered
to us the house of the Capulets, and I incline to believe that we
gravitated toward it by operation of well-known natural principles
which bring travellers acquainted with improbabilities wherever they
go. We found it a very old and time-worn edifice, built round an
ample court, and we knew it, as we had been told we should, by the cap
carven in stone above the interior of the grand portal. The family,
anciently one of the principal of Verona, has fallen from much of its
former greatness. On the occasion of our visit, Juliet, very dowdily
dressed, looked down from the top of a long, dirty staircase which
descended into the court, and seemed interested to see us; while her
mother caressed with one hand a large yellow mastiff, and distracted
it from its first impulse to fly upon us poor children of sentiment.
There was a great deal of stable litter, and many empty carts standing
about in the court; and if I might hazard the opinion formed upon
these and other appearances, I should say that old Capulet has now
gone to keeping a hotel, united with the retail liquor business, both
in a small way.

Nothing could be more natural, after seeing the house of the Capulets,
than a wish to see Juliet's Tomb, which is visited by all strangers,
and is the common property of the hand-books. It formerly stood in a
garden, where, up to the beginning of this century, it served, says my
"Viaggio in Italia," "for the basest uses,"--just as the sacred prison
of Tasso was used for a charcoal bin. We found the sarcophagus under
a shed in one corner of the garden of the Orfanotrofio delle
Franceschine, and had to confess to each other that it looked like a
horse-trough roughly hewn out of stone. The garden, said the boy
in charge of the moving monument, had been the burial-place of the
Capulets, and this tomb being found in the middle of the garden, was
easily recognized as that of Juliet. Its genuineness, as well as its
employment in the ruse of the lovers, was proven beyond cavil by a
slight hollow cut f