they 're quite ready to
do something at Lagos, or the Gaboon, but nothing here. 'You see,' say
they, 'if they cut one or two of our people's heads off in Africa, we
get up a gun-brig, and burn the barracoons and slaughter a whole village
for it, and this restores confidence; but in Ireland it always ends with
a debate in the House, that shows the people to have great wrongs and
great patience, and that their wild justice, as some one called it,
was all right; and that sir, _that_ does not restore confidence.'
Good-night!"

CHAPTER XXVII. THE VILLA ALTIERI.

There is a short season in which a villa within the walls of old Rome
realizes all that is positive ecstasy in the life of Italy. This season
begins usually towards the end of February, and continues through the
month of March. This interval--which in less favored lands is dedicated
to storms of rain and sleet, east winds and equinoctial gales, tumbling
chimney-pots and bronchitis--is here signalized by all that Spring, in
its most voluptuous abundance, can pour forth. Vegetation comes out,
not with the laggard step of northern climes,--slow, cautious, and
distrustful,--but bursting at once from bud to blossom, as though
impatient for the fresh air of life and the warm rays of the sun. The
very atmosphere laughs and trembles with vitality. From the panting
lizard on the urn to the myriad of insects on the grass, it is life
everywhere; and over all sweeps the delicious odor of the verbena and
the violet, almost overpowering with perfume, so that one feels, in
such a land, the highest ecstasy of existence is that same dreamy state
begotten of impressions derived from blended sense, where tone and tint
and odor mingle almost into one. Perhaps the loveliest spot of Rome in
this loveliest of seasons was the Villa Altieri. It stood on a slope of
the Pincian, defended from north and east, and looking eastward over the
Campagna towards the hills of Albano. A thick ilex grove, too thick and
dark for Italian, though perfect to English taste, surrounded the house,
offering alleys of shade that even the noonday's sun found impenetrable;
while beneath the slope, and under shelter of the hill, lay a delicious
garden, memorable by a fountain designed by Thorwaldsen, where
four Naiades splash the water at each other under the fall of a
cataract,--this being the costly caprice of the Cardinal Altieri, to
complete which he had to conduct the water from the Lake of Albano.
Unl