glishman ever dreams of
wearing in his own country, excited no comment whatever, and scarcely
attracted a passing glance. Fancy what the effect would be of four
bloused and bearded Frenchmen strolling arm-in-arm through a village wake
in an out-of-the-way English county? By the time I had strolled through
the fair, the guns, or rather two most dilapidated old fowling-pieces,
were firing as a signal for the race. The horses were the same as those
run at the Carnival races in Rome, and as the only difference was, that
the course, besides being over hard slippery stones, was also up a steep
hill-street, and the race therefore somewhat more cruel, I did not wait
to see the end, but wandered up the valley to hear the vespers at the
convent of the Santo Speco. I should have been sorry to have missed the
service. Through a number of winding passages, up flights of narrow
steps, and by terrace-ledges cut from the rock, over which I passed, and
overhanging the river-side, I came to a vault-like chapel with low
Saracenic arches and quaint old, dark recesses, and a dim shadowy air of
mystery. Round the candle-lighted altar, standing out brightly from
amidst the darkness, knelt in every posture some seventy monks; and ever
and anon the dreary nasal chanting ceased, and a strain of real music
burst from out the hidden choir, rising and dying fitfully. The whole
scene was beautiful enough; but,--what a pity there should be a "but" in
everything,--when you came to look on the scene in the light of a
service, the charm passed away. There were plenty of performers but no
audience; the congregation consisted of four peasant-women, two men, and
a child in arms. The town below was crowded. The service was one of the
chief ones in the year, but somehow or other the people stopped away.

When the music was over, I was shown through the convent. There were, as
usual, the stock marvels: a hole through which you looked and beheld
a--shall I call it sacred?--picture of Satan with horns and hoof
complete; a small plot of ground, where used to grow the thorns on which
St Benedict was wont to roll himself in order to quench the desires of
manhood, and where now grow the roses into which St Francis transformed
the said thorns, in honour of his brother saint. The monk who showed me
the building talked much about the misery of the surrounding poor. At
the convent's foot lies a little wood of dark green ilexes, of almost
unknown age, valued