. Doubtless, there are being enacted around us events
fully as interesting, as amusing, as sad, and as tragic as those
depicted by our great dramatist, for the world is ever the same--human
nature varies little, be time and fashion what they may; lovers love as
truly and passionately as ever did Romeo and Juliet; and selfish ignoble
feelings mar the beauty of mankind as of old. Yet, surely the world is
improving--the sun of Christianity has long been struggling behind the
dark clouds of the past, and we now surely begin to see its glorious
silver lining, and find the world bursting into nobler, higher, and
better life.

Our first impulse, on the morrow of our arrival, was to go in search of
Juliet's home, and see the balcony where she confessed her love in the
moonlight, all unconscious that he of whom she spoke was an eager
listener to the outpourings of her fervent soul:

"O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father, and refuse thy name;
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet."

The house was easily found. In the Via San Sebastiano (formerly the Via
Capello) are many high, dull-looking houses with overhanging roofs, once
the residence of the Veronese nobility. They are built, for the most
part, of dirty brick, and are not very picturesque save for now and
again a Gothic window, or a fragment of iron lattice grating, rusty and
broken, which lends a certain dignity, as though they were yet pervaded
with the spirit of the past. One of these houses, somewhat larger than
the others, was once the house of Shakespeare's youngest heroine. Over
its archway is still the hat, or "capello," which represents the arms of
the family of the Capulets. We were greatly disappointed at the gloomy
appearance and inappropriate surroundings of the scene of one of the
tenderest and saddest love-tales that have come down to us from ages
past. There is a balcony certainly, but too high, I think, for even the
ardent Romeo to have climbed; there were, however, evident signs of
another balcony lower down, which had been removed, possibly to prevent
its incontinently falling on the head of some unfortunate pedestrian.
The house, which is known by the name of the Osteria del Capello, has
long been used as an Inn. It may perchance have been a flourishing
hostelry--say a century ago, but at the present time its fortunes have
reached a very low ebb, and only the lower portion of t