stopt
in your flight by an industrious chapman, who spreads his stock of
pocket-handkerchiefs before your eyes. Men are walking about with live
fowls, cocks, hens, turkeys, which they hold, head downwards, in a
bunch, tied together by the legs. They are the quietest animals in the
street. They seem to have been touched by the utter inutility of their
loudest exclamations, and therefore to have resigned themselves in
silence; only when some cart-wheel grazes that head of theirs, which
they naturally hold up as high as possible, lest they should die of
apoplexy, do they make any ineffectual attempt to call attention to
their sufferings. Even money-changers, who, in all capitals of Europe,
carry on their business with a certain dignity and decorum, are here to
be seen, like our apple-women, ambulatory: they keep a stall with a sort
of bird-cage upon it, between the wires of which are glistening a store
of coins, gold, and silver, and much copper. I saw an old woman at one
of these stalls laying down the rate of exchange. No doubt she knew her
arithmetic that old crone, and made no mistake, at least on one side of
the account. A couple of lads with a large trayful of spectacles and
opera-glasses, were the great opticians of the day. I saw all sorts of
men, priests among them, trying on spectacles in the jostle of this
thoroughfare. The tailor and the hatter sit outside the door-way
stitching. I look into a baker's shop, if that can be called a shop
which is merely a square cavity laid open at the side near the
street--it is verily a baker's, and bread is made there, for you may see
the whole process carried on. Against the wall, on one side, a great
wheel is turning--grinding the corn; at the opposite side stands a man
up to his elbows in flour, kneading away with all his might; and in
front of you, if you will wait a moment, you will see the fiery oven
open, and the baked bread make its appearance--a sample of which is
deposited in the wire safe that hangs up at the entrance, and serves
for shop-window. Would that all handicrafts were but as peaceful! A few
doors further on there is _Rafaelle Papa_, the copper-smith, hammering
remorselessly at his copper pans. And, O heavens! the blacksmith himself
has come out in the open air with his fire and his forge; he has
established his smoking furnace in the only recess, the only place of
refuge, the whole street afforded."

"And in the midst of all this, and at every corner, what