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these seem to the servant insufficient in amount, they sometimes go so far as plainly to express their views, and scornfully to say, Signore, mi si viene de più; questa non è la misura della propina di sala."-I am entitled to more- -just as if they had presented a bill which you had refused to pay.

Padre Bresciani relates a good story apropos to these mancie, which he says occurred to some of his friends and himself. They had requested a deacon of their acquaintance to give them a letter to the custode of a certain palace in order that they might see some beautiful pictures there. With much courtesy the request was granted, and the little company drove at once to the palace, and presented the letter to the custode, a tall fellow of about thirty years of age. He took the letter, opened it, and after fumbling a little in his pockets for something, turned round to one of them, and said, "Excuse me, I have not my spectacles: would your Excellency have the goodness to read this for me?"

The gentleman appealed to then read as follows: "Vi raccommando sommamente questi nobilissimi Signori, mostrate loro tutte le rarità del palazzo, ben intesi, accettando le vostre propine."—" I warmly recommend to you these most distinguished gentlemen: show them all the choice things in the palace,—accepting, of course, your present for so doing."

The clever custode, imagining that these gentlemen might consider that the letter rendered the mancia unnecesary, resorted to this trick to let them see that neither the deacon nor himself intended to dispense with it.

The last, but by no means the meanest, of the tribe of pensioners whom I shall mention, is my old friend, " Beefsteak,"-now, alas! gone to the shades of his fathers. He was a good dog,-a mongrel, a Pole by birth, who accompanied his master on a visit to Rome, where he became so enamoured of the place that he could not be persuaded to return to his native home. Bravely he cast himself on the world, determined to live, like many of his two-legged countrymen, upon his wits. He was a dog of genius, and his confidence in the world was rewarded by its appreciation. He had a sympathy for the arts. The crowd of artists who daily and nightly flocked to the Lepre and the Caffè Greco attracted his notice. He introduced himself to them, and visited them at their studios and rooms. A friendship was struck between them and him, and he became their constant visitor and their most attached ally. Every day, at the hour of lunch, or at the more serious hour of dinner, he lounged into the Lepre, seated himself in a chair, and awaited his friends, confident

of his reception. His presence was always hailed with a welcome, and to every new comer he was formally presented. His bearing became, at last, not only assured, but patronizing. He received the gift of a chicken-bone or a delicate titbit as if he conferred a favour. He became an epicure, a gourmet. He did not eat much; he ate well. With what a calm superiority and gentle contempt he declined the refuse bits a stranger offered from his plate! His glance, and upturned nose, and quiet refusal, seemed to say,-"Ignoramus! know you not I am Beefsteak ?" His dinner finished, he descended gravely and proceded to the Caffè Greco, there to listen to the discussions of the artists, and to partake of a little coffee and sugar, of which he was very fond. At night he accompanied some one or other of his friends to his room, and slept upon the rug. He knew his friends, and valued them; but perhaps his most remarkable quality was his impartiality. He dispensed his favours with an even hand. He had few favourites, and called no man master. He never outstayed his welcome" and told the jest without the smile," never remaining with one person for more than two or three days at most. A calmer character, a more balanced judgment, a better temper, a more admirable self-respect,-in a word, a profounder sense of what belongs to a gentleman, was never known in any dog. But Beefsteak is now no more. Just after the agitations of the Revolution of '48, with which he had little sympathy, he was a conservative by disposition, he disappeared. He had always been accustomed to make a villeggiatura at L'Arriccia during a portion of the summer months, returning only now and then to look after his affairs in Rome. On such visits he would often arrive towards midnight, and rap at the door of a friend to claim his hospitality, barking a most intelligible answer to the universal Roman inquiry, “Chi è ?” "One morn we missed him at the accustomed " place, and thenceforth he was never seen. Whether a sudden home-sickness for his native land overcame him, or a fatal accident befell him, is not known. Peace to his manes! There "rests his head upon the lap of earth" no better dog.

In the Roman studio of one of his friends and admirers, Mr. Mason, I had the pleasure, a short time since, to see, among several admirable and spirited pictures of Campagna life and incidents, a very striking portrait of Beefsteak. He was sitting in a strawbottomed chair, as we have so often seen him in the Lepre, calm, dignified in his deportment, and somewhat obese. The full brain, the narrow, fastidious nose, the sagacious eye, were so perfectly given, that I seemed to feel the actual presence of my old friend. So admirable a portrait of so distinguished a person should not be lost to the world. It should be engraved, or at least photographed.

HE Christmas Holidays have come, and with them various customs and celebrations quite peculiar to Rome. They are ushered in by the festive clang of a thousand bells from all the belfries in Rome at Ave Maria of the evening before the august day. At about nine o'clock of the same evening the Pope performs High Mass in some one of the great churches, generally at Santa Maria Maggiore, when the pillars of this fine old basilica are draped with red hangings, and scores of candles burn in the side-chapels, and the great altar blazes with light. The fuguing chants of the Papal choir sound into the dome and down the aisles, while the Holy Father ministers at the altar, and a motley crowd parade and jostle and saunter through the church. Here, mingled together, may be seen soldiers of the Swiss guard, with their shining helmets, long halberds, and parti-coloured uniforms, designed by Michel Angelo,chamberlains of the Pope, all in black, with high ruffs, Spanish cloaks, silken stockings, and golden chains,-peasants from the mountains, in rich-coloured costumes and white tovaglie,-common labourers from the Campagna, with black mops of tangled hair,— foreigners of every nation,-Englishmen, with sloping shoulders, long, light, pendant whiskers, and an eye-glass stuck in one eye,-— Germans, with spectacles, frogged coats, and long, straight hair put behind their ears and cut square in the neck,-Americans, in highheeled patent-leather boots, shabby black dress-coats, black satin waistcoats, and beards shaved only from the upper lip,-and waspwaisted French officers, with baggy trousers, goat-beards, and a pretentious swagger. Nearer the altar are crowded together in pens a mass of women in black dresses and black veils, who are determined to see and hear all, treating the ceremony purely as a spectacle, and not as a religious rite. Meantime the music soars,

the organ groans, the censer clicks, and steams of incense float to and fro. The Pope and his attendants kneel and rise,-he lifts the Host and the world prostrates itself. A great procession of dignitaries with torches bears a fragment of the original cradle of the Holy Bambino from its chapel to the high altar through the swaying crowd that gape, gaze, stare, sneer, and adore. And thus the evening passes. When the clock strikes midnight all the bells ring merrily, Mass commences at the principal churches, and at San Luigi dei Francesi and the Gesù there is a great illumination (what the French call un joli spectacle) and very good music. Thus Christmas is ushered in at Rome.

The next day is a great festival. All classes are dressed in their best and go to Mass,-and when that is over, they throng the streets to chat and lounge and laugh and look at each other. The Corso is so crowded in the morning, that a carriage can scarcely pass. Everywhere one hears the pleasant greeting of "Buona Festa," "Buona Pasqua." All the basso popolo, too, are out,-the women wearing their best jewellery, heavy gold ear-rings, three rowed collane of well-worn coral and gold, long silver and gold pins and arrows in their hair, and great worked brooches with pendants,— and the men of the Trastevere in their peaked hats, their short jackets swung over one shoulder in humble imitation of the Spanish cloak, and rich scarfs tied round their waists. Most of the ordinary cries of the day are missed. But the constant song of "Arancie ! arancie dolci!" (oranges, sweet oranges) is heard in the crowd; and everywhere are the cigar-sellers carrying round their wooden tray of tobacco, and shouting, "Sigari! sigari dolci! sigari scelti !" at the top of their lungs; the nocellaro also cries sadly out his dry chestnuts and pumpkin-seeds. The shops are all closed, and the shopkeepers and clerks saunter up and down the streets, dressed better than the same class anywhere else in the world,-looking spick-andspan, as if they had just come out of a bandbox, and nearly all of them carrying a little cane. One cannot but be struck by the difference in this respect between the Romans on a festa-day in the Corso and the Parisians during a fête in the Champs Elysées,-the former are so much better dressed, and so much happier, gayer, and handsomer.

During the morning, the Pope celebrates High Mass at San Pietro, and thousands of spectators are there, some from curiosity, some from piety. Few, however, of the Roman families go there to-day;-they perform their religious services in their private chapel or in some minor church; for the crowd of foreigners spoils St. Peter's for prayer. At the elevation of the Host, the guards, who

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line the nave, drop to their knees, their side-arms ringing on the pavement, the vast crowd bends,—and a swell of trumpets sounds through the dome. Nothing can be more impressive than this moment in St. Peter's. Then the choir from its gilt cage resumes its chant, the high falsetti of the soprani soaring over the rest, and interrupted now and then by the clear musical voice of the Pope,until at last he is borne aloft in his Papal chair on the shoulders of his attendants, crowned with the triple crown, between the high, white, waving fans; all the cardinals, monsignori, canonici, officials, priests, and guards going before him in splendid procession. The Pope shuts his eyes, from giddiness and from fasting, for he has caten nothing for twenty-four hours, and the swaying motion of the chair makes him dizzy and sick. But he waves at intervals his three fingers to bless the crowd that kneel or bend before him, and then goes home to the Vatican to dine with a clean conscience and, let us hope, with a good appetite.

It is the custom in Rome at the great festas, of which Christmas is one of the principal ones, for each parish to send round the sacrament to all its sick; and during these days a procession of priests and attendants may be seen, preceded by their cross and banner, bearing the holy wafer to the various houses. As they march along, they make the streets resound with the psalm they sing. Everybody lifts his hat as they pass, and many among the lower classes kneel upon the pavement. Frequently the procession is followed by a rout of men, women, and children, who join in the chanting and responses, pausing with the priest before the door of the sick person, and accompanying it as it moves from house to house.

At Christmas, all the Roman world which has a baiocco in its pocket eats torone and pan giallo. The shops of the pastry cooks and confectioners are filled with them, mountains of them incumber the counters, and for days before Christmas crowds of purchasers throng to buy them. Torone is a sort of hard candy, made of honey and almonds, and crusted over with crystallized sugar; or, in other words, it is a nuga with a sweet frieze coat ;-but nuga is a trifle to it for consistency. Pan giallo is perhaps so called quasi lucus, it being neither bread nor yellow. I know no way of giving a clearer notion of it than by saying that its father is almond-candy, and its mother a plum-pudding. It partakes of the qualities of both its parents. From its mother it inherits plums and citron, while its father bestows upon it almonds and consistency. In hardness of character it is half-way between the two,-having neither the maternal tenderness on the one hand, nor the paternal stoniness on the other. One does not break one's teeth on it as over the torone,