ROBA DI ROMA. DY WILLIAM W. STORY. FOURTH EDITION, IN TWO VOLUMES.—VOL. I. LONDON: NEW YORK: D. APPLETON & CO., 443 & 445 BROADWAY. 1864. HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY FROM THE LIBRARY OF JUNE 28, 1938 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, By D. APPLETON & CO., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. In the present edition, the chapters on "The Evil Eye" and "Saints and Superstitions" have been omitted, and several others, such as those on the Colosseum, the Aqueducts, and the Good Old Times, have been materially altered. I have expressly avoided the discussion of questions relating to politics and religion, not because I have not very strong opinions on them, but because my book has another scope, and I could do justice neither to myself nor to these subjects in treating them thus 'incidentally. My chief object has been to describe what is characteristic in the common life of Rome; but I have not felt thereby debarred from all subjects of a serious character, even though they should involve some slight historical sketches. The Ghetto, the Colosseum, and the Fountains, Aqueducts, and Baths, owe one of their great charms to associations with the past, and it would be difficult to give an account of them without touching upon matters of history and archæology. To scholars, the information contained in these chapters is superfluous; but to the main portion of travellers it will not, I hope, be uninteresting; and it is for this reason that they have been retained, though all except that relating to the Ghetto have been much compressed and modified in form. An author is not a good judge of his own work, and, to confess the truth, in making the deductions spoken of, I have felt much in the condition of the fabled miller and his ass; for whatever one has advised me to reject, another has, with equal urgency, desired me to retain. I should, however, be very ungrateful not to express my warm thanks for the kind spirit in which my book has been received. The generosity of the public has cheered me in the unin |