lines upon the neighboring heights. It was one of those evenings which occur but once in a person's life, which, without signalizing itself by any great life-adventure, yet stamps itself in its whole coloring upon the Psyche-wings. Since that moment, whenever my mind goes back to the Tiber, I see it ever before me as upon this evening: the thick yellow water lit up by the moonbeams; the black stone pillars of the old ruinous bridge, which, with strong shadow, lifted itself out of the stream where the great mill-wheel rushed round; nay, even the merry girls who skipped past with the tambourine and danced the saltarello.1

In the streets around Santa Maria della Rotunda, all was yet life and motion; butchers and fruit-women sat before their tables, on which lay their wares among garlands of laurel, and with lights burning in the open air. The fire flickered under the chestnut-pans, and the conversation was carried on with so much screaming and noise, that a stranger who did not understand a word might have imagined it to be some contention of life and death. An old friend whom my mother met in the fish-market kept us talking so long, that people were beginning to put out their lights before we set off again, and as my mother accompanied her friend to her door it had now become as silent as death in the street, even in the Corso; but when we came into the square di Trevi, where there is the beautiful cascade, it seemed on the contrary quite cheerful again.

The moonlight fell exactly upon the old palace, where the water streams out between the masses of foundation-rock which seem loosely thrown together. Neptune's heavy stone

1 A popular Roman dance to a most monotonous tune. It is danced by one or two persons, yet without these coming in contact with each other; most frequently by two men, or two women, who with a quick, hopping step, and with increasing rapidity, move themselves in a half-circle. The arms are as violently agitated as the legs, and change their position incessantly, with all that natural grace peculiar to the Roman people. Women are accustomed in this dance to lift up their petticoats a little, or else to beat time themselves upon the tambourine: this, otherwise, is done by a third person on the monotonous drum, the changes in the time alone consisting in the greater or less rapidity with which the strokes follow one another. - Author's Note.

mantle floated in the wind, as he looked out above the great waterfall, on each side of which blooming Tritons guided seahorses. Beneath these the great basin spread itself out, and upon the turf around it rested a crowd of peasants, stretching themselves in the moonlight. Large, quartered melons, from which streamed the red juice, lay around them. A little square-built fellow, whose whole dress consisted of a shirt, and short leather breeches, which hung loose and unbuttoned at the knees, sat with a guitar, and twanged the strings merrily. Now he sang a song, now he played, and all the peasants clapped their hands. My mother remained standing; and I now listened to a song which seized upon me quite in an extraordinary way, for it was not a song like any other which I had heard. No! he sang to us of what we saw and heard, we were ourselves in the song, and that in verse, and with melody. He sang, "How gloriously one can sleep with a stone under the head, and the blue heaven for a coverlet, whilst the two Pifferari blow their bagpipes; " and with that he pointed to the Tritons who were blowing their horns; "how the whole company of peasants who have shed the blood of the melon will drink a health to their sweethearts, who now are asleep, but see in dreams the dome of St. Peter's, and their beloved, who go wandering about in the Papal city. Yes, we will drink, and that to the health of all girls whose arrow has not yet expanded.1 Yes,” added he, giving my mother a little push in the side, "and to mothers who have for their sweethearts lads on whose chins the black down has not yet grown!"

"Bravo!" said my mother, and all the peasants clapped their hands and shouted, "Bravo, Giacomo! bravo!"

Upon the steps of the little church we discovered, in the mean time, an acquaintance our Federigo, who stood with a pencil and sketched the whole merry moonlight piece. As we went home he and my mother joked about the brisk Improvisatore, for so I heard them call the peasant who sung so charmingly.

1 The arrow which the peasant women wear in their hair has a ball at the end if they are free; but, if betrothed or married, has an expanded head. Author's Note.

"Antonio," said Federigo to me, "thou, also, should'st improvise; thou art truly, also, a little poet! Thou must learn to put thy pieces into verse."

I now understood what a poet was ; namely, one who could sing beautifully that which he saw and felt. That must, indeed, be charming, thought I, and easy, if I had but a guitar.

The first subject of my song was neither more nor less than the shop of the bacon-dealer over the way. Long ago, my fancy had already busied itself with the curious collection of his wares, which attracted in particular the eyes of strangers. Amid beautiful garlands of laurel hung the white buffalocheeses, like great ostrich eggs; candles, wrapped round with gold paper, represented an organ! and sausages, which were reared up like columns, sustained a Parmesan cheese, shining like yellow amber. When in an evening the whole was lighted up, and the red glass-lamps burned before the image of the Madonna in the wall among sausages and ham, it seemed to me as if I looked into an entirely magical world.. The cat upon the shop-table, and the young Capuchins, who always stood so long cheapening their purchases with the signora, came also into the poem, which I pondered upon so long that I could repeat it aloud and perfectly to Federigo, and which, having won his applause, quickly spread itself over the whole house, nay, even to the wife of the bacon-dealer herself, who laughed and clapped her hands, and called it a wonderful poem, Divina Commedia di Dante!

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From this time forth everything was sung. I lived entirely in fancies and dreams, in the church when I ser, in the streets amid the rolling carriages and screaming traders, as well as in my little bed beneath the image of the Virgin and the holy-water vessel. In the winter time, I could sit for whole hours before our house, and look into the great fire in the street, where the smith heated his iron, and the peasants warmed themselves. I saw in the red fire a world glowing as my own imagination. I shouted for joy, when in winter the snow of the mountains sent down to us such severe cold, that icicles hung from the Triton in the square; pity that it was so seldom. Then, also, were the peasants glad, for it was to them a sign of a fertile year; they took hold of each

other's hands, and danced in their great woolen cloaks round about the Triton, whilst a rainbow played in the high-springing water.

But I loiter too long over the simple recollections of my childhood, which cannot have for a stranger the deep meaning, the extraordinary attraction, which they have for me. Whilst I recall, whilst I hold fast every single occurrence, it seems as if I again lived in the whole.

"My childhood's heart was to my dreams a sea

Of music, whereon floated picture-boats!"

I will now hasten on to the circumstance which placed the first hedge of thorns between me and the paradise of home which led me among strangers, and which contained the germ my whole future.

of

I

CHAPTER III.

THE FLOWER-FEAST AT GENZANO.1

T was in the month of June, and the day of the famous flower-feast which was annually celebrated at Genzano approached. My mother and Mariuccia had a mutual friend there, who, with her husband, kept a public-house.2 They had for many years determined to go to this festival, but there was always something or other to prevent it; this time there was nothing. We were to set off the day before the flower-feast, because it was a long way; I could not sleep for joy through the whole night preceding.

Before the sun had risen, the vetturino drove up to the door, and we rolled away. Never before had I been among the mountains. Expectation, and joy of the approaching festival, set my whole soul in motion. If in my maturer years I could have seen nature and life around me with the same vivid feeling as then, and could have expressed it in words, it would have been an immortal poem. The great stillness of the streets, the iron-studded city-gate, the Campagna stretching out for miles, with the lonely monuments, the thick mist which covered the fect of the distant mountains, all these seemed to me mysterious preparations for the magnificence which I should behold. Even the wooden cross erected by the wayside, upon which hung the whitened bones of the murderer, which told us that here an innocent person had perished, and the perpetrator of his death had been punished, had for me an uncommon charm. First of all, I attempted to count the innumerably many stone arches which conduct the

1 A little city in the mountains of Albano, which lies upon the high-road between Rome and the Marshes. Note by the Author.

2 "Osteria e cucina," the customary sign for the lower order of hotels and public-houses in Italy. — Ibid.