charge its missile to dint the pavement, or my head, as the case might be ; and I began to think myself in a fair way to furnish a living, or, perhaps, dying comment on a passage I had been reading some days before:

Improvidus ad cœnam si

Intestatus eas, adeo tot fata, quot illa

Nocte patent vigiles, te pretereunte fenestræ.

I have already said, my Italian was of a very mediocre kind, but even though I had the "bocca Romana," with the "lingua Toscana," at my tongue-tip, there was not a soul upon whom to exercise my eloquence. Every ground-floor around me showed those grinning chevaux-de-frize of hard rusty iron bars with which the great houses of Rome fortify their cellarage. You might as well ask guidance in the vaults of a church as at the lowest tier of a Roman dwelling; then, to attempt any of the entrances, grope through the halls, mount the dreary staircases, and on ringing out some inhabitant, to stutter out my request for guidance to

the Corso! which was the only point for which I could pretend to make-I feared to attempt anything of the kind, and yet I saw no other

resource.

Such were the pleasant thoughts revolving in my mind as I slowly retraced my steps on the street in which I had paused. I passed dark and barred entrées more than one; a few were either yet unclosed for the night, or remained so all night long; and it was from one of these that my ear, in passing, caught the low but distinct hiss with which an Italian invites attention, and which always unpleasantly reminded me of the hiss of a serpent. I paused at the sound, for the voice in the darkness sounded very close at my ear, and a stifled female voice called again, "Hist, Jeronymo."

I stood still, but made no reply; and again the same voice, subdued, but intensely hurried, repeated,

"Jeronymo subito, subito."

Not being Jeronymo, I thought it best not to acknowledge the invitation in any way, but to get out of the way as quickly as I could. I was the more decided on this when I saw shine, down the well-like interior of the house, a faint light, and heard a hoarse voice muttering something, of which the only word intelligible to me was "Diavolo." Anger was certainly in the tone, but what description of anger-whether of angry father, jealous husband, irate brother, or surly concierge-it was impossible to distinguish.

In honest old England's capital, in its worst purlieu, at the door of its worst den, a man might have stood "over the way" to see the end, pretty sure that, if the worst came to the worst, and that he found himself in a "row," A 46 or Z 24, or some intermediate, member of the bluecoated, glazed-hatted fraternity, who, "with little bits of stick in their hand," keep the peace of our huge metropolis, would be sure to make his appearance sooner or later; but in "Imperial Papal Rome"-" Orbis terrarum Domina et Caput"-they disdain such vulgar appliances for the protection of the peaceable, and you might be stabbed, robbed, dead, and flung into the Tiber, at any point of the city, at any hour from sunset to sunrise, without either a detective or ordinary policeman asking, "What's the row ?" or desiring a loitering marauder to "move on." This being

notoriously the case, I thought it better to "move on" of my own accord, although whither I had not the least notion; but the thought that I might be standing in the way of an appointment, or come to be mistaken for an object of jealousy, caused me to hasten my steps from this dangerous neighbourhood.

A few paces brought me to a point where a street (in more northern regions we should call it a lane) debouched upon that down which I was hastening; it yawned literally as "dark as a wolf's mouth," and although my anxious ear caught the sound of footsteps coming hastily towards me, I was absolutely unable to see the individual who approached from it, until, in his speed, he rushed against me.

Even then I could distinguish neither shape nor person, but I felt that he must have been a man of much slighter make and less bulk than myself, otherwise, with the momentum of his motion, and standing still as I was, I must have been nearly flung down; as it happened, it was he who staggered back from the shock, but at once recovering, proceeded to pass me, with "permesso, signor." The voice was that of a gentleman, and I was getting together my miserable vocabulary to ask pardon for interrupting him, and to inquire my way, when, quite out in the street, and no longer in the cavern-like entrance of the house, with an intensified sharpness-bespeaking agony, mingled with fear of being overheard the words came hissing along the walls,

"Jeronymo, Jeronymo, per Amor di Dio."

"Santissima Madre siamo perduti," cried the man, as, with a push which turned me round, he rushed past. At the same moment a light gleamed from the cavity of the entrance; I caught a glimpse, for a moment, of something white; I heard a piercing shriek, a scuffle, a stamping of feet. I waited for no more, but hap-hazard ran away as fast as my legs could carry me, considering that "any port" was preferable to weathering the tornado of an Italian quarrel.

In a very few minutes I found myself in an open space-not a square, but a junction of streets somewhat resembling the Seven Dials, in London, and most gladly did I acknowledge and execrate my stupidity, when at the corner of one of the streets I recognised Old Pasquin!-my paper stuck on the stump of his left arm; in short, nothing but my own precipitation and headlong haste could have carried me so very far astray as I had run. I soon took the right turn to the Piazza, thence, after some stumbling about, I found myself in the beaten track to the Borghese Palace, whence a few minutes' walk brought me home. I had been more than two hours absent, and found the young folks, though half-laughing, yet beginning to be uneasy at my delay, forgetting that it is a very different thing to find your way with eyes open, and blindfolded.

In the course of our morning's drive next day, my girls had, of course, something to do at "the shawl merchant's," living, as I before said, in the Piazzo Navona; and while they employed themselves in a "shopping," I took the opportunity to saunter towards the corner, "quite promiscuously" as one might say. Contrary to my expectation, I found the paper I had put up the night before still unremoved, and two or three people trying to spell out its meaning. Of course I passed on as innocently as if I knew nothing about it, and tried to recognise which of the streets I had run up in error the night before. While I stood in doubt as to which

way

of two or three streets might be that particular one, I saw, about half up one of them, about a dozen people loitering; it could not be called a crowd, and yet they were evidently not moving on. It occurred to me that this might have been the scene of my nocturnal adventure, and I walked towards them.

On arriving, I found them all silently observing the same object, which told me that my conjecture was just. On the stones in front, and on the wall, beside a large doorway opening into a house of ample size, were thick plashes of blood, evidently spilled in some recent and deadly struggle. The dogs, the only active scavengers in Rome, had not been at the spot yet, and though there was a gushing fountain not many yards off, no human hand had yet done the office of decency in removing the marks of murder. Men loitered, and pointed, and spoke in whispers. Women occasionally stood still for a moment, shuddered, crossed themselves, and passed on. I approached one man, and asked him, "What is that?" "Who knows, signor ?" he replied, coldly, and passed on.

Yes, truly-who knows? Who will ever know? The spot, as I afterwards found, was not very far from the grand and now desolate Farnese Palace; the yellow Tiber rushed by, near and rapidly, and on its waters, probably, the chief ghastly evidence, like Lara's victims, "was rolling undiscovered to ocean.' But who the victim was-whether the whispering female, the tardy Jeronymo, or the angry disturber of their assignation-whether one or more of these, no one will ever know. So they order matters of police at Rome.

THEY DECK'D HER BROW WITH FLOWERS.

BY J. E. CARPENTER.

THRY deck'd her brow with flowers,

'Twas a day in early spring,

They brought them from the bowers,

Where the violets love to cling;

The blossoms on her features

Seemed to envy her her pride,

Though the fairest gift of nature's

Was the fittest for a bride.

The bridal flowers soon faded,

Though the bride seem'd fair and gay,

Her brow, no sorrow shaded,

When the wreath had died away:

But all earth's human flowers

Must fade as Heav'n decrees,

And the fairest gem of ours

Fell beneath the autumn breeze.

They bore her gently, lightly,

The snow was on the ground,
Its feather'd flakes fell brightly
Upon the little mound:

But when the woodland bowers

With early blooms were spread,
They sought the same wild flowers,

And strew'd them o'er her bed.

SOURCES AND PROSPECTS OF SCIENCE,

PSYCHOLOGICALLY CONSIDERED.

THE aim of all science is to accumulate facts; the end, to unravel the truths of the world, and by this means to gratify the curiosity of man, and promote his good. The process of disentangling these many truths, and admitting them to close inspection;-of contributing their many features, each in itself a law, to the commonwealth of philosophy, is the labour of many hands and of many minds. Some are content to follow the lesser though not less honourable aim-the accumulation of facts; and to pass the day, the year, the allotted term of life itself, in experimental inquiry, or passionless observation. These men have a character suited to their work; they are patient and self-denying, while industry and intelligence give a useful and praiseworthy direction to their career. Their province is limited to the material world; they bring no new principles to light; they discover no new law: they constitute the working classes of science; for science, like literature and mechanics, has her working classes as well as her aristocracy; her skilled labourers amounting to many, her original intellects in number few.

The working men of science are essentially an industrious class;-the numerous chemists, for example, are engaged as regularly at the furnace as is the blacksmith at the forge; the many geologists walk over the countries of the world, making use of their skilled intellects in the selection of fossil and mineral from the rude and worthless mass; and they know how to classify what they collect, and to note the peculiarities which each specimen offers.

To be a scientific man, as in all other branches of industry, a certain amount only of education is really necessary, though high acquirements are both desirable and common; for the scientific man of the class we are considering seldom employs himself on more subjects than one, and his subject is not unfrequently of a kind requiring no previous preparation in order to acquire excellence in its pursuit. To become a great anatomist, or chemist, it is not absolutely necessary to be able to read or write; all that is required is to know how to work and to observe.

But the scientific man and the philosopher, though allied, are not one; the latter is scientific, but he is educated too; he is acquainted with every branch of human knowledge. But whilst with his one mind he absorbs the labours of all, repeats and improves on them, he is not on that account, only, a philosopher. He has deep powers of thought, associated with a peculiar sensibility of mind, which enables him at a glance to see the relations of things, however remote from each other. The position which the inventor occupies in relation to the artisan, the architect to the builder, the poet to the grammarian, is in some degree that which the philosopher bears to the scientific man.

The philosopher, in a word, is a man of genius.

Those who have witnessed the scientific man at his work, whether in the metropolis of this country or in the other capitals of Europe, must have been struck by the resemblance they bear to the other working classes; to the optician, the engineer, the mechanic generally. They

have their workshop like these, which by many is called by that name, though in politer language known as the laboratory, the dissectingroom, and the museum. In these workshops the chemist, the physiologist, the naturalist is to be seen, not dressed like, or bearing any outward resemblance to the gentleman, but in the attire of labour, making analyses, dissecting animals, stuffing birds, or comparing recent and fossil shells or bones. These are the daily labours of scientific men; their task to add new facts to the sum of human knowledge.

But to detect principles through the separate and disembodied consideration of these facts of science, is the work of another class of men, who belong to, though they are but thinly scattered among, the mere working classes of the scientific world. This elevated class comprehends the philosophical minds of the age; men who see the bearings of every fact that comes within their view. The philosopher is a scientific man; but while the strictly scientific class plod unremittingly at one subject, and are in a degree ignorant of every other, the philosopher feels the necessity of keeping himself acquainted with science in general. The difference between the two characters is great: the mineralogist goes on mastering and discovering facts in his branch of geology; the palæontologist perseveres in collecting fossil organisations and in studying their identities; the botanist with each fresh summer renews his walks at home, or goes to distant lands to gather plants. If these different characters meet and converse, they discover that want of sympathy which results from different pursuits-hence has arisen class societies, such as the geological, the botanical; and many more, all encouraging the division of labour.

But the philosopher must know all the sciences, must be skilled in all before he enters on his pursuits, before he makes an attempt at generalisation, the most difficult of labours, and for the performance of which knowledge alone, or genius, cannot qualify. The illustrious Humboldt, the Okens, the Aragos, the Faradays, the Herschells, the Lyells, the Owens, and others, all great and gifted, are not men of a single science; they are acquainted with, and have a rare facility of acquiring every branch of knowledge, or, failing so to do, find their successes more limited than their powers. Such minds as these, in one phenomenon perceive a system ;-to Newton, the fall of a heavy body betrayed a law of universal gravitation; to Adams and Leverrier, the perturbations of Uranus revealed the existence of a planet beyond. The working astronomer, among the most noble of working men, points his telescope into space to discover whatever shines on his practised eye, just as the fisherman casts his net and draws forth all that has entered; but Adams and Leverrier saw, as others had done before, that the planet since called Neptune had an existence, and by means of calculations which others had attempted and failed in, they were able to tell the working astronomer where to look for a new star. It was there; and like that which dawned at religion's birth that new star dawned on science!

There is something historically curious in the character of the working man, whether in science or the mechanical arts, for it is much the same in both, as well as in that of the philosopher; and it is with a view to elucidate it that these preliminary remarks are made. Men have always worked, but not all men; the working classes have always been a peculiar