The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-28 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Roba di Roma. By William W. Story. 2 vole.
Chapman and Hall.
There are probably few moce striking contrasts
existing in modern social states than between the
civilisation of Rome and That of America. They
represent the opposite extremes of idealism and
practical life, of beauty and utility, of venerable
age and reckless enterprising youth. The atmos-
phere which reigns in the one is the dreamy
twilight of the realm of art; in the other, the hard,
cold morning of worldly experience. Among the po-
pulation of the one we find a faith which its enemies
assert partakes of superstition ; among that of the
other a matter-of-fact tone of thought which its
antagonists declare to arise from want of principle-
At first sight, then, it would seem that there could
be little sympathy between such opposing systems,
that the citizs3us of the one could hardly do justice
to the other, and that any description of Rome from
the pen of an American, or of the great New World
from an inhabitant of the Eternal City would hardly
be a faithful and friendly portrait. That such
need not always be the case is, however, apparent
from the two goodly volumes before us. Mr. Story,
an American by birth and education, has under-
taken to set forth " Roba di Roma," or, in other
words, "everything from rubbish and riff-raff to the
most exquisite product of art and nature." And
this promise he fulfils, taking us from the crowded
cafe to the desolate Campagna, now bidding us pause
to examine the wonderful ruin of the Colosseum,
and now leading us through the dark and dismal
streets of the Ghetto ; showing us alike the smiling
beauty of the Italian May and the gay doings of
the vintage. We listen with him to the clamour of
the beggars and the piping strains of the Pifferari ;
we stand to look at the games of Morra or Pallone,
which have come down from the days of
the Pharoahe and the Caesars, and join
the anxious crowd awaiting the drawing
of the lottery. We smile at the bon mots of Pasquin,
and sigh over the recollections of the stern and
cruel "good old times," which he points out to us.
It is a book which could only have been written by
one thoroughly conversant with Rome and Romish
ways ; who had himself lingered in the markets or
watched the fountains playing; had mixed freely
with its people, and habitually spoken its language.
A genuine love for the ancient city is another quali-
fication possessed by the writer. Even its very dirt
is sacred in his eyes, and more than once he attacks
those lovers of modern cleanliness and order who
would repair its ruins and whitewash its many
coloured walls. " The Romantic," he says, " will
not consort with the monotonous—Nature is not
neat—poetry is not formal—and Rome is not clean."
The great marvels of Rome have all been described
a myriad times, and every traveller knows what he
is expected to see and to admire. "Every English-
man carries a Murray for information, and a
Byron for sentiment, and finds out by them what
he is to know and feel at every step. All the pub-
lic and private life and history of the ancient
Romans, from Romulus to Constantine or Julius the
Apostle (as he is sometimes called) is perfectly
well known. But the common life of the modern
Romans, the games, customs, and habits of the
people, the everyday of To-day, has been only
touched upon here and there, sometimes with spirit
and accuracy, as by Charles Macfarlane, sometimes
with grace, as by Hans Christian Andersen, and
sometimes with great ignorance as by Jones,
Brown, and Robinson, who see through the eyes of
their courier, and the spectacles of their prejudices."
A residence of many years in Rome has enabled
our author to undertake the office of cicerone, not
to the wonders of art, but to the routine of everyday
existence, and to combat the hasty conclusions
which strangers, especially English and American,
are so ready to arrive at after a slight and super-
ficial acquaintance with Rome and its people.
With these objectsbefore him it was to be expected
that Mr. Story's work should be somewhat diffuse.
We think, however, it might have been judiciously
curtailed. He might with advantage have kept to
the matter in hand, the Rome of the present day,
and have spared us the catalogue of the crimes o
the unworthy aspirants to the Papal dignity. It
was not to be expected either that the religion of
Rome would be otherwise than antagonistic to an
American, yet we warn Catholic readers that they
will often have something to forgive in his lan-
guage. We must regret also a want of reverence
in his tone, which will jar upon Protestants also,
but this is possibly the result of a semi-humorous
style which occasionally degenerates into flippancy.
The author expresses at the outset his hope that he
shall not be dull—a hope that is fulfilled—but we
must admit that he is sometimes diffuse. He is
thoroughly well versed in Roman history, ancient
and modern, sacred and profane. He can tell us
when giraffes were first brought into the amphi-
theatre of the Colosseum, what long processions laid
the stately dead in the chambers of the Mausoleum
of Augustus; how the Arch of Titus, and the Baths of
Caracalla slowly raised their imposing structures—
how successive Emperors persecuted the miserable
Jews, and crushed them back into the narrow streets
of the Ghetto. Of this singular colony he speaks
as follows :