a roast. John Bull would look
with sovereign contempt, or downright despair, according to the state of
his stomach, on the thing called a roast in Rome. There it is seldom
seen beyond the size of a beef-steak. Much small fry is roasted with a
ratchet-wheel and spit. This is wound up with a weight, and revolves
over the fire, which is strewed upon the hearth.

The working classes generally purchase their meals cooked in the
_Osteria Cucinante_, where food and wine are to be had. These are
numerous in Rome. They may be fairly called the homes of the working
classes, for there they lounge so long as their baiocchi last. The
houses of the working classes are comfortless in the extreme. They are
of stone, and roomy, but unfurnished. A couple of straw-bottomed chairs
and a bed make up generally the entire furnishings of a Roman house.
Indeed, the latter article appears to be the only reason for having a
house at all. So soon as the day's labour is over, the working men
resort to the wine and eating shops and coffeehouses, where they remain
till the time of shutting, which is two and three hours of the night.
The Roman reckoning of the day begins at Ave Maria, which is a quarter
of an hour after sunset. The first hour of the night is consequently an
hour after Ave Maria, from which the Romans reckon consecutively till
the twenty-fourth hour. As the sun sets earlier or later, according to
the season of the year, the hours vary of course, and the same period of
the day that is indicated by the twelfth hour at the time of equinox, is
indicated by the eleventh hour in midsummer, and the thirteenth hour in
midwinter. This is very annoying to travellers from the north of Europe.
"What o'clock is it?" you ask; and are told in reply, "It is the
eighteenth hour and three quarters." To find the time of day from this
answer, you must calculate from Ave Maria, with reference to the time of
sunset at that particular season of the year. Mid-day is announced in
Rome by the firing of a cannon from the castle of St Angelo. The French
reckon time as we do, and may possibly, before they leave Rome, teach
the Romans to adopt the same mode of reckoning.

When I stated in a former chapter that trade there is not in Rome, my
readers, of course, understood me to mean that it was comparatively
annihilated, not totally extinguished. The Romans must have houses,
however poor; clothes, however homely; and food, however plain; and the
supply of these wa