ut the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Redemption.
Sometimes the recitation is a piteous description of the agony of the
Saviour and the sufferings of the Madonna,--the greatest stress being,
however, always laid upon the latter. All these little speeches have
been written for them by their priest or some religious friend, been
committed to memory, and practised with the appropriate gestures over
and over again at home. Their little piping voices are sometimes guilty
of such comic breaks and changes, that the crowd about them rustles into
a murmurous laughter. Sometimes also one of the very little preachers
has a _dispitto_, pouts, shakes her shoulders, and refuses to go on with
her part;--another, however, always stands ready on the platform to
supply the vacancy, until friends have coaxed, reasoned, or threatened
the little pouter into obedience. These children are often very
beautiful and graceful, and their comical little gestures and
intonations, their clasping of hands and rolling up of eyes, have a very
amusing and interesting effect. The last time I was there, I was sorry
to see that the French costume had begun to make its appearance. Instead
of the handsome Roman head, with its dark, shining, braided hair, which
is so elegant when uncovered, I saw on two of the children the deforming
bonnet, which could have been invented only to conceal a defect, and
which is never endurable, unless it be perfectly fresh, delicate, and
costly. Nothing is so vulgar as a shabby bonnet. Yet the Romans, despite
their dislike of the French, are beginning to wear it. Ten years ago it
did not exist here among the common people. I know not why it is that
the three ugliest pieces of costume ever invented, the dress-coat, the
trousers, and the bonnet, all of which we owe to the French, have been
accepted all over Europe, to the exclusion of every national costume.
Certainly it is not because they are either useful, elegant, or
commodious.[B]

[Footnote B: That cultivated gentleman, John Evelyn, two centuries ago
wrote some amusing words on this subject. After quoting the witty saying
of Malvezzi,--"I vestimenti negli animali sono molto securi segni della
loro natura, negli nomini del lor cervello,"--he goes on to say, "Be it
excusable in the French to alter and impose the mode on others, 'tis
no less a weakness and a shame in the rest of the world, who have no
dependence on them, to admit them, at least to that degree of levity as