Wouwerus, St. Augustine and Turnebus, with a motley mob of Jews,
Christians, Greeks, Romans, Arabians, and Lord-knows-whats, are all
thrust into the dock cheek by jowl. For ourselves, we would have taken
Mr. Story's word for it, without the attestation of these long-winded
old monsters, who wrote about charms and enchantments in a style
as potent in disenchantment as holy-water, and who bored their own
generation too thoroughly to have any claim upon the button of ours.
Every age is sure of its own fleas without poking over the rag-bag
of the past; and of all things, a superstition has the least need of
proving the antiquity of its pedigree, since its very etymology is
better than the certificate of all the Heralds' Colleges put together.
We are surprised that so clever and lively a man as Mr. Story, should
not have seen that in such matters one live fact is better than fifty
dead ones, and that even in history it is not so much the facts as what
the historian has contrived to see in them that gives life to his work.

But learning makes a small part of Mr. Story's book; only, as the
concluding chapter happens to bristle with quotations and references,
thickly as the nave of St. Peter's on a festival with bayonets, this is
the last taste left in the mouth. The really valuable parts of the book
(and they make much the larger part of it) are those in which the author
relates his own experiences. After so many volumes stuffed like a
_chiffonnier's_ basket with the shreds of ancient Rome, it is really
refreshing to come upon a book which makes us feel that Italy is still
inhabited by very human beings, and contains something more than the
tombs of the Scipios, and inscriptions interesting only to people
who think a dead Roman donkey better than a living Italian lion. The
chapters on Street-Music in Rome, on Games, on Gaffes and Theatres, on
Villeggiatura and the Vintage, on the Ghetto, the Markets, and Summer
in the City, are all of them delightful and new. They really teach us
something, while the learning, we are sorry to say, does nothing of the
kind. Several of these chapters our readers will remember enjoying in
the "Atlantic." They are good for those who have been in Italy, for
those who are going thither, and, above all, for those who must stay at
home. They contain the most cheerful and picturesque descriptions of
Italian life and scenery we have ever met with. And we cannot be too
thankful to Mr. Story that he leave