nly character of the modern Romans
is so unfavourable that he hardly knows how to express it "But the
fact is that through the Forum, and everywhere out of the commonest
foot-track and roadway, you must look well to your steps.... Perhaps
there is something in the minds of the people of these countries that
enables them to dissever small ugliness from great sublimity and beauty.
They spit upon the glorious pavement of St. Peter's, and wherever else
they like; they place paltry-looking wooden confessionals beneath its
sublime arches, and ornament them with cheap little coloured prints of
the Crucifixion; they hang tin hearts, and other tinsel and trumpery, at
the gorgeous shrines of the saints, in chapels that are encrusted with
gems, or marbles almost as precious; they put pasteboard statues of
saints beneath the dome of the Pantheon;--in short, they let the
sublime and the ridiculous come close together, and are not in the least
troubled by the proximity."]

[Footnote 1819: Edwin Chadwick's 'Address to the Economic Science and Statistic
Section,' British Association [18Meeting, 1862].]

[Footnote 191: 'Kaye's 'Lives of Indian Officers.']

[Footnote 192: Emerson, in his 'Society and Solitude,' says "In contemporaries, it
is not so easy to distinguish between notoriety and fame. Be sure, then,
to read no mean books. Shun the spawn of the press or the gossip of the
hour.... The three practical rules I have to offer are these:--1. Never
read a book that is not a year old; 2. Never read any but famed books;
3. Never read any but what you like." Lord Lytton's maxim is: "In
science, read by preference the newest books; in literature, the
oldest."]

[Footnote 193: A friend of Sir Walter Scott, who had the same habit, and prided
himself on his powers of conversation, one day tried to "draw out" a
fellow-passenger who sat beside him on the outside of a coach, but
with indifferent success. At length the conversationalist descended to
expostulation. "I have talked to you, my friend," said he, "on all the
ordinary subjects--literature, farming, merchandise, gaming, game-laws,
horse-races, suits at law, politics, and swindling, and blasphemy, and
philosophy: is there any one subject that you will favour me by opening
upon?" The wight writhed his countenance into a grin: "Sir," said he,
"can you say anything clever about BEND-LEATHER?" As might be expected,
the conversationalist was completely nonplussed.]

[Footnote 194: Coleri