ylinder hat is
whitened all over with a half-bushel of confetti and lime-dust; the mock
sympathy with which his case is investigated by a company of maskers,
who poke their stupid, pasteboard faces close to his, still with the
unchangeable grin; or when a gigantic female figure singles out some
shy, harmless personage, and makes appeals to his heart, avowing her
passionate love in dumb show, and presenting him with her bouquet; and a
hundred other nonsensicalities, among which the rudest and simplest
are not the least effective. A resounding thump on the back with a
harlequin's sword, or a rattling blow with a bladder half full of dried
pease or corn, answers a very good purpose. There was a good deal of
absurdity one day in a figure in a crinoline petticoat, riding on an ass
and almost filling the Corso with the circumference of crinoline from
side to side. Some figures are dressed in old-fashioned garbs, perhaps
of the last century, or, even more ridiculous, of thirty years ago, or
in the stately Elizabethan (as we should call them) trunk hose, tunics,
and cloaks of three centuries since. I do not know anything that I have
seen queerer than a Unitarian clergyman (Mr. Mountford), who drives
through the Corso daily with his fat wife in a one-horse chaise, with a
wreath of withered flowers and oak leaves round his hat, the rest of his
dress remaining unchanged, except that it is well powdered with the dust
of confetti. That withered wreath is the absurdest thing he could wear
(though, perhaps, he may not mean it to be so), and so, of course, the
best. I can think of no other masks just now, but will go this afternoon
and try to catch some more." You see, he has that romance in view again.
"Clowns, or zanies," he resumes, after fresh inspection, "appear in
great troupes, dancing extravagantly and scampering wildly; everybody
seems to do whatever folly comes into his head; and yet, if you consider
the matter, you see that all this apparent license is kept under
courteous restraint. There is no rudeness, except the authorized pelting
with confetti or blows of harlequins' swords, which, moreover, are
within a law of their own. But nobody takes rough hold of another, or
meddles with his mask, or does him any unmannerly violence. At first
sight you would think that the whole world had gone mad, but at the
end you wonder how people can let loose all their mirthful propensities
without unchaining the mischievous ones. It could not