CARNIVAL AT ROME.

time to recover themselves, although there annually occurred a few unlucky cases HE Egyptian obelisk where the long revelling had sown the that rises dimly in the seeds of consumption or some other incubackground of the pic-rable disease. But this was carnival inture, and whose aus- doors. Let us return to our engraving and tere antiquity con- the streets of Rome.

trasts poetically with In the afternoon, about three o'clock, the the living bustle, up- Corso begins gradually to fill with people roar, and enjoyment-some masked, and some in their usual of the principal scene, shows that it is a holyday-dresses-some on foot and some Roman carnival that the artist represents. in hired carriages. About an hour later, With the exception of the obelisk, howev- the equipages of the nobility and gentry er, and some difference in the architecture swell the crowd; and the open balconies of the houses, the engraving equally illus- and windows of every house in that long trates the carnival of Naples, or Milan, or street are crammed full of company, who, Venice, or any other of the large Italian for the most part, are not mere spectators, cities. The crowd and confusion, the mas- but actors in the ever-varying farce. The querade characters, their action and group- carriages and the horses are, for the most ing, are common to all Italian carnivals part, decked out in a very fine or a very on their good days; and as these saturna- capricious manner; and the anomalies replia are limited, at Rome, to eight days, resented in the print, where a coachman, every carnival-day there may be consid- dressed as a Spanish cavalier of the olden ered a good one. In the rest of Italy, times, is driving an old Tabellone or nowhere carnival continues from the feast of tary, with a huge wine-flask (extended the Epiphany to the beginning of Lent, toward a punch on stilts), and a Roman lasting five or six weeks, only the Thurs- doctor, with "spectacles on nose," while days and Sundays are observed for out-of- a small-grown punch climbs up the side door displays; and these days are either steps, and a full-grown punchinello, with not well observed at the beginning, or be- a squeaking trumpet to his lips, and a come languid at the close. Within doors, sturdy, turbaned Moor, with a banner in indeed, particularly at Naples a few years his hand, act as footmen-are such amuago, carnival used to be kept up with spirit sing contrasts as continually occur, and during all its long legitimate period: there give the best parts of the drollery to the being, every night, private masquerades, scene. As these carriages pass through or masquerades at the opera-house, balls the crowd, at a slow stately pace, those and suppers, and all kinds of feastings and within them address or gesticulate to their mummeries in uninterrupted succession- friends at the balconies of the houses-or and very hard work it was to go through in other carriages-or in the street on foot them all! -and generally pelt them with sugarplums. This fire is returned by the more stationary actors: and, if you look to the left of the picture, you will see a gentleman and a lady, with uplifted hands, full of sugar-plums, taking aim; and in another balcony, to the right, two gentlemen pelting with much vigor. The greatest part of the fun, after the hodge-podge of costume, lies in this sugar-plum warfare; for what with the noise of French horns and drums, cow-horns and guitars, fifes, fiddles, tambourines, and penny trumpets, and the din of thousands of voices-the masked all squeaking in a conventional carnival falsetto, and the unmasked roar

As soon as this riot of pleasure was over, the doctors, with their gold-headed canes, were seen more constantly abroad, and walking much faster than usual. They had always plenty of work on their hands, being as busy after it as milliners and tailors, cooks and confectioners, fiddlers, and dancing-masters, had been during carnival. Even in a physical sense, the abstinence and quiet of Lent were indispensable and during that sober season, when there were no feasting and dancing, and the opera, on the nights in which it was allowed to open, closed at the sober hour of eleven, without any ballet, people had

THE PALISADES.

satisfy the infinitely-expanding desires of the soul, and cold enough to freeze up its ardor.

33

of a moving panorama. And to the American-to the happy recipient of the boon. of liberty-a boon fought for and won by his fathers, and bequeathed to him as a birthright-almost every spot is hallowed by the associations connected with the history of the War of Independence. Many a mountain-summit has been the pyre on which beacon-fires were lighted by the hand of disinterested patriotism; many a plain that meets our view is the place where men, strong in body and stronger in principle, bivouacked at night, and marshalled in battle array at day, ready to strike boldly for their country and their firesides.

Childhood looks forward with anxious expectation to youth; youth, dissatisfied, pants for manhood; disappointed manhood speeds on to old age for the prize, and despairing age looks back censoriously upon the whole course of life, and is vexed that its "wood, hay, and stubble," were not "gold, silver, and precious stones." And yet man is unwilling to part with life, because he has made it his treasure, and has no treasure beyond. But to him who regards life as merely the infancy of his existence, and uses it well, its best quality is, that it has a termination, for that termination is his introduction to a priceless treasure, which he has spent his life in accumulating. The man who has acted well his part, can hail with the liveliest emotions of joy his exit, which leads him out of a field of labor and care into a bound-posite, upon the eastern bank of the river. less field of unsullied enjoyment. It becomes mortal man, then, to be wise, to take life for what it is, to remember that it has an end, and compel every period of it to make a donation of happiness to the last hour, to seize upon every day as it passes, and say to it as did the patriarch to the wrestling angel, "I will not let thee go except thou bless me."

THE PALISADES.

The first objects of historical interest to be seen after leaving New York, are the ruins of Forts Lee and Washington: the former is situated just at the commencement of the Palisades, about ten miles above the city; and the latter nearly op

On entering the Tappaan Zee, now Tappan Bay, you see upon the east the village of Tarrytown, and on the west that of 'Tappan one memorable as the place where the unfortunate Andre was arrested, and the other as the spot where he was executed. We next pass Stony Point, the scene of one of the brave exploits of General Wayne; and reaching Caldwell's Landing, opposite Peekskill, romantic scenery, seldom surpassed, is developed. Every spot on shore is consecrated groundconsecrated by the congregation there of several of the master-spirits of the War of Independence. There at one time Washington, Putnam, Kosciusko, Arnold, and other officers, met and celebrated the birthday of the dauphin of France, the unfortunate Louis who lost his crown and his life during the revolution of '94.

HERE is probably no river in the world whose vicinage, within the same extent, presents such a combination of beauty and In this neighborhood are the ruins of grandeur of natural Forts Montgomery and Clinton; and soon scenery, enriched by after passing the lofty promontory on the historical associations eastern shore of the river, we may see in of the greatest moment, as the HUDSON. the distance toward the northwest, on the From Manhattan island to its junction with summit of Mount Independence, the gray the Mohawk, lofty mountains, gently un- walls of Fort Putnam, about four hundred dulating hills, cultivated fields, and beau- feet above the plain on which stands the tiful villages and hamlets, alternately meet military academy of West Point, and about the eye as we speed along its waters in three quarters of a mile distant. The platthe swift steamer, all bursting in succes- eau of West Point and its whole neighborsion upon the sight like the startling scenes | hood is classic ground. Here, too, were