No one lives long in Rome without loving it; and I must, in the beginning, confess myself to be in the same category.  Those who shall read these slender papers, without agreeing to the kindly opinions often expressed, must account for it by remembering that “Love lends a precious seeing to the eye.”  My aim is far from ambitious.  I shall not be erudite, but I hope I shall not be dull.  These little sketches may remind some of happy days spent under the Roman sky, and, by directing the attention of others to what they have overlooked, may open a door to a new pleasure. Chi sa? The plainest Ranz des Vaches may sometimes please when the fifth symphony of Beethoven would be a bore.

CHAPTER II.

STREET-MUSIC IN ROME.

Whoever has passed the month of December in Rome will remember to have been awakened from his morning-dreams by the gay notes of the pifferari playing in the streets below, before the shrines of the Madonna and Bambino,—­and the strains of one set of performers will scarcely have ceased, before the distant notes of another set of pilgrims will be heard to continue the well-known novena.  The pifferari are generally contadini of the Abruzzi Mountains, who, at the season of Advent, leave their home to make a pilgrimage to Rome,—­ stopping before all the wayside shrines, as they journey along, to pay their glad music of welcome to the Virgin, and the coming Messiah.  Their song is called a novena, from its being sung for nine consecutive days,—­first, for nine days previous to the Festa of the Madonna, which occurs on the 8th of December, and afterwards for the nine days preceding Christmas.  The same words and music serve, however, for both celebrations.  The pifferari always go in couples, one playing on the zampogna, or bagpipe, the bass and treble accompaniment, and the other on the piffero, or pastoral pipe, which carries the air; and for the month before Christmas the sound of their instruments resounds through the streets of Rome, wherever there is a shrine,—­whether at the corners of the streets, in the depths of the shops, down little lanes, in the centre of the Corso, in the interior courts of the palaces, or on the stairways of private houses.

Their costume is extremely picturesque.  On their heads they wear conical felt hats adorned with a frayed peacock’s feather, or a faded band of red cords and tassels,—­their bodies are clad in red waistcoats, blue jackets, and small-clothes of skin or yellowish homespun cloth,—­skin sandals are bound to their feet with cords that interlace each other up the leg as far as the knee,—­and over all is worn a long brown or blue cloak with a short cape, buckled closely round the neck.  Sometimes, but rarely, this cloak is of a deep red with a scalloped cape.  As they stand before the pictures of the Madonna, their hats placed on the ground before them,