human health, is incompatible with a residence on them.  The wealthy mercante di campagna lives in Rome therefore, and his wife and family take the lead in the rich, but not in the aristocratic, circles of the society of the capital.  One of these men may be seen perhaps at a “meet” of the Roman hunt, mounted on the best and most showy horse in the field, attended probably by a smart groom leading a second (very needless) horse for his master’s use, or holding in readiness an elegant equipage for him to drive himself back to the city at the termination of the day’s sport.  His wife and daughters meanwhile are probably exhibiting themselves in the Villa Borghese or on the Pincian Hill in the handsomest carriage and with the most splendid horses in all the gay throng, and displaying toilettes which throw into the shade the more sober style of those of the duchesses, princesses and countesses whom they would so gladly, but may not, salute as they pass them in their less brilliant equipages.  The balls, too, given in the Carnival by these men and their wives will probably be the most splendid of the season, in so far as the expenditure of money can ensure splendor, but they will not be adorned by the diamonds of the old patrician families, nor will it be possible for the givers of them to obtain access to the sighed-for elysium of the halls of the historical palaces where those diamonds are native.  Between the two classes there is a great gulf fixed, or perhaps it would be more accurately correct to say that there was such a great gulf fixed a year or two ago.  The great gulf exists still, but it is beginning gradually to be a little bridged over.  No doubt another twenty years will see it vanish altogether.  But enough has been said to indicate the social position of the mercante di campagna as it was, and for the most part still is.  But, fine gentleman as he is, the wealthy speculator, if he would remain such, is not always at the hunt or lounging in the Corso.  He is often at the tenuta (or estate) from which his wealth is gathered, and on such occasions spends long hours on horseback riding over wide extents of country, and attended by the all-important buttero, sure to be mounted on as good a horse as that which carries his employer, or perhaps a better.  Perhaps two or three of these functionaries are in attendance upon him.  And such excursions necessarily produce a degree of companionship which would not result from attendance in any other form.  As riders the two men are on an equality for the nonce.  The tone of communication between the men is insensibly modified by the circumstances of a colloquy between two persons on horseback.  It cannot be the same as that between a master sitting in his chair and a servant standing hat in hand before him.  And then how proudly does the gallant buttero ride past the pariah shepherds tending their shaggy flocks and seeming barely raised above them in intelligence!