streets, which form a race course of a mile and a half in length, bisecting the city, and extending from the Porta Prato to the Porta Santa Croce. The coup d'œeuil was dazzling! balconies and terraces crowded with spectators; silken streamers floating in the air; gems and diamonds glittering amidst raven tresses, or encircling swan-like throats; military bands playing most martial music; a galaxy of dark lustrous eyes flashing with the fires of intense excitement; and fifty thousand voices uniting in exclamations of wonderment, delight, and feverish impatience.

At the moment when the excitement was at the highest, six horses were brought forth, distinguished one from the other by numerical marks painted on their flanks. There was neither bridle in their mouths, nor saddle on their backs, but around their loins was strapped a sursingle, from which barbed balls were suspended, which in their rapid vibrations, striking sharply against the flanks of the tortured animals, administer terrific punishment, and excite thein to tremendous exertions totally disproportionate to their strength, and goad them to madness.

A burst of exultation, fervent, fierce, and unanimous, greeted their appearance. The spectators of all ranks, ages, and sexes, united in the chorus, and all eyes quivered with excitement, as they glared on the coursers, who, impatient of controul, whined and neighed, struck up the sand with their hoofs, and used every exertion to break from the hold of their grooms, whose avocations appeared to be aught but pleasurable, and to be fraught withal with peril, for the ardour of the horses became almost ungovernable, and they seemed to burn for the fray with more impatience than even the spectators, whose enthusiam was wrought into phrenzy by the passionate excitement that universally predominated.

The signal is given; the grooms and keepers loose their hold; the furious steeds dart off like a flight of arrows winged from Parthian bows; away they dash like meteors down the street, with heads erect; distended eyeballs, red and glowing, like globes of living fire, and their tails flowing, and manes streaming, like the crests of cataracts. They are urged to madness by the barbed balls which goad their flanks, and increase in volition with their accelerated rapidity. They sweep past the Grand Duke's Stand at the Porticciola! They dash down the long narrow Borgo Ognissanti, clogged up by an overwhelming population. The byestanders scarcely deign to open their ranks to permit the furious steeds to pass! they urge them forward with shouts ! they stimulate them with their cries! Hats are cast up on high; staves are launched; sticks are whirled at the affrighted animals, as they cleave the gale in their rapid course. Fireworks are discharged,

and blazing rockets hurled at them. A rope is thrown across the street! the leading horse perceiving not the treacherous snare, is entangled in its meshes, and falls headlong on the pavement, another and another share the same fate! In a moment they are up, up and off gain!-On comes the throng; a woman is knocked down; horses men, and boys pass over her mangled and mutilated carcase, from which every spark of life is crushed, and every vestige of humanity obliterated by the tramp of feet innumerable. A tender child's brains are dashed out by the hoofs of a courser, but no one stretches forth a hand to save, no one retards his headlong career: for who values the periiling of friend or kinsman? who cares for the spilling of blood? who mourns the loss of human life in the glorious and absorbing excitement of the race? The bystanders are inspired with phrenzy, they are a nation of maniacs broken loose from their keepers, they clap their hands wildly together; they tear out their hair by the roots; they shout; they scream; they rend the heavens with their cries!

On, on rush the infuriated horses-the goal is near-a thread of worsted steeped in paint, is stretched across the Borgo Santa Croce ! One gallant mare

"Who looked as though the speed of thought

Were in her limbs."

Has far outstripped all competitors. With unabated exertions, undaunted courage, and unbroken spirit, she dashes forward! The thread is snapped in twain, leaving a dark stain on her chest. Another moment, and her headlong career is checked, and herself enveloped in the folds of a carpet, which is spread across her path to prevent farther progress.

Shouts of triumph proclaim the victory of Silvestro Gasperini's -renowned mare, Tipsy. Fifteen times in five consecutive years, has that gallant animal borne away the prizes of St. John the Baptist." Never yet in these contests has she been worsted; never has she suffered defeat, and now greeted by the acclamations of the spectators, and honoured by the admiring gaze of thousands, she is paraded triumphantly through the streets, "a thing for meu to worship and to wonder at."

Night crept slowly, stealthily, and lingeringly over the golden

This is a well known fact! Tipsy, a chesnut mare by Reveller, out of Sentiment, won in five consecutive years at Florence, fifteen prizes given at the Fêtes of St. John the Baptist. On three different occasions I witnessed her victories myself. She laid her ears back, charged the dense crowd, when the other horses were too much terrified to proceed, absolutely cleft out a path for herself, and displayed all the indomitable resolution and pertinacity of a thorough bred English mastiff!

valley of the Arno, until all objects were lost in the obscurity. The moon rode not forth as was her wont, but remained with all her radiant satellites clouded within the tabernacle of the skies.

The nobles of Florence and the strangers of different nations were congregated together in the Corsini Palace, to witness the pyrotechnic display of marvellous brilliancy that was to be exhibited on the Ponte Caraja. The shores of the river were an undulating ocean of spectators, and from the proud palaces which sentinel either bank, thousands gazed on the animated spectacle; and an armada of barges, skiffs, and pleasure-boats, floated on the transparent waters of that fair river, which poets have delighted to sing as the Silver Arno.

Suddenly the busy hum of voices, and loud shouts of impatience and expectation, were lulled into deepest silence, as, swifter than lightning, two fiery rockets leapt from the Ponte Carraja, dashed down invisible wires to the Ponte Santa Trinita, and like meteors, instantaneously changed darkness into light, and kindled into brilliancy a host of fireworks. Magnificent was the scene, and sublime the transition from utter darkness to the splendour of noon day; and the exhibition of fireworks, blazing wheels, fiery arches and temples, blue lights, and congreve rockets, eclipsed, in a marvellous degree, every spectacle of the kind that I had ever witnessed at any time, and I must fain borrow the eloquence of Master Laneham, to describe a scene of splendour, to which my poor abilities are insufficient to do justice. "Such," says he, recording a similar exhibition at Killingworth Castle, "such was the blaze of burning darts, the gleams of stars coruscant, the streams and hail of fiery sparks, lightnings of wild fire, and flight shot of thunder bolts, with continuance, terror and vehemency, that the heavens thundered, the waters surged, and the earth shook; and for my part, hardy as I am, it made me very vengeably afraid."

At the termination of the gorgeous spectacle, crowds crushed on crowds into the Casino dei Nobili, where Comus and Terpsichore held high festival with dancing and revelry !

and bright

The lamps shone, o'er fair women, and brave men ;

A thousand hearts beat happily; and when

Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes look'd love, to eyes which spake again,

And all went merry as a marriage bell."