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the mode of sending out the invitations. I have been to the Consul and to the Commodore, and requested them to invite them all. I heard they refused to come before from the same reason, and hence have done everything in my power to secure the pleasure of their company, and regret exceedingly not to see them present." I had nothing to say, but hung my head in mortification. It was true that some of the officers deemed themselves not sufficiently recognized in the invitation, and hence the whole banded together, thus publicly to resent the affront. If it had been any one else but Di Negro, I would have minded it less; but to wound him, who had never ceased lavishing his kindest attentions on our Navy since it had been in port, seemed ungenerous.

A great deal of this silly adherence to rigid etiquette has been exhibited by many of our officers, much to their own discredit. The Consul has done everything in his power, and has been unwearied in his exertions to render the stay of the officers agreeable. The Governor has given him a carte blanche for all his balls, Conversazioni, soirées, &c., which he fills up with the name of every American gentleman who enters the city, and wishes to mingle in its society. Great courtesy is also extended towards the captains of our merchantmen, and we venture to say, they never entered a port where they received so much attention from a public officer, as from him. We wish some of our consuls farther south had more of his urbanity, and willingness, nay, anxiety, to render every service to Americans. We wish, also, that Government would honor the office with a salary, that it may be better able to honor the Government in return. There is no accounting for the meanness of our Government in its treatment of our Consuls, except by saying it has become such a habit it is overlooked. The money thrown away yearly, in sending out ministers to be recalled in three months, would support thirty consuls where they are needed, but cannot now live except on their own incomes.

Among the literary men I have met, none have pleased me more than Prof. Botta, Professor in the Genoa University, and a relative of the historian Botta. News has reached us that Silvio Pellico is dead. I regret his death the more, as I had a letter of

introduction to him, and hoped to have seen the patriot before I left the country.*

Two things you wish to hear about before I leave Genoa-its arts and morals. There is but little statuary here, and although there are many valuable paintings in the private palaces, they are so overshadowed by those of Florence and Rome that they do not attract the attention they deserve. In the Durazzo palace is a Magdalen that has but one equal in the world, and that is precisely like it, and is in Venice. Its beauty consists in its naturalness. It is not a beautiful woman in despair, dressed or undressed, as the case may be, for effect, but one simply in grief, and whose beauty the artist has taken no pains to conceal, is marred by the excess of her wo. Her eyes are swollen with weeping, and turned to heaven with that beseeching look in which faith is always mingled—indeed, her whole face is a prayer. The storm of passion is past—she has sobbed her grief away, and exhausted and penitent, is leaning on the arm of Infinite kindness. In the noble face is blended penitence, with the shame forgotten in her strong love; sorrow without despair, and faith without boldness.

The architecture of Genoa might be studied by artists to advantage. It has not the meretriciousness of that farther south, but combines simplicity, beauty, and strength.

I wish I could speak favorably of the morals of the city. The middling classes, composed of merchants, lawyers, physicians, &c., are more virtuous than the nobility. Among the latter, chastity is not regarded as of any particular consequence. The custom of cavaliere servante originated here. What would you think to see one of the highest officers in the army mingling in the highest circles of the kingdom, while living in open incest, or of a lady of the highest title of nobility, whirling in the most fashionable saloons, whose character is no better than that of a femme de pavé? Last night at the Casino, my friend introduced a tall officer to an American lady by his request. He was minus an eye, and she, thinking it was lost in battle, looked in admiration on the honorable scar. Alas, it was struck out by the dagger of an indignant husband in his own house. An Italian woman

*We afterwards heard that the report was untrue.

of rank, without her lover, deems herself unfortunate indeed. Italians love, and love wildly, but they want new objects. No. thing but the intensity of a fresh passion can satisfy them—yet it is no affectation with them-it flames up in the heart with a fierceness unknown in our cold climate.

A descendant of Prince Doria is now in the city, though seldom seen out of his palace. Engaged to a lady of high rank in Rome, he went on a short visit to Paris, where he fell in love with a French woman, and entered into a contract of marriage also with her. His betrothed in Rome hearing of it abandoned herself to despair, and pined rapidly away. The news of her sickness and approaching death reaching young Doria at Paris, brought back all his old affection, and he hastened to Rome, but, alas! to hear, that only the day before his arrival, she was laid in the grave, that receptacle for broken and weary hearts. Several young nobles, friends of her and her family, bound themselves by an oath never to rest till they had slain Doria. He made his escape by night, and is now at Genoa in perpetual fear of his life. His first love is in her grave-his second has cast him off in scorn, and the wreck that both have left him, he has time now to muse upon. There are two worlds we live in, my dear cousin, and there are wilder battlefields than Waterloo in one of them; and fiercer storms than shake navies to pieces, and more terrific volcanoes than outward ones- -battlefields of the heart-tempests of feeling, and volcanoes of passion. And there are victories, whose ruin is greater than defeat-victories won over blasted affection, by renouncing love and confidence for ever. Thus we live our heads above water, and our hearts under it. All the splutter and motion is on the surface, but the deep dark tides and boiling eddies are beneath.

Truly yours.

LETTER XIV.

The Scenes of the Carnival-Cheating the Church-Blind Man, &c.

GENOA, 1843.

DEAR E.-The Carnival is over, and the long holiday of the Kingdom is closed. The streets look silent and lonely; for the gay placards, announcing a festive scene for the night, and which seemed to give elasticity and life to the passer-by, are seen no more. The Opera-House looks silent and deserted, and all the people feel the effect of this sudden suspension of their festivities. The church bells have a solemn tone ;-the carriages do not move so briskly through the streets, and the shops no longer hang out their flashy costumes to entice the gay masker or dancer of the coming evening. You cannot conceive the effect of this sudden change from the excess of every pleasure to none at all. The festivities of the Carnival go on increasing to its close, even to the very last hour: and when the great bell of the Cathedral strikes the hour of twelve, sending its slow and solemn peal over the city, the dissipation of the people is at its highest pitch. The city fairly reels under the boisterous mirth of that last hour of Carnival :-knowing that forty days Lent is before them, they crowd the flying minutes to overflowing with pleasures. But when the hammer of that deep-toned bell annonnces that the last hour and the last minute have expired, all is changed, and the masker and the dancer throw aside their follies, and repair to the Churches to offer up their prayers and confessions.

They have one curious custom, however, at the Theatre on the last night. The Pit is cleared of its seats, and forms with the stage one grand hall. The whole is brilliantly illuminated and filled with maskers and dancers. The law is, that no dance shall be commenced after the great bell of the Cathedral has struck the hour of midnight. They are not required, however, to stop in the middle of one already begun, but are permitted to dance

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it out. Taking advantage of this law, just before midnight, they divide the Orchestra and form a new dance. One part of the Orchestra rest till the other become fatigued, when they relieve them. There are always enough dancers to keep the set full, and yet half the company be resting. In this way the dance is not ended till two o'clock. By this simple process they cheat the Church out of two good hours.

As I remarked, the last night is the gayest of all: and so is the last day, with the exception, perhaps, of the last Sabbath. On these two days they mask in the streets. It was an odd spec tacle to see the entire length of the main artery of the city literally packed with human heads, most of them not attempting to move forward, but standing still to see the carriages and grotesque figures pass and repass. The carriages would come together in a long train, the horses on a slow walk to escape trampling the multitude under foot, carrying men, women and children, tricked out in every costume the fancy could invent. It was impossible to distinguish between footmen, drivers, and their lords. Now would pass a rich carriage with its coat of arms, and filled with men and women of the thirteenth century, and behind it, four painted and grotesque figures on four ponies reading aloud a magnificent will, bequeathing any amount of property to whoever could get it. Now would pass a buffoon on foot, with an immense wooden paddle, with a hole in it six inches across for a quizzing glass. Next on donkeys three persons whom I took from the cut of their boots which dangled below their dress, to be American officers, One was in the costume of a woman, with a bonnet on, a rich lace shawl over her shoulders, and a white satin dress, which, as she rode astride, was pulled back over the tail of the donkey and descended nearly to the ground. The large, rich flounce dangled around his fet-locks, and drew peals of laughter from the spectators. Noses as long as your arm and steeple hats like sugar loaves would project from some elegant carriage. An old woman would meet you carrying a doll baby, and weeping piteously over its misfortunes. As the long train of carriages approached, the crowd, that literally crammed the entire street, would slowly part, like waves before a moving vessel, and when it had passed, like those waves would again close