MORE BRIC-A-BRAC 



ladies a safe journey to England, and a speedy return 

 to Rome. 



It is little wonder that the doratore should cherish us. 

 The drawing-room of the Villino on the Surrey hill is chiefly 

 furnished out of his store. Therefrom come the Venetian 

 chairs, the huge Goldoni armchair, the two cabinets of 

 rusty gold. The hanging cabinet is full of Venetian glass, 

 picked up of all places at that roaring 

 cheap emporium, Finocchi's, in the hideous Q 

 modern corso fitly dedicated to Vittorio 

 Emanuele. <To think these bubbles of ethereal 

 loveliness, these liquid curves, these foam-frail 

 phantasies, should have been discovered, un- 

 shattered, in such a spot!) There from the 

 walls a wistful Giovannino, with pious, 

 sentimental, guileless head inclined, looks 

 down from his golden background, a true 

 bit of early Siennese simplicity and faith. He 

 came to us from the talons of a voluble Jew in the Via due 

 Macelli, from which unclean grasp were likewise rescued 

 those meek companions, " St. Bernardino of Siena " and 

 " St. Antoninus/ 7 on the opposite wall. St. Bernardino's 

 face is quite out of drawing, but, nevertheless, rarely 

 has any presentment been more impregnated with holy 

 benignity. The gentle pair hang just above a statue 

 of Polyhymnia. . . . Oh ! that " Manifattura di Signa," in 

 the dark purlieus of the Via Babuino ! It is a blessing that 

 we only discovered it the last week of our four months' 

 stay in Rome, and that our resources were then at a low 



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