I. S. Williams

“ Day and night Rome was the arena of broils between the rival members of its patrician families, and of contentions and often blood-stained brawls between their ruffianly retainers. Everybody carried arms who chose, and they were used with, and oftentimes without the smallest provocation. The new Pope, even before his coronation, astonished these unruly nobles by issuing a proclamation prohibiting the wearing of arms within the walls of the city. ”

“ We need hardly talk, of such world-famed paintings as Paul Potter’s bull or Rembrandt’s school of anatomy. Only in that Potter the animal is as he was in the very flesh — it seems odd the twist of a little tuft behind a bull’s shoulder should have been immortalized — and the judges who assisted at the Hague exhibition some weeks ago might have classed him with any of the beasts that were shown in the yard. ”

“ The gigantic ruins of the old Roman aqueducts still cover the Campagna; but just as the Forum had become a mere field for cattle, and the Capitol once more the abode of browsing goats, so had a goodly portion of papal Rome come to be worse supplied with the first necessary of life than a ruined village or a deserted seaport. His plan was to bring the water all the way from Palestrina, a distance of some twenty miles from the city; and its ambitious character alarmed the cardinals, and even petrified sober men of science. ”

“ Nothing in the world is holy to a Chinaman but his family; a single glance from 'the Western devil' at the wife of any man who does not belong to the lowest class is regardad as an irretrievable disgrace, and a European may live for a quarter of a century in China without seeing any more of a Chinese house than the antechamber. ”

“ No one need go to Holland to know the country, and if you do find yourself there you may follow out your study of its social history without going farther than its picture galleries. You may rely with absolute confidence on the realism of Dutch art, and, strange to say, the most capable artists have been as faithful as their less gifted fellows. ”

“ Of the thousands of intelligent persons from all quarters of the globe who annually visit the Eternal City, how many are there who take away with them on their departure any more distinct impression of the scenes that have in the course of centuries been enacted within its walls than that it was once the seat of a secular empire which has long since passed away, and of a spiritual empire which is slowly nodding to its fall? ”

“ Of Autumn, harvest-fields and pastures lie.
Imperial Autumn! barn and granary
High with her glistening grain-store doth she pile;
Each night the fair moon like a silver isle
Unclouded beams upon the earth's broad breast ”

“ In landscape, for example, a Salvator who has nursed his genius in the savage solitudes of the Abruzzi may carry his recollections with him to Rome, and reproduce them with the vigour that carries irresistible conviction in the quiet seclusion of the palace of his Roman patrons. But the picturesque genius of a Salvator working upon a solid foundation of observation and experience is sure to betray a score of tolerably competent imitators into weaknesses and indiscretion. ”

“ They have schoolboy recollections of mythical kings, of stubborn tribunes of the people, of grasping consuls, of ostentatious Cæsars, and no recollection at all of solemn, erudite, worldly, saintly, licentious cardinals, and of pious, impious, cynical, superstitious, canonized, accursed, indolent, energetic, contemptible, ever memorable Popes. They fancy they are acquainted with the history of the most marvellous city the world has ever seen ”

“ The complaints of the Chinese Government against England are very frequent, and no Chinese comes in contact with the brusque and arrogant "fair-haired barbarians" without wishing in his heart that he may live to see them humiliated. Still more disliked, however, are the French, who for many years have behaved in China even more arrogantly than the British. No other nation sent so numerous an army of 'blacks' into the country, or supported the often unfair and insulting demands of the missionaries with such unscrupulousness as the French. ”

“ On the whole it would seem that the principle of no taxation without representation is making its way steadily into the most backward parts of Germany under the direct influence of the new Imperial institutions. ”

“ Despatches from the inundated districts of Italy give a melancholy picture of their present condition. Trees lie flat on the ground, rooted up by the force of the floods. The meadows and fields are strewn with sand and stones. ”

“ But there are no great national battle-pictures of those struggles of the War of Independence when Dutchmen fought Spaniards waist deep in the water; and while Backhuysen and Vandervelde launch fleets of peaceful merchantmen and herring-boats, there are no souvenirs of Lumé de la Marck and his desperate beggars of the sea. It is a loss, no doubt; and yet the stranger gains far more than he loses. He feels, if he does not confess, the winning charms of conscientiousness, patience, and perseverance. ”

“ Of all the men who have filled what is called the Chair of St. Peter there is no more interesting and on the whole more respectable figure than that of Sixtus the Fifth, a fairly good biography of whom has just been presented to the English public. As a diplomatist, Baron Hübner naturally dwells with much unction on those passages of the Pope's life in which he played the politician, and coped alternately with Queen Elizabeth of England, Philip of Spain, Henry of France, Rudolph of Austria, the Grand Turk, and the Venetian Republic. ”

“ The proposed creation of peers in Prussia gives occasion for the growing sentiment in Hanover to show itself, which favours the absolute merging of the ancient Electorate in its more powerful neighbour. ”

“ Germany never landed a soldier on Chinese territory, never threatened China with war, and never bombarded either Pekin or Canton; her sons only looked after their trade, and never took possession of a foot of Chinese soil. The Americans are also popular, though last year the foolish expedition to Corea somewhat diminished their influence. The British, on the other hand, are very unpopular, and it is only by their gunboats that they maintain their influence, which has already reached its zenith. ”

“ There is the screech of the fiddle from where the musician sits throned high on his cask, and you can see that the peasants who are clattering out of time to the music are shouting with the full force of their lungs, while laughter is shaking the sides of the fat hostess who is standing with arms akimbo, and of that other ancient with the blue-veined beer jug in his hand. You have had enough of the vulgar debauch and want something from more refined society. ”

“ Yet as far as that dramatic interest is concerned which springs from the play of individual character, and which has such attractions for the modern public, it is almost beyond doubt that the Papacy offers a wider and more varied field than either Republican or Imperial Rome. The long story of the Pontiffs is studded with examples of every form of public and private virtue, of public and private vice. The peculiar mode of papal election has raised to the pontifical chair men from all ranks of society, from almost every European nation, and of all conceivable types of character. ”

“ One-third of the houses facing the river at Casalmaggiore are entirely covered by the water. Those which are not destroyed are abandoned. The wealthy have fled the neighbourhood; the poor wander about, trusting to charity for their subsistence. ”

“ The jolly burghers who fèted the peace of Munster will live on in their every lineament till the colours and the canvas perish by age or accident. For, like truth, Dutch art is eternal, and must always win admiration although it may find few enthusiastic worshippers. ”