For my own part, the only branch of art to which, even as a child, I ever took kindly, was the humble one of tracing upon gritting glass, with a grating pencil, hard outlines of coarse sketches squeezed tight against the window-pane.

After the manner in which I used to draw, I have since sought to write; for such a picture-frame then as mine, the airy, baseless fabric of an Italian revel is no fitting subject, and had the Roman Carnival for 1860 been even as other carnivals are, I should have left it unrecorded.

It has been my lot, however, to witness such a carnival as has not been seen at Rome before, and is not likely to be seen again.

In the decay of creeds and the decline of dynasties there appear from time to time signs which, like the writing on the wall, proclaim the coming change, and amongst these signs our past Carnival is, if I err not, no unimportant one.

While then the memory of the scene is fresh upon me, let me seek to tell what I have seen and heard.