The men are well formed and of good height, but not powerful in build or make, and their features are rather marked than regular.

As for the women, when you have once perceived that hair may be black as coal and yet coarse as string, that bright sparkling eyes may be utterly devoid of expression, and that an olive complexion may be deepened by the absence of washing, you grow somewhat sceptical as to the reality of their vaunted beauty.

All this, however, is a matter of personal taste, about which it is useless to express a decided opinion.

I must content myself with the remark, that the Roman peasantry as depicted, year after year, on the walls of our academy, bear about the same resemblance to the article provided for home consumption, as the ladies in an ordinary London ball-room bear to the portraits in the "Book of Beauty." The peasants' costumes too, like the smock-frocks and scarlet cloaks of Old England, are dying out fast.

On the steps in the "Piazza di Spagna," and in the artists' quarter above, you see some score or so of models with the braided boddices, and the head-dresses of folded linen, standing about for hire.