How well he fed his bees
How ill he fed his sheep.
All this is very unlike the ideas held by some Catholics who cry "outrage" at the least criticism, and would consider the jests of Pasquin and Marforio sufficient to keep the Pope a prisoner in the Vatican. The popes thought differently; and preserved what face they could under the stinging satire of the Romans.
Pasquin gave place to the capo-comico Cassandrino, who was delighting every class in Rome at Palazzo Fiano in the Corso when the Italians broke upon the scene.
It must be remembered that the Roman would never accept servile occupations; the industries he chose were perforce those which required no plant and no capital, but also those which left him independent—such were the making of Roman pearls and mosaics, watchmaking, the favourite crafts of butcher, tanner, and carter, or the river industries of fisherman, boatman, and wharf porter. The most picturesque of his amusements were the dance, the mandoline, the lute, the song and serenade, and that improvisation for which he was always famous. One may still see the tarantella danced on the "Spanish steps" in May by the artists' models, dressed in the old Roman costume which persisted till Napoleonic times—the half Spanish dress of the girls and the short velvet jacket, feathered hat, and knee-breeches of the youths.
When the Roman railway was built, things were conducted in truly homely fashion; the train which was timed to leave at 10.30 was still in the station at 11. When at length it got under way, it might be put back again to land two peasants who had got into the wrong train. If you fumed and fretted, you were told to remember how long the journey would have taken before the day of railways. The Roman indeed had then and has now no sense of time—least of all has he learnt the proverb which he supposes is ever on the lips of our countrymen "times is money." If you enquire of a Roman the hour of mass he replies "About ten, or half-past, or eleven—thereabouts." The shopkeeper, the waiter in a café, used to take no notice whatever of you when you entered his premises; he continued tranquilly to read his paper or finish his cigar, and only marvelled that there could in your opinion be any reason sufficiently urgent to warrant your disturbing these occupations. The Roman's time is as eternal as his city, and one of the lessons he has yet to learn is its value for other things than money-making. No one answers a letter; your lawyer or your banker think themselves as unobliged to satisfy your curiosity as to the fate of your cheque or your business as the butcher and the baker. The Roman learns on his moral side, but remains so obtuse on the material side as to be a perpetual illustration of the reputation he has for strong-headedness, for "putting Trajan's column in his head," and refusing to budge like a mule. The Romans indeed are haunted by the past, and they are perhaps the people of Europe who have least grip on the present.
IN THE CHURCH OF ARA COELI
See pages [57], [230]-[31], and [interleaf, page 138].
It is in their folklore, the popular rhymes and tales, the customs and amusements of the people, that we realise that no loyalty or reverence can exist by the side of that passion for laying bare; and understand the coarseness which waits on the wide-eyed gaze of the Roman, unsparing and gross, because it is the result of what Ricasoli has called "the real poverty of the poor"—a moral poverty. The Roman goes to see some tight-rope dancers and describes the treat it was for him:
Above all there's the great pleasure of the height,
For if any one of them were to fall,
Nothing in the world could save him.