offended one rushed towards his antagonist, drew his tattered cloak firmly over his breast, placed his hat on the ground, and then stepping back a pace or two, he flung himself on his knees and invoked all the saints to bear him witness that his adversary was a liar. Thus ended the Italian fight. MY HOME ABROAD. "Ah! where shall I so sweet a dwelling find! How much to be commiserated is he to whom not a line of the poetry of human nature has been directly revealed; who has never been lured from the sterile pathway of isolated pursuit by a flower that smiled up to him, or a murmur that fell soothingly upon his ear; whose mind has never been charmed into blessed self-forgetfulness, by the consoling activity of native sentiment. It was but the impulse of inalienable human feeling which led Sterne to say, that if he were in a desert, he would love some cypress; and baffled, indeed, must be his spirit who has wandered to and fro in a peopled world, and found no child of humanity whose companionship and affection could recall the simple joyousness of early and unsophisticated being. How much does the plea sure of a sojourner in the fairest lands depend upon the position whence he gazes forth upon their domain-upon the immediate social influences by which he is surrounded-upon his HOME ABROAD! How different will be the aspect of external nature, and the impressions of social or moral phenomena, to the wanderer who looks forth from his own solitary consciousness, and to him who views them through the loop-holes of a domestic retreat! This is not a merely speculative suggestion, as I propose to illustrate, if the reader will but pass, in fancy, to the favorite city of Italy, once the scene, and at present the witness, of Lorenzo de Medici's authority and enterprise. The high and dark buildings which line the narrow and flag-paved street running from the Piazza di Colonna to the Mercato Nuovo, render its general aspect peculiarly sombre; yet at the season when the fiery solar influence is at its height, it is truly refreshing to turn from the dazzling heat of the open squares into these shady by-streets, so characteristic of the cities of southern Europe. The second range of apartments of one of these edifices was occupied by a family whose fortunes received their downfall under the Napoleon dynasty. The comfortable and quiet seclusion adapted to their condition, succeeded a more brilliant, but perhaps less happy establishAt the close of a winter's day spent in the delectable employment of inspecting "lodgings for ment. single gentlemen," I found myself settled in one of the front rooms of this building-the domicile I had at length decided should be my temporary abode. As I sat musingly before a cheerful wood fire, my reverie was interrupted by a gentle tap at the door; and scarcely had the entrate passed my lips, when it quietly opened, and the presiding goddess of that little world was before me. The countenance of Antoinetta exhibited features so beautifully regular, that even when in perfect repose, they would bear the most critical perusal. But it was when lit up by a cheering smile, playing over and enlivening their bland expression, such as they wore when she thus broke in like sunlight upon my misty day-dreaming, that the witchery of her eye and the pleasantry of her air exerted their full power. In the sweet accents of her native tongue, she bade me good evening, adding that she had thought the Signor might feel solitary, and had brought in her muslin work to sit an hour with him. How thankfully he accepted the proposition need not be related. The converse of that evening sufficed for our mutual understanding. For, be it known to you, kind reader, that the social, like the physical atmosphere of Italy, is wonderfully insinuating: one discovers his adaptation at once. The Ital ians seem to know intuitively the latent points of sympathy between themselves and those with whom they come in contact; a short time serves either to convince them that their acquaintance |