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TWO PICTURES.
Within the space of a few days, some three weeks in all, it was my fortune to be present at two demonstrations forming two pictures of Italian story, or rather two aspects of one picture.

In both the subject- matter was the feelings of Italians towards their rulers; in both that feeling was expressed legibly, though in diverse fashions; and from both one and the same lesson--that lesson, which I have sought to express in these loose sketches of mine--may be learned easily.

Let me first, then, write of these pictures as I saw them at the time, so that my moral may speak for itself to those who care to learn it.
The 12th of April is the anniversary of Pio Nono's return to Rome from Gaeta, that refuge of destitute sovereigns.

It is also, by a strange coincidence, the anniversary of the day on which his Holiness and General Goyon narrowly escaped being killed by the falling of a scaffold, from which they were inspecting the repairs at the church of St Agnese.