corner, an equestrian company from Paris: marshalling themselves
under the walls of the church, and flouting, with their horses’
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heels, the griffins, lions, tigers, and other monsters in stone and
marble, decorating its exterior. First, there came a stately
nobleman with a great deal of hair, and no hat, bearing an enormous
banner, on which was inscribed, MAZEPPA! TO-NIGHT! Then, a
Mexican chief, with a great pear-shaped club on his shoulder, like
Hercules. Then, six or eight Roman chariots: each with a
beautiful lady in extremely short petticoats, and unnaturally pink
tights, erect within: shedding beaming looks upon the crowd, in
which there was a latent expression of discomposure and anxiety,
for which I couldn’t account, until, as the open back of each
chariot presented itself, I saw the immense difficulty with which
the pink legs maintained their perpendicular, over the uneven
pavement of the town: which gave me quite a new idea of the
ancient Romans and Britons. The procession was brought to a close,
by some dozen indomitable warriors of different nations, riding two
and two, and haughtily surveying the tame population of Modena:
among whom, however, they occasionally condescended to scatter
largesse in the form of a few handbills. After caracolling among
the lions and tigers, and proclaiming that evening’s entertainments
with blast of trumpet, it then filed off, by the other end of the
square, and left a new and greatly increased dulness behind.
When the procession had so entirely passed away, that the shrill
trumpet was mild in the distance, and the tail of the last horse
was hopelessly round the corner, the people who had come out of the
church to stare at it, went back again. But one old lady, kneeling
on the pavement within, near the door, had seen it all, and had
been immensely interested, without getting up; and this old lady’s
eye, at that juncture, I happened to catch: to our mutual
confusion. She cut our embarrassment very short, however, by
crossing herself devoutly, and going down, at full length, on her
face, before a figure in a fancy petticoat and a gilt crown; which
was so like one of the procession-figures, that perhaps at this
hour she may think the whole appearance a celestial vision.
Anyhow, I must certainly have forgiven her her interest in the
Circus, though I had been her Father Confessor.
There was a little fiery-eyed old man with a crooked shoulder, in
the cathedral, who took it very ill that I made no effort to see
the bucket (kept in an old tower) which the people of Modena took
away from the people of Bologna in the fourteenth century, and
about which there was war made and a mock-heroic poem by TASSONE,
too. Being quite content, however, to look at the outside of the
tower, and feast, in imagination, on the bucket within; and
preferring to loiter in the shade of the tall Campanile, and about
the cathedral; I have no personal knowledge of this bucket, even at
the present time.
Indeed, we were at Bologna, before the little old man (or the
Guide-Book) would have considered that we had half done justice to
the wonders of Modena. But it is such a delight to me to leave new
scenes behind, and still go on, encountering newer scenes – and,
moreover, I have such a perverse disposition in respect of sights
that are cut, and dried, and dictated – that I fear I sin against
similar authorities in every place I visit.
Be this as it may, in the pleasant Cemetery at Bologna, I found
myself walking next Sunday morning, among the stately marble tombs
and colonnades, in company with a crowd of Peasants, and escorted
by a little Cicerone of that town, who was excessively anxious for
the honour of the place, and most solicitous to divert my attention
from the bad monuments: whereas he was never tired of extolling
the good ones. Seeing this little man (a good-humoured little man
he was, who seemed to have nothing in his face but shining teeth
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and eyes) looking wistfully at a certain plot of grass, I asked him