A LEAF FROM A TRAVELER'S NOTE-BOOK. BY MAUNSELL B. FIELD. "Another flask of Orvieto, Gaetano, and tell the vetturino that we start to-morrow morning, punctually at six," exclaimed one of three foreigners, seated around a table, in the smokiest corner of the "_Lepre_"--the artist-haunt of the _Via Condotti_. The speaker was a plain looking French gentleman, who, under the simplest exterior, concealed the most admirable mind and the highest personal qualities. A Provincial by birth, a Parisian by education, and a cosmopolite by travel, he united all the peculiar sagacity of his nation with that more dignified tone of character so rarely met with in his countrymen. Descended from a family of Lorraine, who had inherited the magistracy for centuries, and who, ruined at the emigration, had only partially recovered their fortunes at the restoration, our friend (_ours_, at least, reader) found himself, on attaining his majority, possessed of a sufficient competency to enable him to travel in a moderate way, so long as the taste should continue. And here he had been residing in Rome a twelvemonth (not _rushing through_ it with cis-Atlantic steam-power), studying art with devotion, and living the intense life of Italian existence. His companions at the moment our recital commences, were an old Hollander, who had emerged from commerce into philosophy (no very usual exit!) and myself, whom chance had made a lounger in European capitals--a pilgrim from both Mecca and Jerusalem--and a connoisseur in every vintage from Burgundy to Xeres. Carnival, with its fantastic follies, when the most constitutionally sedate by a species of frenzied reaction become the most reckless in absurdity, was past. Holy Week, with its gorgeous ecclesiastical mummery--its magnificent fire-works, and its still more magnificent illumination was likewise gone. Nearly all the travelers who had been spending the winter in Rome, including the two thousand English faces which, from their constant repetition at every public place, seemed at least two hundred thousand, had disappeared. Our own party had lingered after the rest, loath to leave, perhaps forever, the most fascinating city in the world to an intelligent mind. But at last we too, had determined to go, and our destination was Naples. That very afternoon we had taken one of the tumble-down carriages, which station on the _Piazza di Spagna_, to make a farewell _giro_ through the Forum. Leaving Rome is not like leaving any other town. Associations dating from early childhood, and linking the present with the past, make familiar, before they are known, objects in themselves so intrinsically interesting and beautiful, that the strongest attachment is sure to follow a first actual acquaintance with them. And when that acquaintance has been by daily intercourse matured, it is hard to give it up.