'To think,' soliloquized Caper, 'to think of what a bootless thing it is, to shoe-black o'er an elephant!' ROMAN MODELS. The traveler visiting Rome notices in the Piazza di Spagna, along the Spanish steps, and in the Condotti, Fratina and Sistina streets, either sunning themselves or slowly sauntering along, many picturesquely-dressed men, women, and children, who, as he soon learns, are the professional models of the artists. For a fee of from fifty cents to a dollar, they will give their professional services for a sitting four hours in length, and those of them who are most in demand find little difficulty during the 'business season,' say from the months of November to May, in earning from one and a half to two dollars, and even more, every day. Many of them, living frugally, manage to make what is considered a fortune among the _contadini_ in a few years; and Hawks, the English artist, who spent a summer at Saracenesca, found, to his astonishment, that one of the leading men of the town, one who loaned money at very large interest, owned property, and who was numbered among the heavy wealthy, was no other than a certain Gaetano, he had more than once used as model, at the price of fifty cents a sitting. The government prohibiting female models from posing nude in the different life-schools, it consequently follows that they pose in private studios, as they choose; this interdiction does not extend to the male models; and when Caper was in Rome, he had full opportunities offered him to draw from these in the English Academy, and in the private schools of Gigi and Giacinti. Supported by the British government, the English artist has, free of all expense, at this truly National Academy, opportunities to sketch from life, as well as from casts, and has, moreover, access to a well-chosen library of books. With a generosity worthy of all praise, American artists are admitted to the English Academy, with full permission to share with Englishmen the advantages of the life-school, free of all cost; a piece of liberality that well might be copied by the French Academy, without at all derogating from its high position--on the Pincian Hill.