they eat, make their _keep_ and wages together amount to not more than half what they do with us. It only remains to tell you of what is _dearer_ here than it is in England, I have tried all I can to find out items belonging to this latter head, and have succeeded in _two_ alone--namely, sugar and fuel. You cannot have brown sugar under _8d._ and indifferent loaf sugar costs _1s. 3d._ And as to firing, it is dearer, _nominally_ alone, and in point of fact, does not cost, to a well regulated family, near so much, in the course of the year, as coals do in our houses.--_Monthly Magazine._ * * * * * ROMAN FUNERALS. The ceremonial of the funeral of a cardinal is considered as one of the most imposing at Rome, which is a city of ceremonies, and yielding only in magnificence to the obsequies of royal personages. The burial of the Mezzo-ceto classes is conducted rather differently. The body is exposed much in the same manner, at home; but the convoi, or passage from the habitation to the sepulchre, is generally considered as an occasion which calls for the utmost display. Torches, priests, psalmody, are sought for with a spirit of rivalry which easily explains the sumptuary laws of the Florentine and Roman statute-books, and which, unnoticed but not extinguished in the present age, in a poorer must have been highly offensive to the frugality and jealousies of a republic. The religious orders, the Capucins particularly, are in constant requisition; not a day that you may not meet two or three of their detachments in various parts of the city:---the religious or charitable fraternities, such as the Fratelli della Misericordia, of which the deceased is generally a brother or a benefactor, or both, think it also a point of duty and gratitude to swell the _cortège_, and in the greatest numbers they can muster to attend. Their costume, which is highly picturesque, is always a striking feature, and adds much to the brilliancy of the display. They wear a sort of sack robe or tunic, which covers the whole body, girt with a rope round the waist, and with holes pierced in the _capuchon_ for the eyes; their large grey slouched hat is thrown back, much in the manner in which it appears on the statues of Mercury, on their shoulders; their feet are often in zoccoli, or sandals of wood, and sometimes, though rarely, bare. The colour of their dress varies according to the rule of their society; at Rome, I have noticed white, blue, and grey: at Florence they prefer black. The corpse is dressed up with great care, and often with a degree of luxury which would become a wedding; the best linen, the richest ornaments, are lavished; garlands are placed on the head; the hands crossed, with a crucifix between them, on the bosom, and the face and feet left quite bare. Sometimes, through a capricious fit of piety, all this is studiously dispensed with, and the body appears clad in the habit of some religious