The Babuino ends in the ugly but central square of the _Piazza di Spagna_, where many of the best hotels and shops are situated. Hence the Trinità is reached by a magnificent flight of steps (disgracefully ill kept), which was built by Alessandro Specchi at the expense of a private individual, M. Gueffier, secretary to the French embassy at Rome, under Innocent XIII. "No art-loving visitor to Rome can ever have passed the noble flight of steps which leads from the Piazza di Spagna to the Church of the Trinità de' Monti without longing to transfer to his sketch-book the picturesque groups of models who there spend their day, basking in the beams of the wintry sun, and eating those little boiled beans whose yellow husks bestrew every place where the lower class Romans congregate--practising, in short, the 'dolce far niente.' Beppo, the celebrated lame beggar, is no longer to be seen there, having been banished to the steps of the Church of St. Agostino; but there is old Felice, with conical hat, brown cloak, and bagpipes, father of half the models on the steps. He has been seen in an artist's studio in Paris, and is reported to have performed on foot the double journey between Rome and that capital. There are two or three younger men in blue jackets and goat-skin breeches; as many women in folded linen head-dresses, and red or blue skirts; and a sprinkling of children of both sexes, in costumes the miniature fac-similes of their elders. All these speedily learn to recognise a visitor who is interested in that especial branch of art which is embodied in models, and at every turn in the street such a one is met by the flash of white teeth, and the gracious sweetness of an Italian smile."--_H. M. B._