Still, Carriages On
Carriages, Dresses On Dresses, Colours On Colours, Crowds Upon
Crowds, Without End.
Men and boys clinging to the wheels of
coaches, and holding on behind, and following in their wake, and
Diving in among the horses' feet to pick up scattered flowers to
sell again; maskers on foot (the drollest generally) in fantastic
exaggerations of court-dresses, surveying the throng through
enormous eye-glasses, and always transported with an ecstasy of
love, on the discovery of any particularly old lady at a window;
long strings of Policinelli, laying about them with blown bladders
at the ends of sticks; a waggon-full of madmen, screaming and
tearing to the life; a coach-full of grave mamelukes, with their
horse-tail standard set up in the midst; a party of gipsy-women
engaged in terrific conflict with a shipful of sailors; a man-
monkey on a pole, surrounded by strange animals with pigs' faces,
and lions' tails, carried under their arms, or worn gracefully over
their shoulders; carriages on carriages, dresses on dresses,
colours on colours, crowds upon crowds, without end. Not many
actual characters sustained, or represented, perhaps, considering
the number dressed, but the main pleasure of the scene consisting
in its perfect good temper; in its bright, and infinite, and
flashing variety; and in its entire abandonment to the mad humour
of the time--an abandonment so perfect, so contagious, so
irresistible, that the steadiest foreigner fights up to his middle
in flowers and sugar-plums, like the wildest Roman of them all, and
thinks of nothing else till half-past four o'clock, when he is
suddenly reminded (to his great regret) that this is not the whole
business of his existence, by hearing the trumpets sound, and
seeing the dragoons begin to clear the street.
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