Evening Entertainments Or, Delineations of the Manners and Customs of Various Nations (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1827. Excerpt: ... matter. At present, too much improvement lias been made in the education of of youth, for them to be ignorant that there are other faculties for acquiring distinction than bodily strength and prowess. TWENTY-FIFTH EVENING. Air. 0. Last night, my dears, in giving you a description of one of the principal diversions of the Spaniards, 1 promised to relate to you some particulars of the diversions of other southern nations; this promise I shall now fulfil. I am going to give you an accurate and circumstantial account of a diversion common all over Italy, and especially at Home and Venice: I mean the Carnival, a festival the origin of which may be traced back to the most remote antiquity. The Italians received it from the ancient Romans," who gave this festival the appellation of Saturnalia, and celebrated it with all the pomp and ceremonies which a civilized nation never fails to introduce on every occasion. But before I describe the Carnival as it is held at present, I shall go hack to the most ancient times, and explain to you the intention and spirit in which this festival was instituted, and we will then draw a comparison between the modern Carnival and the Saturnalia of the ancients. The Roman people, enthusiastically attached to every thing relating to their origin and country, and endowed with a lively imagination, were fond of transporting themselves in idea into the most remote periods, when the territory of Rome, separated by a chain of mountains from the other regions of Italy, was the abode of peace and tranquillity, being inhabited only by shepherds, people of simple manners and innocent lives. The good King Janus, according to mythological tradition, governed this happy country as a father does his family; and he was in no respect distinguished ...