and the principal street leading to it, presented two unbroken lines of carriages, one going and the other returning. If for a moment, you got a view of the street for some distance, it appeared like two currents of water, one bearing the multitude on, and the other returning without them. At length, the cardinals began to arrive. Carriage after carriage, to the number of 40 or 50, came clattering along with black horses, and crimson plumes, and gilded trappings, resembling any thing but a cortege of priests.Each had its three gaily attired footmen; and some seemed half covered with gold, even to the hubs of the wheels, which glittered with the precious metal. One after another, they dashed into the semicircular colonnade that goes up to the main church, and rolled up through its columns, more like the grandees of court, (as they indeed are,) than humble worshippers crowding to the sanctuary of God. As the Pope entered the church, the entire chapter received him, and his procession; and the choir struck up, "Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram ædificabo ecclesiam meam," &c. Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church, &c. Along the whole immense nave were ranged in opposing files, leaving the middle pavement empty, the grenadiers, national troops and capitoline guards.-Between these in his chair borne upon men's shoulders and covered with a canopy, passed the Pope, the Peacock feathers nodding behind him. The soldiers received him kneeling, and as the choir paused in their "Tu es Petrus," &c., the military stationed in the gallery at the end of the church, midway to the roof, filled their trumpets, and the great bell of the Cathedral rung out its acclamations to the "two hundred and fifty-seventh successor "of the great Apostle. I noticed the holy father kept his eyes shut as usual, while he was borne along in state; but I did not feel much respect for his devotional aspect, for I had been told by an Italian that the old man was compelled to close his eyes, as the motion of the chair made him sea-sick. Alas, that greatness must have the same stomach as ordinary men.

I will not weary you with a detailed description of the mass and communion, and other ceremonies of the day; for it would simply be saying that his Holiness knelt on a crimson and gold cushion-that now he laid aside, or rather had laid aside, his

tiara, and put on his mitre, and now vice versa-that there were benedictions, and genuflections, and chantings, and incensings, and nonsensings of every sort. I loitered it out till the time of giving the benediction, when I pressed through the crowd and threaded my way to the top of one of the colonnades, to witness the imposing ceremony. To imagine it well, you must place before you a magnificent church, with the paved ground gently sloping up to the flight of steps that lead into it. From each corner imagine an open colonnade running down in a semicircular form, enclosing a vast area, and you have the front of St. Peter's. The centre of the area was kept clear by the military, ranged round it in the form of a hollow square. Between the upper file

of soldiers and the church steps, stood the living mass that waited the benediction. Behind the lower file were crowded the countless carriages. The open colonnades, and the top of one of them, are given to strangers. In the front of the church, over the main entrance, there is a gallery, covered with a crimson cloth and shaded by an immense piece of canvass. Into this gallery the Pope advances, and blesses the people.

Standing on the top of a colonnade, leaning against the base of a statue, I had a complete view of the whole. It was a grand spectacle, and I contemplated it with mingled feelings. The Pope had not yet made his appearance-and indeed I almost forgot him. It was both a pageant and a farce, combining all the magnificence that dazzles the crowd, and all the folly that "makes the angels weep."

Nearly under me were a group of pilgrims, ragged and dirty, lying along the steps, unconscious of all around-their staves leaning across them, their head on their hand, and they either nodding or fast asleep. One boy held my attention for a long time. He lay on the hard stone, in deep slumber, with his father asleep beside him. Suddenly there was the blast of a trumpet, and the father started from his repose, and, supposing the Pope was about to appear, roused up his boy, so that they might not lose the invaluable blessing. The tired, ragged little fellow rose half up, and then fell back again heavily on the steps, sound asleep. The Pope did not appear, and the father, too, was soon in deep slumber beside his boy. What were their dreams, in the

midst of this pomp and splendor? They had wandered far from their quiet home, to receive the blessing of the Holy Father. Reckless of the magnificence around them-of the crowd-the ocean-like murmur that went up to heaven-they had fallen asleep under the shadow of St. Peter's. That boy, ragged and dirty as he was, had also his dreams, and his palace and objects of ambition; but they were all far away, and many a weary mile must be traversed before he would be amid them again. What a change, to be waked from that quiet dream by the sound of trumpets, and instead of his own rude hut by the mountain stream, to find the lofty cathedral before him, and the rumor of thousands around him!

At length the Pope appeared-engaged in a short prayer— stretched out his hands over the multitude that sunk to the earth,— and pronounced the benediction. The long lines of soldiers kneeled in their ranks, and all was silent as the grave. But the last word was scarcely spoken, before they were on their feet— drum and trumpet pealed out their joy-the cannon of St. Angelo answered them, and the bells threw in their clang to swell the jubilee—the multitude began to sway and toss and disperse— and all was over. The people had been blessed, but their condition had not been bettered; and I thought of what a vetturino whom I once engaged said to me—" The people," said he, “are taxed so that they cannot live, and all the country is filled with misery and poverty, and all the return they get from the Pope is his benediction once a year. Ah," he added, with a scorn it was well his Holiness did not see, "non è un benedizione è un maledizione ;"" it is not a benediction, but a malediction."

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There could not have been less, I think, than 40,000 people assembled. After all the ceremony is over, you can walk, if you will, through St. Peter's and view its magnificence. On one side is arranged a row of temporary confessionals, with a placard over each, in every language in the civilized world. There the Arab, Russian, German, Greek, Swede, Spaniard and Englishman, can confess his sins in his own tongue, and receive absolution. Poor wretches are kneeling before them, pouring the tale of their sorrows and sins into the ears of the yawning confessor, who dismisses them, one after another, with lightened consciences, though

not with purer hearts. At sun-down, if not too tired, you can return and stroll over the marble pavement, and listen to the vespers that, chanted in a side chapel, come stealing sweetly out into the amplitude, and float away among the arches in ravishing melody. The lamps are burning dimly before the altar-twilight is deepening over the glorious structure, and forms in strange costumes are slowly passing and repassing over the tesselated floor. The heart becomes subdued under the influence of sight, and sound, and a feeling almost of superstition will creep over the sternest heart.. The gloom grows deeper, leaving nothing distinctly seen, while that vesper hymn steals forth on the bewildered ear, like a strain from the unseen world.

Truly yours.

LETTER XXV.

Illumination of St. Peter's-The Girandola.

ROME, April, 1843.

DEAR E.-I was too weary to give you in my last a description of the closing up of Easter Sunday. It is a principle in all Catholic ceremonies, never to wind off gradually, as is too frequently the case among Protestants, but to have the last display the most magnificent of all. Thus on Easter Sunday, the closing up of Holy Week, the Papal throne crowds its entire pomp into its ceremonies, and as, during the day, the interior of St. Peter's has done its utmost to magnify his Holiness, so at night the exterior must do its share of glorification. This great building, covering several acres, is illuminated in its entire outer surface. It is an operation of great expense, and attended with much danger. It is caused by suspending four thousand four hundred lanterns upon it, covering it from the dome down. To accomplish this, men have to be let down with ropes, over every part of the edifice, and left dangling there for more than an hour. Even from the base of the church they look like insects creeping over the surface. Hanging down the precipitous sides of the immense dome, standing four hundred feet high in the air, is attended with so much danger, that the eighty men employed in it always receive extreme unction before they attempt it. The last sacrament is taken, and their accounts settled, both for this world and the next, so that death would not, after all, be so great a calamity. The Pope must amuse the people, and glorify his reign, though he hazard human life in doing it. But he has the magnanimity to secure the sufferer from evil in the next world. If a rope break, and the man is crushed into a shapeless mass on the pavement below, his soul immediately ascends to one of the most favored seats in Paradise. He fell from God's church-he