Page images
PDF
EPUB

break out into exclamations, in praise of both, as often as he appears in public. On a public occafion, lately, as he was carried through a particular street, a young woman at a window exclaimed, "Quanto e bello! "O quanto e bello!" and was immediately answered by a zealous old lady at the window oppofite, who, folding her hands in each other, and raifing her eyes to heaven, cried out, with a mixture of love for his perfon, and veneration for his facred office, "Tanto e bello, quanto e fanto!" When we know that such a quantity of incense is daily burnt under his facred noftrils, we ought not to be astonished, though we fhould find his brain, on fome occafions, a little intoxicated.

Vanity is a very comfortable failing; and has fuch an univerfal power over mankind, that not only the gay bloffoms of youth, but even the fhrivelled bofom of age, and the contracted heart of bigotry,

open,

open, expand, and display ftrong marks of fenfibility under its influence.

After mass, the Pope gave the benediction to the people affembled in the Grand Court, before the church of St. Peter's. It was a remarkably fine day; an immenfe multitude filled that fpacious and magnificent area; the horse and foot guards were drawn up in their most fhowy uniform. The Pope, feated in an open, portable chair, in all the splendour which his wardrobe could give, with the tiara on his head, was carried out of a large window, which opens on a balcony in the front of St. Peter's. The filk hangings and gold trappings with which the chair was embellished, concealed the men who carried it; fo that to those who viewed him from the area below, his Holinefs feemed to fail forward, from the window felf-balanced in the air, like a celestial being. The inftant he appeared, the music ftruck up, the bells rung from

every I

every church, and the cannon thundered from the caftle of St. Angelo in repeated peals. During the intervals, the church of St. Peter's, the palace of the Vatican, and the banks of the Tiber, re-echoed the acclamations of the populace. At length his Holiness arose from his feat, and an immediate and awful filence enfued. The multitude fell upon their knees, with their hands and eyes raised towards his Holiness, as to a benign Deity. After a folemn paufe, he pronounced the benediction, with great fervour; elevating his outstretched arms as high as he could; then clofing them together, and bringing them back to his breaft with a flow motion, as if he had got hold of the bleffing, and was drawing it gently from heaven. Finally, he threw his arms open, waving them for fome time, as if his intention had been to scatter the benediction with impartiality among the people.

No

No ceremony can be better calculated for ftriking the fenfes, and impofing on the understanding, than this of the Supreme Pontiff giving the bleffing from the balcony of St. Peter's. For my own part, if I had not, in my early youth, received impreffions highly unfavourable to the chief actor in this magnificent interlude, I should have been in danger of paying him a degree of respect, very inconsistent with the religion in which I was educated.

LETTER XLIX.

Rome.

IN

of

my laft, I informed you my having been feduced almost into idolatry, by the influence of example, and the pomp which furrounded the idol. I must now. confess that I have actually bowed the knee to Baal, from mere wantonnefs. We are told that, to draw near to that Being, who ought to be the only object of worship, with our lips, while our hearts are far from him, is a mockery. Such daring and abfurd hypocrify I fhall always avoid : but to have drawn near to him, who ought not to be an object of worship, with the lips only, while the heart continued at a diftance, I hope will be confidered as no more than a venial tranfgreffion. In short, I truft,

« PreviousContinue »