currence, which indicates no
inconsiderable amount of business, having reference to foreign parts, at
present on the hands of the order.

I shall suppose that the reader is passing along the Corso. Has he
marked that tall thin man who has just passed him,

"Walking in beauty like the night?"

There is an air of tidiness in his dress, and of comparative cleanliness
on his person. He wears a small round cap, with three corners; or, if a
hat, one of large brim. Neither cowl nor scapular fetters his motions; a
plain black gown, not unlike a frock-coat, envelopes his person. How
softly his footsteps fall! You scarce hear their sound as he glides past
you. His face, how unruffled! As the lake, when the winds are asleep,
hides under a moveless surface, resplendent as a sheet of gold, the dark
caverns at its bottom, so does this calm, impassable face the workings
of the heart beneath. This man holds in his hands the threads of a
conspiracy which is exploding at that moment, mayhap in China, or in the
Pacific, or in Peru, or in London.

He is at Rome at present, and appears in his proper form and dress as a
Jesuit. But that man can change his country, he can change his tongue,
and, Proteus-like, multiply his shapes among mankind. Next year that man
whom you now meet on the streets of Rome may be in Scotland in the
humble guise of a pedlar, vending at once his earthly and his spiritual
wares. Or he may be in England, acting as tutor in some noble family, or
in the humbler capacity of body-servant to a gentleman, or, it may be,
filling a pulpit in the Church of England. He may be a Protestant
schoolmaster in America, a dictator in Paraguay, a travelling companion
in France and Switzerland, a Liberal or a Conservative--as best suits
his purpose--in Germany, a Brahmin in India, a Mandarin in China. He can
be anything and everything,--a believer in every creed, and a worshipper
of every god,--to serve his Church. Rome has hundreds of thousands of
such men spread over all the countries of the world. With the ring of
Gyges, they walk to and fro over the earth, seeing all, yet themselves
unseen. They can unlock the cabinets of statesmen, and enter unobserved
the closets of princes. They can take their seat in synods and
assemblies, and dive into the secrets of families. Their grand work is
to sow the seeds of heresies in Churches and of dissensions in States,
that, when the harvest of strife and division is fully matured, Rome may