d a
beef-eater's hat, the whole sheltered beneath a green carriage umbrella,
rode His Excellency the Governor of the district. Behind him walked his
secretary, the Syndic of Subiaco, four gendarmes, and three broken-down,
old livery-clad beadles, who carried the umbrellas of these high
dignitaries. In truth, had it not been for the unutterable shabbiness of
the whole affair, I could have fancied I saw the market scene in
"Martha," and "The Last Rose of Summer" seemed to ring unbidden in my
ears. Not a score of un-official spectators accompanied the procession
from the convent, and the interest caused by it appeared but small; the
devotion absolutely none. The fact which struck me most throughout was
the utter apathy of the people. Not a person in the place I spoke to--and
I asked several--had any notion who the governor was. The nearest
approach that I got to an answer was from one of the old beadles, who
replied to my question, "Chi sa?" "E una roba da lontano;" and with this
explanation that the governor was "a thing that came from a distance," I
was obliged to rest satisfied. When the procession reached the town the
band joined in, the governor got off his mule, room was made for our
party in the rank behind him, I suppose, as "distinguished foreigners;"
and so with banners flying, crosses nodding, drums beating, priests and
choristers chanting, we marched in a body into the church, where the
female portion of the crowd and all the beggars followed us. I had now,
however, had enough of the "humours of the fair," and left the town
without waiting to try my luck at the _tombola_, which was to come off
directly High Mass was over.

CHAPTER XV. THE HOLY WEEK.

The _nil admirari_ school are out of favour. In our earnest working age,
it is the fashion to treat everything seriously, to find in every thing a
deep hidden meaning, in fact, to admire everything. Since the days of
Wordsworth and Peter Bell, every petty poet and romantic writer has had
his sneer at the shallow sceptic to whom a cowslip was a cowslip only,
and who called a spade a spade. I feel, therefore, painfully that I am
not of my own day when I express my deliberate conviction, that the
ceremonies of Holy Week at Rome are--the word must come out sooner or
later--an imposture. This is not the place to enter into the religious
aspect of the Catholic question, nor if it were, should I have any wish
to enter the lists of controversy as a ch