feet, engaged in gulping down an
unsavoury repast. The whole charm of the thing rests in the idea, and
this idea is quite extinguished by the extreme length and tediousness of
the whole proceeding. The feet have too evidently been washed before,
and the pilgrims are too palpably got up for the occasion.

The finest ceremony I have ever witnessed in Rome is the High Mass at St
Peter's on Easter-day; but as a theatrical spectacle, in which light
alone I am now speaking of it, it is marred by many palpable defects.
Whenever I have seen the Pope carried in his chair in state, I can never
help thinking of the story of the Irishman, who, when the bottom and seat
of his sedan-chair fell out, remarked to his bearers, that "he might as
well walk, but for the honour of the thing." One feels so strongly that
the Pope might every bit as well walk as ride in that ricketty, top-heavy
chair, in which he sits, or rather sways to and fro, with a sea-sick
expression. Then the ostrich feathers are so very shabby, and the whole
get-up of the procession is so painfully "not" regardless of expense. You
see Cardinals with dirty robes, under the most gorgeous stoles, while the
surplices are as yellow as the stained gold-worked bands which hang
across them. There is, indeed, no sense of congruity or the inherent
fitness of things about the Italian ceremonials. A priest performs mass
and elevates the host with muddy boots on, while the Pope himself, in the
midst of the grandest service, blows his nose on a common red
pocket-handkerchief. The absence of the organ detracts much from the
impressiveness of the music in English ears, while the constant bowings
and genuflexions, the drawling intonations, and the endless monotonous
psalms, all utterly devoid of meaning for a lay-worshipper, added to the
utter listlessness of the congregation, and even of the priests engaged
in celebration of the service, destroy the impression the gorgeousness of
the scene would otherwise produce.

The insuperable objection, however, to the impressiveness of the whole
scene is the same as mars all Papal pageants,--I mean the length and
monotony of the performance. One chant may be fine, one prostration
before the altar may be striking, one burst of the choral litany may act
upon your senses; but, when you have chant after chant, prostration after
prostration, chorus after chorus, each the twin brother to the other, and
going on for hours, without apparent rhym