rom cardinals to novices. Of course, this is by no means to
be wondered at, Rome being the one great focus and clerical seminary of
the Roman Catholic world. But the contrast between the starving squalid
poor and the legions of well-fed priests is very painful.

CHAPTER XI.

Papal Rome--Narrow streets--St. Angelo--Benvenuto Cellini--St. Peter's
--Pieta Chapel--The Dead Christ--Tomb of the Stuarts--Anniversary of St.
Peter's--Grand ceremonial--Cardinal Howard--The Vatican--Pictures--
Pauline and Sistine Chapels--"The Last Judgment"--Pinacoteca--Raphael's
"Transfiguration"--The Madonna--Christian Martyrs--Sculptures--Tapestries
--Leo XIII.--Italian Priesthood--St. John Lateran--Marvellous legends and
relics--Native irreverence to sacred edifices.

"The Papal City," says Howels, "contrives at the beginning to hide the
Imperial City from your thoughts, as it hides it in such a great degree
from your eye." I had often asked our guide what had become of this or
that column or statue of ancient Rome, and he replied that the popes,
jealous of the greatness of _Pagan_ Rome, and the interest excited in
the minds of the present generations, Catholic and Protestant, removed
them as quietly as possible after their disinterment, lest the world
should say that the glory and grandeur of the Pagans of old exceeded
that of the Papacy.

We drove through a labyrinth of narrow, dirty, crowded streets, crossing
the Tiber by the fine bridge of St. Angelo. The picturesque castle of
this name was a very important fortress in the Middle Ages. It was
commenced by Hadrian, and afterwards finished as a family mausoleum by
Antoninus Pius, and must always possess a romantic interest from the
part it played in the life of that most whimsical and audacious of
autobiographers, Benvenuto Cellini. The account he gives of his escape
from its dungeons is quite Dumasesque in its thrilling details; and this
is not the only famous escape in the records of the fortress, Pope Paul
III., who was confined there in his youth, having succeeded in making a
secret exit.

Turning to the left through one of the narrow streets, we find ourselves
suddenly in a very fine piazza, before the largest Christian temple in
the world--colossal St Peter's. It stands proudly and grandly on the
Vatican Hill, on the site of the earliest Christian church, built by
Constantine the Great in the fourth century.

In the centre of the great piazz