nting in right and pure feeling as in a proper
comprehension and appreciation of art.

"The heathen
Veiled their Diana with some drapery;
And when they represented Venus naked
They made her, by her modest attitude,
Appear half clothed."

The silk tapestries in the Vatican excited our wonder and admiration.
They are most beautifully worked pictures, and cover the walls over an
immense area. Unfortunately, we had a nonchalant guide on this day, who
was only enthusiastic over his cigarettes, and whose purely mechanical
utterances exasperated one in the same degree as do the solemn old
Beefeaters in our own Tower, or the garrulous, conceited guide at Notre
Dame, Paris. A good cicerone can invest the most trifling objects with
interest, while a bad one simply irritates one's temper and wastes
precious time.

The Vatican palace is a large, ugly, barrack-like building, painted
yellow, and surrounded by high walls. Here "His Holiness" lives, a
self-immured prisoner, on unlimited patrol. It is an immense place.
There are two courts, eight grand, and a hundred smaller staircases, and
upward of a thousand rooms. Indeed, the Vatican taken as a whole, with
its extensive stables, etc., resembles a small town rather than the
palace of a sovereign. So that, though a "prisoner," Leo XIII. is by no
means shut up in a cloister. He is, I believe, a man of the highest
culture, and leads a most unselfish and simple life: frugal in his own
personal expenses--the cost of his table not exceeding that of an
ordinary labouring man--he is filled with an earnest desire to exercise
the responsibilities of his position. One can well imagine, therefore,
that the almost total deprivation from temporal power, and the
neutralized allegiance of so many of his Italian subjects, must be most
galling and heart-breaking to him. The Pope, indeed, is almost a
nonentity at home; yet we cannot but feel that this alienation between
Italy and her spiritual father is for the real good of the State. It has
ever been the policy of the Papacy to keep the people in poverty and
superstitious ignorance. The priesthood has shamefully failed to
identify themselves with the aspirations and wants of the people, and
consequently have lost all hold on their hearts. Other nations have
freed themselves gradually from the yoke of Rome, so baleful in its
influences to all vigorous strength and constitutional greatness. And
now Ital