iscans told us that Saint Lucia was stabbed close to a granite
column, in a subterranean chapel in their church, in the _fourth
century_, and _under Nero_!--so ignorant are these men even about what
it concerns them to know. They show a silver image, which a dozen men
can, they assure us, scarcely lift. The body of the saint is not,
however, here, but at Venice. "No; we have but one rib and a thumb,"
said the padre! "but we have two very handsome _dresses_ which she
wore--one red, the other blue." Cast-off clothes, then, will do for
relics! In returning to the church, they tell us of a blind old general
who came hither on purpose to obtain the intercession of: Santa Lucia,
(who had her own eyes put out,) to remove this calamity; with success of
course, for they never record failures in church _clinique_. "Do you
believe the cure?" we ventured to ask. "Why not? il miracolo e
_autenticato_." "No!" said his companion, "_autorizzato_! The
distinction is, that the church _authorizes_ the declaration of some
lies as miraculous, but declines to make herself responsible for the
reality of others!" Round the Capucian church certain stanzas are
written, under what are called the fourteen _stazioni_ or stations of
the cross, (places where our Saviour is supposed to have halted, or
fainted under his load, on his way to Calvary.) Stanzas we were at first
profane enough to attribute to Metastasio, but afterwards found that it
was only the _metastasis_ of his metre adapted to the use of the church.
They are much better than most of our sacred poetry, as it is strangely
miscalled, which is frequently neither poetry nor common sense:--

"Il sol si oscura,
E in fin la terra
Il sen disserra
Per grand dolor;
Morto e il Signore!
O Peccatore,
Se tu non piangi,
Sei senza cuor!

"Deh, madre mia,
Con quant' afflitto,
Piangendo, al Petto,
Stringi Gesu!
Io, l'ho fer ito,
Ma son pentito--
Non piu peccati,
Non piu, non piu!

"Dal tuo sepolcro,
Non vo partire,
Senza morire,
Ma qui staro;
Finche 'l dolore
M'uccida il core,
L'alma piangendo
Qui spirero!" &c. &c.

The Capucins live on a hill in the only good air in the vicinity of
Syracuse; in their precincts we found ourselves fairly attacked on
_Luther's_ quarrel, and expected to take up cudgels ecclesiastic on that
worn-out controversy--one