straightway converted him. My friend bade me look at the picture, and,
kneeling down beside me, I know prayed with all his honest heart that
the truth might shine down upon me too; but I saw no glimpse of heaven
at all. I saw but a poor picture, an altar with blinking candles, a
church hung with tawdry strips of red and white calico. The good, kind
W---- went away, humbly saying 'that such might have happened again if
heaven so willed it.' I could not but feel a kindness and admiration for
the good man. I know his works are made to square with his faith, that
he dines on a crust, lives as chaste as a hermit, and gives his all to
the poor.

"Our friend J. J., very different to myself in so many respects, so
superior in all, is immensely touched by these ceremonies. They seem to
answer to some spiritual want of his nature, and he comes away satisfied
as from a feast, where I have only found vacancy. Of course our first
pilgrimage was to St. Peter's. What a walk! Under what noble shadows
does one pass; how great and liberal the houses are, with generous
casements and courts, and great grey portals which giants might get
through and keep their turbans on. Why, the houses are twice as tall as
Lamb Court itself; and over them hangs a noble dinge, a venerable mouldy
splendour. Over the solemn portals are ancient mystic escutcheons--vast
shields of princes and cardinals, such as Ariosto's knights might take
down; and every figure about them is a picture by himself. At every
turn there is a temple: in every court a brawling fountain. Besides
the people of the streets and houses, and the army of priests black and
brown, there's a great silent population of marble. There are battered
gods tumbled out of Olympus and broken in the fall, and set up under
niches and over fountains; there are senators namelessly, noselessly,
noiselessly seated under archways, or lurking in courts and gardens. And
then, besides these defunct ones, of whom these old figures may be said
to be the corpses, there is the reigning family, a countless carved
hierarchy of angels, saints, confessors of the latter dynasty which has
conquered the court of Jove. I say, Pen, I wish Warrington would write
the history of the Last of the Pagans. Did you never have a sympathy for
them as the monks came rushing into their temples, kicking down their
poor altars, smashing the fair calm faces of their gods, and sending
their vestals a-flying? They are always preaching her