the poor hardly one in twenty took
off his hat, and a still smaller number knelt down. A few years ago,
not a head was covered, nor was there a knee which did not bow."--A very
decadent "Holiness of our Lord the Pope," it would appear!--

Sterling's view of the Pope, as seen in these his gala days, doing his
big play-actorism under God's earnest sky, was much more substantial
to me than his studies in the picture-galleries. To Mr. Hare also he
writes: "I have seen the Pope in all his pomp at St. Peter's; and he
looked to me a mere lie in livery. The Romish Controversy is doubtless a
much more difficult one than the managers of the Religious-Tract Society
fancy, because it is a theoretical dispute; and in dealing with notions
and authorities, I can quite understand how a mere student in a library,
with no eye for facts, should take either one side or other. But how any
man with clear head and honest heart, and capable of seeing realities,
and distinguishing them from scenic falsehoods, should, after living in
a Romanist country, and especially at Rome, be inclined to side with Leo
against Luther, I cannot understand." [20]

It is fit surely to recognize with admiring joy any glimpse of the
Beautiful and the Eternal that is hung out for us, in color, in form or
tone, in canvas, stone, or atmospheric air, and made accessible by any
sense, in this world: but it is greatly fitter still (little as we are
used that way) to shudder in pity and abhorrence over the scandalous
tragedy, transcendent nadir of human ugliness and contemptibility, which
under the daring title of religious worship, and practical recognition
of the Highest God, daily and hourly everywhere transacts itself there.
And, alas, not there only, but elsewhere, everywhere more or less;
whereby our sense is so blunted to it;--whence, in all provinces of
human life, these tears!--

But let us take a glance at the Carnival, since we are here. The
Letters, as before, are addressed to Knightsbridge; the date _Rome_:--

"_February 5th_, 1839.--The Carnival began yesterday. It is a curious
example of the trifling things which will heartily amuse tens of
thousands of grown people, precisely because they are trifling, and
therefore a relief from serious business, cares and labors. The Corso
is a street about a mile long, and about as broad as Jermyn Street; but
bordered by much loftier houses, with many palaces and churches, and
has two or three small squares opening