University of Virginia Library

60. LETTER LX.

I have been presented to the pope this morning, in
company with several Americans—Mr. and Mrs. Gray,
of Boston, Mr. Atherton and daughters, and Mr.
Walsh, of Philadelphia, and Mr. Mayer of Baltimore.
With the latter gentleman, I arrived rather late, and
found that the rest of the party had been already received,
and that his holiness was giving audience, at
the moment, to some Russian ladies of rank. Bishop
England, of Charleston, however, was good enough to
send in once more, and, in the course of a few minutes,
the chamberlain in waiting announced to us that
Il Padre Santo would receive us. The ante-room
was a picturesque and rather peculiar scene. Clusters
of priests, of different rank, were scattered about
in the corners, dressed in a variety of splendid costumes,
white, crimson, and ermine, one or two monks,
with their picturesque beards and flowing dresses of
gray or brown, were standing near one of the doors,
in their habitually humble attitudes, two gentleman
mace-bearers guarded the door of the entrance to the
pope's presence, their silver batons under their arms,
and their open-breasted cassocks covered with fine
lace; the deep bend of the window was occupied by
the American party of ladies, in the required black
veils, and around the outer door stood the helmeted
guard, a dozen stout men-at-arms, forming a forcible
contrast to the mild faces and priestly company within.

The mace-bearers lifted the curtain, and the pope
stood before us, in a small plain room. The Irish
priest who accompanied us prostrated himself on the
floor, and kissed the embroidered slipper, and Bishop
England hastily knelt and kissed his hand, turning to
present us as he rose. His holiness smiled, and stepped
forward, with a gesture of his hand, as if to prevent
our kneeling, and, as the bishop mentioned our
names, he looked at us and nodded smilingly, but
without speaking to us. Whether he presumed we
did not speak the language, or whether he thought us
too young to answer for ourselves, he confined his inquiries
about us entirely to the good bishop, leaving
me, as I had wished, at leisure to study his features
and manner. It was easy to conceive that the father
of the catholic church stood before me, but I
could scarcely realize that it was a sovereign of Europe,
and the temporal monarch of millions. He was
dressed in a long vesture of snow-white flannel, buttoned
together in front, with a large crimson velvet cape over
his shoulders, and band and tassels of silver cloth
hanging from beneath. A small white scull-cap covered
the crown of his head, and his hair, slightly grizzled,
fell straight toward a low forehead, expressive of
good-nature merely. A large emerald on his fingers,
and slippers wrought in gold, with a cross on the instep,
completed his dress. His face is heavily moulded,
but unmarked, and expressive mainly of sloth and
kindness; his nose is uncommonly large, rather
pendent than prominent, and an incipient double chin,
slightly hanging cheeks, and eyes, over which the lids
drop, as if in sleep, at the end of every sentence, confirm
the general impression of his presence—that of
an indolent and good old man. His inquiries were
principally of the catholic church in Baltimore (mentioned
by the bishop as the city of Mr. Mayer's residence),
of its processions, its degree of state, and
whether it was recognised by the government. At the
first pause in the conversation, his holiness smiled and
bowed, the Irish priest prostrated himself again, and
kissed his foot, and, with a blessing from the father of
the church, we retired.

On the evening of holy Thursday, as I was on my
way to St. Peter's, to hear the miserere once more, I
overtook the procession of the pilgrims going up to
vespers. The men went first in couples, following a
cross, and escorted by gentlemen penitents covered
conveniently with sackcloth, their eyes, peeping
through two holes, and their well-polished boots beneath,
being the only indications by which their penance
could be betrayed to the world. The pilgrims
themselves, perhaps a hundred in all, were the dirtiest
collection of beggars imaginable, distinguished from
the lazars in the street, only by a long staff with a faded
bunch of flowers attached to it, and an oil-cloth
cape stitched over with scallop shells. Behind came
the female pilgrims, and these were led by the first ladies
of rank in Rome. It was really curious to see
the mixture of humility and pride. There were, perhaps,
fifty ladies of all ages, from sixteen to fifty,
walking each between two filthy old women, who supported
themselves by her arms, while near them, on
either side of the procession, followed their splendid
equipages, with numerous servants, in livery, on foot,
as if to contradict to the world their temporary degradation.
The lady penitents, unlike the gentlemen,
walked in their ordinary dress. I had several acquaintances
among them; and it was inconceivable, to me,
how the gay, thoughtless, fashionable creatures I had
met in the most luxurious drawing-rooms of Rome,
could be prevailed upon to become a part in such a ridiculous
parade of humility. The chief penitent,
who carried a large, heavy crucifix at the head of the
procession, was the Princess —, at whose weekly
soirees and balls assemble all that is gay and pleasure-loving
in Rome. Her two nieces, elegant girls of
eighteen or twenty, walked at her side, carrying lighted
candles, of four or five feet in length, in broad day-light,
through the streets!

The procession crept slowly up to the church, and
I left them kneeling at the tomb of St. Peter, and
went to the side chapel, to listen to the miserere. The
choir here is said to be inferior to that in the Sistine
chapel, but the circumstances more than make up for
the difference, which, after all, it takes a nice ear to
detect. I could not but congratulate myself, as I sat
down upon the base of a pillar, in the vast aisle, without
the chapel where the choir were chanting, with
the twilight gathering in the lofty arches, and the
candles of the various processions creeping to the consecrated
sepulchre from the distant parts of the church.
It was so different in that crowded and suffocating
chapel of the Vatican, where, fine as was the music, I
vowed positively never to subject myself to such annoyance
again.

It had become almost dark, when the last candle
but one was extinguished in the symbolical pyramid,
and the first almost painful note of the miserere wailed
out into the vast church of St. Peter. For the next
half hour, the kneeling listeners, around the door of
the chapel, seemed spell-bound in their motionless attitudes.
The darkness thickened, the hundred lamps
at the far-off sepulchre of the saint, looked like a galaxy
of twinkling points of fire, almost lost in the distance,
and from the now perfectly obscured choir,
poured, in ever-varying volume, the dirge-like music,
in notes inconceivably plaintive and affecting. The
power, the mingled mournfulness and sweetness, the
impassioned fulness, at one moment, and the lost,
shrieking wildness of one solitary voice, at another,
carry away the soul like a whirlwind. I have never
been so moved by anything. It is not in the scope of
language to convey an idea to another of the effect of
the miserere.

It was not till several minutes after the music had
ceased, that the dark figures rose up from the floor
about me. As we approached the door of the church,
the full moon, about three hours risen, poured broadly

under the arches of the portico, inundating the whole
front of the lofty dome with a flood of light, such as
falls only on Italy. There seemed to be no atmosphere
between. Daylight is scarce more intense.
The immense square, with its slender obelisk and embracing
crescents of colonnade, lay spread out as definitely
to the eye as at noon, and the two famous fountains
shot up their clear waters to the sky, the moonlight
streaming through the spray, and every drop as
visible and bright as a diamond.

I got out of the press of carriages, and took a by-street
along the Tiber, to the Coliseum. Passing the
Jews' quarter, which shuts at dark by heavy gates,
I found myself near the Tarpeian rock, and entered
the Forum, behind the ruins of the temple of Fortune.
I walked toward the palace of the Cesars,
stopping to gaze on the columns, whose shadows have
fallen on the same spot, where I now saw them for sixteen
or seventeen centuries. It checks the blood at
one's heart, to stand on the spot and remember it. There
was not the sound of a footstep through the whole
wilderness of the Forum. I traversed it to the arch
of Titus in a silence, which, with the majestic ruins
around, seemed almost supernatural—the mind was
left so absolutely to the powerful associations of the
place.

Ten minutes more brought me to the Coliseum.
Its gigantic walls, arches on arches, almost to the very
clouds, lay half in shadow, half in light, the ivy hung
trembling in the night air, from between the cracks of
the ruin, and it looked like some mighty wreck in
a desert. I entered, and a hundred voices announced
to me the presence of half the fashion of Rome. I
had forgotten that it was the mode “to go to the Coliseum
by moonlight.” Here they were dancing and
laughing about the arena where thousands of Christians
had been torn by wild beasts, for the amusement
of the emperors of Rome; where gladiators had fought
and died; where the sands beneath their feet were
more eloquent of blood than any other spot on the
face of the earth—and one sweet voice proposed a
dance, and another wished she could have music and
supper, and the solemn old arches re-echoed with
shouts and laughter. The travestie of the thing was
amusing. I mingled in the crowd, and found acquaintances
of every nation, and an hour I had devoted
to romantic solitude and thought passed away perhaps
quite as agreeably, in the nonsense of the most
thoughtless triflers in society.