and, as I stand, a perfect mite at the very hem
of her garment, I fancifully fashion the curved
piazzas into long winding arms, tapering
gracefully, and rounded encouragingly, as if to gather
up all her children into her bosom. I look down
and see them come, the famous Populus and
Plebs, blackening the circular space into a huge
plate of poisoned flies. They come—the more
respectable Populus that is—in their coaches,
hired, it may be, atfabulous rates, and in ancestral
chariots. From the iron clatter over the stones,
we might as well be in a gigantic mill with
legions of wheels flying round; so many Tom
Thumb carriages converging noisily to set down
their burden at the steps. Here are the flamina:
high priests or cardinals, lumbering up in their
great scarlet wains, with the blue-cloaked mutes
hanging on behind. And here is a string
processional of yellow and red coaches, with genuine
beef-eaters (at least, as regards the caps affected
by those officials) hanging on behind, and
S.P.Q.R. reposing luxuriously inside. The
senate is privileged to exhibit those mysteriously
classic hieroglyphics on shields, over their doors,
on their panels, on every available space that
can be forced into a showboard. The flood set
down, overflows the edges of the plate, comes
buzzing up the steps, and is absorbed into a
monster hive, as it were. I bow my head, pass
reverently into the cathedral under the heavy
flapping mat, and become a fly temporarily with
the rest.

The well-known pantomimic process which
transports the enraptured beholder from the
cave of the designing gnomes, incalculable
feet below the surface of the earth, to the
dazzling realms of effulgence, is here reversed;
and being drifted in helplessly on the surface
of a shuffling and contentious crowd, I become
of a sudden a fly, a mite, a midge! Marvellous
pantomimic change of the old pattern, at which
little ones in the front row of the boxes have
shrieked frantically and clapped their tiny hands.
From the realms of dazzling effulgence to the
underground palace of the gnomes, from fierce
glare and overpowering sunlight, to a wilderness
of grateful shade, and the giant's icehouse!
The floor is darkened with a perfect plague of
human flies, shifting, eddying, rolling east and
west, and crossing each other in great black
streams. There is a buzz and drone abroad, as
though a monster sea-shell were being held at
the ear. With face upturned to the
unsubstantial arching hanging airily above, with a
strange mistiness which seems to swallow up all
details, and resolve the whole into pure
atmospheric effect, and not without an irresistible
longing to sacrifice all selfish thought of place
and seat, and fall there and then into the authorised
raptures over the warm bluish grey toning
of the whole, in which sink and are drowned all
lesser tints, pink and yellow incrustations, we
move onwards steadily and slowly, being drifted
on, as it were, over the harmony, the surpassing
lightness of that vast Maëlstrom of a dome
which seems to draw you upwards into its deep
air vortex, and makes you dizzy with looking
up into it. I have not time to suffer
the regulation disappointment, as laid down
by the Reverend Mr. Eustace and the classical
explorers who have since walked in his dismal
steps, nor to exhibit the pleased regulation
surprise at the little chubby fellows supporting
the holy water between them, turning out on
measurement to be very monstrous infants, and
over six feet high; but I have time to enter
indignant protest against the strips of theatrical
red damask, set off with tinsel and gewgaws,
which some tasteless hands have let run down
every pillar—a well-meaning effort to signify
special adornment and extra festivity. With
what discord do those coarse flaunting bands jar
upon the mellow tones and delicately blended tints
which the eye takes in as it looks down the long
sweep of nave!  O Dean and Canons of that
unique cathedral! occupants of stalls ad limina
apostolorum! should you not have Chevreul's
colour-Testament beside those heavy-clasped
breviaries that lie upon your desks, and read
with your other Hours, an art-office out of
Ruskin and Owen Jones? Anathema (artistically
speaking) be upon ye, for this adapting of
confectionary laws and bonbon tinsel to an
immortal marble Epic!

So, with the plague of insects still swarming
over the pavement, hiding out altogether that
startling mosaic tiara, fitted only for a Brobdingnagian
head, and the mammoth cross-keys, saltier-wise
underneath, and the great sea-shell murmuring
yet louder, we drift on—drift up to the great
bronze canopy, whose four huge pillars bend and
wind like snakes, and by which more reasonable
standard the flies magnify into men and women,
into white ties, and brilliant waistcoats and
dress-coats, and attire generally suggestive of
evening parties. A compact floating mass,
shifting its place constantly, faces straining and
looking out eagerly into some indistinct mystery
beyond the serpent pillars. Heads and faces
laid closer and thicker as it gets nearer to the
mystery. Row of horsehair plumes beyond,
tossing above the heads, dimly suggestive of
something guarded and kept clear.

And now, out of the strange cosmopolitan,
miscellany, out of the mass of dandies arm-in-
arm and ready for a ball—fair young Britons,
strongly built and contemptuous, snake-eyed
French, sallow Americans lanky and coal-
bearded, short black priests, tanned monks,
French soldiers, all passing and being shuffled
together like a pack of cards—rise two amphi-
theatres, right and left, where are some thousand
dark-eyed Spanish señoras, mantillas, and veils,
and high combs, and glistening gold pins, and
rustling fans, and accroche-cœurs, and everything
complete—altogether the most effective bit of
masquerade we can conceive. Surely, to see
these ranks of dark donne in eternal motion,
stooping across, whispering, rustling, fluttering,
scintillating, working their fans fiercely, and
telegraphing to remote friend in dress-coat, with
whom they durst not otherwise commune,
and kept in cruel tyrannical bondage, by a
grim jealous Swiss leaning on his pike at the