poked up by groups of men with long poles,
flared away on the ground, giving a barbaric
grandeur to the façade. Immovable in the
doorway stood the porter, bâton in hand, a
portly mass of lace, badges, and cocked-hat,
evidently convinced that the whole prosperity
and dignity of the Corsini line consisted in his
majestic deportment on so auspicious an
occasion. A little crowding, some swearing, and
great amount of butting from the carabineri,
who ride full tilt at man, horse, or carriage that
offends them, and we were within the colonnade
of St. Peter's, that noble colonnade now glittering
with light, whose outstretched arms seemed
to clasp in one embrace all the people assembled
there from every Christian nation of the world.
Never does St. Peter's look so beautiful as
when illuminated; the magnificent building,
with its encircling colonnades, its topmost
cupola, its population of saints, and prophets,
and angels, and apostles, crowding the roof, and
the cross surmounting all, hung amid the very
stars, all idealised, poetised, until it appears
like a bright glittering vision. It is not in the
power of words to convey any adequate notion
of St. Peter's that night; each pillar, each arch
in the mighty structure marked out by lines of
mellowed light below, above, around, not massed
in any one place, but gracefully following the
lines and undulations of the vast fabric. No
decoration in the world can be so chaste and
appropriate as this under the soft, harmonious colouring
of an Italian night. There is a solemn, sacred
repose, a holy calm and stillness, that affects the
mind with the most overwhelming emotions.

For a while we contemplated what is called
the silver illumination, when the lights are
veiled. Exactly one hour and a quarter after
the first hour of night a cannon was fired from
the fort of San Angelo. The harmonious bells
of St. Peter's tolled out in response, and in a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, streams of
ruddy light glanced up from below among the
colonnades, marking their elegant outlines, and
revealing interminable vistas of mysterious
gloom amid a thousand glittering columns.
What had been pale subdued light, now blazed
out in gorgeous flames ot living fire, the great
Basilica was enveloped in streams of quivering
brightness, its gigantic front, white as alabaster,
standing out with a strange, unnatural clearness
in the glare of the garish illumination.
Great vases of burning pitch, as if by enchantment,
appeared suddenly to burst out between
every column in the vast colonnade, every statue
burned with a living light, that rose up and
flared, as the wind caught the forked flames,
like an universal conflagration; the cupola,
specially, beautifully relieved by the dark sky
behind, was a blaze of the most dazzling splendour,
while above, surmounting all, the radiant
cross shone with indescribable brilliancy, a brand
as it were snatched from heaven. It was
beautiful to see the fountains gushing forth in the
general glare, to see the thousand lamps
reflected in the pure waters that broke forth in
liquid pillars to fall back an abundant foamy
mass of molten silver, cooling the air, and sending
out clouds of delicious spray. The bells of
the church broke forth in merry chimes, deep-
toned and musical, a military band struck up in
the piazza, and the cannons from San Angelo
boomed distinctly above all the other sounds.
The carriages now separate from the masses
into which the carabineri had formed them, and
we drove round and round the immense piazza
fully to enjoy and survey the scene.

Next morning, St. Peter's Day, we rose
very early, to attend high mass at St. Peter's
church, the ceremonies being precisely similar
to those which take place at Easter, with this
notable difference, that Romans, not English
and Americans, form the congregation. Every
one flocked to the all-embracing arms of that
great piazza, and we soon fell into a long line
of carriages slowly advancing towards the
Basilica. Again we crossed the muddy Tiber, its
volume much lessened by the summer heat.
The houses and palaces bordering the river,
always of a peculiarly mellow warm colouring,
now looked baked with the fierce heat. Clouds
of fine small dust rose in the light summer
breeze. Altogether, it was a great relief to be
again engulfed in the narrow shady streets of
the Trasteveri, after crossing this burning zone
of sun. Every passage and cranny leading to
St. Peter's was choked and overflowing with an
ever-increasing multitude. They came in boats,
they came in grand equipages, in humble
barroccios, on foot,—on they came to worship at
that magnificent shrine. I could not form one
in this national procession towards Rome's great
Basilica, without recalling the famous names of
royal and saintly pilgrims that have consecrated
the well-worn path along which we passed: the
warlike Emperor Constantine, after the golden
cross was revealed to him on the hill of Monte
Mario; the great Theodosius, his successor, who
came to beg a blessing at this shrine; and the
brave Belisarius, who offered up his laurels
there. That world-ravager, ferocious Totila,
came also in a subdued and contrite spirit, and
even Alaric, the so-called "Scourge of God,"
after laying waste the surrounding city, with
noble inconsistency spared this glorious Basilica.
Many, too, came from our own country. The
Saxon Cedwella, and Offa, and Concred, kings
all of the Heptarchy, and our own royal Alfred
in his young days, taking, as it were, "the
grand tour." Othos and Henrys from Germany
flocked here from royal palace and burgh; and
St. Cunigunda, the mediæval saint-queen, whose
romantic story lends such a charm to many a
native ode. Emperors also from the East, and
kings from the far western shores of Scotland,
also the great northern Cæsar, Charlemagne,
the type of Christian chivalry, four times visited
St. Peter's, on the last occasion making such
concessions to the Papal See, that the grateful
Pope, Leo the Third, granted to him the style
and title of " Most Pious, August, Pacific, and
Victorious Emperor of the Romans"—designations
somewhat anomalous and inconsistent,
which might, however, be, perchance, willingy