vanished into air. Fountains and jets of fire threw up their blazing cascades into the skies. The whole vault of heaven shone with the vivid fires, and seemed to receive into itself innumerable stars and suns, which, shooting up into it in brightness almost insufferable, vanished-like earth-born hopes.

The reflection in the depth of the calm clear waters of the Tiber was scarcely less beautiful than the spectacle itself; and the whole ended in a tremendous burst of fire, that, while it lasted, almost seemed to threaten conflagration to the world.

But this great agent of destruction was here wholly innocuous. Man, who walks the earth, ruling not only the whole order of beings, but the very elements themselves, had turned that seemingly uncontroulable power, which might annihilate the very globe itself, into a play-thing for his amusement, and compelled it to assume every whimsical and fantastic form that his fancy dictated. It alone, of all things in existence,-reversing the order of nature,―rises from earth towards the skies; yet even this he has bowed to his will. Wonderful as these fire-works were, and let not that name lead you to imagine they bore any resemblance to those puny exhibitions of squibs and crackers which we denominate fire-works in England, for nothing could be more different,-wonderful as they were, the illumination of St Peter's far surpassed them. It is a spectacle which, unlike other sights that are seen and forgotten, leaves a strong and indelible impression upon the mind.

The expence of the illumination of St Peter's, and of the girandola, when repeated two successive evenings, as they invariably are at the festival of St Peter, is 1000 crowns; when only exhibited one night, they cost 700. Eighty men were employed in the instantaneous illuminations of the lamps, which to us seemed the work of enchantment. They were so posted as to be unseen.

I have now been in Rome during a second Holy Week, and have enjoyed the immunity I dearly earned last year from all its shows and fatigues.

The three Miserere in the Sistine Chapel-the exhibition of the cross of fire in St Peter's, and the Pope's benediction, from the balcony of the church, are all that I have attended, and all that I should attend, if I were to live fifty years in Rome. The procession into St Peter's, and the high mass on Easter Sunday, or on Christmas day—for they are exactly the same-are, however, very well worth seeing once, but once will suffice.

Excepting this, none of the ceremonies at Christmas in the Church of Rome are worth seeing at all, and indeed there are very few to see. On Christmas Eve, a mass is said in the Sistine Chapel, if the Pope be at the Vatican Palace,—or at the Quirinal Chapel, if he be at the Quirinal Palace, which lasts till midnight. But there are no ceremonies whatever to see no music whatever to hear; the Pope himself never attends it, and the Cardinals who do, like the rest of the congregation, are more than half asleep.

Yet most strangers go to it, and all repent of so

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doing. From thence they generally proceed to some church where there is music, which is rarely worth hearing; and at four in the morning they adjourn to Santa Maria Maggiore, where the grand vigil of Christmas Eve is held; and after sitting out a most wearisome mass, they are at last rewarded with the sight of the new-born Christ, carried about dressed in magnificent swadling-clothes, for the devotion and delight of the people.

I once went through this ceremony, and never repented any other act of folly so much; indeed, it is wholly without an object, for the same doll, which represents the infant Saviour of the world, may be seen at any hour you please, either before or after its birth, and I cannot understand the advantage of looking at it just when one should be in bed.

This vigil of Christmas Eve was formerly really held on the eve; it began before midnight, and lasted till three or four in the morning; but such scenes of indecorous gaiety and intrigue went on on this occasion in the church itself, that the hours were altered.

LETTER LXXVIII.

CONVENTS TAKING THE VEIL.

THE re-institution of the Inquisition, of the Jesuits, and of Monastic orders in the nineteenth century, is a retrograde step in the progress of society.

The French suppressed all convents of men, without exception. They seized upon their revenues, took possession of their ancient habitations, invested as many of their tonsured heads with the military cap and feather as could be made to submit to it, and shipped off those who refused to renounce their vows, to imprisonment in Corsica or Sardinia. That the poor and the old, who had passed their lives within the peaceful cloister, and given to their convent the little stipend that was to secure support to their latter years, must have suffered severely when thus deprived of all, there can be no doubt. But these excepted, I own that for the whole race of monks and friars," Black, White, and Gray, with all their trumpery," I feel little compassion. In the same

summary manner, all the nunneries in Rome, excepting two, were suppressed, and however wise might have been their gradual abolition, the propriety of turning out at once so many secluded, and, in many cases, destitute and harmless females, may be doubted. Of the consequences of this step, judging of them, as I must do from hearsay only, I will not venture to speak. But since they had been suppressed, and all those evil consequences once incurred, I cannot but lament that they should have been again restored, at least in such numbers; and, above all, that convents of men, which I look upon to be nests of vice, hypocrisy, ignorance, and abomination, and which, for the most part, are filled with young sturdy beggars, should have been re-established at all. The exact number of convents, and still more of their inmates, it is difficult to ascertain; but all allow that the friars considerably out-number the nuns. With the assistance of one or two Abati, I counted upwards of fifty convents for men, and five-and-thirty for women, in Rome and the immediate vicinity, and probably we left many unreckoned.

I have visited many of the nunneries, and one or two of the convents in Rome; for uno Convento, always means here a monastic community of men, and a Monasterio, of women; but as the interior of one much resembles another, and as there is nothing particularly interesting about any of them, I shall only give you a short account of my visit to that of S. Sylvestro in Capite, originally founded for the noble sisters of the house of Colonna, who