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• similar establishments at Rome , and almost every day is marked with some solemnity of more than pagan superstition . In St . Peter ' s , crowds of worshipers are seen every hour kissing
the foot , and rubbing their heads under the sole of the apostle . At another church , hundreds of penitents are seen crawling on their knees up the v £ ry steps by which our Lord ascended to the judgment hall . At a third , the identical cradle of our Saviour is
exhibited . At a fourth , a relic of the manger and remains of the very cross , large enough to fill an ordinary waggon , as if God had multiplied the fragments to animate the piety of the faithful . To me , I must own , it is very painful to see the understandings
of my fellow-creatures so perverted , and to find them exchanging the influence of a pure , genuine , inward religion , for the ostentatious , but unimproving homage of ritual observances 1 would mty 9 however , but
not condemn , and would feel the valued superiority of our own institutions , both in religion and politics , so enhanced by my experience , that 1 may be more patient , under seeming difficulties , and more grateful for real advantages *
The Easter ceremonies are now over , and wonderfully solemn and imposing they have been . To see high mass at St . Peter ' s , the noblest Cathedral in the world , to see the head of Catholic Europe , prostrate at the altar of his God , to see him humbling
himself to the dust , discarding all his greatness , beating on his breast , and saying , with the emphatic humility of the Publican , God be mercifkl to me a sinner , is indeed a more striking solemnity than my imagination could % ver have conceived . To see the same
father of the church , in the balcony of St « Peter ' s , bestowing his patriarchal look upon the thousands in the area below , to hear him invoking the blessing of heaven on the prostrate
multitudes beneath him , is indeed so awful and impressive in its effect , that it might soften the most obdurate , and blend the discordant principles of the hearers , in one common sentiment of
piety and love . * It has been my extraordinary good luck , too , to see the dome of St . Peter ' s illuminated ; which , till this
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year , has been only exhibited oil St , Peter ' s day in June . / Lait week but one we took a trip to Tivoli , the ancient Tibur : the scenery about it is absolutely beautiful ,
though on a very small | scale * The cascades are lovely—the ruins graceful—the evergreens singularly rich and beautiful , and the whole effect so engaging , that I had almost betrayed myself into the poet ' s wish of old : Tibur Argeo positutn col on o ,
Sit meac scdes utinam senecta ? , &c . IHor . L . ii . Od . vij till the ' though ^ of distant home and friends , renewed the recollection of a more substantial residence .
I spent rather more than a month at Naples . It is a very fine town and finely situated . Its neighbourhood abounds in classical interest , and solicits your attention on every side * Cumae * Baia 9 Misenns , the Lucrzne and Aveme JLakes , the Circaean
Promontory , Pastum , &c , are all easily accessible from it . It is , however , a villanous place ; there seems , indeed , throughout Italy , to be a sort of scale of roguery increasing as you go south * Thus at Turin you complain a little ^ but the natives transfer all the abuse to the Florentines , they in like manner to the
Romans , and they to the Neapolitans as the very Ne plv ^ ultra of rascality , and the very outcasts of society . Travelling , too , though dangerous in many parts of the Roman States , is worse in the Neapolitan , and we have frequently gone , attended for a day together , with some armed men on horseback at every stage .
St . Januarius , as the patron saint there , has in many cases superseded Christianity ; there is a statue of him near the bottom of Vesuvius , with one hand pointing to the smoke . On every alarm of an eruption , the inhabitants betake themselves to his protection ; but as the Saint seldom
interferes , except to support the honour of his own natal day , he not unfrequently has had his face pelted , and his back scourged by the irritated and impatient multitude . I climbed with a large party up to the very crater , and a very amusing and singular adventure it was .
Far , however , the most interesting excursion from Naples is to Pompeii , a town which lay 1700 yeara buried
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Letter from Rome * 379
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1818, page 373, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2477/page/29/
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