invention which could alone have created them. They are now much faded from exposure to the weather, but you can readily believe that "they who saw the Loggie, after they were finished, when the lustre of the gilding, the snowy whiteness of the stuccoes, the brilliancy of the colors, and the freshness of the marble, made them resplendent with beauty on every side, must have been struck with amazement as at a vision of Paradise."

Your pleasant task is now over; you have gone through all the galleries of the Vatican, and, after descending two flights of stairs, and crossing a court, you will find yourself again at the end of the grand colonnade. If you have attempted even to glance at everything in one visit, you will feel perfectly stupified and bewildered, such is the immensity of things to be admired, and you will find that all the statues, pictures, and antiquities which I have mentioned in this long letter, are only a few stars amid the countless firmament of the Vatican.

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VII.

CHRISTMAS AT ROME.

IN every country of Christendom, and by every sect, the festival of Christmas is commemorated with more or less pomp and ceremony, but the Romans above all others make its observance their especial pride and pleasure, and they celebrate it in their churches with all the majestic processions, rich vestments, and stately ceremonies, which they have inherited from the ancient Romans, through the medium of the early Christian church, and which are so well adapted to impress the multitude with veneration for the holy mysteries which they are intended to emblem.

For a month before Christmas the theatres are rigidly closed, and the streets are promenaded by wandering pipers, or Pifferarii, who come from the mountains of Calabria, and represent the shepherds "who watched. their flocks by night," before the birth of Christ. They are very picturesque, bandit-looking characters, with their high, sugar-loaf hats decorated with feathers and fluttering ribbons, their shaggy sheepskin coats, their legs wound

around with strips of gay-colored cloth, their long hair, and their tremendous beards. They would create a great sensation in Broadway, particularly with their bagpipes, which are made of the entire skin of a goat, with the legs tied up, and which they press under their arms to produce their excruciating music. Two or three boys, in the same dress, accompany the bagpiper on shrill fifes, and play a lively tune, which is always the same, before the images of the Madonna hung up on the corners of many streets. One of them being just opposite to my window, my ears were tortured by a nearly constant succession of the Pifferarii piping before it, for which every good Christian who passed, gave them a trifle. At noon they take their nap on the platforms of the steps above the Piazza d'Espagna, and amuse their leisure with catching and killing the active little population of their persons.

On Christmas Eve, the Cafés were rigidly shut at "Three hours of the night" (or eight o'clock" French," as our way of counting is termed), and the strangers, who usually passed their evenings there, were driven to devotion to escape ennui. The ceremonies were to begin at ten, P. M., with high Mass before the Pope, in the Sistine Chapel, in the Vatican palace, and I accordingly proceeded thither with some English friends. ascended the great staircase already described, and found it brilliantly illuminated, and the doors of the chapel guarded by the Swiss soldiers of the Pope, in their striking

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costume, designed by Michael Angelo, and composed of red, yellow, and black stripes, with a broad plaited ruff about the neck, and a drooping red feather in the side of the hat. To enter the chapel, or any place where the Pope is present, you must be in full dress, as before a temporal prince, and the ladies must wear, instead of hats, black veils on their heads. Several gentlemen were turned back in consequence of wearing frock-coats. Having entered without difficulty, we found the Sistine Chapel a lofty oblong apartment, divided by a grating, behind which the ladies were kept, and allowed to see the Pope only through the lattice-work. Beyond the grating were seats for strangers; at the farther end were the high altar and throne of the Pope, and between them the places of the cardinals. The wall behind the altar is covered by the great fresco of "The last judgment," by Michael Angelo, who also painted the roof of the chapel. It is seen only dimly, and is injured by the damps, smoke and incense of two and a half centuries, but it still impresses the spectator with the wonderful power of the genius of its painter. In the upper part of the picture, Christ sits as the stern Judge of the world, with the Virgin Mary on his right hand, the saints and patriarchs on one side, and the host of martyrs on the other. Below him, on the left, the Damned are falling headlong into the clutches of the demons, and on the right, the Blessed, assisted by angels, are rising to heaven. The picture displays, in the highest degree, the extraordinary skill

and strength of the painter, but, at the same time, his exaggeration and extravagance, so that every one admires it, but none likes it.

We could study its details at our leisure while the Cardinals entered at intervals. Each was preceded by a gentleman usher, who was accoutred in small clothes, with a glittering, steel-hilted sword by his side, and a black silk cloak thrown over his back. The Cardinals wore a scarlet silk robe, with a hood lined with white ermine, and a very long train, which was carried by a valet dressed in a violet-colored gown. One after another entered, and bowed to those already assembled, who rose from their embroidered cushions, and gravely greeted the new comers. The valets then twisted up their trains and sat down at their feet, holding their square hats, while the Cardinals retained a small red scullcap on their heads to cover the tonsure. Two only

were not in scarlet; one wearing white, and the other ash color, in token of their being at the head of some religious brotherhood. There are seventy cardinals, most of whom were present, and displayed a venerable array of grave, intellectual heads, framed, as it were, in their gorgeous vestments. One among them, however, looked to be not more than thirty years old, and joined in the ceremonies with a sort of contemptuous indifference, which seemed to presage, that some reforms might be expected if he ever attained the Pontifical chair. When the cardinals had all assembled, the "Offices" were read