ceremony of exhibiting this wonderful handkerchief to the people. The cathedral at Milan, whose noble architecture really merits the admiration of the world, also shuts up one of these precious deposits, a real nail of the cross. is enclosed with vast splendour in a vase in this church, and they make an annual procession, at which it is exhibited to the people, and upon which occasion the archbishop and clergy attend, and high mass is performed. St. Charles Borromeo, a distinguished saint, who deposited this sacred nail, and who instituted this solemn festival and procession, has contrived to multiply this relick by numerous copies in wood, and painting, and the devout Catholicks bring their chaplets and other sacred things, that they may acquire a new value by being shaken in the same box with the holy nail.

Our Lady of Loretto, and the Casa Santa, are not wholly unknown to you. These sacred relicks and the church which inclosed them, once the objects of the devotion of princes, and to which they frequently made pilgrimages, were endowed with a magnificence worthy of these wealthy bigots. They were plundered by the French during the revolution, but Bonaparte, since his conversion from Mahometanism to Catholicism, having restored the image of the Virgin, these relicks are again the objects of superstitious veneration. The history ..of this Casa Santa, as related by these credulous votaries, is indeed ridiculous, and if I had not been an eye-witness of the splendour with which it is surrounded, and of the awe aud holy veneration in which it is still held, I should have withheld my belief of the existence of such blind credulity. The Casa

Santa, or holy house, is the building in which it is pretended, that the Virgin Mary was born, and in which she received the Annunciation.

After the death of our Saviour and of the Virgin, it was taken up by angels, and transported to Dalmatia, but not satisfied with the reception they met with there, they removed it to Italy, where after two or three other changes of situation, it was finally fixed on the top of a hill almost inaccessible, in the village of Loretto. When or at what period of the Christian era, it first became the object of religious respect, seems to be unsettled, but it is certain that in process of time, popes and literary men all affected to credit the legend, and vast sums have accordingly been expended by the holy see in rendering Loretto a superb place, calculated to excite the awe of the superstitious vulgar.

The holy house has been surrounded modernly by a rich case, or coat of the marble of Carrara, the finest in Italy. The style of architecture of this case is Corinthian, and of course elegant; the statues and bas reliefs which surround it are superb. The monks who shew it to you pretend, that originally the marble case was built close to the sacred house, but that, as if conscious of its own baseness, it has started off, and it certainly stands now at a very respectful distance.

The house itself is not more than 30 feet long, 20 feet wide, and as many in height; the whole is placed in a most magnificent church, in which all the pomp of papacy has been displayed. The inside of the holy house is perfectly naked and exposed to the eye, so that you can discover its original construction; it is built of

small stones laid in the form, and about the size of large bricks. My guide gravely assured me, that the building had no foundation, and to convince me of it, he took out of the wall one of the loose stones, which proved, as he thought, that the cdifice was supported wholly by supernatural power. The image of the Virgin, which the French have lately restored, without the treasure which was plundered with it, is said to have been the workmanship of St. Luke, whom these honest zealots declare was both a painter and sculptor. I confess I do not think this statue any proof of his high attainments in sculpture. It is made, they tell you, of the cedar of Lebanon; but whether from its extreme age, or from the natural colour of the wood, I cannot say, but it has now acquired the hue of ebony. We were carried into the Sancta Sanctorum of this building, and were shewn the very fire-place at which the virgin used to sit. I assure you, these things are told with a zeal and unaffected simplicity which leave no doubts of the sincerity of the relators. It was with difficulty we could pass along the streets of Loretto, so teazed and interrupted were we by the seliers of chaplets and rosaries, which, having been carried into the holy house are thought to have acquired peculiar value. In Loretto, as in all the zealous Roman catholick towns, you are waylaid by hosts of beggars, who subsist wholly by mendicity; and I have uniformly remarked, that superstition and misery are twin-sisters who are never separated.

I had a very good opportunity in this place to prove, what I had always before suspected, the propensity of Dr. Moore to sacrifice truth to a good saying or a witty

thought; and you may rely upon it, that his travels, though extremely witty and entertaining,are little better than a pleasant romance. I would not be thought to undervalue the merit of this excellent work, which will always be admired, and ought to be considered as a model of fine epistolary writing, but its excellence does not consist in the truth of its narration, nor in the correctness of its descriptions. Dr. Moore, upon ob serving in the church which encloses the Casa Santa, a beautiful bas relief of the Death of Abel, rcmarks, that, "Poor Abel has been always unfortunate-had he been placed by the artist a foot higher or lower, he would have been safe, but coming opposite to the mouths of the Pilgrims while kneeling, the poor fellow has been kissed almost out of existence, while Cain stands frowning and fierce as ever." If this was intended as a mere sally of the imagination, I confess I cannot see much wit in it; but if it was designed to convey to the mind of the reader the impression of a fact, I must say that it is wholly without foundation. I viewed this bas relief, in all its beauty, thirty years after Dr. Moore made the remark, and there was no apparent difference in the two brothersAbel was full as perfect as Cain, and they were both wholly usimpaired. You know enough of bronzes reliefs, to be convinced, that this could not have been repaired, and of course you will join me in the opinion, that, in this instance, at least, Moore preferred a reputation for wit, to one for veracity.

Since our arrival at Rome, we have made the tour of the city, and have visited several of the modern churches; and we will, if you please, pursue the history of cre

dulity at this time, that we may not be obliged to debase our future and more noble pursuits, by blending with them these pictures of human weakness.

At Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the most magnificent churches in Rome, they shew you a chapel under ground, over the entrance to which a lamp is perpetually burning, and in which they preserve what they affirm is the real cradle in which our Saviour was laid while an infant; and in the same church are preserved likewise some of the hay upon which he was first placed, and the swaddling clothes with which he was wrapped at his birth. When we recollect the persecution and poverty of Joseph and Mary, their flight into Egypt, to avoid the vengeance of Herod, and the itinerant life which our Saviour was obliged to lead, the improbability of their being able to preserve these relicks, even during his life, and the total unimportance of them if preserved, one would suppose, would be sufficient to convince even the most ignorant and illiterate of the absurdity of such tales; but when we add further, the state of the early church, fugitive and persecuted, free from every sort of superstition, and that it is not pretended that these relicks were procured till after the capture of Jerusalem by the christians, it is almost impossible to believe even the evidence of one's senses, that a church, administered by enlightened men, professing the most undissembled piety, could, in an age like the present, continue to countenance, and even encourage, such opinions.

At the church of Santa Croce di Gerusalemme, or the Holy Cross of Jerusalem, they exhibit a piece of the real cross of our Saviour,

which is shewn with great pomp to the mob, in an annual procession, at which all the dignitaries of the church assist. At the entrance of the church of the Scala Santa, or Holy Stair-Case, they have erected a magnificent flight of marble steps, which they pretend were taken from the house of Pontius Pilate, and were the same which our Saviour ascended when he went to have his hearing before that officer. They allege, that he fell three times in ascending these steps, and the spots where he faultered are marked with brass nails.

These steps, about twenty in number, the devotees are obliged to ascend on their knees; and so great, has been the concourse of the faithful, that they had seriously. impaired the marble, and indeed threatened the destruction of this precious remnant, if the Popes har not prudently ordered them to be covered with oak planks, which, in their turn, are nearly demolished by this holy fervour. two of these devout believers ascending Pilate's Stair-Case in this painful, but no doubt from the good effects they expected to derive from it, to them pleasurable way.

We saw

I cannot say, that white marble is not as plenty in Palestine as in Italy, but if not, it must have been a very expensive article to Pilate, for these steps were fifteen feet long, of a single block, and the transportation must therefore have been very troublesome. I could not help remarking, that this marble very much resembled that of Italy, and I believe is peculiar to that country. You are shewn also in this church a picture of our Saviour by St. Luke, which I think must be the oldest in christendom ; and a bronze door, which was taken down from the palace of Pon

tius Pilate in Jerusalem. By the way, can you inform me, what were the particular merits of Pilate, which should render even the threshold of his door the object of religious veneration?

At St. John in the Lateran, which, an inscription informs you, is the oldest church in Christendom, having been built by Constantine, the first Christian emperor, you will expect to find an extraordinary collection of sacred things, and your expectations will not be disappointed. It has the honour to possess the real head of St. Peter. It boasts of having the pillars of the portico of the palace of Pilate. It undoubtedly has the happiness to inclose within its walls the real Samaritan well, mentioned in John iv. 6, 7, or rather the curb of that well, as they could not very conveniently transport the well itself; but in order to preserve the resemblance, they have dug a well in the church yard, and placed the curb over it, and they now oblige you to remark the channel worn by the rope when employed in raising the water in Samaria. This curb is also of beautiful white marble, and is covered with elegant bas reliefs. I say nothing of the probability of their having so expensive an ornament to a well in a village in Samaria, but I must remark, that marble must have been very abundant in Palestine; and that the popes have been singularly fortunate, as well as industrious, in finding all these relicks five hundred years after the period of the events which had rendered them interesting.

They have also in this church a little monument consisting of a flat stone on the ground, upon which four pillars are placed, which support another stone at the height of about six feet, and which you

are gravely told represents the exact height of our Saviour. How this was ascertained, they do not inform you, but one marvellous circumstance they never forget, which is, that no person has yet been found, whose size corresponded exactly with this measurement of our Saviour. This tale is always accompanied with a look of uncommon awe, and an astonished countenance. In this church there is also an altar, the history of which is equally surprising, and will go far to make you credit the doctrine of the real presence in the elements. This altar has a large hole through it, the cause of which is affirmed to be, that a priest was administering the sacrament over this altar, and held in his hand the consecrated bread, but, not believing that it was the real body of our Lord, he attempted to cut it, and the blood immediately followed from the wound. The piece of bread fell from his hand, and instantly made its way through the marble altar, which is preserved in perpetual remembrance of the miracle. The astonished priest, no doubt, was converted at this unquestionable proof of the truth. of the Catholick doctrine, and you must be hardened indeed, if you still refuse your assent to an opinion so miraculously supported.

I could go on, and tell you, that I have seen the original oaken table, at which our Saviour and his disciples partook of the last supper-and the actual print of our Saviour's foot, made upon a piece of marble, when the devil carried him into the mountain to tempt him-and a thousand other equally important relicks; but I think,that enough has been already stated to shew, that revolutions have not effaced the impressions of bigotry, nor annihilated the reign of credulity in this celebrated country.

It is indeed to be regretted, that the pure and simple religion of christianity should be thus debased in its practice by the grossest idolatry, for it deserves no other name and it is still more to be lamented, that we can scarcely hope for a change, beneficial to religion, in this country; for ex

perience teaches us, that men usu~* ally go from one extreme to the other, and it is therefore to be feared, that these unfortunate people. would proceed, like the French, from blind credulity to open infidelity and atheism.

Yours, &c.

AS most ages have received some appellation descriptive of their character (for instance the Silver, the Golden, and the Iron,) and the one which we adorn has never been named, I have thought in my wisdom of calling it the Calculating. Why I consider such an epithet appropriate is, that I have noticed a disposition in society to confer invariably with the head, without consulting the heart; to derive every thing, as it were from the cell, and to take nothing from the fibre. Of late, no sentiment is adopted, no impression acknowledged, without separately advising with this wise piece of workmanship; and to pretend to be delighted or disgusted at aught without assigning its wherefores, is like settling a law point without justice or authority. Were this propensity for steering by the judgment confined to grave studies in science or art, it would be an affront to Wisdom for any to murmur: but when subjects of taste, polite literature, and affairs of the heart are coldly submitted to the tests of the brain, one may lose his good nature without offending that Goddess. It is not my inten

tion to disparage the judicial de-. partment of our system, but to preserve that equipoise between its parts, essential to harmony. If the head is invited to judge, let the heart, too, be permitted to feel. The pulse often throbs with intelligence, and truth may be bewildered in the intricacies of argument. I am perfectly sensible that I may be considered by some as deficient in what I am aiming to rectify; but, though. I wish with my neighbours to stand well with the world, I shall deliver my mind at the risk of reputation. The fraternity of Longheads may suppose if they please, that my wits are disordered by the full of the moon, but, be those as they may, I will defend to the utmost the cause of the heart,and never advance the cold dictates of reason on the warm ruins of good feeling and dignified passion. There is somewhat so cold about the philosophy of the head, that it should be laid to warm in the bosom, to be made pleasant for use.

I mean not, however, to encourage a partiality for the heart, which some susceptible spirits are known to entertain; who con sider the feelings of the moment