in his De Naturà so remarkable and so illustrative of the diversities of opinion of which I am speaking, that I cannot forbear from quoting it:-Sed ecquem tam amentem esse, says he, putas, qui illud quo vescatur, Deum credat esse ? A few centuries later, and instead of dictating in the calm retreats of Tusculum the philosophic essay whence this passage is taken, Cicero might have stood by a Zwingle and combated the Divine Presence in the Eucharist; and then history might have had to record that instead of the orator being decapitated by an Antony, the philosopher had been burnt by a Clement. As it is, however, the passage I have cited can only be regarded as the incidental declaration of a strong and philosophic mind, applicable to a doctrine which supposes a miracle and a contradiction.

To these remarks on the resemblances and diversities between the Pagan and the Christian mass, I have nothing more to add than that, whereas the one dismissed the audience with the formula, Ilicet, the other dismisses them with an Ite, missa est: nor will you regret it if I pronounce the same formula and close my letter. I have given you a number of quotations, perhaps ad nauseam; but I considered them necessary to the illustration of my subject, and if you deem them apt, I shall not repent the labour I have had in hunting for them. I have also wearied you with a number of resemblances, some of which, perhaps, you may consider faint or visionary; if so, I must beg you to excuse the dreams of one who is much under the influence of the genius loci, and who, thus enthralled, may sometimes "dream dreams and see visions" which

to you, who are surrounded by all the sober realities of modern art and science, may appear absurd enough. My next letter, which I cannot promise you shall be exempt from the same faults, will enumerate some of the outlying ceremonies and customs, to which I have not as yet alluded. Till then, Iddio ti conserva, or as the Roman would say, La Madonna vi accompagna. Choose your protector. For me, I have no difficulty.

LETTER IX.

WALKING, not long since, through one of the most populous districts of Rome, I observed in advance of me a woman, pointing with her finger at an image of the Madonna as she passed it, and afterwards reverently kissing her hand. This religious mesmerism excited no remark on the part of the other passengers, who, nine-tenths of them, might possibly repeat the act; but it set me thinking on the character of the Roman Catholic religion, and on its tendency to generate and to rest in mere forms; and then I ran over in my mind, more curiously than wisely, perhaps you will say, the different acts I had seen performed significant of and expressive of devotion, such as turning to the east, bowing and genuflection, prostration, crawling and crossing, touching, kissing and castigation. It will appear trivial to you, perhaps, to take any regular serious notice of such forms, and more so to devote an entire letter to them; but your opinion may possibly be modified, if it be considered that such forms, by very many, are almost

unconsciously regarded, not as the mere circumstances, but as the essence of religion, into the practice of which enters as little mind as in the feats of the horse at Astley's, which has been trained by the spur and the whip of its master. Every one knows that the principal altar in a Roman Catholic church is erected towards the east, in which direction, as a matter of course, the congregation are compelled to turn at least during the messa cantata. St. Gregory, explaining the origin of the custom, gives us an admirable specimen of the value of tradition, when he says, that the custom was handed down to us from the Apostles to remind us of Paradise, whence we have been excluded; as also St. Athanasius, when he suggests that it was because there the feet of the Lord had stood. Leo I., indeed, forbade the custom, because the Manichæans also turned to the east; but the ancient traditionary custom is again in force, and the English Church also, like an obedient child, has adopted it, though she, in a very unfilial manner, denies her parentage to mother church, and endeavours to conceal the features of their resemblance. Now, it is an old custom that of turning to the east during the performance of the offices of public worship so did the Egyptians, so did the Romans, and so, says Virgil, did the "Pius Æneas:”

Surgit et ætherei spectans orientia solis

Lumina, rite cavis undam de flumine palmis
Sustulit.

En. viii. 68.

Livy, i. Decad. lib. 5. says, Convertentem se inter hanc venerationem traditur memoriæ prolapsum ceci

disse; as also Pliny, lib. 28, c. 2, In adorando dextram ad osculum referimus, totum corpus circumagimus. For the evolutions, therefore, of which I speak, the churches both of Rome and of England have high authority, and can ascend far beyond either St. Gregory or St. Athanasius. Bowing and genuflection, no less than turning to the east, form an important feature in the services of the Catholic Church. The worshiper on passing the high altar bows or performs a genuflection in honour, I presume, of Il Signore, who is supposed to be reposing there within the Ciborio. The officiating priest bows, I know not how often, to the Sanctum Sacramentum, during the performance of a mass, as also to every member of the chapter during a cathedral service; and they bow to him as well as to each other; suggesting the idea that each had been rendering some courtesy to the other, and that each was now intent on a public acknowledgment of it. During high mass in Saint Peter's on a fête-day, when there is a full attendance of cardinals and prelates, it is a strange sight this repeated bowing, and the thought immediately occurs, how little can the mind be engaged in the great realities of religion, or how few of the great realities of religion can be presented to the mind by the Catholic faith, when its professors are continually occupied with forms which distract rather than concentrate the attention, and some of which, in appearance at least, are merely marks of mutual respect! As to genuflection, it is sometimes also used as a penance, or with a view to acquistare a few centuries of indulgence. Thus, before Easter week, thousands may be seen