A Night In Rome

Chancing to be in Rome in the August of 1830, I visited the gorgeous
church of Santa Maria Maggiore during the celebration of the
anniversary of the Holy Assumption.

It was a glorious sight to one unaccustomed to the imposing religious
ceremonials of the Romish church, to witness all the pomp and
splendour displayed at this high solemnity--to gaze down that
glittering pile, and mark the various ecclesiastical dignitaries, each
in their peculiar and characteristic costume, employed in the
ministration of their sacred functions, and surrounded by a wide
semicircle of the papal guards, so stationed to keep back the crowd,
and who, with their showy scarlet attire and tall halberds, looked
like the martial figures we see in the sketches of Callot. Nor was the
brilliant effect of this picture diminished by the sumptuous framework
in which it was set. Overhead flamed a roof resplendent with burnished
gold; before me rose a canopy supported by pillars of porphyry, and
shining with many-coloured stones; while on either hand were chapels
devoted to some noble house, and boasting each the marble memorial of
a pope. Melodious masses proper to the service were ever and anon
chanted by the papal choir, and overpowering perfume was diffused
around by a hundred censers.

Subdued by the odours, the music, and the spectacle, I sank into a
state of dreamy enthusiasm, during a continuance of which I almost
fancied myself a convert to the faith of Rome, and surrendered myself
unreflectingly to an admiration of its errors. As I gazed among the
surrounding crowd, the sight of so many prostrate figures, all in
attitudes of deepest devotion, satisfied me of the profound religious
impression of the ceremonial. As elsewhere; this feeling was not
universal; and, as elsewhere, likewise, more zeal was exhibited by the
lower than the higher classes of society; and I occasionally noted
amongst the latter the glitter of an eye or the flutter of a bosom,
not altogether agitated; I suspect; by holy aspirations. Yet me
thought, on the whole, I had never seen such abandonment of soul, such
prostration of spirit, in my own colder clime, and during the exercise
of my own more chastened creed, as that which in several instances I
now beheld; and I almost envied the poor maiden near me, who, abject
upon the earth, had washed away her sorrows, and perhaps her sins, in
contrite tears.