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A VISIT TO ST. PETER'S, AT ROME.* 



A fabric huge, 



Built like a temple, where pilasters round 

 Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid 

 With golden architrave ; nor did there want 

 Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven ; ; 

 The roof was fretted gold. Not Babylon, 

 Nor great Alcairo such magnificence 

 EqualPd in all their glories, to inshrine 

 Belus or Serapis their gods, or seat 

 Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove 

 In wealth and luxury. MILTON. 



ST. Peter's at Rome ! Who that has been to Rome, does not talk 

 about St. Peter's? And who that talks about it can say any thing 

 that has not been said a hundred times before ? From a sense of 

 diffidence and modesty, we would willingly leave the subject in the 

 hands of past, as well as future travellers, but the thing is impossible. 

 " What ! profess to have been at Rome and say nothing of St. 

 Peter's ! Perhaps the man staid there a whole winter and never 

 entered it! Such instances have been heard of." Yes, ungentle 

 reader, I did see it, and did study it, and did admire it ; and, as you 

 expect me to do so, I shall sufficiently bore you with the subject, and 

 g-ive you full measure of the usual remarks, that it looks so small 

 though it is so large, that it is like the elephant at Bartholomew fair, 

 measuring so many feet from the tip of the snout to the end of the 

 tail, and twice that number from the end of the tail to the tip of the 

 snout, that the marble doves there are very like turkeys, and that 

 the sculptured cherubs holding holy water, resemble the deceased 

 Daniel Lambert, Esq., that the bare-footed friars come in with very 

 dirty feet, that the Cardinals look like Zamiel in Der Freischutz, 

 and that by an extraordinary coincidence, the Pope bears no resem- 

 blance whatever to the Archbishop of Canterbury. All these things 

 are undoubtedly true, and being so, it is not necessary to enlarge 

 upon them ; but as we must act as cicerone to St. Peter's, we may 

 perhaps be allowed, like other persons of that class, to set about it 

 in our own way. 



Let us then start from home, and begin our morning's walk from 

 our place of residence. We are lodging on the Monte Pincio, the 

 neighbourhood of which is generally selected by English visitors, as 

 a temporary abode during their continental wanderings. The morn- 

 ing, as usual, is inviting ; let us breakfast early and set out in good 

 time, for we have a long walk before us. 



First we must descend that handsome flight of steps which are the 

 terror of all Rome. Instantly that the shades of evening come over 

 them, they are proscribed and avoided. Robbery and assassination 

 are the crimes reputed to lurk upon their slope, and to lie in ambush 



* The writer of this article takes the liberty of suggesting to the reader, who does 

 not mind a little trouble, that a good plan of Rome will considerably assist him in 

 forming a clear idea of the contents of the following pages. 

 M.M. No. 5. 21 



