The angel manufactory, however, was still more striking. To give effect to the intended ceremonies, the head decorator suggested a brace of angels, to be placed on each side of the nave of St. Peter's, behind the altar. The lazy cardinals nodded assent, and the question was carried nem. con. They do all things well at Rome in honour of the church, even their greatest follies are on a scale of grandeur—their fireworks, fountains, illuminations, are all unrivalled—so are their angels, when they make them. First, an able artist is employed to sketch a design, then able workmen to build, painters to paint, and lastly, robe-makers to clothe the naked.
The construction is curious: a skeleton figure, after the late fashion of single-line figures, is prepared with a strong rod of iron, which is fixed into a large block of wood, and this may be termed the building foundation. The next step—oh! most anti-angelic notion! is to collect hay-bands (enough for a hay-market), and therewith to mould the limbs and body. It were vain to attempt, by words, to describe the ludicrous effect produced; but, by the aid of the foregoing cut, it may be conceived. Good-bye to sublimity for that day! omne ignotum pro magnifico—it never answers to go behind the scenes; and if it be true that in some cases "ignorance is bliss," how much more truly do the Latin words tell us that "ignorance is ever the key-stone to sublimity."
It is true, that as I looked upon the gigantic saint, as yet unhung, and compared him with his fellows, the elect on high; as I watched this monster of miracles, raised by pulleys till he dwindled into a pretty miniature; as I saw the pigmy workmen wheeling the huge angels to their places,—it must be confessed that I had found "a sliding scale," which, in this case, answered admirably. It enabled me to measure the proportions of the stupendous pile which towered above me to judge of its most beautiful symmetry, with greater force and stronger conviction than I had ever felt whilst gazing on the children which support the holy water, the sweet babes with arms as thick as the thigh of man!
That knowledge was interesting—the angel-making was amusing, but the solemn tone of mind suited to St. Peter's was destroyed. In vain I stood before the lions of Canova; the one which slept could not inspire the repose which breathed through the sleeping marble; the one which watched, the sleepless sentinel, guarding the ashes of the dead, even this could not scare the demon of ridicule that played on hallowed ground. I turned to the mosaics, those fadeless pictures which seem as painted for eternity; no, not these—not Guido's Archangel, that wondrous type of heavenly beauty in the form of man—of power to conquer with the will to do—not even this could tame the merry sin within me. I stood before that statue which frenzied with undying passion the priest who gazed upon its beauties—the emblem of "Justice," but so lovely in its nakedness, that man, impure and imperfect, became a worshipper, and obliged the Pope to hide Justice from his children. The ridiculous prevailed; I smiled to think that the form as well as eyes of "Justice at Rome" must be hid from sight. And I laughed outright at woman's curiosity, when I thought how Lady See —— prevailed upon the Pope to lift the veil and show her the form which made a Pygmalion of a priest!
The demon was in me for the day; it had been raised by—to use a fashionable word—the desecration of the temple, and nothing could lay the evil spirit. I turned to my hotel, ordered horses for the morrow, and fled.
My course was set for Naples. As I traversed the Pontine Marshes, cheek by jowl with the sluggish stream which the pride of Popes has wedded to the road and given to the traveller's eye, what a contrast did these waters, this cold, dark, silent chain of "Mal-aria," present to the stream of life, the roar of cannon, the music, festival, and holiday, which fancy pictured in the Eternal City! But the comparison was in favour of the waters; there is, thought I, at least some use in these, for, as they drag their weary length along, death, the tyrant, fettered and subdued, is borne on their course from plains where once his rule was absolute.
Filled with these reflections, and sometimes dreaming that I saw the captive monarch in a phantom ship, with skeleton crew—sometimes that I heard the sullen splash of muffled oars; thus dreaming and reflecting, the journey seemed short to Naples; and there it was I chanced upon "A Miracle of Modern Days," which, however, must be reserved until the Omnibus shall start again.