No ceremony can be better calculated for striking the senses, and imposing on the understanding, than this of the Supreme Pontiff giving the blessing from the balcony of St. Peter’s. For my own part, if I had not, in my early youth, received impressions highly unfavourable to the chief actor in this magnificent interlude, I should have been in danger of paying him a degree of respect, very inconsistent with the religion in which I was educated.
[1] The Carmen Seculare of Horace was composed on occasion of those celebrated by Augustus in the year of Rome 736.
[2] To this last abridgement I am indebted for having seen the ceremonies and processions on the termination of this sacred year.
LETTER XLIX.
Rome.
In my last, I informed you of my having been seduced almost into idolatry, by the influence of example, and the pomp which surrounded the idol. I must now confess that I have actually bowed the knee to Baal, from mere wantonness. We are told that, to draw near to that Being, who ought to be the only object of worship, with our lips, while our hearts are far from him, is a mockery. Such daring and absurd hypocrisy I shall always avoid: but to have drawn near to him, who ought not to be an object of worship, with the lips only, while the heart continued at a distance, I hope will be considered as no more than a venial transgression. In short, I trust, that it will not be looked on as a mortal sin in Protestants to have kissed the Pope’s toe. If it should, some of your friends are in a deplorable way, as you shall hear.—It is usual for strangers to be presented to his Holiness, before they leave Rome. The D—— of H——, Mr. K——, and myself, have all been at the Vatican together, upon that important business. Your young acquaintance Jack, who, having now got a commission in the army, considers himself no longer as a boy, desired to accompany us. We went under the auspices of a certain ecclesiastic, who usually attends the English on such occasions.
He very naturally concluded, that it would be most agreeable to us to have the circumstance of kissing the slipper dispensed with. Having had some conversation, therefore, with his Holiness, in his own apartment, while we remained in another room, previous to our introduction; he afterwards returned, and informed us, that the Pontiff, indulgent to the prejudices of the British nation, did not insist on that part of the ceremonial; and therefore a very low bow, on our being presented, was all that would be required of us.
A bow! cried the D—— of H——; I should not have given myself any trouble about the matter, had I suspected that all was to end in a bow. I look on kissing the toe as the only amusing circumstance of the whole; if that is to be omitted, I will not be introduced at all. For if the most ludicrous part is left out, who would wait for the rest of a farce?