There was no sound, as we knelt by the dead man's couch; through the window could be seen the swift Tiber, swollen by the recent rains, and on the other side of the river rose the green slopes of the half-deserted Aventine, with its few solitary churches, Santa Sabina, Santa Alessio, and its gracious crown of trees. Here had Tosti dwelt for many a year, in rooms which looked to the golden west. Here he occupied himself with his books, and with the school for industrial and artistic pursuits which was due to his efforts at San Michele. I have never seen anything so marvellously picturesque and impressive as that dead man, lying on his couch of cloth of gold, the closing scene of a long life, which stretched back far beyond the wars of the first Napoleon, even to the period when Papal Rome received the royal refugees of the French Revolution.
Presently, a group of white-robed priests entered, and began reciting the office for the dead. This was the signal for the gathering of a little crowd of Romans. Brown-cowled monks, peasant women with their children in arms, boys and girls with large wondering dark eyes. Together they crowded to the door of the dead man's chamber, and knelt upon the floor, so that above and [{852}] beyond their bowed heads could be seen that pale splendor upon its shining couch. We left with reluctant footsteps, feeling a fascination in the picture which it is hard to describe.
Late in the evening, an hour after the Ave, the corpse was to be conveyed by torch-light to Santa Cecilia, the cardinal's titular church; and at Santa Cecilia we found ourselves in the starry night. The torches were just entering the church as we drove up; and for some minutes the doors were inexorably shut, and we feared we had lost all chance of an entrance. But we were presently admitted, and saw indeed a striking scene! The small church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, famous as being built upon the site of the young martyr's dwelling, was draped in black and gold from ceiling to pavement, and where the altar-piece is generally to be seen was a great flat gold cross on a black ground. The sanctuary was greatly enlarged for the morrow's service, and hung with black; and in the nave, not very far from the great portal, rose a large empty couch, exactly resembling that which we had seen in the cardinal's private chamber. At its foot was a low bier, whereon now lay the same white image of a man in its purple robes, and a group of attendants crowded reverentially around it, flashing torches in their hands, which formed a centre of light in the dark church, reminding one of the famous Correggio; only, instead of the new-born Babe, the illumination of humanity for all time to come, was the aged dead, no longer capable of communicating the living light of intelligence or of faith, but lying in a pale reflection under the torches, and gathering into itself all the meaning of the whole scene.
We perceived that something remarkable was about to take place, and retired discreetly behind a pillar, that our accidental presence might attract no notice. The truth was, that the cardinal was about to be laid out for the great funeral service of the morrow; and by chance we had gained admission at this purely private hour. The body was taken on the little bier into the sacristy, and there we supposed that some change was made in the raiment; when it was brought back the hands were gloved, and instead of the scarlet berretta was a plain skull-cap. Then, with difficulty and much consultation, but with perfect reverence of intention, the straight image was lifted on to the great couch; the assistant men being grouped on ladders, and an eager voluble monsignore directing the whole. The ladders, the torch-light, the mechanical difficulty of the operation, again reminded me of one of those great depositions in which the actual scene of the Cross is so vividly brought out by art. At length the dead cardinal lay placidly upon his cloth of gold, and they fetched his ring to put upon his hand, and his white mitre wherewith to clothe his gray hairs. We left them performing the last careful offices, making the strangest, the most gorgeous torch-light group in the middle of that dark church that poet or artist could conceive.
The next morning the Pope and the College of Cardinals came to officiate at the funeral mass. The square court in front of Santa Cecilia was filled with an eager crowd of Romans and Forestieri, with the splendid costumes of the Papal Guard, with prancing horses and old-fashioned chariots, gorgeous with gilding and color. They were much such a company of equipages as may be seen in our Kensington Museum, but so fresh and well-appointed in spite of the extreme antiquity of their design, that one felt as if carried back to the days of Whittington, Lord Mayor of London. Into Santa Cecilia itself we could not penetrate, by reason of the crowd and the stern vigilance of the soldiers, who, attired in the red-and-yellow costume designed by Michael Angelo, kept a considerable space in the nave empty for the moment when the Pope should walk from the altar to the bier. But [{853}] through the open door we saw the lights upon the black-draped altar and in front of that gorgeous couch, with its motionless occupant, his white mitre being now the conspicuous point in the picture. And when the Pope left the dim church and came out into the sunshine, the brilliant rays fell upon his venerable white hair and scarlet cap, while the weapons flashed and the crowd shouted, as he ascended his wonderful chariot with the black horses, and drove away.
MISCELLANY.
Microscopic Plants the Cause of Ague. --Owing to the prevalence of ague in the malarial district of Ohio and Mississippi, Dr. Salisbury undertook a series of experiments in 1862, with a view to determine the microscopic characters of the expectorations of his patients. He commenced his experiments by examining the mucous secretions of those patients who had been most submitted to the malaria, and in these he detected a large amount of low forms of life, such as algae, fungi, diatomaceae, and desmidiae. At first he imagined that the presence of these organisms might be accidental, but repeated experiments convinced him that some of them were invariably associated with ague. The bodies which are constantly present in such cases he describes as being "minute oblong cells, either single or aggregated, consisting of a distinct nucleus, surrounded with a smooth cell-wall, with a highly clear, apparently empty space between the outer cell-wall and the nucleus." From these characters Dr. Salisbury concludes that the bodies are not fungi, but belong properly to the algae, in all probability being species of the genus Palmella. Whilst the diatomaceae and other organisms were found to be generally present the bodies just described were not found above the level at which the ague was observed. In order to ascertain exactly their source, he suspended plates of glass over the water in a certain marsh which was regarded as unhealthy. In the water which condensed upon the under surface of these plates, he found numerous palmella-like structures, and on examining the mould of the bog, he found it full of similar organisms. From repeated researches Dr. Salisbury concludes: (1.) Cryptogamic spores are carried aloft above the surface at night, in the damp exhalations which appear after sunset (2.) These bodies rise from thirty to sixty feet, never above the summit of the damp night-exhalations, and ague is similarly limited. (3.) The day-air of ague districts is free from these bodies.
Use of Lime in Extracting Sugar. --Peligot long ago demonstrated that owing to the insoluble nature of the compound formed of lime with sugar, the former substance would be a most valuable agent in the manufacture of the latter. Peligot's suggestion is now being carried out on a large scale in MM. Schrötter and Wellman's sugar-factory at Berlin. The molasses is mixed with the requisite quantity of hydrate of lime and alcohol in a large vat, and intimately stirred for more than half an hour. The lime compound of sugar which separates is then strained off, pressed, and washed with spirit. All the alcohol used in the process is afterward recovered by distillation. The mud-like precipitate thus produced is mixed with water and decomposed with a current of carbonic acid, which is effected in somewhat less than half an hour. The carbonate of lime is removed by filtration, and the clear liquid, containing the sugar, evaporated, decolorized with animal charcoal, and crystallized in the usual manner. The sugar furnished by this method has a very clear appearance, and is perfectly crystalline. It contains, according to polarization analysis, sixty-six per cent of sugar, twelve per cent of water, the remainder being uncrystallizable organic matter and salts. The yield, of course, varies with the richness and degree of concentration of the raw material; on an average, thirty pounds of sugar were obtained from one hundred pounds of molasses.