essities of the age,--to some future generation what illustration the
dramatists were to the Elizabethan day the knot of superior novelists
will be to this, and among them all Charles Reade is destined to no
subordinate rank.

* * * * *

HOW ROME IS GOVERNED.

There are a thousand descriptions of Rome, its antiquities, galleries,
ceremonies, and manners, but hardly any, that I remember, of the
organization of the Papal Government,--that wonderful power which long
played the chief part in the social and political revolutions of Europe,
which, even in its decay, preserves so much of its original grandeur,
and still clings to its traditions with a tenacity of conviction that
commands our respect, although the remembrance of the evil that it has
done compels us, as men and as Christians, to rejoice at the prospect of
its fall.

This omission on the part of so many thoughtful travellers is by no
means an unnatural one. We go to Rome in order to see and to feel,
rather than to study and to think. The past crowds upon us overladen
with history and poetry; and the present is so full of new forms of life
that it is only when we come to sit down at a distance and gather up our
recollections that we ask ourselves how all the instruments of that
gorgeous pageantry are put together and moved. The Pope has palaces and
villas. The cardinals live in splendid apartments, and ride in massive
coaches of purple and gilt, drawn by horses richly caparisoned, and
attended by servants in livery. Bishops and prelates and monks and
priests and friars fill long processions on public occasions, and move
about in their daily life with the air and bearing of men who belong to
a sphere that common men have no concern in.

There is a church or a chapel for every day in the year, and some emblem
of external recognition for every saint in the calendar. There are
lenten days, when the rich eat fresh tunny from the Adriatic or eels
from Comacchio, and the poor whatever they can get; and holidays, when
the shops are shut and the churches and theatres open, and everybody
amuses himself as well as his tastes and his means allow. Nowhere are
processions so splendid, festivals so magnificent, the whole body of the
population accustomed, either as actors or as spectators, to such daily
displays of opulence and grandeur.

How is all this done? How do all these men live? What do they do for
themselves and for one another? W