ancients to all the gods, and by the moderns to all
the saints; the temple of Castor and Pollux at Rome is
now dedicated to Cosmo and Damian, also twin brothers.
The respect they pay to the Virgin Mary is far greater
than what they pay to the Son, and whatever English
Roman Catholics may be made to believe by their
priests or impose upon us, it is certain that the
devotion to the Madonnas in Itally is something more
than a bare representation of the Virgin Mary when
they desire her intercession. Miracles they pretend
not only to be wrought by the Madonnas themselves, but
there is far greater respect paid to a Madonna in one
place than another, whereas if this statue were only a
bare representation of the Virgin to keep them in mind
of her, the respect would be equal. I visited all the
famous ones, and it would fill a volume to tell you
the fopperies that's said of them. That of Loretto,
being what they say is the very house where the Virgin
lived, is not to be described, the riches are so
great, nor the devotion that's paid to the statue....
The Lady of Saronna is another famous one and very
rich; she is much handsomer than she of Loretto and a
whole church-full of the legend of the miracles she
hath wrought. She is in great reputation, and it's
thought will at last outtop the Lady of Loretto; there
is another near Leghorne that I also visited called
_La Madonna della Silva Nera_, to whom all Itallian
ships that enter that port make a present of thanks
for their happy voyage, and salute her with their
cannon, and most ships going out give her something
for her protection during their voyage. I could tire
you with she at the Annunciata at Florence, she within
a mile of Bollognia, for whom the magistracy have
piazza'd the road all the way from her station to the
city, that she may not be encumbered with sun or rain
when she makes them a visit, and hundreds more that
would fill a volume of fopperies that I had the
curiosity to see, but it would be imposing too much
upon your patience."[459]

This only confirms Dr. Middleton's conclusions, which received the
approval of Gibbon, and those of later writers. "As I descended from
the Alps," writes the Rev. W. H. Blunt in 1823,

"I was admo