of the pulpit; the preacher unties it, kisses it, presses it against his heart, and then restores it to its place with the greatest coolness, when the pathetic period is concluded.  There is a means of producing effect which the ordinary preachers frequently have recourse to, namely, the square cap they wear on their head, which they take off, and put on again with inconceivable rapidity.  One of them imputed to Voltaire, and particularly to Rousseau, the irreligion of the age.  He threw his cap into the middle of the pulpit, charging it to represent Jean Jacques, and in this quality he harangued it, saying; “Well, philosopher of Geneva, what have you to object to my arguments?” He was silent for some minutes as if he waited for a reply—­the cap made no answer:  he then put it upon his head again and finished the conversation in these words:  “now that you are convinced I shall say no more.”

These whimsical scenes are often repeated among the Roman preachers; for real talent in this department is here very scarce.  Religion is respected in Italy as an omnipotent law; it captivates the imagination by its forms and ceremonies, but moral tenets are less attended to in the pulpit than dogmas of faith, which do not penetrate the heart with religious sentiments.  Thus the eloquence of the pulpit, as well as several other branches of literature, is absolutely abandoned to common ideas, which neither paint nor express any thing.  A new thought would cause almost a panic in those minds at once so indolent and so full of ardour that they need the calm of uniformity, which they love because it offers repose to their thoughts.  The ideas and phraseology of their sermons are confined to a sort of etiquette.  They follow almost in a regular sequence, and this order would be disturbed if the orator, speaking from himself, were to seek in his own mind what he should say.  The Christian philosophy, whose aim is to discover the analogy between religion and human nature, is as little known to the Italian preachers as any other kind of philosophy.  To think upon matters of religion would scandalise them as much as to think against it; so much are they accustomed to move in a beaten track.

The worship of the Blessed Virgin is particularly dear to the Italians, and to every other nation of the south; it seems in some manner united with all that is most pure and tender in the affection we feel for woman.  But the same exaggerated figures of rhetoric are found in what the preachers say upon this subject; and it is impossible to conceive why their gestures do not turn all that is most serious into mockery.  Hardly ever in Italy do we meet in the august function of the pulpit, with a true accent or a natural expression.