There is one door into the church of St. Peter’s, which is called the Holy Door. This is always walled up, except on this distinguished year; and even then no person is permitted to enter by it, but in the humblest posture. The pilgrims, and many others, prefer crawling into the church upon their knees, by this door; to walking in, the usual way, by any other. I was present at the shutting up of this Holy Door. The Pope being seated on a raised seat, or kind of throne, surrounded by Cardinals and other ecclesiastics, an anthem was sung, accompanied by all sorts of musical instruments. During the performance, his Holiness descended from the throne, with a golden trowel in his hand, placed the first brick, and applied some mortar; he then returned to his seat, and the door was instantly built up by more expert, though less hallowed, workmen; and will remain as it is now, till the beginning of the nineteenth century, when it will be again opened, by the Pope then in being, with the same solemnity that it has been now shut. Though his Holiness places but a single brick, yet it is very remarkable that this never fails to communicate its influence, in such a rapid and powerful manner, that, within about an hour, or at most an hour and a half, all the other bricks, which form the wall of the Holy Door, acquire an equal degree of sanctity with that placed by the Pope’s own hands. The common people and pilgrims are well acquainted with this wonderful effect. At the beginning of this Jubilee-year, when the late wall was thrown down, men, women, and children scrambled and fought for the fragments of the bricks and mortar, with the same eagerness which less enlightened mobs display, on days of public rejoicing, when handfuls of money are thrown among them. I have been often assured that those pieces of brick, besides their sanctity, have also the virtue of curing many of the most obstinate diseases: and, if newspapers were permitted at Rome, there is not the least reason to doubt, that those cures would be attested publicly by the patients, in a manner as satisfactory and convincing as are the cures performed daily by the pills, powders, drops, and balsams advertised in the London newspapers. After the shutting of the Holy Door, mass was celebrated at midnight; and the ceremony was attended by vast multitudes of people. For my own part, I suspended my curiosity till next day, which was Christmas-day, when I returned again to St. Peter’s church, and saw the Pope perform mass on that solemn occasion. His Holiness went through all the evolutions of the ceremony with an address and flexibility of body, which are rarely to be found in those who wear the tiara; who are, generally speaking, men bowing under the load of years and infirmities. His present Holiness has hitherto suffered from neither. His features are regular, and he has a fine countenance; his person is straight, and his movements graceful. His leg and foot are remarkably well made, and