beyond French polish, and his hat was brushed till not a wind dared to approach it. Sir Lionel wore a white, unstarched cravat, with a thick pad in it, sported a frill over his waistcoat, carried a black ebony cane in his hand, and was generally followed by a pet pug-dog, one of the most sagacious and disagreeable specimens of his species. Sir Lionel Flamstead, I have said, was tall--I might have said he was very tall--somewhat narrower across the shoulders than about the hips--a circumstance which did not materially conduce to his symmetry--with grey, benevolent eyes, shaded by bushy, intelligent brows--a lofty, expansive forehead, in which, in the jargon of phrenology, the organs of locality and ideality were strongly developed, and which was rendered the more remarkable from the flesh having fallen in on either side of the temples--with a nose which had been considered handsome and well proportioned in his youth, but to which good living had imparted a bottle form and a bottle tint--and cheeks from which all encroachment of whiskers was sedulously removed, in order, we conclude, that his rosy complexion might be traced from its point of concentration, upon the prominent feature before mentioned, to its final disappearance behind his ears. Such was Sir Lionel Flamstead. A NIGHT'S ADVENTURE IN ROME CHAPTER I SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE The Pope was saying the high, high mass, All on Saint Peter's day; With the power to him given by the saints in heaven To wash men's sins away. The Pope he was saying the blessed mass, And the people kneel'd around; And from each man's soul his sins did pass, As he kissed the holy ground. --_The Grey Brother._ Chancing to be in Rome in the August of 1830, I visited the gorgeous church of Santa Maria Maggiore during the celebration of the anniversary of the Holy Assumption. It was a glorious sight to one unaccustomed to the imposing religious ceremonials of the Romish Church, to witness all the pomp and splendour displayed at this high solemnity--to gaze down that glittering pile, and mark the various ecclesiastical dignitaries, each in their peculiar and characteristic costume, employed in the ministration of their sacred functions, and surrounded by a wide semicircle of the papal guards, so stationed to keep back the crowd, and who, with their showy scarlet attire and tall halberds, looked like the martial figures we see in the sketches of Callot. Nor was the brilliant effect of this picture diminished by the sumptuous framework in which it was set. Overhead flamed a roof resplendent with burnished gold; before me rose a canopy supported by pillars of porphyry, and shining with many-coloured stones; while on either hand were chapels devoted to some noble house, and boasting each the marble memorial of a pope. Melodious masses proper to the service were ever and anon chanted by the papal choir, and overpowering perfume was diffused around by a hundred censers.