A dance of the last-mentioned description, and in a similar costume, is still performed before the high altar in the presence of the chapter, at the conclusion of the service on this day and the following se’nnight. The dancers are boys of between ten and fourteen, who, under the name of _Seizes_,[41] are maintained at the college which the Cathedral supports for the education of the acolytes, or inferior ministers. These boys, accompanied by a full orchestra, sing a lyric composition in Spanish, which, like the Greek chorusses, consists of two or three systems of metres, to which the dancers move solemnly, going through a variety of figures in their natural step, till, ranged at the conclusion of the song, in two lines facing each other as at the outset, they end with a gentle caper, rattling the castanets, which hitherto lay silent and concealed in their hands. That this grotesque performance should be allowed to continue, is, I believe, owing to the pride which this chapter take in the privilege, granted by the Pope to the dancers, of wearing their hats within view of the consecrated host--a liberty which the King himself cannot take, and which, if I am not misled by report, no one besides can boast of, except the Dukes of Altamira, who, upon certain occasions, clap on their hat, at the elevation of the host, and draw the sword, as if shewing their readiness to give a conclusive answer to any argument against transubstantiation. [41] This name is, as far as I know, peculiar to Seville. The similarity of its sound and that of _sizars_ used at Cambridge, seems to denote a common origin in the two words. The _Corpus Christi_ procession begins to move out of the cathedral exactly at nine in the morning. It consists in the first place of the forty communities of friars who have convents in this town. They follow one another in two lines, according to the established order of precedence. The strangeness and variety of their dresses, no less than their collective numbers, would greatly strike any one but a Spaniard, to whom such objects are perfectly familiar.--Next appears the long train of relics belonging to the Cathedral, placed each by itself on a small stage moved by one or more men concealed under the rich drapery which hangs on its sides to the ground. Vases of gold and silver, of different shapes and sizes, contain the various portions of the inestimable treasure whereof the following is an accurate catalogue: A tooth of Saint Christopher. An agate cup used at Mass by Pope Saint Clement, the immediate successor of Saint Peter. An arm of Saint Bartholomew. A head of one of eleven thousand virgins. Part of Saint Peter’s body. Ditto of Saint Lawrence. Ditto of Saint Blaise. The bones of the Saints Servandus and Germanus. Ditto of Saint Florentius. The Alphonsine tables, left to the Cathedral by King Alphonso the Wise, containing three hundred relics.