“There is no dynasty of European sovereigns about which we English entertain so much vague curiosity, or have so little information, as about the successors to the Popedom. Cardinal Wiseman is just the author to meet this curiosity. His book is the lively record of what he has himself seen, and what none but himself, perhaps, has had so good an opportunity of thoroughly estimating. There is a gossipping, all-telling style about the book which is certain to make it popular with English readers.”--_John Bull._ “A picturesque book on Rome and its ecclesiastical sovereigns, by an eloquent Roman Catholic. Cardinal Wiseman has here treated a special subject with so much generality and geniality, that his recollections will excite no ill-feeling in those who are most conscientiously opposed to every idea of human infallibility represented in Papal domination.”--_Athenæum._ “In the description of the scenes, the ceremonies, the ecclesiastical society, the manners and habits of Sacerdotal Rome, this work is unrivalled. It is full of anecdotes. We could fill columns with amusing extracts.”--_Chronicle._ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Transcriber’s Note There are several anomolies in the footnoting. In the original, there is a single footnote 1 in the Preface, and the numbering begins again at the opening of the first chapter. The sequence continues to 99, and then restarts with 1. This is repeated several times. There are also several notes which are denoted only with a traditional asterisk. On occasion, footnotes appear out of order. There is no apparent reason for the dual system, and it seems most likely that the non-numeric references were added later, after the numbering had been completed, and were used to avoid the need to re-sequence work already done. For this text, all footnotes have been re-sequenced numerically across the whole volume, to assure uniqueness. They will appear in the correct order. There was a unaccountable gap in the numbering between note 14 (now 317) on p. 304 and note 27 on the following page. That gap has been closed. The footnote number ‘59’ (now 159) on p. 150 was missing, and was restored here. The same problem occurred on p. 188. Note 8 (now 206) has been restored. Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and are noted here. Given the frequent quotations, it was inevitable that opening and closing quotation marks would sometimes be lost or misplaced. A sampling of these problematic passages reveals that the author has a tendency to paraphrase and otherwise misquote. They are placed here where the context or voice makes their position obvious, or where an inspection of the original sources was possible and allowed for the proper placement.