They sat him down upon a magnificent stool, in front of the altar, on which he knelt, and the crown being taken off, and the cardinals taking off their little red scull-caps, and all kneeling in a row, he was supposed to pray. Having remained in this attitude a few minutes, they took him to the chair prepared for him, on the right of the throne. There he read, or seemed to read, something out of a book, for it was impossible, that without his spectacles, he could really make it out; and then he was again taken to the altar, on which his tiara was placed; and bareheaded, he repeated, or as by courtesy they call it, sang a small part of the service, threw up clouds of incense, and was removed to the crimson canopied throne, and high mass was celebrated by a cardinal and two bishops, at which he assisted, that is, he got up and sat down, in particular parts. “During the whole service, I could not help observing, that the only part of the congregation who where in the least attentive, were the small body of English, whom curiosity, and perhaps sense of decorum, rendered so. All the Italians seemed to consider it quite as much of a pageant as ourselves, but neither a new, nor an interesting one; and they were walking about, and talking, and interchanging pinches of snuff with each other, exactly as if it had been a place of amusement, till the tinkling of a little bell, which announced the elevation of the Host, changed the scene. Every knee was now bent to the earth; every voice was hushed; the reversed arms of the military rung with an instantaneous clang on the marble pavement, as they sunk on the ground, and all was still as death. This did not last above two minutes. The Host was swallowed; and so begun and ended the only thing that bore even the smallest outward aspect of religion. They brought the pope, however, again to the footstool to pray. Two cardinals always support him, some priestly attendants bear up his train, and others busy themselves about his drapery, while two or three others put on and off his tiara and mitre; and so conduct him to and fro, between the altar and the throne, where he sits at the top of his magnificent temple, exactly like an idol dressed up to be worshipped. The long silver robes, the pale, dead, inanimate countenance, and helpless appearance of the good old man, tend still more to give him the air of a thing without any will of its own, but which is carried about, and set in motion, and managed by the priests, and taught by them to make certain movements.