As for Colin, if he had been a _littèrateur_ by profession, it is likely that, by this time, he would have began to compile “Letters from Italy,” like others of the trade; but, being only a Scotch scholar, the happy holder of a Glasgow bursary, he felt himself superior to such temptations; though, indeed, after a week’s residence at Frascati, Colin secretly felt himself in a condition to let loose his opinion about Italian affairs in general. In the meantime, however, he occupied himself in another fashion. Together, he and his watchful guardian made pilgrimages into Rome. They went to see everything that it was right to go to see; but, over and above that, they went into the churches--into all manner of churches out of the way, where there were no grand functions going on, but only every-day worship. Colin was not a watchful English divine spying upon the superstition of Rome, nor a rampant Protestant finding out her errors and idolatries. He was the destined priest of a nation in a state of transition and renaissance, which had come to feel itself wanting in the balance after a long period of self-complacency. With the instinct of a budding legislator and the eagerness of youth, he watched the wonderful scene before him--not the Pope, with his peacock feathers, and purple and scarlet followers, and wonderful audience of heretics--not high masses in great basilicas, nor fine processions, nor sweet music. The two Scotsmen made part of very different assemblies in those Lenten days, and even in the joyful time of Easter, when carriagefulls of English visitors, rushing to the ceremonies of the week, made the narrow Roman streets almost impassable. Perhaps it was a feeling of a different kind which drew the two strangers for the first time to the awful and solemn temple, where once the heathen gods were worshipped, and where Raphael rests; but let artists pardon Colin, whose own profession has associations still more lofty than theirs, if, on his second visit, he forgot Raphael, and even the austere nobility of the place. A humble congregation of the commonest people about--people not even picturesque--women with shawls over their heads, and a few of the dreamy poor old men who seem to spend their lives about Italian churches, were dotted over the vast floor, kneeling on those broken marbles which are as old as Christianity; some dropped at random in the middle, beneath the wonderful blue breadth of sky which looked in upon their devotions; some about the steps of the little altars round, and a little group at the special shrine where vespers were being sung. A lover of music would not have found a voice worth listening to in the place, and perhaps neither time nor tune was much attended to; but there was not a soul there, from the faint old men to the little children, who did not, according to his capabilities, take up the response, which was to every one, apparently, matter as familiar as an every-day utterance. These worshippers had no books, and did not need any. It might be words in a dead language--it might be but partially understood, or not understood at all; but at least it was known and familiar as no religious service is in England, notwithstanding all our national vaunt of the prayer-book, and as nothing could possibly be in Scotland, where we have no guide (save “the minister”) to our devotion. When Colin, still weak and easily fatigued, withdrew a little, and sat down upon the steps of the high altar to listen, with a kind of shame in his heart at being unable to join those universal devotions, there came to his ear a wonderful chime of echoes from the great dome, which sent his poetic heart astray in spite of itself--for it sounded to the young dreamer like another unseen choir up there, who could tell of what spectators and assistants?--wistful voices of the past, coming back to echo the Name which was greater than that of Jove or Apollo. And then he returned to his legislative thoughts; to his dreams, patriotic and priestly: to his wondering, incredulous question with himself whether worship so familiar and so general, so absolutely a part of their daily existence, could ever be known to his own people. Such a thought, no doubt, had it been known, would almost have warranted the withdrawal of the scholarship, and certainly would have deferred indefinitely Colin’s chances of obtaining licence from any Scotch Presbytery. But, fortunately, Presbyterians are little interested in investigating what takes place in the Pantheon at Rome;--whether old Agrippa breathes a far-off Amen out of the dome of his dead magnificence to the worship of the Nazarene, as Colin thought in his dreams; or what vain imaginations may possess the soul of a wandering student there.