The Sun.
London, England, 1867-07-23 00:00:00

Miscellaneous Foreign News.

A letter from Rome, dated July 11, says :
A few days more, and we shall again find our-
selves in the midst of that solemn silence and

repose which best teaches the higher order of minds

to know and love Rome.

Our festival has passed away like a bright vision,
and this week has been one of partings and dis
persions. Of English there are hardly any left.
One of the papers has amused itself with calculat-
ing that to have given each of the bishops an

audience of only half-an-hour would have occupied
the Pope from the middle of June till the end of

August, de'voting four hours a day to the purpose

every day, except the great festivals. With regard
to the approximate number of foreigners who have

visited us, I know on the best authority that, two

or three days before St. Peter's, 75,000 passports

had passed through the office at ➢lonte Citorio,

15,000 of which belonged to ecclesiastics, and in
those last days numbers more came in. This mass

of people cannot have spent much less than a mil-
lion sterling during their stay.
The ceremonies since my last, though splendid
and significant in themselves, are paled by the
greater glories that have gone before, and one writes
with the impression that your readers will have

but little interest left for them unexhausted,

Sunday's function, especially, was an important

one. It was no less than the solemn beatification

of what may be reckoned a whole army of martyrs
—Alfonso Navarrete, Pietro di Avila, Pietro di
Zuniga, Carlo Spinola, Gioachino Diaz, and two
hundred others ; some Europeans, Jesuits, Francis-
cans, and Augustinians, and many native Japanese,
among whom, children of tender years—ten, five,
and even two—all having suffered for the faith be-
tween 1617 and 1632.

The officiating bishop on this occasion was a
Capuchin. The Pope is not present at a beatifica-
tion. The ceremony commenced at ten o'clock, and

was performed at a special altar put up in the place
where the Pope's throne stood for the canonization,

in front of an architectural screen erected a few feet

within the line of the apse. I was fortunate in ob

taining an excellent place close to it in the Palco
dei Procuratori, by favour of a member of the family
of one of the beatified. The first procession,
headed by the officiating bishop, was modest enough
in its proportions ; but, before Mass began, another
entered, consisting of the heads of all the orders
who counted any of the candidates for beatification
among its sons, and advanced towards the Cardinal
Vicar in his stall, and one appointed to speak for
the rest preferred the request that the decree of
beatification might be pronounced. The decree
was subsequently read from a raised desk ; it was in
Latin, of course, and detailed the performance of
all the necessary preliminary steps ; ;it occupied
about half an hour. As it concluded, the curtains,
which, up till then, had covered the pictures repre-
senting acts in the life of the beatified, both within
and without the church, were lowered, the Te Deum

was intoned, a salute was fired from Sant' Angelo,
and the bells of Rome set ringing.
At six in the evening the Holy Father came into
St. Peter's to venerate the relics of the new beati,

attended by cardinals, cameriere, and guardie nobile ;
he was presented with a life of the beati in hand-
some binding, and a large bouquet of choice

flowers.
St. Peter's chair, which was to have been restored
to its own position in the apse on the octave of St.
Peter, was left, by special desire of the Holy Father,
till Tuesday evening, when it was replaced in pro-
cession, the Te Deum being sung the while. It is
200 years since it was last exposed to view.
Though an object of so great care and veneration,
it is in itself very simple and unpretending—in size
not bigger than an ordinary arm-chair ; in design

very plain, and made of wood, though partly inlaid