Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1857-05-01
Letters from Europe
NO. XVII.
The Cetae0mb,.

made to the Catacombs, the celebrated laby-
rinth of subterranean corridors extenling over
six miles, which we're ancient at the time of the
Crucidxion. The early Christians here hid them
selves and their devotions from their prosecutors
and here their martyrs and saints we're buried
Ia Popes and 10000 martyrs are said to have
been here laid in their unknown graves. The bodies
Of st. Peter and St. Paul were long concealed
there, and we're discovered by a miraculous dream
or vision of young woman, as the tradition goes
They abouuded in interesting rude sculptures and
inscriptions which have been removed to the lnu-
scum of the Vatican. We did not descend.
had determined from the first outset Of my
travels to withstand every temptation to enter
these cities of the dead which are scattered all
over Europe and abound in ltaly--the sitting and
musty caverus where the dead Of ages on ages
have slept in labyrinthan passages of darkness
that is never penetrated by any light except that
of the pickering and uncertain torch of The rash
and curious traveller, who ventures into these deep
solitules and awful cells, How many accidents
have happened how many have lost their way
how many have been shut out from return by the
falling in of earth how the light has gone out by
accident how the foot has stumbled all Is un-
known except that they entered and have never
since been seen A whole school of boys from
Rome, with their teacher and guide, entered the
celebrated Roman Catacombs for morning ex-
cursion of observation and amusement. They
have never since been heard Of A young man
entered the same Catacombs without guide, with a
light and ball Of Irvine, the end Of the twine fast
encd at the door that no might find the way
back by following tho Irvine and then boast Of
having wandered alone and in safety through
those entangled passages. By accident he drop
ped his twne after he had wound through numer-
Gus crooked alleys and had doubled untold and
undistinguishable corners. lie stepped forward
to take it, but lost both ball and thread. He felt
for it, but dared not move another step-he looked
with desperate sharpness and grew nervous and
anxious and bewildered, but he could not find it,
He CROPPED around in a small circle but no thread
His light was burning out. lie watched it grow
le,s and less and DINNER and dimmer--his hand
trembed, he dropped his light, and it went out;
and in his desperate panic he fell upon the earth,
and his hand fell upon tho Irvine He was re-
stored TO life and found hi, way to the upper
earth to caution his friends against such fool
hardy enterprises. But the Catacombs of the Ca
quite another thing, and Mariana had taken US,
before we were aware Of his purpose, through a
small subterranean door into an earthly passage to
them. They are several apartments, neatly
kept, the floor (ground) laid out like the beds Of
a garden, smooth and leve--each grave SO
marked and numbered that it may be known
when it was last opened There were dead Cspu-
chin Monks also, in the dress of their order, sit
ting in chairs or standing-the aame brown frock
AMI hood-the same girdle with the cross at the
bet-and eyeless sockets, and feshless jaws and
bones beneath their habitual caps and even the
characteri'ic beard the dry and skinless chins-
white and bony ands and feet, but half exposed to
view These ghostly and revolving images,
THAT showed the dead in their last dresses"
made visible by lights suspended from
the selling in chandeliers, which also revealed
the ornaments Of the walls and the ceilings-
ro.ettes and fancy borders and corner and centre
pieces like embroidered handkerchief. and picture
frames, and chandeliers and ornaments
with their hnnginge, made OF the natural un-
wrought bones of those buried monks. 1t is the
rule of that locality that when monk dies they
open the grave of him who has been buried long
est, take out his dry bones and deposit in their
place the mortal coil that has Just been shuiaed
of and i. hardly cold Such Of those bones as they
need for ornameRtations and fancy work are used
accordingly. AL Al ---' moved to the COM
mon receptacle. You can fancy tue me-. A,-,,-.
Of the handiwork--no, you cannot, without seeing
it. How in infinite variety of combination the
larger bones Of the pelyis and the thigh bones,
the shoulder blades and skulls, arc set oil by the
slender fbula and tibia-the graceful rib and
collar bone, the perforated joints Of the spine
the knee pans and the small bones of the hands
and feet, arranged in fsstoons and flowers and
arabesques Isn't it religious and devout and
goily thus to profane the relics of the dead, even
Of the dead monks that were useless In life
Abraham bought burying place to bury hi, dead
out of his sight Some ages, and some nations
have burned their dead-others have buried them,
all to put them out Of sight and in one way or
another to fulfil the great proclamation; Dust
thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return Earth
to earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashe S, are no
solemn last words to our dead; but here in the
so called capital Of the christian world religious
order Of great respectabilty, in the line of religi-
Gus orders, finds amusement and qualification Of
taste in exposing in profane and ostentatious !
manner the remains of their dead brethren! The |
earth in which these dead are buried, like that Of |
the Campo Santo at Pisa, was brought from Jeru- |
saem, that the dead may rest in the consecrated |
oil Of the holy land. As the poor Monk moves ous
through life, and when at last shadows darker
than those Of his cell shut out the green felds
and bright skies and the faces Of for the last
tme,his narrowed spirit will perhaps find consola-
ton in the thought that his body will receive
consecratei BURIAL the sacred soil of the land |
where his Saviour was buried-that body too,
whose dry bones his humility will say deserve no
better honor than to be dug up and ratified about
for purpose, SO puerile, and disrespectful and
shocking to all cultivated religious sen,ibility.
"Imperia Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
May stop hole, to keep the winds away"
And why may not the bones of dead Capuchins
ornament the cells and vaults of these subtera-
mean catscombs to crafty the tastes or mortify
the pride Of their surviving brethren. In these
sepulchres are also small chapels for the deyo-
tious Of those who choose to worship there.
iours &c.