The general effect of this scenic show is admirable,
and crowds flock to it and press about it all day long. Mothers and
fathers are lifting their little children as high as they can, and until
their arms are ready to break; little maids are pushing, whispering,
and staring in great delight; _contadini_ are gaping at it with a mute
wonderment of admiration and devotion; and Englishmen are discussing
loudly the value of the jewels, and wanting to know, by Jove, whether
those in the crown can be real.
While this is taking place on one side of the church, on the other is a
very different and quite as singular an exhibition. Around one of the
antique columns of this basilica--which once beheld the splendors and
crimes of the Caesars' palace--a staging is erected, from which little
maidens are reciting, with every kind of pretty gesticulation, sermons,
dialogues, and speechifications, in explanation of the _Presepio_
opposite. Sometimes two of them are engaged in alternate question and
answer about the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Redemption.
Sometimes the recitation is a piteous description of the agony of the
Saviour and the sufferings of the Madonna,--the greatest stress being,
however, always laid upon the latter.
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