Ch. 22: Locarno - Page 2

on. The best view of the sanctuary from above is the one which I give on p. 270.

The church itself is not remarkable, but it contains the best collection of votive pictures that I know in any church, unless the one at Oropa be excepted; there is also a modern Italian "Return from the Cross" by Ciseri, which is very much admired, but with which I have myself no sympathy whatever. It is an Academy picture.

The cloister looking over the lake is very beautiful. In the little court down below--which also is of great beauty--there is a chapel containing a representation of the Last Supper in life-sized coloured statues as at Varallo, which has a good deal of feeling, and a fresco (?) behind it which ought to be examined, but the chapel is so dark that this is easier said than done. There is also a fresco down below in the chapel where the founder of the sanctuary is buried which should not be passed over. It is dated 1522, and is Luinesque in character. When I was last there, however, it was hardly possible to see anything, for everything was being turned topsy-turvy by the arrangements which were being made for the approaching fetes. These were very gay and pretty; they must have cost a great deal of money, and I was told that the municipality in its collective capacity was thought mean, because it had refused to contribute more than 100 francs, or 4 pounds sterling. It does seem rather a small sum certainly.

On the afternoon of Friday the 13th of August the Patriarch Monsignor Ballerini was to arrive by the three o'clock boat, and there was a crowd to welcome him. The music of Locarno was on the quay playing a selection, not from "Madame Angot" itself, but from something very like it--light, gay, sparkling opera bouffe--to welcome him. I felt as I had done when I found the matchbox in the sanctuary bedroom at Graglia: not that I minded it myself, but as being a little unhappy lest the Bishop might not quite like it.

I do not see how we could welcome a bishop--we will say to a confirmation--with a band of music at all. Fancy a brass band of some twenty or thirty ranged round the landing stage at Gravesend to welcome the Bishop of London, and fancy their playing we will say "The two Obadiahs," or that horrid song about the swing going a little bit higher! The Bishop would be very much offended. He would not go a musical inch beyond the march in "Le Prophete," nor, willingly, beyond the march in "Athalie." Monsignor Ballerini, however, never turned a hair; he bowed repeatedly to all round him, and drove off in a carriage and pair, apparently much pleased with his reception. We Protestants do not understand, nor take any very great pains to understand, the Church of Rome. If we did, we should find it to be in many respects as much in advance of us as it is behind us in others.

One thing made an impression upon me which haunted me all the time. On every