tions for the patronage of our Lady and the benedictions of heaven on the departing warriors. The knights raise their lances in courteous acknowledgment. The rere guard having passed, those disciplined hosts now wheel round in sections, and draw up in the great space, and front towards the Vatican in one compact phalanx, and the sheen of their armour and glittering lances seems like a vast sea of steel rippled in the sunshine by the summer's zephyr, and the banners above it are like the colours of some stately fleet which foundered at sea, and left their bunting floating on the trackless surface after the hulls had gone down to ocean's depths! The waving of the crimson plumes over the helmets seemed in the distance like myriads of lambent flaming jets of light from so many burning lamps, and the red crosses enamelled on the armour were as the sparks which flicker and perform a thousand capricious gambols over the dim edifice of a calcined sheet of paper, which has been just burned to ashes; or, like the twinkling nebula which spangle the azure concave dome of the heavens! Now the Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Urban II., in full pontificals, surrounded by his high ecclesiastical functionaries, appears at a lofty window, and raises his vicarial hands to the treasury of God's graces, and bringing them down laden with heavenly benedictions, in a triple blessing, scatters them amongst the warriors of the cross. They receive them with the utmost veneration, with bended head, vizier down, shield on arm, and lance at rest. Now again, in obedience to the shrill clarion's flourish, they reform into squadrons; they march away for Palestine, to encounter the Mussulman hordes, afterwards commanded by Soliman and Saladin : they move on for the delivery of Jerusalem, and then 38 FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD. "Wavers the deep array, And on the tossing sea of steel, Dies fitfully away". But in Rome the visitor finds fact stranger than fiction, and the present scenes stranger than the history of the past, and the highest flights of fancy can never elevate him to an idea of the realization and sublimity, and picturesque and devotional character of the Easter festivities at Rome. "All pictured poems By fancy shaped at first, and then The gorgeous scenes of pageantry of the medieval ceremonials are transmitted in the glowing word-paintings of Froissart and Monstralet, and the triumphs of the emperor Maximilian shall long be perpetuated in the memories of future generations by the graphic pencil of Andrea Manttegna; and the engravings of Holbein and Albert Durer have familiarized our eye to the sumptuous dresses and imposing processions of the German emperor, walking on carpets of the richest texture, rolled out from the looms of the Low Countries, his path strewn with showers of golden ducats, and his head screened from the rays of the meridian sun by a canopy of golden lama, supported by staves of silver, held by nobles of the highest blood and the most ancient lineage of the proudest country in the world. They represent His Majesty surrounded by battalions of mailed knights, by priests, bishops, and cardinals, in their most costly robes, in copes, chasubles, and pontificals, moving through lanes of congested millions of humanity, regaling themselves on oxen whole, and flowing fountains of wine; lengthened cavalcades moving in all the pageantries of "the field of the cloth of gold", or THE KAISER IN THE RÖMER. 39 congregated at the Kaiser's coronation in the Römer at Frankfort! Those medieval scenes of secular grandeur are vividly pourtrayed by the pen, the pencil, and the graver of the historian, the poet, the painter, and the engraver; but all those efforts of glittering display, even reflected in such glowing colours, dwindle into despicable insignificance, when contrasted with the surpassing splendours, the gorgeous sumptuousness, the grandeur and sublimity of the ceremonial of the Easter festivities at Rome. The ceremonies in the Sistine Chapel, in the Basilica of St. John of Lateran, or on the Pope's altar, before the shrines of the martyred princes of the apostles, where nobles and princes feel honoured in being allowed to bend even to kiss the Vicar's foot; where kings roll their purple robes of royalty in the dust before the steps of his footstool, where he is surrounded by the corps diplomatique, the ambassadors of every dynasty, representing two hundred millions of souls, who acknowledge his sovereignty, and a spiritual kingdom, whose boundaries are the circumference of Christendom, constitute an "embarras des richesses" and visions of grandeur to which the world can present no parallel. Here the Father of the faithful is surrounded by guards of nobles in scarlet and gold-by ladies all draped in court dresses-dazzling military uniforms, glittering with crosses, decorations, and diamonds, which sparkle at every move; Swiss sentinels in tri-colour garbs of the " moyen age", with the round hat and red plume of the Spanish cavalier. These are all moving in serpentine curves from the gilded halls of the Vatican, down the royal stairs, through the vestibule and bronze gates, and under the concave domes, studded with mosaics, of Peter's basilica-religious and esquires, monks and military, princes and priests, and hundreds of bishops, and 40 THE VICAR'S PROGRESS. many cardinals in scarlet and purple, in damask and lace, all preceding the Vicar of Christ, borne on his high sedia gestatoria, crowned with a jewelled, glittering tiara, to the notes of thrilling music, flourishing silver clarions, clattering drums, booming guns, and great bells, amidst kneeling multitudes from every clime. These are scenes which defy the most graphic pen adequately to describe; but when regarded in their moral, religious, and mystic significance, they reach the very climax of sublimity! Contrast eastern or mediæval secular pageantry with the ceremonies of Holy Week in Rome!-contrast the flame of a candle with the effulgent brilliancy of the meridian sun! "Or with taper light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish!" Order of the Ceremonies. PALM SUNDAY. HE ceremonies commence in St. Peter's at halfpast nine o'clock. The Pope blesses and distributes the palms, proceeds in solemn procession round the Basilica, and presides at solemn Mass. WEDNESDAY. On this evening, and on the evenings of Thursday and Friday, the office of Tenebræ commences in the Sistine chapel two hours and a half before the "Ave Maria", that is, about five o'clock. HOLY THURSDAY, The solemn Mass commences in the Sistine chapel at nine o'clock. The Pope administers holy communion to HOURS OF ATTENDANCE. 41 the cardinals, carries the Blessed Sacrament in procession to the Paoline chapel-gives the benediction from the loggia-goes through the ceremony of the "Lavanda”, or washing of the feet of the pilgrims-entertains and serves the pilgrims at dinner. Tenebræ at five o'clock. After the Tenebræ, the ceremony of washing the high altar takes place in St. Peter's. On this evening, at the "Hospital dei Pellegrini", cardinals and princes wash the feet of many pilgrims, and princesses and other Roman ladies observe the same ceremony in the department of the hospital alloted exclusively to females. GOOD FRIDAY. On this morning the ceremonies commence in the Sistine chapel at half-past nine o'clock. Tenebræ at five o'clock. After the Tenebræ, the Pope and the cardinals walk in procession; he visits the shrines of the apostles, and the relics are exposed from the balcony over the statue of St. Veronica. HOLY SATURDAY. The ceremonies commence in the Sistine chapel at nine o'clock. In the Church of St. John of Lateran, the ceremonies commence at half-past seven o'clock. A convert is baptized, and Holy Orders are administered. The parish priests visit and bless the houses of their parishioners on this day. EASTER SUNDAY. The ceremonies commence in the Vatican at ten o'clock. The Pope goes in grand procession from the Vatican palace to St. Peter's-celebrates the solemn Mass,—and afterwards gives the benediction from the "loggia". The illumination of the cupola of St. Peter's takes place this |