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'God-dam,' long after the solemn service of the church has begun. The Vicegerent of God on earth in vain represents, the cross of peace in vain shines above the high altar: tranquillity is only restored when suffocation begins.

"The rites which all come to witness, but to which none attend, are at last finished. The procession of the sacrament to the Paoline Chapel succeeds; and then comes the tug of war.' Some rush forward, to get in time to the adjoining chapel; others stay to witness the procession (d'aillieurs, the same as that already described at the Quirinal.) The Swiss sweep all before them to clear the passages for the ceremony, without consulting the wishes of any. Then the long file of priests, carrying lighted torches, moves forward, followed by the cardinals, with their hands meekly folded on breasts dazzling with gold, while their wondering and inquiring eyes seem so say, 'Is it only to see us that you are all here? The Pope, supported by prelates, his meek head imperially canopied, his gorgeous train proudly borne, totters slowly after them, chaunting from time to time some tremulous feeble notes, to which the rest respond in deep-toned chorus, until the whole procession passes into that immense vestibule, which serves as an anti room to both chapels. The gates of the Paoline are thrown open, and its dusky walls appear illuminated with thousands of tapers, twinkling in the rays of the noon-day sun, through an atmosphere of smoke. Few are able to enter the illuminated chapel, or to behold the deposition of the sacrament; and many who are informed of the program of the day, by endeavouring to catch at all the ceremonies, scarcely attain to any.

"The desire of seeing the Pope wash the pilgrims' feet with the cardinals waiting on them at dinner, and of beholding the Pope give the benediction from the balcony, divide the attention and impede the efforts of the distracted sight-seer. A prelate in pontificalibus ascends a flight of stairs, guarded by soldiers: the whole tide of spectators flows after him; they are

repulsed by the sentinels; and, in pro-
portion as they are beaten back, the
Some
crowd from below increases.
one hints that an opposite door leads
to the foot-tubs, or to the scaffolding
erected for seeing the Benediction.
Instantly the torrent directs its course
in that channel, and is met by another
crowd returning disappointed from the
same direction, where cross doors have
been shut in their faces, and guards
have driven them back likewise. Then
the efforts to get up, and get down, to
get in, and get out, produce conse-
quences the most unsuitable to the so-
lemnity of the season, and of the place,
Shoes are lost, veils are torn, ancles are
strained, shoulders dislocated, and ribs
bruised; and those who escape unin-
jured to the silent solitary nave of St.
Peter's, and neither see the Pope wash
feet, now the cardinals serve maccaro-
ni to hungry beggars, are by far the
best off. Here gradually assemble,
and patiently wait, in tedious suspense
for the arrival of carriages, or in fretful
anxiety for more venturous friends,
three-fourths of the multitude, who
come so far to see so much, and who
return having very literally seen noth-
ing, consoling themselves with the re-
flection that though the pageantry of
Holy Thursday is lost, Good Friday
and Easter Sunday are yet to come.
The first anxiety on this occasion is to
get in, the next to get out; and, during
the whole day, the congregation are so
occupied in taking care of their bodies,
that, in spite of masses and processions,
no one ever gives one thought to the

care of his soul.

"On Good-Friday the turmoil is something less, because there are fewer sights to see. This day of gloom and sacrifice, of fasting and mortification, begins at the Vatican by a superb and sumptuous dinner, given to the conclave and the corps diplomatique, &c.

"Thus prepared for the celebration of the Miserere, which follows the dessert, as a sort of chasse caffe, the guests proceed to their places in the Sistine Chapel. The cardinals move processionally from the table to the altar, to mark, learn, and inwardly digest,' and with lips still moist with lacrymæ

6

Christi, chaunt the responses to the seven penitential psalms. When the last light is extinguished, and the last strain of the Miserere dies away, every one gropes as he can from the Sistine, on his way to St. Peter's. The brilliant lightning of the colonnades, porticos, and staircases, the guards, the crowds of pretty women and welldressed men, give to the splendid avenues the air of a court theatre, and imitate on a more magnificent scale, the Palace of the Tuilleries.

"The Illuminated Cross of St. Peter's, and the adoration of the Pope and cardinals, are the attractions of the evening. On this occasion, thousands of all ranks and countries pour into the church, where no tickets of admission are required; yet the mighty temple, made for the universe, still seems half empty. Many of the dim aisles afford safe asylum for retiring piety, or clandestine love; and the vastness of the whole, contemplated through a well-managed obscurity, seems to extend beyond its usual limits, and to be lost in immeasurable distance. The hundred lamps, which in their bright brazen sockets burn day and night round the sepulchre of St. Peter's are this day extinguished. A cross of flame suspended from the cupola, before the baldachin of the high altar, alone lights the immediate space over which it hangs, and leaves all else in the majesty of darkness, here and there faintly dispersed by a twinkling lamp. That illuminated spot seemed like a magic circle. It is hermetically closed by three files of armed men, and the beams shed from the cross fall only on spears and bayonets. This space is kept clear, and untouched by vulgar and unblessed feet, that pontiffs, princes, and cardinals may, unmolested by plebeian penitence, offer up the sacrifices of their contrite hearts.' At last, these powers and principalities' appear, accompanied by a guard, who clear a passage through the gathering multitude. The troops that await them open their files, and close again upon their precious charge. The Pope falls prostrate before the Cross, on cushions of down and velvet. The princes and princesses, with their little

courts of little courtiers, (and less than these never crawled upon the robes of royalty) take their station on the right; on his left kneel the cardinals.

"During this singular prostration the most profound silence reigned. The Pope seemed unfeignedly absorbed in holy abstraction; and as the light fell upon his venerable head and faded face, and tinged his flowing robes, there was something mystic and ideal in his appearance; and to a faith which fancy had warmed, or fanaticism deranged, his translation from a mortal coil at that moment might have appeared possible.

"In the centre of the church crowded the beau monde of London, Paris, Vienna, and St. Petersburgh, laughing, flirting, chattering, and love-making, through all the philological varieties which might be supposed to make a conversazione in the tower of Babel. There vows were received that did not all belong to heaven, and oaths were taken at the statue of St. Peter, at which Jove laughs, if Peter does not.

"There, too, Roman beauties, who disdained the flaunting rites of noonday ceremonial, moved in their long black veils, to meet at the appointed shrine some male devotee; and there, in true sincerity of heart and faith, knelt within view of that cross, to which alone her eyes are directed, one alike the world forgetting, by the world forgot.' Whole families of the middle classes were seated on the steps of altars, or at the feet of monuments, gazing on the varied spectacle; and bands of peasantry breathing garlic and aves, strutted every where about, piously amused, and adding much to the strangeness of the scene, whose grotesque groupings they aptly filled

up.

"As 'night thickens,' and St. Peter's thins, the slow return of the varied multitude, and above all of the pilgrim bands and confraternities, afford a picturesque and curious addition to the Good-Friday sights. These pilgrims are wretched ragged creatures, led on by some Roman lady of condition, who, with the cross of her Redeemer in one hand and her French ridicule in the other, gives out the pen

itential stave as she moves along, and is answered by the yell of her followers. As their dark bands sweep along the banks of the Tiber, and their red torches flash on the walls of the castle of St. Angelo, they raise the deep-toned, and, when softened by distance, occasionally melodious psalmody, that with exquisite skill they suffer to die away along those waters over which Pagan priests have raised their Io Pæans, or chaunted the funeral obsequies to the death of Adonis.

"Saturday, unmarked by any imposing ceremony, is passed in silence and gloom. It images the descent of Christ into hell. But the eve of Easter Sunday portends, by various festive exhibitions, the joys and the triumphs of the following day, and the termination of that long penance and privation which precede it. The shops of Rome are then gaily lighted; and the pizzicaroli, the faithful allies of the church, now offer food for meditation' to the hungry devotees, whose long fasts are about to be recompensed by repletion. In one shop we saw St. Paul irradiated by a glory of sausages; and in another the ill-boding bird of St. Peter, hung up with the apostle it had warned in vain; Madonnas curiously carved in butter, and Bambinos in lard, warmed the devotion of the inward man; and every eatable of plastic consistence, or of malleable form, was pressed into the service of architectural decoration and symbolic piety.

"On Easter Sunday the service is performed at St. Peter's, and it is then that the church exhibits all its splendour, and exhibits its forces on a site worthy their display. The spacious Piazza of St. Peter, its porticos and colonnades, its beautiful fountains, its stupendous facade, glittering in the noon-day sun, become the scene of action Above its marble walls rise fantastic awnings, for the accommodation of the spectators, who at an early hour crowd their elevated seats. The space below is lined with infantry. The light horse, with their showy dresses, form a line within. The Roman military standards, once the banners of universal conquest, now only serve to

deck the pageant and to flaunt above the gaudy little colours of the Swiss corps.

"In the centre of all, forming the inner circle, and crowding the steps of the church, are a multitude of common people. The loggie above the portico are filled with the cardinals; and in the centre, raised upon men's shoulders high above all, like some dimly-seen deity, and reduced almost to a speck by his elevation, appears the Pontiff. He is said to pray, but prays unheard; and when he rises to give the benediction, the act, scarce visible, is lawfully announced by the tolling of the great bell of St. Peter's, and the firing of the cannon of St. Angelo. The military ground their arms, and drop on their knees; the cardinals fling down the church's indulgences among the people, who scarcely stooped to pick them up, though each was the remission of years of frailty. Drums beat, trumpets sound, the music plays, the troops file off, and the ceremony finishes at night with the illumination of the Vatican.

"On Easter Monday a general rout ensues: Give me a horse, my kingdom for a horse,' is the cry. Posthorses and vetturino-stands are on that day all that the Vatican and St. Peter's were the day before. Some fly for amusement to the crater of Mount Vesuvius, others to the abyss of Herculaneum; rendezvous are given among the ruins of Palmyra, and parties are arranged among the cedars of Mount Lebanon; some return to seek hearts left at Florence or Genoa; and others who, amidst the affectation of virtu, and pretended admiration of a climate with which few are not disappointed, pant for the comforts of a British fire side, turn their heads homewards, delighted to have seen Italy, and delighted to leave it. The Roman matron is left to prepare her pizza de pasqua' undisturbed by her restless lodgers; and the Roman existence resumes its monotony, its indolence, and its quietude; with nothing to look to but the mal-aria, until 'le passage des hirondelles' shall again bring a bevy of foreign visitants to the Porta del Popolo."

It is pictures like these which 'give the very body of the times their form and pressure,' that distinguish the observations of intellectual and gifted persons from those of the common herd of travellers. Formerly the English thought they shewed their loyalty, whenever they went abroad, by insulting the host, at the hazard of finishing their days in a prison, ridiculing the miracles pretended to be worked by favourite saints or relics, and keeping their hats as firmly on their heads, and their knees as stiff, on all occasions, where the customs of the country they might be in required them to kneel or be uncovered, as any of the staunchest adherents of quakerism could do in the days of Charles II.; and this contempt was richly repaid by the hatred of the Catholics, who looked upon their most solemn ceremonies to be polluted by the presence of these island heretics, and rejoiced in all the fervour of pious zeal when they had an opportunity of shewing their Christian regard for the good of their souls by purifying their bodies in this world with the holy fires which were typical of what they were supposed to deserve in the next. Now the case is altered: the best places, the most imposing ceremonies are reserved for the English, who gaze with complacent civility upon the mummeries which have long ceased to interest the enlightened, who profess the faith of which they form the excrescences. Lady Morgan remarks, that so few Italians of condition attended the cere `monies described in these extracts, that it awakened the muse of Pasquin. When asked by Marforio "where he was going in his court-dress, he replies, "To the Vatican"-" But !"

says Marforio, "you will get no admittance." "Pardon me," he rejoins, "I have lately turned heretick."

The eagerness with which the Italians begin to imitate our social institutions, and to study our literature, is a more pleasing subject of reflection. In Naples our language is studied almost as much as that of France; our newspapers find their way into its most enlightened circles, and the Marchese Berio, distinguished still more by his literary acquirements than by his rank and opulence, has addressed Lord Byron in an ode so replete with beauty and enthusiasm, as sufficiently proves how competent a judge he is of the merits of the noble bard whom he thus apostrophizes in a strain of poetry little inferior to his own. The sight of these stanzas, which have not before been submitted to any other eyes than those of the author's private friends, is one of the benefits which Lady Morgan's introduction into the literary circles of Italy has enabled her to confer on her readers; and assuredly it is only doing her justice to say, that, she has given us more information on the actual state of society in that country at the present moment, the alternate influence of France and Austria on its manners and feelings, and the probable effects of the Holy Alliance and the revived order of things, that can be found in any of the numerous publications which have made their appearance since peace has smoothed the way for idleness and folly to lead their countless votaries over the continent, to enrich foreigners with the property which they grudge proportioning any share of to the benefit of their own country.-New Mon.

THE mighty sun had just gone down
Into the chambers of the deep;
The ocean birds had upward flown,
Each in his cave to sleep.

And silent was the island shore,

NAPOLEON.

And breathless all the broad red sea, And motionless beside the door Our solitary tree.

Our only tree, our ancient palm,

Whose shadow sleeps our door beside,

Partook the universal calm,
When Buonaparte died.

An ancient man, a stately man,

Came forth beneath the spreading tree, His silent thoughts I could not scan, His tears I needs must see.

A trembling hand had partly cover'd The old man's weeping countenance, Yet something o'er his sorrow bover'd That spake of War and France;

Something that spake of other days,
When trumpets pierced the kindling air,
And the keen eye could firmly gaze
Through battle's crimson glare.

Said I, perchance this faded hand,
When Life beat high, and Hope was

young,

By Lodi's wave-on Syria's sand

The bolt of death hath flung.

Young Buonaparte's battle cry

Perchance hath kindled this old cheek; It is no shame that he should sigh,

His heart is like to break.

He hath been with him, young and old;
He climb'd with him the Alpine Snow;
He heard the cannon when they roll'd
Along the silver Po.

His soul was as a sword, to leap
At his accustom'd leader's word;
I love to see the old man weep,—
He knew no other lord.

As if it were but yesternight,

This man remembers dark Eylau,His dreams are of the Eagle's flight, Victorious long ago.

The memories of worser time

Are all as shadows unto him;

Fresh stands the picture of his prime,-
The dater trace is dim.

I enter'd, and I saw him lie

Within the chamber, all alone,

I drew near very solemnly
To dead Napoleon.

He was not shrouded in a shroud,
He lay not like the vulgar dead,
Yet all of haughty, stern, and proud
From his pale brow was fled.
He had put harness on to die,

The eagle-star shone on his breast, His sword lay bare his pillow nigh,The sword he liked the best.

But calm-most calm was all his face,
A solemn smile was on his lips,
His eyes were clos'd in pensive grace—
A most serene eclipse!

Ye would have said some sainted sprite
Had left its passionless abode,-
Some man, whose prayer at morn and night
Had duly risen to God.

What thoughts had calm'd his dying breast
(For calm he died) cannot be known;
Nor would I wound a warrior's rest-
Farewell, Napoleon!

No sculptured pile our hands shall rear;
Thy simple sod the stream shall lave,

The native Holly's leaf severe

Shall grace and guard thy grave.

The Eagle stooping from the sky

Shall fold his wing and rest him here, And sunwards gaze with glowing eye From Buonaparte's Bier.

Blackwood's Ed. Mag.

LINES SUGGESTED BY THE SIGHT OF SOME LATE AUTUMN FLOWERS.

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