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1864.] they themselves were tired of waiting; but the lesson was not forgotten, and no delegation of this tempting power has ever been made since, without such preliminary guaranties as effectually to prevent a repetition of the fraud.

As soon as the choice has been ascertained, the successful candidate is placed in a chair upon the altar, and his rivals of ten minutes ago come one by one to adore him (I use the technical word) as their spiritual father. In 844 a Roman of the name of Osporco was chosen Pope, who, unwilling to bring so unseemly an appellation to the throne, dropped it and took that of Sergtus, in its stead. The example pleased, and from that day to this the first act of the new sovereign has been to choose for himself a new name. And the choice is promptly made; for in the thousand years and more that have elapsed since that day, there has not been, probably, one among them all who did not come to the conclave, like Leo X., with his choice ahready made. Next, a window on the square is broken open, and the dean of the sacred college announces in Latin to the crowd below.—as a great joy—gaudium magnum—that they have a new "Father," and the Church a new head. Then the Pope himself comes forward, not yet pontifically arrayed, but in full possession of his spiritual treasury, raises his right hand and pronounces a blessing upon his children; and thus the curtain falls gracefblly upon the first act of the solemn drama. Solemn indeed! for how often have the dearest interests of humanity depended upon the choice of those seventy men!

The reader of Ælian will remember the gravity with which the credulous Prænestian tells us that Philip of Macedon, feeling his head grow dizzy by prosperity, appointed an officer to repeat to him three times a day,—"Philip, thou art a man." Nor win most readers have forgotten how little die solemn admonition prevented him from indulging his royal passions to the top of his bent. An analogous warning, and unhappily too oflen equally ineffective, greets the Pope on his first official visit to St Peter's. For, as he approaches the high altar amid a crowd of attendants, eveiy knee bending in external reverence, the master of ceremonies holds up before his eyes a staff with a bunch of tow upon the top of it, and, setting fire to the tow, says in a grave voice,—"Sancte Pater, sic transit gloria mundi." Thrice the staff is raised, thrice the flax is burned, and thrice the solemn words are repeated; and then, after praying awhile at the altar, the Pope withdraws to meditate, under the gilded canopy, which has cast its bewildering shadows upon the heads of a long line of men equally warned and equally heedless of the warning, how he shall make the most of this transitory glory before it has all passed away.

I pass over die coronation at St Peter's, and the taking possesnon at St John's, and other pageants and ceremonies which have no bearing upon my present purpose. Borne is as fiill of ceremonies as the calendar of saints: clogs in the great wheel of government, almost all of them, if by government we mean the study of the welfare of the governed; for they compel the workman to stand idle when his wants bid him work, and drain the resources of the State for things which bring neither moral nor material return. But it is one of the disadvantages of the pretensions of the Church of Rome, that rites which were full of meaning in the age of infinite symbols have lost all their meaning in an age wherein the exclusive symbols of printing-press and steam devour, like Aaron's rod, their impotent brethren. The rite remains; but the spirit which inspired the actors with devotion and the spectators with reverence has passed away, and forever.

The life of the Pope is regular almost to monotony. He is generally an early riser: early bedtime and the national siesta making it easy to be up wiih the sun, and even before. Mass inaugurates the day. His breakfast, like that of most Italians, is habitually light Official audiences begin at nine. The Secretary of State has his days, the Treasurer his. The Governor of Rome brings a