The cardinals are named by the Pope, though all the Catholic Powers are allowed to recommend a certain number. Some hats are generally kept in reserve in case of any emergency, so that the number is seldom full. The nomination is not often abused, and the honour so rarely misplaced, that the public has not been known to complain for a long lapse of years.

The grand assembly of the cardinals is called the Consistory, where the Pontiff presides in person. Here they appear in all the splendour of the purple and form a most majestic senate, such as might almost justify the emphatical expression of the Greek Orator. But this assembly is not precisely a council, as it seldom discusses, but witnesses the ratification of measures previously weighed and adopted in the cabinet of the Pontiff. Here therefore public communications are announced, foreign ambassadors received, cardinals created, formal compliments made and answered, in short, the exterior splendour of sovereignty displayed to the public eye. But the principal prerogative of a cardinal is exercised in the Conclave, so called because the members of the sacred college are then confined within the precincts of the great halls of the Vatican palace, where they remain immured till they agree in the election of a Pontiff. The halls are divided into temporary apartments; each cardinal has four small rooms, and two attendants called conclavists. The Senator of Rome, the conservators, and the patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops, then in the city, guard the different entrances into the conclave, and prevent all communication. These precautions to exclude all undue influence and intrigue, from such an assembly, on such an occasion,

though not always effectual, deserve applause. However, the clashing interests of the different courts are so well-poised, that even intrigue can do but little mischief; for if the cardinals attached to any sovereign make particular efforts in favour of any individual of the same interest, they only awaken the jealousy and rouse the opposition of all the other courts and parties. In fact, the choice generally falls on a cardinal totally unconnected with party, and therefore exceptionable to none, exempt from glaring defects, and ordinarily remarkable for some virtue or useful accomplishment, such as learning, dignity, moderation, firmness.

It is not my intention to specify all the forms of etiquette ob served, or the ceremonies practised during the process, or at the conclusion of the election; two or three however I must notice for reasons which will appear sufficiently obvious; one is the custom of putting the tickets containing the votes of the cardinals on the patina (or communion plate), and then into the chalice: now, however important these votes may be, and however intimate their connection with the welfare of the Church, yet to apply to them the vases devoted in a peculiar manner to the most awful institutions of Religion, seems to pass beyond disrespect, and almost to border on profanation. The next ceremony to which I have alluded, is that called the adoration of the Pope; it takes place almost immediately after his election, when he is placed in a chair on the altar of the Sixtine chapel, and there receives the homage of the cardinals: this ceremony is again repeated on the high altar of St. Peter's. Now in this piece of pageantry, I object not to the word adoration; no one who knows Latin, or reflects upon the sense which it bears on this and on a thousand other occasions, will cavil at it, though he

may wish it otherwise applied. Nor do I find fault with the throne; he who is at the same time both Pontiff and Prince has, from time and custom, perhaps a double title to such a distinction. But why should the altar be made his footstool? the altar, the beauty of holiness, the throne of the victim* lamb, the mercy seat of the temple of Christianity; why should the altar be converted into the footstool of a mortal.

I mean not, however, while I condemn this ceremony to extend the censure to those who practise or who tolerate it. Besides the difficulty of altering an ancient rite (if this piece of pageantry however deserve that epithet) the world is too well acquainted with the virtues of the late Pontiffs to suspect them of want of humility. To conform to an established custom, and refer the honour to him whom they represent, the Prince of Pastors and the Master of Apostles appears perhaps to them a greater act of humility than to excite surprize, and perhaps to give offence, by an untimely and unexpected resistance. Be the motives of toleration however what they may, the practice is not edifying to any, it is offensive to most, and of consequence, as producing some evil and no good, it ought to be suppressed.

The last ceremony which I shall notice is the following. As

Hic suâ pascit populos fideles

Carne, qui mundi scelus omne tollit

Agnus, et fusi pretium cruoris

Ipse propinat.

Hym. Ded.

the new Pontiff advances towards the high altar of St. Peter's, the master of the ceremonies kneeling before him, sets fire to a small quantity of tow placed on the top of a gilt staff, and as it blazes and vanishes in smoke, thus addresses the Pope, Sancte Pater! sic transit gloria mundi! This ceremony is repeated thrice. Such allusions to the nothingness of sublunary grandeur have, we all know, been introduced into the ceremonials of royal pageantry both in ancient and modern times; nor is it mentioned here as a novelty, but as a proof of the transcendent glory which once encompassed the papal throne.-Nemo est in mundo sine aliqua tribulatione vel angustiâ, quamvis Rex sit vel Papa.-De Imit. Christi. 1. 22. The pontifical dignity was then, it seems, supposed to be the complement and perfection of regal and even imperial power.

Yet there is no sovereign who seems to stand in so little need of this lesson as the Roman Pontiff. The robes which encumber his motions, the attendants that watch his steps, and the severe magnificence that surrounds him on all sides, are so many mementos of his duties and of his responsibility; while the churches which he daily frequents lined with monuments, that announce the existence and the short reigns of his predecessors; nay, the very city which he inhabits, the sepulchre of ages and of empires, the sad monument of all that is great and glorious beneath the sun, remind him at every step of fallen grandeur and of human mortality. One lesson more the Pontiff is now destined to receive daily, and that is of all others the most impressive and most mortifying; power escaping from his grasp, and influence evaporating in the shadow of a name, Sic transit gloria mundi.

Of the retinue and procession of the Pontiff at the inauguration we shall say no more; but of the ceremonial of the Roman Court in general give the opinion of the most intelligent of French travellers in his own words, after having observed that, to the eye of an Englishman, though as partial to pomp and stateliness as the native of a northern region can be, the effect would be increased if the quantum of ceremony were considerably diminished. La pompe qui environne le Pape, et les ceremonies de l'Eglise Romaine sont les plus majestueuses, les plus augustes, et les plus imposantes qu'on puisse voir.*

From the state and the exterior of the Popes in general, we will now pass to the person and the character of the present Pontiff. Pius VII. is of a noble family, Chiaramonte by name, and became early in life a Benedictin monk of the Abbey of S. Georgio at Venice. His learning, virtue, and mildness raised him shortly above the level of his brethren, attracted the attention of his Superiors first, and afterwards of the late Pope, Pius VI. who had an opportunity of noticing the Father Chiaramonte, on his way to Vienna, and who shortly after promoted him to the See of Imola, and afterwards raised him to the purple. His career in this splendid line seems to have been marked rather by the

* La Lande.—The reader will perhaps be surprized to find no account of various observances, of which he has heard or read much, such as the open stool, the examination, &c. &c.; but his surprize will cease, or perhaps increase, when he is assured that no such ceremonies exist.