Four lectures on the offices and ceremonies of Holy Week, as performed in the Papal chapels : delivered in Rome in the Lent of MDCCCXXXVII

••H

WnHiBHI

RBHH

<&

mesm

LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE

LECTURES

ON

HOLY WEEK.

LONDON: C. RICHARDS, PRFNTER, ST. MARTIN'S LANE.

rnr R,,,j/,-,-j-.f-

'/ tfa

FOUR LECTURES

ON I III

OFFICES AND CEREMONIES

OF

HOLY WEEK,

AS PERFORMED IN THE PAPAL CHAPELS.

DELIVERED IN ROME, IN THE LENT OF

MDCCCXXXVII.

91710

BV

NICHOLAS WISEMAN, D. D.

A °

LONDON:

PUBLISHED BY CHARLES DOLMAN,

(NEPHEW AND SDCCESSOII TO THE LATE JOSEPH BOOKER,)
01, NEW BOND STREET.

MDCCCXXX1X.

LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE

LC-

PREFACE.

THE late lamented Cardinal Weld was in
the habit of having occasional courses of
Lectures delivered in his apartments, upon
the ceremonies of Holy Week. The series
now offered to the Public was one of these.
The Author was preceded on the subject
by the Right Rev. Dr. England, bishop of
Charleston, in the United States, and by
his much esteemed friend, the Rev. Dr.
Baggs, vice-rector of this College, whose
course is likewise preparing for the Press
in this city. Perhaps a third series may
be considered by some superfluous. In

VI PREFACE.

reply to this objection, the Author begs
to remark, that the plan which he has
pursued varies materially from the other
two ; inasmuch as they follow the order
of the functions of Holy Week, describing
and explaining them one by one, while he
has rather endeavoured to give their spirit,
and suggested principles which may assist
strangers in attending them with profit.
They are published almost verbatim as de-
livered ; and they were prepared without
much leisure for study. On undertaking,
therefore, to prepare them for the press,
he would have willingly remodelled or ex-
tended them, had not friends, upon whose
judgment he could rely, dissuaded him, on
the ground, that they would lose the lighter
character they originally bore, and be trans-
formed into treatises. They are conse-
quently sent forth with most of their ori-
ginal imperfections upon them.

HIKFACK. Vll

The illustrations which accompany this
small volume, require no commendation
from the Author, but only an acknowledg-
ment of his obligations. The Frontispiece
was kindly drawn for him by the illustrious
Overbeck ; and represents, at once, the
entire subject of the work ; the Church in-
viting us to mourn the death of her spouse,
under the symbol of One who, alone on
earth, could ever adequately mourn it, with
a mother's mourning over her only be-
gotten. The drawing has found an en-
graver worthy of it, in Ludwig Griiner,
Esq., whose works will descend to poste-
rity in close connexion with those of the
ancient Roman school which he has so well
followed both in spirit and in execution.
Each Vignette, at the head of a Lecture,
represents the subject of which it treats ;
the Passion of Christ viewed in relation to
the arts of design, to poetry and music, to

Vlll PREFACE.

history and to religion. Those at the close
give a scene from each of the great days
of Passion-tide : — the first from Palm-Sun-
day, the second from Holy Thursday, the
third from Good Friday, and the fourth
from Easter Sunday. For all these the
Author is indebted to the kindness of W.
Furse, Esq., an artist whose ability, how-
ever great, is not the quality which most
endears him to his friends. In fine, for
the better understanding of parts of these
Lectures, the Author has placed below a
ground plan of the chapels in which the
principal ceremonies take place, with their
approaches. This was drawn for him by
Sig. Giorgioli, a young architect of. tried
taste, as will be proved by the sepulchral
chapel now erecting from his designs, by
the Rt. Hon. Lord Clifford, for the remains
of Cardinal Weld and his daughter, in the
church of St. Marcello. If, therefore, the

PREFACE.

IX

Author has shown in these Lectures the
intimacy of Art with the sacred commemo-
ration of the Passion, Art has here more
than fully borne him out ; and proved, by
its readiness to assist him, how akin his
theme is to its inspirations.

English College, Rome,
Sf. Andrews Day, 1838.

Keferettceu.

1. Staircase mounting from the Corlile

dt'l MtinsrinUo to the Sola Regia.
•2. Sal a Reyia.

3. Entrance to the Gallery from which
the Papal Benediction is ;/iren.

4. Pauline Chapel.

5. Sixline Chapel.

6. Papal Throne.

7. Sacristy to the Sixtine Cha-

8. Staircase leading from the t'-:::'^-. ~
Sixtine to St. Peters. &£»i =^-

0. Branch nf the Staircase ,^-.v_V:
Ifiidimj to the Sola Reyia. i~.'.~'.~-~~-
Id. Srala Regia, leading from l'-~--- :-'':'-
the Sola to the Porch off"'""
Constanttne.

Plan of the Papal Chapels.

LECTURE THE FIRST.

LECTURE THE FIRST.

EXTERNAL RELATIONS BETWEEN THE FUNC-
TIONS OF HOLY WEEK AND CHRISTIAN ART.

Introduction. — General division. — These functions considered
in connexion with Art. — And first in their outward re-
lations.— Places in which they are performed. — The Sixtine
and Pauline Chapels. — St. Peter's.

OF those who have journeyed thus far to study
the wonders, ancient and modern, of this great
city, few, I believe, will fail to discover, among
their motives of curiosity, a desire to attend the
offices and ceremonies of the approaching sea-

B

2 LECTURE THE FIRST.

son. This desire will, indeed, be modified into
various feelings by many more peculiar consider-
ations ; there will be some who look forward
to these scenes, as they would towards any
others, big with novelty and strange represent-
ation ; there may be a few whose prospect is
soured by harsher preconceits, and the fore-
thought of severe condemnation ; many, I hope,
desire to derive from them a solider and more
wholesome enjoyment, through the manifold
beauties and soothing impressions therein to be
found ; and not a few, I am sure, who have been
for some weeks walking through the painful
avenue that leads to them, will prepare their
hearts as though it were for a visit unto Calvary,
and study to secure all those appliances of grace
which the coming time may well aiford. But, to
none can it be amiss to approach with some
degree of preparation ; for none can wish to
be present as ignorant spectators, who ap-
plaud or condemn that which they understand
not. It would be but a sad waste of time, and
of long expectation, to gaze, as though it were
an unmeaning pageant, on things full of deep
mysterious meaning; or to listen to what is
said and sung, unmindful of the deeper voice of
antiquity, or of the pathetic words of religion,
which thrill through the matchless strains. This
preparation- may be various, according to the

LECTURE THE FIRST. 3

aspect under which these sacred offices are to
be viewed. Some may desire to learn the age
and origin of each rite, others their secret mean-
ing ; one will be content with information re-
garding the outward forms, and successive
arrangements of the holy ceremonies ; and his
neighbour may ask by what laws and on what
principles they are generally regulated. To
satisfy these various desires, so as to content
each, would be a task long and uneasy. Neither
would it be practicable, in the compass of a few
discourses, one by one, to explain each ceremony,
or, day by day, to follow the functions which
will be on each performed. Moreover, such a
course would be, to not a few, unintelligible,
inasmuch as their attention would soon be
wearied, and their minds entangled in the mul-
titude and perplexity of rites unknown by them
until now.

I have, therefore, upon deliberation carefully
made, resolved to follow a different plan in this
brief course of Lectures upon the Offices and
Ceremonies of Holy Week ; seeking rather to
provide my hearers with such previous know-
ledge as I think necessary for fully understand-
ing them, and with such principles as may lead
them to form an accurate estimate of their
worth. It is my wish to prepare the mind and
the heart, rather than the understanding and

4 LECTURE THE FIRST.

the senses, and to secure the good effect of the
general impression, more than the relish of
smaller particulars. They who are anxious to
trace out the working of such general rules, as
I shall lay down, in lesser points, (though I shall
be careful, in my application thereof, to omit no
circumstance of moment) may still find it ne-
cessary to consult works easily procured (as a
course delivered in this place, by the Rt. Rev.
Dr. England), for a hand-book or accompani-
ment to the ceremonies of Holy Week.

But, before explaining more particularly the
method I intend, according to my small ability,
to pursue, I will give a brief and condensed view
of each day's respective functions, which are
about to demand your attention.

The week which closes the fast of Lent is
generally by us called The Holy Week. In
the Latin Church it bears the name of the
greater week (major hebdomeda) , as it did of
old among the Greeks ; according as St. John
Chrysostom testifies. The Germans call it the
Charwoche — a word of doubtful etymology, but
probably signifying " the week of sorrows,"
from char or kar, grief. In a similar sense it is
sometimes termed by them the marter woche,
or week of sufferings.* These various names,

Wachter, torn, i.— p. 246.

LECTURE THE FIRST. 5

some glorious and others sorrowful, are sufficient
indications of the event which the week com-
memorates ; the only one in the annals of this
world which can fully deserve both titles, and
that which combines within itself a greater
portion of majesty and dignity, and a larger
share of grief and mourning, than any other
could separately contain. It is a week put by
with especial consecration, from the course of
the year, to sympathize in our dear Redeemer's
sufferings.

The first day is known by the name of Palm-
Sunday, so called from the rite then observed,
in the Catholic church, of blessing and distribu-
ting palm or olive branches ; or, where the
climate does not produce them, branches of
other trees, in commemoration of what the Jews
did when Jesus entered into Jerusalem. The
principal function on that day takes place in the
papal chapel, commonly called " the Sixtine,"
and consists of the Mass. The only points
wherein the service differs from that of any
other Sunday, are the Blessing aforesaid, which
is followed by a procession, similar to that of
Candlemas-day, round the Sala regia ;* and

* The large and splendid hall, which connects the two papal
chapels, known by the name of the Sistina and Paolina, from
the Popes who erected them, in which the principal functions
of Holy Week are performed. — See the ground plan at the
«nd of the preface.

6 LECTURE THE FIRST.

the chaunting, in place of the gospel, of the
Passion, according to St. Matthew, in a peculiar
manner, which will be touched upon in its
proper place.

During the two following days, there is no-
thing in the public offices of the Church pecu-
liarly attractive, though there is a vein of rich
religious pathos running through her liturgy ;
and the office, or public and private devotions,
prescribed to her ministers throughout the week,
which would well repay the attention of the
curious. In fact, the moment this daily form of
prayer becomes public, it seizes powerfully on
the attention of all ; and this takes place for the
first time on the afternoon of Wednesday. The
office, or course of prayer, daily enjoined by the
church on her ministers, is divided into several
portions, receiving names from the hours of day,
at which, anciently, they used to be recited.
The largest portion, however, may be more pro-
perly said to belong to the night, and is subdi-
vided into " Matins " and " Lauds ;" the first or-
dinarily consisting of nine psalms, and nine
lessons from Scripture and the ancient Fathers ;
and the latter of eight psalms or canticles of
a more joyful character, together with various
hymns, antiphons, chapters and prayers- Since
the custom of reciting this portion of the office
at midnight has become confined to religious
communities (many whereof in this city, whe-

LECTURE THE FIRST. 7

ther of men or of women, nightly rise to
praise God in that silent hour), it has been cus-
tomary to perform it early in the morning, or by
anticipation on the preceding evening. The
latter is done, in respect of the Matins, or morn-
ing office, of the three last days in Holy Week ;
so that the Matins of Thursday shall fall on the
Wednesday afternoon, and so of the days ensu-
ing. And these are the offices known by the
name of Tenebrce, or darkness. For a certain
number of candles, placed on a triangular stand,
are by degrees extinguished ; one, that is, after
each psalm, until a mystical darkness (it being
still day) is produced. These offices begin each
day about four of the clock in the afternoon, or
rather sooner ; and are in the Pope's chapel
chiefly remarkable for two things.— The first is,
part of the Lamentations of Jeremiah sung after
the first nocturne, or division of three psalms, in
matins. Three portions of that feeling elegy
are given to each day ; the first being arranged
in such exquisite harmony as ravishes the sense ;
the two latter sung by one voice in an inflexion
of ancient and most moving melody. The se-
cond thing to be specially noted, is the well-
known music of the Miserere, which closes the
service, leaving on the soul a solemn impression
of harmonious feeling which no words that I
have would describe.

8 LECTURE THE FIRST.

Thursday is called by us Holy, or Maunday
Thursday — the second name being derived from
the latin word mandatum, or " precept ;" the
first word of the anthem — " A new command-
ment I give you/' which is sung while the feet
of certain poor men are washed, as will be by
and by declared. The office in the morning
consists of the mass, almost in every respect
like that of any other day. It is in the Sixtine
chapel, and is performed in white, contrary to
the usage of this penitential time. But at its
close, a very beautiful function takes place. As,
on the following day, it has been of most ancient
custom not to consecrate the sacred elements,
a previous consecration is made on this day of
bread into the divine Sacrament of our Lord's
body. The consecrated species is borne in so-
lemn procession to the Pauline chapel, where an
altar, splendidly lighted up, preserves it till next
day. This forms what Catholics know by the
name of the " Sepulchre ;" and it is customary
to visit with devotion in the evening the churches
where such altars are most reverently prepared.

From the Pauline chapel the pope proceeds to
the great gallery over the porch of St. Peter's,
and thence gives his blessing to the people, as-
sembled in the square below. As this splendid
ceremony is repeated with greater magnificence
©n Easter-day, and as it is almost impossible to

LECTURE THE FIRST. 9

return from it to witness the remaining functions,
it may be as well for many to pass it over, on this
occasion, and rather descend, from the Sala
Regia, having seen the procession, into the
church, where, in the right-hand portion of the
transept they will find preparation made for the
washing of feet. This in other places is per-
formed on poor men, but at Rome, by the Pope,
upon thirteen priests, generally poor, of different
nations, who are afterwards by him served at
table, in a hall upstairs. For conveniently seeing
all these functions, tickets are necessary, which
may be easily obtained.*

Friday, called by all other nations that I know,
holy, has received amongst us alone, the better
arid more moving title of " the good." The ser-
vice throughout is lugubrious and sad ; the throne
and altar are stripped of all ornament, the floor
and seats in the chapel are bare, the sacerdotal
vestments black. After some moments of silent
prostration, the priest proceeds to a broken and
almost disordered service, the Passion according
to St. John is chaunted, in the same strain as
was St. Matthew's on Palm-sunday; then follow
prayers for all orders of men; the image of Christ

* These tickets (for ladies) are issued by Monsignor the
Pope's Maggiordomo, at his office in the Vatican palace. Ap-
plication should be made for them through the resident of each
one's country, or through some person known to him, who
thus vouches for the respectability of the applicant.

10 LECTURE THE FIRST.

crucified is unveiled with solemnity (having been
kept covered for a fortnight before), and reve-
rently kissed by all the clergy on their knees,
while the Improperia, or a reproaches/' as they
are called, are sung to the most pathetic music ;
and, finally, a procession like that of the pre-
ceding day, having brought the consecrated
species from the Pauline chapel, the priest receives
them, and the service ends with Vespers solemnly
recited.

In the afternoon, when the office of Tenebrse
is finished, the Pope, with all his court, descends
into St. Peter's, to venerate the holy relics of
Christ's passion which are there kept.

Saturday, properly speaking, has no office ;
that which is performed on it belong to the fol-
lowing night, and being entirely appropriate to
Easter. The attention of strangers is generally
drawn off from the Vatican to the Lateran Basi-
lica, where a long and complicated function takes
place ; to wit, in addition to the proper service
performed in every church, the conferring of
orders of every degree, from the tonsure to the
priesthood (which may be witnessed with greater
convenience at the same church on Saturday
next),* and the baptism and confirmation of any

* " Sitientes" Saturday, or Saturday before Passion-Sun-
day. It may be proper to add that the last Sunday in Lent
is called in the Catholic calendar Palm-Sunday, and the last
but one Passion-Sunday.

LECTURE THE FIRST. 1 I

converted Jews or Mahomedans who may be
ready for these sacraments. But in the Pope's
chapel the entire ceremony is singularly beau-
tiful, consisting of the blessing of new fire, and
of the paschal candle ; then of the Mass, in which,
as will be declared in proper time, a music is
sung that should be dear to all lovers of sacred
harmony.

In conclusion comes Easter-day, the glorious
consummation and crown of preceding sorrows,
the goal of Christian desires, the spring-festival,
as its name doth signify, after the griefs of a
mourning winter. The Pope sings solemn mass
at the high altar of St. Peter's, and at its close
gives his benediction to thousands crowded in
the square below, many of whom are often pil-
grims come from considerable distances. The
rejoicings of the evening, expressed by the illu-
mination of St. Peter's, and the fire-works of the
Castel Sant' Angelo, however notable and
splendid, do not enter into the limits of my
theme.

This is a calendar, or brief catalogue of the
principal scenes which will shortly invite your
attention. They will be much disappointed who
expect any gorgeous display of laboured cere-
monial, or sudden bursts of theatrical effect, or
many overpowering strokes of choral music.
With the exception of the ceremonies of Easter-

12 LECTURE THE FIRST.

day, where the massive action of elements in
themselves simple, but powerfully combined,
produces a splendid result, the eye must not look
forward to stirring or bustling scenes ; and ex-
cepting some few passages of truly " eloquent
music," in the offices of Sunday and Friday, the
ears must be prepared for the instillation of only
the simplest, purest, but withal richest harmo-
nies, which can insinuate themselves through
that living labyrinth. The gratification to be
derived is of a character more deeply mystical ;
it must be the result of considerations, complex
in their origin, which have previously worked in
the mind, and of an abandonment of the feelings
and the soul to the tide of various emotions
which will overflow them. Those who, in the
language of the day, lay themselves out for
seeing every thing, as though it were a show (for
some have even been known to go to the indecent
extent of taking refreshments with them into
the chapel), will very soon be wearied. The
Tenebrse, which many frequent entirely for the
sake of the Miserere, lasts upwards of two hours,
occupied in simple, unharmonized chaunting;
and the experience of every year proves that on
the first evening confusion and inconvenience
ensue from the eagerness of hundreds to enter
the chapel; but by the third day, when the office
is much shorter, the lamentations more exquisite,

LECTURE THE FIRST. 13

and the Miserere in general the best, it is left to
the occupation of a few, whom better feelings
than mere curiosity inspire with perseverance.
In the same manner the office of Thursday
morning is usually thronged to excess, while that
of Friday, which is infinitely more beautiful, is
comparatively deserted.

Now, my desire, as I before intimated, is to
suggest those considerations which may prepare
the mind for setting a due value on these holy
functions, and properly receiving their impres-
sions. I will endeavour to suit my observations
not only to the circumstance of time, but still
more particularly to that of place : that is, I will
not so much treat of the functions of Holy Week
as they are performed all over the Catholic
world, and even in most churches of this city,
but I will ever keep in view that performance of
them which you will principally be attracted to
witness, in the presence of the Sovereign pontiff.

For this purpose, I will divide the subject into
three parts. I will first consider the offices and
ceremonies of Holy Week, in their connexion
with art ; secondly, I will consider them histo-
rically, or in reference to their various antiquity ;
and, thirdly, I will view them in their religious
light, considering them as intended to excite
virtuous and devout impressions. This triple
view will, I think, allow me to place before you

14 LECTURE THE FIRST.

all the information which can be interesting or
useful for understanding them.

My first point again naturally subdivides itself
into two, the consideration of their external and
of their internal relations with art. By the
first I mean those connexions which exist be-
tween them and art, through the places and cir-
cumstances in which they are performed, and
which give their peculiar character to the func-
tions of the Vatican ; and of these I will treat
to-day. By the second I mean those artistic
principles, so to speak, which pervade the cere-
monies themselves, their poetry, principally of
the highest dramatic power, and the music
which accompanies it. This will be the subject
of my next lecture ; my second and third heads
will be discussed in the third and fourth dis-
courses.

Allow me, therefore, to proceed. When I
mentioned " the Vatican" as the seat of those
ceremonies which you will attend, you, no doubt,
felt the additional advantage that I meant to
imply they possessed over those of any other
spot. Where could a more magnificent theatre
be selected for their exhibition, than the vast
and splendid area of that Basilica ? Where could
the sounds of sacred music be better heard than
in the tempered light and under the solemn
vaults of the Sixtine chapel ? These are doubt-

LECTURE THE FIRST. 15

less reflections most natural and true, but not
under this view did I make my remark. For I
think that a Christian mind will discover a
deeper and intenser motive of interest, on seeing
these ceremonies performed in places powerfully
connected with the history and fate of Christian
art. And first as to the chapel.

Upon entering it, there is certainly nothing
striking to the eye in its architecture ; or perhaps
the first impression it produces is rather gloomy
and unpleasant. Its loftiness seems almost exces-
sive ; at the same time, that, instead of architec-
tural advantage having been taken of the cir-
cumstance, it is broken by two insignificant cor-
nices, which destroy the proportion between the
walls, and the high attic in which are placed the
windows. This defect, or peculiarity, proper to
the architecture of the age in which the chapel
was built, is in this case more apparent, from
the inversion of order in which its decorations
seem disposed. For the lower division presents
a series of curtains or hangings imitating brocade,
and therefore seems too light a base to what
rests above ; although this effect wrould be in
former times greatly lessened by the broad and
noble tapestries of Raffaelle, wrhich were hung,
on festivals, over this lower part. Above and
over the first cornice, comes the second division,
covered with paintings of the old school, and

UtUKY ST. IWWS COUEGE

16 LECTURE THE FIRST.

consequently in a finished, minute and almost
miniature-like style ; then over all presses the
heavy ceiling, loaded with the massive, gigantic,
and awful figures of Michel Angelo's sublime
composition.

This overpowering work has necessarily the
effect of rivetting for a time the entire attention,
and while it crushes, in a manner, all below, in
an architectural sense, absorbs in most spectators
the notice which the other paintings deserve.
rcTo speak truly," says a late French writer,
" these paintings swallow up and enslave the at-
tention of most travellers, who, in addition to
the irresistible authority of a great name, so
often heard by them pronounced writh enthu-
siasm, undergo the impression of terror and ad-
miration which the Prophets on the vault, and
the Last Judgment, never fail to inspire. The
mind is too much overcome to appreciate, on
the first or second visit, the simpler and quieter
compositions, which are distributed on twelve
compartments along the sides of the chapel.
But rarely will the eye and soul omit at the
third visit, to seek repose amidst these patriarchal
scenes, to which the freshness of the landscape
gives an additional charm ; and these paintings
would in the end obtain all the attention they
deserve, in spite of the neighbouring colossal
figures which oppress them, were they less dis-

LECTURE THE FIRST. 17

tant from the spectator, or were their figures
better proportioned to that distance, or to the
dimensions of the chapel/'*

The first part of these observations is un-
doubtedly correct ; I wish I could say as much
of those which follow. For it is to be feared,
that many visit this chapel again and again with-
out having deigned to cast an eye upon these
beautiful compositions, or reflecting and feeling
that they are standing in the very sanctuary of
Christian art. In the last century, it became the
fashion of English writers to indulge in an ad-
miration, almost idolatrous, of Buonarotti ; and
after the excessive enthusiasm with which Sir J.
Reynolds closes his Discourses,^ every succes-
sive lecturer followed in his steps. Fuseli is
certainly right when he enthusiastically con-
siders the vault of the Sixtine chapel as a mag-
nificent epic : for it possesses perfect and pro-
gressive unity of idea, adorned with most appro-
priate and harmonizing episodes, and is executed
with a Homeric grandeur and breadth of manner :
but it is surely lamentable to hear a tenth-rate
artist, like Opie, solemnly declaring, in the pro-
fessorial chair of our Royal Academy, that
Leonardo da Vinci's works are comparatively of

* Rio, " De 1'Art chretien."— p. 124.
f Discourses — p. 161: Lond. 1820.

18 LECTURE THE FIRST.

little value :* then passing over the entire space
from Cimabue (for he overlooks Giotto and his
school), to Masaccio, by calling it "the stam-
mering and babbling of art in its infant state/'f
and speaking of all that was executed before
Michel Angelo as u little and meagre/' " confused
and uninteresting," " feeble and unmeaning."
The present generation is not inclined to judge
by the same rules as the last ; and it is delight-
ful to witness the reviving taste and relish of
our days for primitive Christian art.

What the Campo Santo of Pisa, or the Basi-
lica of St. Francis at Assisi, was to the revival
of art under Giotto, in the fourteenth century,
the Sixtine chapel was in its full developement
at the close of the fifteenth. It brought toge-
ther, into a noble emulation, the best artists of
the day, by uniting their efforts in sight of one
another ; and sent them to their respective
countries improved by the contemplation of
ancient monuments, and the comparison of mo-
dern systems of art. From the beginning, it is
needless to observe, art had possessed no exist-
ence disjoined from religion. The Byzantine
artists and their Italian disciples had, for cen-
turies, occupied the field in Italy ; and, from a
strange distortion of ideas, had degraded the

* Lectures on Painting, 1809 ; p. 40. f Page 37.

LECTURE THE FIRST. 19

types of sacred art, representing the Son of God
and his Blessed Mother under forms revolting,
and even hideous, when compared with the
purer traditions of ancient Christianity. The
very master of Giotto, who was Cimabue, Duc-
cio, and other artists of his time, adhered with
frightful obstinacy to the model of that degraded
school. Giotto, the admiration of Dante aud
Petrarca, broke through the established rules,
neglected the received types, and gave a new
grace, a softer colour, and a sweeter expression
to his sacred figures.* As he travelled over all
Italy, from Milan (not to speak of Avignon),
to Naples, and left in every great city specimens
of his skill, he may be considered as a husband-
man who cast a good and prolific seed over a
land well fitted to receive it. Two centres, how-
ever, principally, he formed ; whence, after a
time, art was destined once more to spread.
Florence, his chief residence, never, after him,
wanted diligent and able artists. But, unfor-
tunately, the study of heathen monuments, and
a certain decline from first purity of sentiment,
generated a more earthly and less Christian
style, — a departure from first fervour, which
would have been fatal, earlier than it proved,

* Lanzi, Roscoe's Trans. 1828, vol. i. p. 24s Rio. p. 62.
To the charming work of this friend, I shall have constant
recourse through this Lecture.

C

20 LECTURE THE FIRST.

to religious art, had not an antidote been pro-
vided in that other seed-bed, wherein better
principles were left for a long space to ferment
before they sprung up. Paolo Uccello first de-
viated at Florence into too close a copying of
natural objects ; and this taste increased, to the
gradual extinction of symbolical types and forms,
till that evil reached its growth in the still
charming Masaccio, who filled his pictures with
spectators and idle persons — portraits of living
men — that took no part in the action of the
piece. His dissolute disciple, Lippi, made this
profanation blasphemous, by presuming to sub-
stitute not only living but worthless characters
for the chaste beautiful models which tradition
had preserved of Christ and his mother.

But the frescoes which Giotto had left upon
the walls of that solemnest and most mystical
of temples, the church of St. Francis, at Asisi,
were, perhaps, the germs of the Umbrian school,
which never declined from its pure Christian
character. When the Florentine lost a part of
its vital inspiration, the spirit of Christian
art retreated into the secluded mountains of the
Appenines. The blessed Angelico Fiesoli, of
whom not only his contemporaries, with pope
Eugenius IV, but men, like Vasari, of a degene-
rated age, knew not whether most to admire the
consummate talent or the saintly virtues, then

LECTURE THE FIRST. 21

his dear disciple Benozzo Gozzoli, Gentil di Fa-
briano, Taddeo Bartolo, and many others, to
Nicholas of Fuligno, maintained a union of art
and virtuous devotion, in a succession, that gra-
dually drew round the sepulchre of the wonder-
ful St. Francis, and reached its perfection in the
persons of Pietro Perugino and his immortal
scholar.*

Now it is the first meeting of these two great
schools — the one somewhat corrupted, the other
in its purest bloom — which the chapel built by
Sixtus IV effected. This pope sent for the most
eminent artists from Florence and Umbria, and
committed to them the joint task of decorating
its walls. On the left, upon entering, is the
history of Moses ; on the right are represented
the principal events of our Saviour's life. The
series was originally more complete, when on
the wall, over the altar, were painted, by the.
hands of Perugino, the births of Christ and of
Moses, with the assumption of the blessed Virgin
between them : but these paintings were demo-
lished to make room for Buonarotti's terrific com-
position of the Last Judgment. The principal
artists employed were Sandro Botticelli, Domi-
nico Ghirlandajo, Cosimo Roselli, Luca Signo-

* See Rio, p. 2C6, 214, &c.

22 LECTURE THE FIRST.

relli, and Pietro Perugino.* It would be depart-
ing from my subject to enter into the description
of these beautiful paintings, or a criticism of
each artist's work. I think that most will give
the preference to the Delivery of the Keys, the
work of Pietro, for in it nothing is wanting : nor
can we better discover the difference between
the religious state of the two schools, than by
comparing the head of our divine Redeemer in
this painting, with that given him by Ghirlan-
dajo, in the neighbouring picture, which repre-
sents The Calling of Peter and Andrew ; in
which, though the other heads are full of religious
expression, that which should have been the
most noble is devoid of dignity and beauty.

Who then, that believes religion and its his-
tory to be the true theme of art, and the elevation
of mind to its sublime contemplations the highest
object it can have on earth, will not feel the
peculiar interest attached to the place which so
strikingly displayed its solemn consecration in a
combined effort to that noble and holy cause,
under the natural patronage of religion's supreme
minister ? It was, in fact, for the performance
of the very ceremonies which you are about to

* See Agincourt, 4< Storia dell'Arte," Prato, 1826, torn. iv.
p. 570. Lanzi, loc. cit. p. 91. " Beschreibung der Stadt
Rom." 2 B. 1 Abt p. 24-5.

LECTURE THE FIRST. 23

witness, that this chapel was built ; and thus
they may be said to have brought about an event
which, in the annals of sacred art, is considered
by all its historians an epoch.

But, methinks it were an injustice to these
sacred functions to connect them with Christian
art by so slender a thread. For, no one that has
turned his mind to it, will, I believe, gainsay,
that these sacred Offices have been the very
school of art, or rather the very food on which
it was nourished. I remember some years ago,
when one of our most celebrated artists was in
Rome, how he was conversing with a late most
respected friend of mine during the lavanda, or
ceremony of washing the feet, which used then
to be performed in the Sola Ducale. Tapestry
was, as usual, hung upon the wall behind the
thirteen priests engaged for the functions, and a
lattice-window, looking into the room, had been
seized upon by a curious party, so, that through
a separation, between two arrases, a small group
of picturesque heads, chiefly children, peeped out
upon the ceremony. This little incident, which
a painter of the old school would have introduced
or even invented, could not escape the notice of
our artist, and he remarked to my friend, how
completely the picturesque seemed inherent in
the character of the people. " Their costumes,"
said he, " their heads, their attitudes, are all

24 LECTURE THE FIRST.

studies ; three of them cannot stand together,
without forming a group fit to be sketched."
He then remarked, how pictorial every cere-
mony which he had witnessed had appeared,
and what lessons of art were to be learned
from studying them. But any attention to the
works of the older masters will completely prove,
that their models were drawn, and their groups
formed, upon what they were accustomed to see
in these sacred functions. Why are their angels,
instead of being, as in later works, well fed in-
fants playing and tumbling in the clouds, clothed
in white tunics, girded round, and kneeling in
attitudes of solemn adoration ? but because such
was the dress and posture of the more youthful
assistants in ecclesiastical ceremonies. Whence
are drawn the costumes of their saints, who
stand beside the throne on which the mother of
God is seated, with their precious embroidery,
and noble folds, that give such play to the rich
colouring of their school ? Whence were their
positions about that throne, their modest looks,
their unaffected attitudes, taken, but from the
venerable ministers at these holy and splendid
Offices ? A sweet solemn feeling overspreads
their entire composition, which, certainly, there
is nothing else in nature to have inspired, except
what we see performed in the church service :
indeed, their most beautiful paintings bear an

LECTURE THE FIRST. 25

analogy with these, in disposition and sentiment,
which it is impossible to mistake.

It would not be difficult to give proofs of this
influence, drawn from the very neighbourhood
of the Sixtine chapel. Near the " Loggie di
Raffaello " is an exquisite oratory, rarely visited,
painted entirely by the blessed Angelico. It is
a work of art that ravishes any mind that has
imbibed a taste for its Christian principles.
Throughout, the holy artist has most rigidly
adhered to the ecclesiastical costume ; and the
holy martyrs, Lawrence and Stephen, are repre-
sented, through their sufferings, in their proper
vestments ; so that a recent writer has observed,
how attentively he must have studied ecclesias-
tical monuments for this purpose.* It is thus
that painting, brought into existence in Christian
times by religion, derived all its thoughts and
sentiments from it, and became really a heavenly
art, sanctifying at once those who exercised it,
and those who received its influence. The
saintly artist, whose works I have named, never
commenced his work without fervently invoking
the inspiration of heaven, and never painted
the crucifixion without tears streaming from
his eyes. Eugenius IV, for whom he adorned
that chapel, was so enchanted with his virtues,

*Rio, p. 198.

26 LECTURE THE FIRST.

as to press on his acceptance the archbishopric
of Florence. But his humility shrunk from the
burthen ; and he recommended in his place, one,
who in that station illustrated the Church, under
the name of St. Antoninus.

When Vitale and Lorenzo, scholars of Franco
Bolognese, celebrated by Dante, painted in the
cloisters of Bologna, they worked together as
brothers upon the same picture, except when
they reached the subject of the crucifixion* For
on those occasions Vitale found his feelings
completely overpowered by the subject, and
abandoned it exclusively to his friend. The
same is recorded of Giacomo Avanzi, his disciple
and his companion Simone, called, from his
always painting the crucifixion, " Simone dei
Crocefissi." The most remarkable example of
this deep religious feeling in art, is, perhaps,
that of Lippo Dalmasio, who, from devotion,
never would paint any subject but Madonnas ;
and was so thoroughly impressed with the holi-
ness of his undertaking, that he prepared him-
self for it by a strict fast on the vigil, and by
approaching the altar on the morning of his
task ; so to purify his mind and soul for his oc-
cupation. Hence Guido has owned, that no
later painter, with all the resources of modern
art, could ever come up to the sanctity, modesty

LECTURE THE FIRST. 27

and purity which he has impressed upon his
countenances.*

This may be considered a digression from my
subject, which was the influence exercised by
the ceremonies of the Church upon Christian art,
exemplified as it was in the Sixtine chapel.
Suppressing, therefore, many reflections which
I feel called up by this subject, I will return by
remarking, that even those who regret not the
destruction of that primitive religious style, by
the bolder, earthlier, and sterner manner which
from that ceiling above, frowns, and presses down
on its representatives below — even they must
attach a particular interest to this place, which
alone could or would have produced the substi-
tution.

For Michael Angelo may be said to have
painted nothing before he undertook this mighty
work ; and authors agree that he was recom-
mended to Pope Julius II by his enemies, in hope
of his failure and disgrace. He knew not even
the method of fresco painting ; and resisted to
the utmost of his power the commission laid
upon him. But Julius was not a pontiff to be
thwarted ; and, rejecting every excuse, insisted
upon his making the attempt. He procured
artists from Florence to execute his designs ;
but was soon dissatisfied with their work, arid

* Rio, p. 198.

28 LECTURE THE FIRST.

threw it down and recommenced it himself. He
directed the construction of the scaffolding,
ground and prepared his colours with his own
hand ; and after having painted several figures,
was dismayed at finding the colours had run or
blistered, so as to render the figures hardly dis-
cernible. Once more he went in despair to the
Pope, and entreated to be released from a task
out of his sphere. But Julius was inexorable ;
Sangallo taught him how to remedy the evil
that had disheartened him ; he resumed his work,
and in twenty-two months completed the ceiling.*
It had been his intention to retouch the paint-
ing when dry, and add gilding to the garments
of his figures ; but the scaffolding had been
removed, through a natural impatience on the
part of his patron to see the works, and never
was replaced. It is clear, that no other place
and no other commission would have ever
brought out the talents of Buonarotti,as a painter,
on this wonderful scale ; and, that the influence
of his style upon Raffaello, and all succeeding
artists, could not have been exerted, had not
Julius been anxious to finish the chapel of his
uncle Sixtus, and had he not, to all appearance,
obstinately and almost unreasonably, forced the
painter to an exertion before which he shrunk.

* " Beschreibung," &c. p. 255, seqq. where the authorities
are quoted.

LECTURi: TI1K KIKST. 29

This chapel, then, must possess an interest
which no other in the world can share, as the
sanctuary of art in its two-fold form. It is the
place in which the last great act of patronage to
older, patriarchal Christian art was exercised ;
on the walls of which it inscribed its last memo-
rials, under the sanction of the highest religious
.authority which could guarantee them from de-
struction ; it was at the same time the very
nursery and birth-place of that more daring, and
eventually profane, art, which, here at least,
consecrated the energies of its herculean infancy
to the best and holiest of purposes.

The other chapel used in the pontifical cere-
monies of Holy Week is known by the name of
the Paolina, from Pope Paul III, who built it
after destroying one painted by Beato Angelico,
a mischief never to be repaired. It contains
two large paintings, by Michael Angelo, quite
undistinguishable ; not so much, as is commonly
asserted, from the smoke of the tapers, which
burn there during the sepulchre, as in conse-
quence of their bad light, and still more of a fire
which formerly took place there. They are
works of that mighty genius in its decline.*

* Within these two last years the chapel, which before was
almost black, so that its ornaments were no longer distin-
guishable, has been thoroughly renewed, and these two paint-
ings have been covered over. At the same time, the immense

30 LECTURE THE FIRST.

Having said so much of these chapels, I have
left myself but little opportunity for discoursing
on the other great theatre of these functions, the
Basilica of St. Peter's. You certainly will not
expect me to detain you by turning your atten-
tion to so trite a topic, as the magnificence of
that matchless edifice, and I shall there confine
myself to a few remarks more intimately con-
nected with my present subject.

I will premise, that the Church architecture of
every age should be a monument of its religious
condition, and a memorial of its spirit. The first
ages, for instance, beheld the Church in a state
of affliction, oppression and persecution ; and
its subterranean oratories amply record these
facts. The faithful shaped them among the
tombs of their brethren; thus showing how
their spiritual life was in the midst of death, and
adorned them with paintings most suitable to
their condition, chusing such Scriptural subjects
as best alluded to their sufferings and still more
to their hopes. When peace was restored to the
Church,underConstantine,the season of triumph,

wooden tabernacle, and other ornaments behind the altar,
which formed an artificial perspective, designed by Bernini,
were judiciously taken down ; for they neither accorded in
taste with the rest of the chapel, nor were they of safe mate-
rials, amidst the splendid and massive illumination which is
made there on Holy Thursday.

LECTURE THE FIRST. 1*1

and, in all the mildness of the Christian spirit,
the season of reprisals, came. The remains of
paganism were seized as trophies and lawful
spoil ; the form of the church was copied, and
took its name from the heathen basilicas ; pillars
from different edifices were appropriated to the
use of these new temples, and afterwards entire
buildings were converted from an impure to a
holy worship. Many churches in Rome yet
survive to attest monumentally this transfer of
the religious sceptre, and the possession which
Christianity had gained of the stores of art accu-
mulated by their oppressors.

In northern countries, art, and consequently
architecture, arose from Christianity ; there were
no previous feelings to gratify, nothing to record,
but what that holy religion taught ; and hence
arose that style, most barbarously misnamed
" the Gothic," which a modern French writer
so happily describes as " la pensee chretienne
batie," the architectural expression of Christian
thought. The architectures of Greece and
Rome, like their religion, kept their main lines
horizontal or parallel with the earth, and care-
fully avoided breaking this direction, seeking
rather its prolongation than any striking eleva-
tion. The Christian architecture threw up all
its lines, so as to bear the eye towards heaven ;
its tall, tapering, and clustered pillars, while

32 LECTURE THE FIRST.

they even added apparent to real height, served
as guides and conductors of the sense to the
fretted roof, and prevented the recurrence of
lines, which could keep its direction along the
surface of the earth. Nothing could more
strongly mark the contrast between the two reli-
gious systems. The minute details of its work-
manship, the fretting and carving of its many
ornaments, the subdivision of masses into smaller
portions, are all in admirable accord with the
mental discipline of the time, which subtilized
and divided every matter of its enquiry, and
reduced the greatest questions into a cluster of
ever ramifying distinctions. The " dim religious
light " that passed through the storied window,
and gave a mysterious awe to the cavern-like
recesses of the building, excellently became an
age passionately fond of mystic lore, and the
dimmest twilights of theological learning. No-
thing could be more characteristic, nothing
more expressive of the religious spirit which
ruled those ages, than the architecture which in
them arose.

But in Italy, and principally in Rome, it was
otherwise. The type of art had been cast in
those ages of triumph, and it was not rashly
nor easily to be abandoned. She did not receive
her art from Christianity, and therefore did not
adopt the new and beautiful order. When all

LECTURE THE FIRST. :*.'$

the arts revived, and among them architecture,
it turned its attention, like the rest, to the em-
bellishment of God's house, and the splendour of
his worship. The old basis of the Roman bnsi
lica was preserved, with the substitution, how-
ever, of arches for pillars. This, many will
reprove; I own I do not entirely, We no
longer possess the splendid columns of the an-
cients ; we have lost their quarries, and the
command of their slaves to work them. We
have not the materials for their style. Then
the Catholic worship requires now various cha-
pels ; to these the arches on either side form an
appropriate opening ; in Santa Maria Maggiore
and S. Martino, the side altars are completely
masked, and lose their dignity. But the dome !
that truly Christian, sublime conception, — that
raising of a temple to the God of heaven, far
above the earth, — this grandest invention of mo-
dern architecture, is incompatible with colum-
nar architecture, as St. Genevieve, now, I be-
lieve, called by a heathen name, sufficiently
proves. And who would have wished that to
have been given up in St. Peter's, or any other
Christian church ?

We may, therefore, say that this basilica is
the proper expression of Christian art upon its
revival on old models ; and it will be particularly
found to express the Catholic spirit of its age ;

34 LECTURE THE FIRST.

by centering on itself all the powers of represen-
tative art at the moment when the Reformation
was waging war against it, and preventing our
country possessing, like every other people, a
national school. But who can doubt that this
unrivalled building received its grand characte-
ristics of amplitude in dimensions, and exqui-
siteness in its ornaments, from the special
circumstance of its having been destined for
the very functions you will therein see per-
formed ? No thing but its erection as the theatre
of the papal celebration could have suggested
the idea of such an unusual scale. No other
procession could have filled such a nave, no
other ministration could have grouped round
such an altar, no other hierarchy could have
graced such a sanctuary. It was evidently the
same spirit, comprehensive, grand, and magni-
ficent, that had created the ceremonial, which
could alone have planned this its theatre.

It would be interesting to follow these re-
marks into details. I will content myself with
one or two, calculated to show the influence
of these functions upon minor parts of this
great work of art. Most of you are aware that
some years ago the entire church of St. Peter's
was lighted up on Thursday and Friday even-
ings of Holy Week, by one huge brazen cross,
studded with lamps, and hung below the dome.

LECTURE THE FIRST.

The play of light and shadow, in bold masses,
edged bluffly one by another, through the aisles,
was splendid beyond description. Now it is
certain that Canova designed the beautiful mo-
nument of Rezzonico (Clement XIII), its fine
lions and reclining genius, with an eye, most
particularly, to the effect upon it of this religious
illumination. He had it carefully covered till
the first of these evenings, and exposed it to view
under the influence of this unusual light. I well
remember its splendid effect under such circum-
stances ; and can imagine the general delight
upon its first exhibition. Indeed, so anxious
was Canova himself to try the experiment fairly,
that he employed his friend, Cav. D'Este, from
whom I have the account, to procure for him a
disguise. " My friends," he observed, " are
sure to praise the monument ; and my enemies
are sure to find fault with it. I will go among
the people, and hear their opinions." After vain
attempts to dissuade him, the costume of a very
poor priest was procured, and he was soon so
disguised as to defy detection. D'Este saw him
thread his way through the admiring crowd, and
listen to the judgment of every little knot, till
he stood by the group in which the senator
Rezzonico, nephew to the Pope, was asking,
" Where is Canova, that we may congratulate
with him ?" eyeing, at the same time, askance,

D

36 LECTURE THE FIRST.

the dilapitated sacristan, as he thought him, who
was almost intruding npon them. But Canova
was not discovered, and returned home satisfied,
having received sentence of approval from an
unpacked and unprejudiced jury.

This instance shows how the subordinate parts
of the building, and consequently the arts of
design, have been influenced by the great func-
tions which are therein performed ; another
example may be brought, in extenuation of cri-
ticism. The departure from Michael Angelo's
front, a portico like the Pantheon's, has been
severely blamed. Those who have resided much
in London or Paris, will, I think, have been tho-
roughly disabused of any idea of the eye's insatia-
bility in respect of columns surmounted by a pedi-
ment. Such porticoes lead now a-days to every
thing, — to the Mansion-House and its proverbial
convivialities — to the National Gallery of Paint-
ings— to Archbishop Tillotson's Chapel — to the
Haymarket-theatre — to the College of Physi-
cians, and to half-a-dozen clubs. It is manifestly
an architectural generality, that may be seized by
the smallest genius, and applied to every possible
object. Can we regret so much that it was not
adopted in St. Peter's, to deprive us of that most
glorious of functions, the papal benediction ?
For it is acknowledged, that the necessity of
providing a fitting position for the chief actor in

LECTURE THK TIKST ;j/

that momentary, but momentous, spectacle, led
to the alteration, and sn^ested tin- present plan.
If specific adaptation to an end be truly a merit in
architecture, much beyond that of mere imita-
tion, the present front, with all its defects (which
I acknowledge), should be valued by a fairer
standard than mere comparison with works of
another style and system. For iny part, I would
gladly look all the year round on the broken,
and disproportioned, arid confused front which
that church now has — to enjoy twice a-year,
through such defects, the great and glorious
sight with which they are connected : that varie-
gated multitude of citizens, peasants, pilgrims,
and foreigners, and that glittering array of equi-
pages and troops, which fill the basin of its mag-
nificent court ; and the emotion which the bene-
diction of the Father of Christendom sends, as
if by electric communion, through the dense
assembly.

This want of attention, in architectural stric-
tures, to local proprieties and characters of styles
is very glaring in modern writers. A popular
work, lately published in England, expresses the
writer's astonishment and disappointment at
finding St. Peter's without painted windows !
I think the astonishment is, that he discovered
its windows at all on his first visit. The tra-
veller's mind must have been devoid of all

D2

38 LECTURE THE FIRST.

enthusiasm, and his eye must have been singu-
larly its master. The architecture of the church
necessarily led to a desire to conceal them, by
placing them above the cornice ; and it is gene-
rally long before attention is turned to whence
the light is derived. But what havoc would
painted glass have made with marbles and mo-
saics ! Fancy a confused patch-work of yellow,
green, and red light streaming from such a win-
dow upon the Transfiguration, or a ray of unmi-
tigated blue turning into a livid corpse the Angel
of Death upon Canova's monument ! I remon-
strated with the author, and alleged these objec-
tions ; but he was irreclaimable. He had never
seen a cathedral in England without painted
glass, and consequently repeated his disappoint-
ment in three successive editions !

St. Peter's, therefore, considered in reference
to its great destination to be the theatre of a
particular and splendid ceremonial, principally
that which you are about to witness, is the most
perfect specimen of a style of sacred architecture,
peculiar as the modern adaptation of the basi-
licar style to the forms and wants of the Catholic
worship ; and not to be tried by the rules of any
other, but rather by its fitness for its own pur-
poses, and for the expression of the sentiments
of its age. And for this, so perfect a specimen,
we are mainly indebted to that very ceremonial.

LECTURE THE FIRST.

39

, I have thus pointed out the interesting con-
nexions which the functions of Holy Week,
as performed before the Pope, have with Art,
and the influence they have exercised upon its
development. In my next Discourse, I shall
treat of their more intimate relations with Art,
through their essential forms.

LECTURE THE SECOND.

LECTURE THE SECOND.

ESSENTIAL AND INWARD RELATIONS OF THESE
OFFICES WITH ART.

Their poetry. — Their dramatic construction. — Processions. —
The Passion. — Distribution of the entire service. — Their
music. — Church chaunt, its antiquity and character. — Pe-
culiar chaunt of the Papal choir, especially in Holy Week. —
Palestrina. — Missa Papa Marcelli. — The Lamentations.—
The Improper ia. — Allegri, the Miserere.

AFTER having seen what an influence the cere-
monies of Holy Week have indirectly exercised
on art, by inspiring it with the noblest ideas, in

44 LECTURE THE SECOND.

preparing a fitting theatre for their performance :
it will not be surprising to discover in themselves
the finest spirit of artistic vigour, as the source
whence those emanations flowed. The division
which I made of the first portion of my subject
leads me to-day to direct your attention to this
point ; and to consider the essential connexion
which they have with the principles of true art.
I have already suggested some ideas upon this
subject, when I spoke of the effect produced by
them upon the Christian schools of painting.
No eye will fail to be struck with the perfect
grouping that takes place in many of the cere-
monies ; such, that had the first masters been
employed, to regulate the ceremonies for the
production of effect, they could not have devised
anything more beautiful. I would notice parti-
cularly the pyramidical groups which are formed
at the altar or the throne during the Mass on
Easter-sunday, where everything is in the most
progressive order— the richness of the costumes,
and the dignity of the persons, from the base to
its highest point. But these are matters that
require little notice ; for the eye of each will
discover them. I am rather desirous to tarn
your attention to the more hidden points of
beautiful arrangement and feeling with which
these functions abound. Whoever will read with
an unprejudiced mind the Office of the week,

LECTURE THE SECOND. 1 .">

will be not only charmed, but, I think, asto-
nished, at the perfect taste, harmony and dignity
of sentiment which pervade them, as though the
genius of sacred elegiac poetry had presided over
the composition. A great part of them, indeed,
consists of Scriptural passages allusive to the
Passion, and this at once speaks their highest
commendation. But still the selection and union
of these passages into a whole, will be found on
every occasion the most happy and harmonious
that well could be imagined. In addition to
these are many antiphons and hymns, both in
classical measures and in ecclesiastical ; which
will be found upon examination full of the most
touching sentiment. Of the former class, I may
instance the hymn sung during the procession
of Palm-Sunday, and beginning " Gloria, laus,
et honor," connected with which there is an
interesting history. For it is said to have been
composed by Abbot Theodulf, when in prison at
Angers, for a conspiracy against the emperor
Louis the Pious, and sung by him in a moving
strain, as the emperor, in procession, on that
Sunday, passed under the prison wall. The
words and music touched the offended monarch's
heart, and procured his liberation. This is said
to have taken place about the year 818; and
even if the legend be inaccurate, as some have
thought, it proves the character and power which

46 LECTURE THE SECOND.

the public voice attributed to the composition.
Of the second class, are the hymns sung in the
service of Friday, particularly the first, " Pange
lingua gloriosi lauream certaminis;" which has
a returning burthen of exquisite tenderness.

But the prevailing character of poetry through-
out these services, is the dramatic, in its noblest
sense. Before, however, exemplifying my obser-
vations, I have something to premise. I may be
thought incautious in the selection of the term
I have just used ; as though it gave some coun-
tenance to the silly remark so often made upon
the Catholic worship, as scenic, showy, or thea-
trical. Even if what I am going to say brought
me in contact with such common-place sneers, I
should not shrink from it, because I do not think
the poverty of words, which is felt in all lan-
guages, should be the basis of an argument. Nor,
if pomp and magnificence, which formerly be-
longed to every thing royal and noble, have in
modern times been confined in our country to
theatres, and have thence received a reproach-
ful name, will any one conclude that the church,
which has preserved them, ought to abandon
them in consequence ? Nay, I should think any
one betrayed great want of sense, who traduced
as theatrical that which existed before theatres.
The pomp of the Levitical worship was certainly
great and imposing ; and would bear that igno-
minious name as well as ours. Yet God com-

LECTURE THE SECOND. 47

manded it; and it is but a poor speech that can
tind no better epithet to give it.

But when I speak of the dramatic form of our
ceremonies, 1 make no reference whatever to
outward display ; and I choose that epithet for
the reason already given, that the poverty of
language affords me no other for my meaning.
The object and power of dramatic poetry con-
sists in its being not merely descriptive but re-
presentative ; and that, not only when reduced
to action, but even when only consisting of words.
Its character is to bear away the imagination
and soul to the view of what others witnessed,
and excite in us, through their words, such im-
pressions as we might have naturally felt on the
occasion. The inspired poets of the old law, the
prophets I mean, are full of this lofty and power-
ful poetry ; nothing can be more truly dramatic,
as Louth has observed, than the opening of the
sixty-third chapter of Isaiah,* where the Messiah
and a chorus are represented as holding a splen-
did colloquy together. The latter first asks —
" Who is this that cometh from Edom with gar-
ments dyed in Bozra ?" The other replies : —
" I am the proclaimer of justice, mighty in sal-
vation." The chorus again demands : — " Why
then is thy raiment red, and thy garments as of
one who hath trodden the wine-pres> ? And
he again answers : — " I have trodden the wine-

* " DC Sacra Poesi," p. 318: Oxf. 1810.

48 LECTURE THE SECOND.

press alone." This is dramatic in the noblest
sense of the word, as are many other passages in
the same sublime prophet. The Psalms are often
constructed in the same manner, as I may have
occasion to observe later ; but the Canticle of
Solomon and the book of Job are examples of a
dramatic composition of a much higher order,
where scene succeeds to scene, and a growing
beauty or majesty of dialogue respectively is
exhibited ; which will deiy all rivalry from the
fairest specimens of uninspired poetry.

The service of the Church is throughout emi-
nently poetical. Not a portion of its Office is
without some hymn, often of singular beauty ;
and it would be easy to point out a tendency to
poetical construction even in many of its prayers,
litanies and antiphons. But the dramatic power,
such as I have described it, runs through the
service in a most marked manner, and must be
kept in view for its right understanding. Thus,
for example, the entire service for the dead,
office, exequies, and mass, refers to the moment
of death, and bears the imagination to the awful
crisis of separation between body and soul. No
matter that the anniversary of one deceased be
commemorated a century or more after his death,
and its object be to obtain release from a place
of temporary chastisement, where, at least, his
eternal lot of happiness is secured ; the prayers
of the Church represent him as in peril, strug-

TIIK SKCOXn. 49

gling against toes, upon tin- edge of the dismal
pit of endless woe. In the pathetie Offertory ot
the Mass, our Saviour is entreated to k* save him
from the lion's mouth, lest hell should s\vallo\\
him up, and he fall into darkness/' In tin-
Gradual, he is implored to absolve the dead from
sin, " that they may escape the judgment of his
vengeance ;" and through the Office the versiele
is repeated : " From the gates of hell snatch their
souls, oh Lord !" In like manner, words of the
most solemn expression are put into the months
of the departed ; which represent them as still
engaged in doubtful contest. All this is exceed-
ingly awful and beautiful, when considered in the
light I have suggested, as transporting us to that
scene where the real reckoning between justice
and mercy takes place, and working up our feel-
ings of fervour and earnestness to that intense
energy, which a prayer at that decisive moment
would inspire.

In like manner, and with the same beautiful
spirit, the Church prepares us during Advent
for the commemoration of our dear Redeem er's
birth, as though it were really yet to take place.
We are not drily exhorted to profit by that
blessed event, and its solemnization ; but we are
daily made to sigh with the Fathers of old, " Send
down the dew ye heavens from above, and let
the clouds rain the Just One : let the earth be
opened, and bud forth the Redeemer!" The

50 LECTURE THE SECOND.

Collects on three of the four Sundays of that
season begin with the words " Lord raise up thy
power and come :" as though we feared our ini-
quities would prevent his being born. It is
curious to remark, how the compilers of the
English Liturgy, who have throughout the year
kept the Collects almost literally translated,
startled, perhaps, by the bold poetry of this idea,
which in our Liturgy accords with the rest of the
service, substituted new prayers on two of these
days, and altered the third so as to destroy that
sentiment, by adding after " come " the words
"amongst us," and completely changing the
sense in the latter part.* But, through the Ca-

* Here are subjoined the two collects as they stand in their
respective Liturgies.

ROMAN LITURGY. ENGLISH LITURGY.

Exert, we beseech thee, O O Lord, raise up (we pray
Lord, thy power and come : Thee) Thy power, and come
and succour us by Thy great amongst us, and with great
might, that by the assistance might succour us ; that where-
of Thy grace, Thy indulgent as, through our sins and wick-
mercy may hasten what is edness we are sore let and
delayed by our sins. Who hindered in running the race
livest, &c. that is set before us, Thy

bountiful grace and mercy
may speedily help and deliver
us, through the satisfaction of
Thy Son, our Lord, to whom
with Thee and the Holy
Ghost be honour and glory
world without end. — Amen.

LECTURE THE SECOND. ."> I

tholic service of that season the same sentiment
is kept alive, becoming more and more defined
as the festival approaches ; and still on it the
same ideal return to the very moment and eii
cumstances of our divine Redeemer's birth is
expressed. The shepherds are desired, in poetical
language, to declare what they have seen ; and
all the glories of the day are represented to the
soul as if actually occurring.

In all this it is impossible not to recognize the
highest poetical expression of the feelings most
suitable to the event commemorated, by carrying
them back, with dramatic power, to the scene
itself. This principle, which will be found to
animate the church service of every other season,
rules most remarkably that of Holy Week,
and gives it soul and life. It is not intended to
be merely commemorative or historical ; it is
strictly speaking representative. The Church
puts herself into mourning, as though her spouse
wrere now undergoing his cruel fate ; she weeps
over Jerusalem, as if the measure of her iniquity
were not yet filled up, arid the punishment
which has overtaken her might yet be averted.
Our blessed Saviour is made, in the beautiful
Improperia on Good-Friday, to address the
Jews, as though still his people, and expostulate
with them on their ungrateful return for his
benefits ; not, of course, speaking to the unfor-

LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE

52 LECTURE THE SECOND.

tunate remnant of that people scattered over the
world, but to the entire nation, as though actu-
ally engaged in their barbarity towards him.
Whoever looks not at these functions in this
sense, and reads not the Offices, sung or recited
during them, with this feeling, will certainly
neither relish nor understand them.

Why, he will ask, are the Lamentations of
Jeremiah sung in such pathetic melody, bewail-
ing the destruction and captivity of the Jewish
people, while we should rather be lamenting our
own sins which crucified the Son of Man ? Be-
cause the Church rather hopes to win her way,
by these very sentiments, to our hearts, — by
movingly exciting analogous feelings respecting
the old people of God, through that mixture of
indignation and compassion which the witness-
ing of their crime would most powerfully have
excited. Wherefore, throughout the antiphons
and versicles, and other minuter parts of the
service, are the words so selected, that they
could appear spoken by none but our Saviour
himself during his Passion ? Because it is wished
to represent that very scene in such a manner,
that our affections should be excited rather as
they would have been had he addressed us, or
his people in our presence, in that solemn and
feeling hour, than as they are likely to be by our
own cold meditations.

TIIK SECOND. .'..'I

But the rich poetry of this idea will be still
more notably marked arid felt if we analyse any
of the services. Palm-Sunday is intended to
commemorate the triumphant entry of our Lord
into Jerusalem, and the first preparatory steps
of his Passion. This might have been announced
by a lesson or exhortation, informing the faithful
of the object and character of the festival. In-
stead of this cold, formal method, a chorus, pre-
cisely as in the best Greek tragedy, is charged
with this duty. It opens the service in true
dramatic style, by singing, with noble simplicity,
" Hosanna to the Son of David ! blessed is he
that cometh in the name of the Lord ! Oh King
of Israel, hosannah in the highest." After this
burst, the priest, or officiating bishop, introduces
the service by a short but expressive prayer,
begging a blessing on the commemoration of
Christ's Passion, which is going to commence.
The subdeacon then reads a lesson from Exodus,
in which, with an appropriate, and consequently
beautiful analogy to the festival, God, after Israel
had rested beneath the palm-trees of Eli in,
promises complete redemption, with the evidence
thereof, from the Egyptian bondage.* Such an
introduction is at once harmonious, noble, and
most apt. It contains the type, whose fulfilment
is about to engage our attention. The chorus
* Exod. xv. 27.

54 LECTURE THE SECOND.

again comes in, and prepares the way for what
will follow, by recounting the conspiracy of the
Jewish priests for Christ's destruction,, and the
prophecy of Caiphas, that one should die for the
people lest all should perish. Then, at length, the
deacon fully unfolds the nature of the day's cele-
bration, by chaunting the gospel that recounts
the triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and the
song of joy with which it was accompanied. The
celebrant (in the Sixtine chapel, the Pope him-
self) then proceeds to bless the prepared palms,
— that is, to invoke the benediction of heaven on
all who devoutly bear and keep them in remem-
brance of this opening event of our redemption.

Of the prayers employed in this benediction I
will say nothing, but what may be said of all that
occur in the Church Offices, that they possess an
elevation of sentiment, a beauty of allusion, a
force of expression, and a depth of feeling, which
no modern form of supplication ever exhibits.
They are on this occasion various ; but are
relieved by the choir, ever opportunely breaking
in with its songs of gladness.

When the palms have been distributed, the
scene of Christ's triumph is actually represented
by a procession, in which they are borne. Here
again the true dramatic feeling of the scene is
kept up by the chorus, which, beginning with
the account of our Saviour's sending two dis-

LECTURE THE SECOND. ."» .',

ciples to Bethani.'i, to procure the humble ass
on which he was to ride, describes that proces-
sion in a series of strophes, which increase in
beauty till they reach a sentiment perfectly
lyrical, and exclaim, " In faith be we united with
the angels and those children crying out to the
triumpher over death, " Hosaima in the highest !"

A ceremony now takes place, which to be
understood must be considered in the same
graphic and dramatic light. When the proces-
sion returns to the chapel, it finds the door
closed : to represent how heaven's gates were
barred against lost man. A semi-chorus within
sings the two first verses of Theodulph's hymn,
even as he did within his prison. The full cho-
rus replies in the same strain from without.
These two first verses are afterwards repeated
as a burthen, or reply to each distich, sung
as an antistrophe by the semi-chorus within.
At the conclusion, the sub-deacon strikes the
door with the staff of the cross which he bears,
to denote, that through the redemption on the
cross the bolts of heaven were withdrawn ; the
doors are opened, and the procession enters,
while the chorus recounts the final entry of our
Lord's triumphal procession into the holy city.

Should the mind of any one, used to consider
such action, however simple in itself and sym-
bolical in its meaning, as abhorrent from a true

E

56 LECTURE THE SECOND.

worship, want a higher authority for its employ-
ment, I would refer him to two of the psalms,
which evidently, and as accredited Protestant
commentators admit, were composed for a si-
milar dramatic recital. The first is the twenty-
fourth psalm (Heb.) sung on occasion of the ark's
translation to Mount Sion. It begins by a splen-
did chorus : t( The earth is the Lord's and the
fulness thereof, the world and all that therein
dwell." After this noble introduction, as the
procession ascends the hill, the chorus asks,
" Who shall ascend into the mountain of the
Lord, or stand in his holy place ?" When this
query has been beautifully answered, the pro-
cession has reached the tabernacle and finds it
closed. The chorus exclaims, " Lift up your
heads, ye gates, and be lifted up ye ancient doors,
that the King of Glory may enter." The semi-
chorus, probably from within, demands, " Who
is this King of Glory ?" the chorus replies, " The
Lord strong and mighty, the Lord strong
in war." Again it repeats the invocation to
the gates, again the semi-chorus asks its ques-
tion ; and then the doors fly open to the
thundering choral burst, " The Lord of Hosts,
he is the King of Glory."* The one hundred
and twenty-first psalm, according to Lowth,
has the same construction. In it the king, about

* Lowth, p. 358.

LECTURE THE SECOND. ")7

to engage in war, approaches the Tabernacle,
and standing without, implores the divine assist-
ance; to which the priests from within answer
in a chorus, assuring him of wfhat he prays.*
The analogy between these inspired dramatic
actions, and the one performed at the close of
this procession, seems to me singularly striking ;
and should not only remove all prejudice against
it, which can hardly exist where good taste and a
knowledge of its spirit direct the judgment, but
invest it with an interest additional to its own.
But there is another part of the Office per-
formed on Sunday and repeated on Friday, which
goes much beyond all this in dramatic power
and sublimity of representative effect. I allude,
as many of you will readily understand, to the
chaunting of the Passion, according to St. Mat-
thew and St. John, in the service of these two
days. This is performed by three interlocutors,
in the habit of deacons, who distribute among
themselves the parts, as follows. — The narrative
is given by one in a strong manly tenor voice ;
the words of our Saviour are chaunted in a deep
solemn bass, and whatever is spoken by any
other person is given by the third in a high con-
tralto. This at once produces a dramatic effect ;
each part has its particular cadence, of old,
simple, but rich chaunt, suited to the character

* Lowth, vi. 390.

E 2

58 LECTURE THE SECOND.

represented, and worthy of ancient tragedy.
That of the narrator is clear, distinct, and slightly
modulated : that in which ordinary interlocutors
speak, sprightly and almost bordering upon
colloquial familiarity ; but that in which our
Saviour's words are uttered, is slow, grave and
most solemn, beginning low, and ascending by
full tones, then gently varied in rich though
simple undulations, till it ends by a graceful and
expressive cadence, modified with still greater
effect in interrogatory phrases. This rhythm
is nearly the same in all Catholic churches, but
in the Pope's chapel has the advantage of being
sung by three of the choir instead of by ordinary
clergymen, and consequently by voices most ac-
curately intoned and most scientifically trained.
But the peculiar beauty, or rather the magni-
ficence, of this dramatic recitation in the Sixtine
chapel, consists in the chorus. For, whenever
the Jewish crowd are made to speak, in the
history of the Passion, or indeed whenever any
number of individuals interfere, the choir bursts
in with its simple but massive harmony, and
expresses the sentiment with a truth and energy
which thrills through the frame and overpowers
the feelings. These choruses were composed
in 1585, by Thomas Lewis de Victoria, native
of Avila, and contemporary with the immortal
Palestrina, who did not attempt to correct or

LECTURK THE SECOND. .'>!)

alter them; probably, as his worthy successor,
Baini, has observed to me, because he found
them so perfect and suited to their intention.
These are twenty-one in the gospel of Sunday,
and only fourteen in that of Friday. Tlir phrases,
too, of which they consist, in the first are longer,
and more capable of varied expression than in
the latter, and the composer has taken full ad-
vantage of this circumstance. When the Jews
cry out, " Crucify him/' or " Barabbas," the
music, like the words, is concentrated with
frightful energy, and consists of just as many
notes as syllables ; yet, in the three notes of the
last word, a passage of key is effected, simple as
it is striking. In this, and in most of the cho-
ruses, the effect is rendered far more powerful
by the abrupt termination which cuts the con-
cluding note into a quaver (a note not known
in the music of the papal choir), though in
written measure it is a large, or double breve.
The entire harmony, though almost all composed
of semibreves, is given in a quick but marked,
and, so to speak, a stamping way, well suiting,
the tumultuous outcries of a furious mob. These
are all traditional modifications of the written
score, preserved alive from year to year among
the musicians since the original composer's
time. In the third chorus of St. Matthew's
Passion, where the two false witnesses speak, it

60 LECTURE THE SECOND.

is in a duet, between a soprano and contralto,
and the words are made to follow one another
in a stumbling way, as though one always took
up his story from the other, and the music is in
a syncopated style ; one part either jarring with
or clearly imitating the other's movements ; so
that it most aptly represents the judgment, " that
their testimony was not agreeing." In the six-
teenth, nothing could exceed the soft and mov-
ing tone in which the words, " Hail King of the
Jews" are uttered. With all the expression
belonging to their character, they powerfully
draw the soul to utter, in earnest, what was in-
tended in blasphemy. But, towards the end,
these choruses increase in length, in richness,
and variety. The seventeenth and eighteenth
are master-pieces ; they are bolder in their tran-
sitions and most happy in their resolutions, and
their final cadences, swelling, majestic and full.
In the gospel of St. John, however, there are
one or two phrases, which, if not so rich, are
even more exquisite in their modulation. I would
instance the tenth : "If you let him go, you are
no friend of Caesar's," which is delightfully mo-
dulated. But far the most beautiful and pathetic
in all the collection is the last chorus, " Let us
not divide it, but cast lots." The parts succeed
one another in a falling cadence, growing softer
and softer, and almost dying away, till the entire
chorus swells in a mildened but majestic burst.

LECTURE THE SECOND. 61

I have entered into these details, because I
think the shortness of these beautiful compon
tions, the rapidity of their execution, and the
suddenness with which they break upon the ear,
and with which they expire, produce generally
a feeling rather of wonder and amazement than
of admiration, and prevent attention to the pe-
culiar expression of each, and the scientific,
though simple construction, of many of them.

You will, I think, acknowledge that the enti re-
arrangement of these Passions is upon a prin-
ciple of deep dramatic design, well worthy of
them, and calculated to produce more solemn
and devout impression on the soul than any
recital or exposition of their momentous con-
tents possibly could. The measured, stately
rhythm of the triple chaunt, in addition to the
aid it receives from these choruses, has, besides,
a poetical feeling superadded by the manner of
its performance. For, without any appearance of
artifice, the strong voice in which the historical
recitation is delivered, will be observed to soften
gradually as the catastrophe approaches — reduced
almost to a whisper as the last words upon the
cross are related — and die away as the last breath
of our Saviour's life is yielded; when all, I
would almost say, spontaneously fall upon their
knees, and a deep silence of some moments i>
observed and necessarily felt.

62 LECTURE THE SECOND.

After having dwelt at such length upon these
two Offices, for the purpose of guiding the mind
to a proper appreciation of the artistic, or poet-
ical principle, on which they are constructed, it
can hardly be necessary to accumulate other
examples. For the feeling is one throughout ;
that of bearing back the mind and heart to the
original scene, and concentrating their thoughts
and affections upon the last moments of our Re-
deemer's life, as though we actually witnessed
them. The same principle, farther enforced by
a divine recommendation, if not a command-
ment, has preserved on Thursday the practice
of washing the feet of the poor, as an ecclesias-
tical ceremony. The Pope strips himself of his
rich sacerdotal robes, girds himself with a linen
towel, and washes the feet of those appointed,
and kisses them. The commemoration of our
Lord's conduct, in his last days, would not have
been complete, if that singular act of humility
and kindness, which he coupled as an illustra-
tration with the precept of fraternal love, had
found no place in the service of this week. And
immeasurable, nay infinite, as must be the dis-
tance between the Incarnate Son of God and
any man, however much exalted upon earth, can
we imagine a closer imitative approach to that
condescending manifestation of charity, a more
graphic illustration of the command to do as

LECTURE THE SECOND. 63

He did, than in witnessing one, whom the great
majority of Christians believe to be his vi< <
gerent and representative — one, whom all see to
be a sovereign upon earth, and the spiritual
chief of more subjects than any other, can, in his
temporal dominion, count, thus fulfilling this
duty, from which, in spite of its apparent for-
mality, many would shrink, and at any rate
literally performing towards his poorer brethren
that which Christ did towards his apostles.
This rite, considered upon our principle of repre-
senting our Redeemer's conduct, as in a sacred
drama, becomes not only appropriate but almost
necessary.

A number of other ceremonies will be ex-
plained in the same manner. For instance, at
the beginning of the High Mass, on Easter
Sunday, the Pope, as he proceeds towards the
altar, is met by the three youngest cardinal
deacons, whom he embraces, as emblematic of
our Redeemer's first interview with his faithful
followers when he rose from death. The custom
of the sepulchre, or the depositing of the Eucha-
ristic species in an altar prepared for that pur-
pose, when considered in connexion with the
Catholic belief of the real presence of Jesus
Christ's true body and blood in that sacrament,
becomes a lively representation of the closing
circumstance of his sacred Passion.

64 LECTURE THE SECOND.

But sensible that I have said sufficient to
direct your attention towards the sentiments
with which these Offices are to be considered and
attended, and fearful of becoming tedious by
prolixity, I will pass over the many other illustra-
tions which occur to me, and rather make one
or two observations on the service of the eight
days considered as a whole. While every part
has a character of life and of living action, which
forms the very essence of dramatic representa-
tion, an attentive observer will not fail to notice
the progressive and deepening tone of feeling
which the successive days are calculated to pro-
duce, with such contrasts and partial alleviations
as are necessary to give it vigour, and preserve
its poetical power. And this is owing only to
the fidelity with which the representation fol-
lows the original scene.

Thus the service of Sunday opens it in a sorrow-
ful and solemn manner ; but there is a mixture
of passing exultation and triumph, as, bearing
palms, we commemorate the entry into Jeru-
salem. During the three following days, the
Office is all sorrowful, but without any public
demonstration of moment, till the Tenebrse of
Wednesday afternoon removes the veil, and
shows the church in mourning, in the solemn
chaunt of her Office, the Lamentations and the
Miserere. Thursday checks, for a moment, the

LECTURE THE SECOND. 65

course of grief. It is dedicated to the conni
moration of the institution of the blessed Eucha-
rist, and the sealing of the Covenant of love.
The sacerdotal vestments are white; the " Gloria
in excelsis" is sung, and everything indicate
some mitigation of growing sorrow ; for still the
vein of religious melancholy may be distinctly
traced running through all the Office. When
this tribute of more joyful gratitude has been
paid, every barrier has been broken down to
grief ; the altars are stripped not only of every
ornament (that had been done from the begin-
ning of Passion-tide), but of its daily ordinary
coverings, and with them, of course, every other
part of the chapel, from the canopy to the floor,
is bared and unclothed ; the purple colour worn
on the Sunday is changed into the deeper mourn-
ing hue of black ; the Cardinals, for this only
day in the year, have their robes of serge instead
of silk ; the Liturgy itself seems to be confused
and is imperfect ; and then the church is left
without her incense or taper, mourning and
solitary, as on the loss of an only begotten.
Saturday of old wras spent in this abandonment
of unspeaking woe, without a service or a ehaunt.
But according to the present ritual, the first
dawn of consolation is allowed to appear, tidings
of the Resurrection are communicated, the Alle-
luia of the following day is announced, and so is

66 LECTURE THE SECOND.

that too sudden transition prevented, which
otherwise would take place, from the depth of
sorrow to the fullest consummation of spiritual
joy, in the glories which the Resurrection of our
Redeemer unfolds to the imagination and feelings
of the faithful Christian. Such are the principles
that pervade these sacred Offices of Holy Week,
as performed at the Vatican ; intended as repre-
sentations, they act, rather than commemorate,
the various scenes of our blessed Saviour's Pas-
sion ; and they contain, both in their separate
actions, and in their great combination, all the
elements of a poetry powerfully dramatic.

•Never has such poetry walked long alone,
but the sister art of sound and harmonious ex-
pression is sure to join her. It would have been
strange indeed, if the inspiring genius of Christian
art, which had made every other form of the
beautiful serve it, should have found music alone
unavailable ; or if the spirit, which had com-
bined such noble and beautiful sentiments in one
grand ceremonial, had not been able to breathe
them in becoming accents. Music, then, alone
seems wanting to complete our view of the ar-
tistic merits of these holy functions, which we
have shown to have been most influential in
developing the arts of design, and to possess in
themselves the greatest poetical beauty; nor
shall we find it here unworthy of its destination.

LECTURE THE SECOND. 67

For I may say, contradiction nothing tVarhm.
that you will hear during the next week such
music, as that whether you consider its grandeur
of effect, or the skill of its composition, its irre-
sistible impression, or its historical interest, no
other place in the world, in the same period of
time, or indeed ever, can exhibit. Upon this
matter, therefore, I now proceed to treat.

The music performed in the Papal chapel dur-
ing Holy Week is of a two-fold kind, the plain
or Gregorian chaunt, called in Italian, " canto
fermo," or "canto piano," and the peculiar har-
monized music, " canto figurato," there only
used. I need not remind you that no instru-
ment is ever admitted. In the first of these are
sung the whole of the Tenebrse, excepting the
first lamentation, and the Miserere at the end,
and certain portions of the Mass, as the Introit,
Gradual, Offertory, and Communion. The two
portions of the Tenebrse just excepted, the Kyrie
Eleison, Gloria, and other parts of the Mass, are
sung in harmony. That you may understand
the value of the various pieces which you will
hear, it may not be without use to run cursorily
over the history of sacred music.

We have no clear testimonies upon this sub-
ject before peace was restored to the Church ;
when Eusebius tells us that different places were
assigned to the young and old who sung psalms.

68 LECTURE THE SECOND.

St. Augustine attributes the introduction of alter-
nate chaunting, in the west, to St. Ambrose,
who, during his residence in the east, had learned
it. There is a well-known passage in his Con-
fessions, where he describes the influence the
music of the Milanese church exercised on his
conversion, by moving him to tears of tenderness
when he heard it. The system introduced by
St. Ambrose is not known ; there is no doubt
but it was founded upon the ancient Greek
system ; and as what is now called the Gregorian
chaunt is based upon it too, we cannot doubt
but it bore a great resemblance to this, and was,
in fact, either superadded or absorbed by the
reform which Pope Gregory the Great introduced
into church music. I am far from wishing to
enter into technical details, but it may be in-
teresting to many to know, in what the scale or
keys of the Gregorian, or plain chaunt, differ
from those in ordinary music, and, therefore, I
will briefly speak of them. St. Gregory gave to
the octave scale the names which its notes now
bear, ABC, &c. According to his and the
present systems of music, any of these notes may
be the key-note ; but then we now introduce
as many flats and sharps as are necessary to make
the tones and semitones fall at the same inter-
vals in every major and minor key respectively.
Hence a melody written for one key can be sung

LECTURE THE SECOND. 09

upon another, without any rhanirt- thence result-
ing except as to pitch. In the (in-irorian rliaunt
likewise, any note may be the key-note ; but no
sharps or flats arc allowed excepting B b in tin-
key of F. Thus in every key, the position of tin-
semitones varies ; and a piece of music, com-
posed on one key or tone, is completely altered,
and becomes insufferable if transposed into ano-
ther. Within a few centuries, sad corruptions
had crept into the ecclesiastical music ; and great
disputes arose as to how many keys or tones
there were in it. Those were days of loyalty ;
and the nice point was referred to Charlemagne.
He studied the question deeply, took counsel,
and issued his imperial decree, " that eight keys
or modes appeared quite sufficient." Remon-
strances seem to have been made, especially by
the Greeks ; and a second mandate pronounced
" there are twelve modes." *

The Gregorian chaunt is completely diatonic ;
it is melodic, that is, sung by all the voices.
Rousseau has observed, and every musician will
agree, that no modern music can come up to it
in that pathos, which a majestic strain can give
to the human voice ; and another author has
observed, that every modern attempt to compose
in imitation of it has completely failed. The
services of Holy Week will present the most

* Baini, " Vita di PaJestrina," torn. ii. p. 81.

70 LECTURE THE SECOND.

perfect specimens. As a chaunt, for a minister
at the altar, I will mention, as unrivalled, the
Passion, of which I have already spoken, and
the Benediction of the Paschal Candle on Holy
Saturday morning ; as joyous yet as dignified a
piece of declamatory music, if I may so speak,
as is anywhere to be found. The psalms are
chaunted at Tenebrae in plain Gregorian song ;
but I hardly know where to choose a more
beautiful example of its rich and expressive
modulations, than the verse which is sung just
before the Miserere, <e Christus factus est, &c."
Christ was made obedient for us unto death.
Each evening an additional clause is joined, and
the strain increases in loftiness and beauty. The
second and third Lamentations each day are
sung by a single treble voice to a cadence well
known, but particularly modified into additional
sweetness in the Sixtine chapel. In general, the
most delicately and most pathetically modulated
is the prayer of Jeremiah, the last on Friday
evening.

In all these instances, and many others, we
have the most perfect examples of the true Gre-
gorian chaunt. But there are other things to
remark, still more interesting to those that study
the history of music. It would appear that in
the old church chaunt the melody was rhythmic,
that is to say, there was no written distinction

LECTURE THE SECOND. 7 I

of length in the notes ; the letters which indi-
cated them were noted only to express the tone,
but the measure of the note followed the quan-
tity, as grammarians call it, of the syllable it
accompanied, so as to express the practical
rhythm or prosody of the hymn. Shakes, how-
ever, and ornamental passages, were admitted, to
add grace to the movement. Now, whoever
would wish to have an idea of the music which
this would produce must go the Pope's chapel
on Good Friday, when the only piece that has
been preserved, or is sung in the world, upon
this system, is performed. This is the hymn,
(e Pange lingua gloriosi, lauream certaminis,"
sung during the ceremony of kissing the crucifix,
after the " Improperia" It is a lively, almost
sprightly composition, not unsuitable to the
triumphant words that are matched to it ; and if
any one should think it of too light a character for
the occasion, he will, I am sure, cease to judge
it so severely, when he thus considers it as the
only remnant of that truly poetical music which
accurately expresses the prosody of the words,
Don Antonio Eximeno, an eminent writer on mu-
sic,wasso struck with this hymn, that he went year
after year to hear it, and has written a long scien-
tific eulogium of it. He pronounces it a wrork
which every composer or director of church music
should diligently study, as a beautiful specimen

F

72 LECTURE THE SECOND.

of the rhythmic style.* Nor is this the only
relic of music, else lost, which is here found ; for,
as in that instance, the Holy Week has treasured
up for us the only example of an ancient system
of melody, so has it kept the only remains of the
oldest known system of harmonization. On
Easter Sunday morning you will hear the part of
the Office, called Tierce, sung before Mass, while
the Pope is robing beside the altar. At the
close of each psalm, you will not fail to notice
the " Gloria Patri" harmonized upon a system
manifestly different from anything you have
heard elsewhere, but producing a rich and pa-
thetic effect. This is the only instance remain-
ing of what the French used to call faux bour-
don, and from them, after the Pope's return from
Avignon, the Italian's /also bordone, or false
lass ; for two other systems, since called by this
name, are spurious and mere modern conceits.
It is attributed to Guido, of Arezzo, the father
of modern music, in the eleventh century, and
is effected simply thus. — The contralto continues
the tone or strain of the psalm just as the pre-
ceding verses were sung ; the tenor takes the sixth
and the bass the third, and these two parts
follow the movement of the tone, always keeping
the same interval, without regard of tones or

* " Dubbio ;" Roma, 1775, p. i. p. 19.

LECTURE THE SECOND. ~'.\

semitones.* This uould be considered by any
composer contrary to all rule; yet the effect it
produces is perfectly delicious. There are se-
veral other partieularities in the Gregorian
chaunt, as performed in the Pope's chapel, which,
not to be tedious, I omit. I will only observe,
that even the plain chaunt in the Mass and anti-
phons is there sung in two parts ; the tenor and
treble always taking the melody a third above
the other two. This is done, by permission
obtained, with considerable difficulty, from, I
believe, Alexander VII.

Far the most interesting portion of the music,
which enters into these Offices, is that disposed
in parts, or harmonized. I have already re-
marked on the corruptions wrhich had early crept
into sacred music. The Roman Church had,
however, always adhered to the plain song?
though greatly debased, till the return of Gre-
gory XI from Avignon, in 1377, when he brought
with him his French choir, which he united with
that of Rome. They introduced harmonized
music of the most dangerous character, full of
tricks, divisions, and meretricious ornament,
which soon degraded church music from a
science to a mere profane exhibition. Time

* A part has been added for the treble, which properly
should be in unison with the bass. Even in the other p..
on some occasions, slight deviations have been introduced.

F2

74 LECTURE THE SECOND.

brought no improvement ; and by the sixteenth
century the evil seemed beyond the hope of any
cure except the most desperate. The papal
choir was almost exclusively in the hands of
foreigners, — Spaniards, French, but chiefly Fle-
mings. There was actually an idea that the
Italians had no musical talent or power; the
strangers made a complete monopoly of the pon-
tifical chapel, engaged fellow-countrymen who
could not sing a note, and jealously excluded all
natives ; so that at one time the number of
effective performers was reduced to nine. But
the corruption of sacred music became more de-
cided than its decline ; and consisted in two
points : — First, in the confusion of the words.
Instead of all the parts being applied to the same
words, they were often singing phrases that did
not belong in the least to the Office, but were
either Scripture texts, or fanciful compositions.
Thus in an old Kyrie Eleison, preserved in the
archives of the choir, the tenor sings, " I am
risen and still am with you, Alleluia," and other
similar words. In another, entitled of the B.
Virgin, the same voice sings through the Kyrie,
Gloria, and Credo, a hymn in her praise. There
is a motett of Obrecht's, in which four different
sets of words are sung by the four voices. The
confusion was such, that no words at all could
be distinguished, but all was a jarring confusion,

LECTURE THE SECOND. 7.>

most unbecoming a religious \\orship. When
Nicholas V asked Cardinal Domcnico Capranira
\vhat lie thought of his choir, he boldly answered,
with a comparison, not as elegant a> it i- ex-
pressive, that it seemed to him " like a sack full
of young swine, for he heard a dreadful HOIM ,
but could distinguish nothing articulate/' In
1549, Cirillo Franchi wrote to Ugolino Gualtt i
ruzzi, of the singers of his day, " Pongono tutta
la loro beatitudine in fare che al medesimo tempo
che uno dice sanctus, dice 1'altro tiahaoth, c
1'altro gloria fuu, con alcuni urli, mugiti, gar-
garismi, che sembrono piu gatti di Gennajo, che
fiori di Maggio."*

The second and worse corruption was from
the selection of the melodies. Originally, amidst
all the degradation of church song, one of the
voices at least preserved the established notes ;
which served as a ground for the absurd varia-
tions of the others. In course of time, com-
posers chose for their theme other pieces of
sacred music, to which they adapted the words
of the Creed, or Gloria, always preserving more
or less the strain. The Mass then received tin

* Baini, torn. ii. p. 104-. " It is their greatest happiness to
contrive, that while one says and us tho other should say
Sabaoth, and a third gloria tuat with certain lio\\ls, lu-llowiugs
and gutteral sounds, so that they more resemble cats in Janu-
ary than Howers of May."

76 LECTURE THE SECOND.

name of this piece ; thus we have the Mass
" Beatus Vir," the Mass " Ave Maria/' &c. So
far some indulgence might be granted ; but the
next step was intolerable. Composers pro-
ceeded to select for their themes, profane, vulgar,
and even lascivious airs ; and as most of the
musicians were foreigners, so most of these
strains were proven9al. In this manner, we
have Masses entitled " L'Homme arme," a
theme often repeated ; " Chiare, fresche e dolci
acque," and innumerable others ; some with
titles which sufficiently express the style of the
music. When these two abuses had reached
their height of crying abomination, it might have
been said with truth —

" Forse e nato
Chi Tun e 1'altro caccera del nido."

For amidst the corruption of the age arose the
genius of Palestrina, pure as if angels had
breathed into him their harmony, capable at
once of conceiving, effecting, and maturing the
perfection of music, whose spirit seems ever
since to have watched in guardianship over the
choir which he taught ; and whose mantle has
descended, almost in its freshness, to his living
successor and biographer.

Giovanni Pierluigi, called from his native
town Palestrina, was born of poor parents, in
1 524 ; and, having been noticed by a musician for

l,K(Tl UK 'INK SKCOND. 77

his talents, entered as a sin^in^ boy in the choir
of some church. He soon distiiiiruished himself,
and was named, at the a ire of twenty-seven.
director of the music in the new Capella (iiulia,
established in St. Peter's, by Pope Julius III.
Having, three years later, published \\\< iir-t
works, which evidently far surpassed those of
his age, the Pope desired him to abandon his
post in the Basilica, and enter, almost the only
Italian, into the choir of his chapel. He did not
enjoy his painful situation long ; for the severe
Pope Paul III, succeeding in six months, com-
menced a reform in his chapel, by expelling
Palestrina and two other married men ; as none
but clergymen were, by ancient enactments,
allowed to sing there. Pierluigi, however, was
soon appointed director of the music in the La-
teran Basilica. Here he composed, in 1 560, his
celebrated " Improperia" which I have several
times mentioned. They consist of mild re-
proaches, placed in our Saviour's mouth, to his
people for their cruel and ungrateful conduct,
intermixed with the Trisagion, as it is called,
" Holy God, Mighty God, Immortal God," sung
in Greek and Latin by a chorus and semi-choru>.
The impression made by this sublime, though
simple composition, was such, that, in the follow -
ing year, Pope Pius IV requested Palestrina to.
allow a copy to be taken for his chapel, where it

78 LECTURE THE SECOND.

has been since performed every year in the ser-
vice of Good Friday.

These Improperia are in form of a chaunt,
where every verse is repeated to the same music,
and divided into two parts, so that most of the
words run upon one note, and resolve into a
double cadence at the middle and end. To look
at the score, it might be supposed that any one,
almost a child, could have composed them. In
the chorus and semi-chorus of the Trisagion,
each voice has actually only two notes, and those
of the most obvious harmony. And yet to hear
those sung, slow yet bold, full yet soft, with the
melting modulation which that choir alone can
give, produces a feeling of sweet devotional
melancholy, a mildened emotion, which not even
the more artful and far-famed Miserere can
excite. It is truly the triumph of nature over
art ; and it was a mighty effort of genius, to con-
ceive, that the simplest possible combinations
could produce such wonderful eifect. Dr. Bur-
ney has called Palestrina, the " Homer of ancient
music;"* and no composition, perhaps, more
justly entitles him to that name. But the tri-
umph of his genius was far from ending here :
he may be really called the saviour of music.

The abuses which I have before mentioned,
occasioned a decree from the Council of Trent,

* History, p. 198, vol. iii.

LECTURE THE SECOND. 7^

enjoining the abolition of all profane and lasci-
vious music whether in air or movement ;* and
in 1564, Pope Pins appointed a congregation, or
committee of cardinals, to carry into effect the
canons of that synod. Two of the number were
the Cardinals Vitelozzi and St. Charles Borromeo,
who, as all true saints ever were, was a man of
real taste, and to them was especially committed
the charge of musical reform. They held several
meetings, and consulted with a deputation of the
papal choir, as to the best expedients to carry
it into effect. Cardinal Borromeo, as archpriest
of Sta. Maria Maggiore, was acquainted with
the abilities of Pales trina, who had now passed
into the service of that church, and at his sug-
gestion, the eminent but modest composer was
called on the 10th of January, 1565, and com-
missioned to write a Mass, in which the theme
should have no affinity to any profane air, and
in which the words could be distinctly heard.
He was warned, that on the success of his ex-
periment depended the fate of church music;
for if he failed, it should be for ever banished,
as profane, from the house of God.

We may easily conceive the embarrassment,
yet, at the same time, the honest pride, of a
genius like his, upon being burthened with such
a responsibility, and feeling the very existence
of his favourite darling science dependent upon

* Sess. xxii. Dec. de Celeb. Mi>> i

80 LECTURE THE SECOND.

his sole efforts. But he shrunk not from the
trial. Within three months he presented three
new Masses, which were performed by the Papal
choir, on the 26th of April, in the house of Car-
dinal Vitellozzi. The two first were greatly
admired ; although the genius of Palestrina had
been cramped by the delicacy of his situation.
But the third perfectly won the case ; the con-
gregation decided that nothing more could be
desired, and decreed the preservation of music
in divine service.

On the 29th of June, a solemn festival was
held to receive the liberal offers of the Swiss
cantons ; and the Pope assisted at the Sixtine
chapel. The victorious Mass was performed;
every one was ravished with delight. The Pope
exclaimed, "these must have been the strains
which John the apostle heard in the heavenly
Jerusalem, and which another John has renewed
in that of earth!" It is said, that Cardinal
Pirani, dean of the sacred college, turning to
Cardinal Serbelloni, beautifully adapted to the
music the lines of Dante : —

" Render e questo voce a voce in tempra,
Ed in dolcezza ch' esser non puo nota,
Se non cola dove '1 gioir s'insempra."*

* Here words are joined, and sounds harmonious blend

In sweetness, such as can alone be known
In that blest place where gladness hath no end.

Paradiao x.

LKCTURB THE SECOND. SI

To which he ansurrvd \\ith equal felicity —

" Risponda dunque ; oh ! fortunata sort. !
liisponda alia divina cantilena.
Da tutte parti la beata Cortr,
Si eh' oirui vista ne sid piu si-rcna." *

This history of the salvation of sacred mu>ie
has been erroneously related by all author-, in-
cluding Dr. Burney, till Baini, in his interesting
life of Palestrina, discovered the truth. It is
generally said, that Pope Marcellus II, during
the few days that his reign lasted, wished to
abolish sacred music ; but that Palestrina re-
quested a trial, and produced the Mass I have
spoken of. But the title which it bears of
" Missa Papse Marcelli" was not given it until its
publication, by request of Philip II, of Spain,
several years after the date of its composition,
which was in the third pontificate after Mar-
cellus.

Whoever wishes to hear this magnificent com-
position, must attend the Pope's chapel on Holy
Saturday ; the only day in the year when it is
performed. It is in six voices, having two basses
and two tenors. As Palestrina intended to avoid
all air, and to give to each part an ever-varying
movement, and as it was consequently necessary

* Respond then, blessed lot! respond to this
Heavenly strain, the happy eourt abc>\> .
That so our pleasure may encrcase to bli».

liuini, torn. i. p. 231.

82 LECTURE THE SECOND.

that each, from time to time, should repose, he
took this expedient, and secured a fine substruc-
tion for his harmony by the stability of his lower
and middle parts ; as the treble and contralto
could well sustain alternately the shriller har-
monies. The effect of this arrangement is won-
derful. In most modern choruses, one or two
parts at most have movement, wrhile the others
are either kept on sostenuto notes, or else, if
more than four, in unisons. But in this Mass,
as in all his music, there is no riempitura, or
filling up ; every part, as Dr. Burney terms it, is
a real part, as important as the other ; all fall
of vigour, life and movement. The consequence
is, that when performed, it has a power beyond
most compositions in twelve or sixteen voices.
Hence two adaptations which have been pub-
lished of it, (sometimes erroneously attributed
to the great composer himself), one for four and
the other for eight voices, are devoid of effect,
and spoil the character of the original. I will
even say, from experience, that this Mass, per-
formed with only one voice to a part, has more
effect and vigour than any ordinary composition
with twice the number.

The character of Palestrina's music is rich,
harmonious, and imposing. It is essentially
choral, as all church music should be. A plain
litany, sung by the untaught multitude, with all

LECTURE THK SKCoXD. S.'*

the earnestness of devotion, will afieet the soul
more powerfully than all the artificial divisions
of a modern performer. The music <>t the Temple
was evidently choral, sung by troops of Levites,
and supported by the sound of trumpets. When-
ever the Scripture mentions music, as heard in
heaven, it is always of this character. Four
spirits, the number of perfect harmony, unite in
the song of" Holy, Holy, Holy." Countless mul-
titudes sing together the magnificent canticle
" To the Lamb that was slain," in a voice as the
roaring of the sea ; and the virgins who sing a
a song, known to none else, are forty thousand in
number. The music of the church should be in
the same spirit ; and as it is performed in the
name of the multitude of faithful, knitted in the
accord of charity, it should be, so to speak, mul-
titudinous and harmonious. The exclusion, too,
of the organ, and every other instrument, re-
quires that an unceasing vocal harmony should
be kept up. Palestrina is by no means, as Bur-
ney insinuates, devoid of melody : in his motetts
there is a prevailing movement, wilich, though
far from approaching what is called air or tune,
gives a distinct character to each, and leaves an
impression upon the memory — the truest cri-
terion, perhaps, of melody. He varies his style
with his subject; for he always felt what he
wrote. When treating a pathetic theme, no

84 LECTURE THE SECOND.

one can be more exquisitely tender and rich,
without any such changes of key, or unexpected
accords, as modern music has introduced. One
of the finest specimens of his pathetic, devout
style, will be performed on Sunday next (Passion
Sunday) during the Offertory. It is a motett
on the words, " We have sinned with our fathers,
we have done wickedly." To the same class
belong his " Stabat mater," only performed at
the Offertory of Palm Sunday. Yet more deli-
cious, though, perhaps, not so expressive, you
will find the first " Lamentations" of Wednesday
and Friday evening, which are harmonized by
Palestrina, whereas that of Thursday is by
Allegri, of whom I will say a few words just
now.

I have observed, that the Lamentations are
not, perhaps, so expressive as some of Palestrina's
other compositions. By that I mean, that little
or no attempt is made to render the varied ex-
pression of each passage. This I consider an
essential characteristic of this style of music,
and conducive to its perfect effect. When we
look upon an old sacred picture, every part is
intended to produce a single impression. Whe-
ther our eye turn to the calm sky, or the smiling
landscape, or the saints that stand in simple
attitude on either side, or on the countenance of
them that are in the middle enthroned, there is

U:CTURK TIIK SK( ()\ I).

a unity of tone and sentiment : ;m<l an miminirled
feeling Of devotion i- eoiiM-tjiiently excited. The
old masters gem-rally excluded from their cruci
tixions the ruffianly soldiers and croud ; and
only allowed the compassionating friends ot'Jesiis
to be seen about his cross. Modern arti>t> think
they gain by contrast, as they certainly do in
pictorial effect, exactly just as much as they
lose in moral power ; and, therefore, introduce
groups of executioners and barbarous foes, who
alloy the purer feelings of the scene with earthly
passion. Such seems to me the precise differ-
ence between the older and the later musical
performers even of the Papal chapel. Those of
old took their tone from the character of the
entire piece, not from particular words. They
would, in a varied hymn, like the " Gloria," pass
from the major to the minor mode, to express
the feeling of each part; but there was no at-
tempt to catch at words : "he descended into
hell," and u he ascended into heaven," were not
expressed, as in modern music, by runs from the
top to the bottom of the gamut, and vice ver.w.
They overlooked minor details, which would
have broken into the general design ; and checked
the plan of swelling emotion which a course of
music, in uniform style of expression, must pro-
duce. I will illustrate these remarks from the

86 LECTURE THE SECOND.

Miserere, as performed in the Pope's chapel, on
three successive evenings, merely closing my
account of Palestrina, by saying, that, after hav-
ing filled all Europe with his fame, and being
venerated by all lovers of true harmony, he ex-
pired the 2nd of February, 1594, in the arms of
St. Philip Neri, and was buried with great
honour in St. Peter's.

Anciently, the Miserere in greatest repute was
that of Luigi Dentice, a Neapolitan, published
in 1533. Allegri, who was called to Rome, by
Pope Urban VIII, from his native city Fermo,
composed one which has been ever since consi-
dered a master-piece of sacred music. In 1714,
Tommaso Bai, taking it for a model, and indeed
doing nothing more than varying it for each
verse, produced another scarcely inferior, but
still in the form of an imitation. The present
learned, virtuous, and amiable Director of the
Papal choir, Guiseppe Baini, has composed ano-
ther. I mention these three, because they are
the ones yet performed ; Baini's on Wednesday,
Bai's on Thursday, and Allegri's on Friday even-
ing. The difference of style which I have re-
marked between the old and the modern com-
posers is here strongly observable. Baini's, I
believe, generally pleases the uninitiated most ;
and would be a grand and beautiful composition

LKl'Tl UK THi: SKCOND. *7

.mvwhere, but appears less so under the roof
au-ainst which Allegri's strains are accustomed
to die away. Every verse is varied, and betrays
art. At the words /,'/ t\rnlt<tl>nnt /M-.NY/ ////////-
iuita, there is air, or rather time, upon the first
part of the verse, in a rising, joyful movement.
succeeded by a low, deep and sepulchral e\-
pression in the rest of the phrase. The verse
incerta et occult a xupicnt'uc ttur tHdHt/'rx/t/x//
Hii/tf, begins with a soft stealthy expression, to
convey the idea of concealment and uncertainty ;
then at the Hifniifextuxti* u thou hast declared."
part succeeds to part, till a grand burst of full
declaration is made. Every verse proceeds upon
the same principle, and the mind is thus kept
undecided between different feelings, watching
the art and skill of the composer, — now held in
suspense, and heaving upwards on a majestic
swell, then falling suddenly, by its breaking, as a
wave, on an abrupt and shortened cadence ; and
you arrive at the conclusion with a variety of
images and feelings, — the mind, like a shivered
mirror, retaining only fragments of sentiments
and emotions. How different is the effect of
Allegri's, upon the soul of one, who, knecl'mir in
that silent twilight, and shutting up every sense,
save that of hearing, allows himself to be borne
unresisting by the uniformly directed tide of its

G

88 LECTURE THE SECOND.

harmonies. It is but a chaunt twice varied : one
verse being in four parts, and another in five, till
both unite in the final swell of nine voices. The
written notes are simple and unadorned ; but
tradition, under the guidance of long experience
and of chastened taste, has interwoven many
turns, dissonances and resolutions, which no
written or published score has expressed. At first,
the voices enter into full but peculiar harmony,
softly swelling in emphasis on each word, till the
middle of the verse, when a gradual separation
of each part takes place, preparing for the first
close ; you hear them, as though weaving among
themselves a rich texture of harmonious combi-
nation ; one seems struggling against the general
resolve, and refusing more than a momentary
contact with another, but edging off upon deli-
cious dissonances, till the whole, with a waving,
successive modulation, meet in full harmony
upon a suspended cadence. Then they proceed
with the second portion of the verse, upon a
different, but even richer accord, till once more
they divide with greater beauty than before. The
parts seem to become more entangled than ever.
Here you trace one winding and creeping, by
soft and subdued steps, through the labyrinth of
sweet sounds ; then another drops, with delicious
trickling falls, from the highest compass to the

I.LCTl KK 'III K SK< 0\ I).

level of the rest; then OIK leemfl at length to
extricate itself ; then another, in imitative HK-
cessive cadences; they seem as >ilvcr thread-
that gradually unravel themselves, and then
wind round the Hue, deep-toned bass which lias
scarcely swerved from its steady dignity during
all their modulations, and filling up the magni-
ficent diapason, burst into a swelling final ca-
dence, which has no name upon earth.

After verse has thus succeeded to verse, ever
deepening the impression once made, without an
artifice or an embellishment to mar the single-
ness of the influence, after the union of the two
choirs has made the last burst, of condensed, but
still harmonious, power ; and that affecting
prayer, " Look down, O Lord, upon this thy
family," has been recited in melancholy mono-
tony amidst the scarcely expired echoes of that
enchanting, overpowering, heavenly strain, the
mind remains in a state of subdued tendernt —
and solemnity of feeling, which can ill brook the
jarring sounds of earth, and which make it sigh
after the region of true and perfect harmony.

I hardly think that once or twice hearing the
Misereres of Allegri and Bai can impress the
feelings which I have feebly endeavoured to de-
scribe. Perhaps, however, what I have said, may
prepare your minds for them, and induce you

90

LECTURE THE SECOND.

to assist at it ; and at all the functions of this
holy season, with the desire to appreciate in
them the riches of art which they contain, in
the exquisiteness of their poetry and its sister
power.

LECTURE THE THIRD.

LECTURE THE THIRD.

THE CEREMONIES OF HOLY WEEK CONSI-
DERED IN CONNEXION WITH HISTORY.

Monumental character of church ceremonies — Records of
the earliest ages. — Midnight service. — Symbolical power
given to rites suggested by necessity. — Recollections of
the triumph of Christianity. — Adoration of the Cross. —
Procession on Palm Sunday. — Adoption of the Trisagion
under Theodosius. — Recollections of the Middle Ages. —
Rites once general here preserved from total extinction. —
Connexion with the Greek Church. — Conclusion.

HAVING now considered the Offices of Holy
Week in their relations with Art, as well ex-
ternal, or in their outward circumstances, as

LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE

94 LECTURE THE THIRD.

internal, through their essential forms ; the plan
which I have laid down brings me to treat of
them in their historical character, or as con-
nected with various epochs of ages past. Into
this portion might most properly be said to enter
the learning of my task ; as it would seem to
require a minute investigation of the cause and
origin of each ceremony observed in these sacred
functions. But I much doubt whether such
particular discussions would lead to much prac-
tical benefit ; and not rather, by the variety of
subjects and arguments, produce some confusion
and dissatisfaction. I prefer, therefore, a method
more according with that which I have hitherto
kept— of presenting more general views, and
classifying objects under heads which may be
remembered, and, — when remembered, produce
a wholesome impression.

On hearing that I am about to treat of the
historical value of these offices and ceremonies,
perhaps many will be inclined to prejudge that
I am anxious to prove them all most ancient, and
trace them^back to the earliest times of Christi-
anity. Whoever shall so imagine will be com-
pletely mistaken. If the Catholic Church, in all
things essential of faith and worship, lays claim
to apostolic antiquity, she no less holds a right to
continuity of descent ; and this, as well as the
other, must be by monuments attested. When we

"LECTURE THE THIRD. !>.'»

s-ast our eyes over England, and see, in every
part, remains of ancient grandeur belonging to
a very early age, — raised lines of praetorian en-
campments and military roads, or sepulchral
mounds with their lachrymals and brazen vessels;
then in our search find nothing more, till, many
•centuries after, noble edifices for worship, first
somewhat ruder, then ever growing in beauty,
begin to cover the land ; we conclude, indeed,
that it has long been peopled, but that the break
of monumental continuities proves the later race
to have had nought in common with the earlier ;
but that a dreary waste of some sort must have
widely spread and lasted long between them.
Not so on the other hand is it with this city,
in which an unfailing series of public monu-
ments, from the earliest times, shows that one
people alone have ruled and been great within it,
and guided its policy upon a constant plan. It
is even thus with the Church which, in many
and varied ways, has recorded its belief, its aspi-
rations, and its feelings, upon monuments of
every age, — in none more clearly than in her
sacred offices. It would be unnatural to refer
many of the rites now observed to the very
earliest ages. What have joyful processions in
common with the low and crooked labyrinths of
the catacombs ? How would the palm branch
grate upon the feelings of men crushedunder per-

96 LECTURE THE THIRD.

secution, and praying in sackcloth and ashes for
peace ? These are the natural symbols of joy and
triumph ; they express the outburst of the heart
when restored to light and liberty; they are forms
of Christian lustration over scenes and places that
have been defiled with previous abominations.

One striking difference between the old and
new law seems to consist in this, that the latter
was not content to form the spirit of the reli-
gious, but moulded its external appearance to an
unalterable type. The Jewish nation might
undergo any political modification, but the forms
of its worship, its place and circumstances, its
ceremonies and expressions, were ever to be the
same. And yet, with this stiff unvarying cha-
racter, its worship was essentially monumental.
The paschal solemnity was a ceremonial rite,
acting dramatically, and so commemorating the
liberation of Egypt ; the Feast of Pentecost
reminded every succeeding generation of the
delivery of the law : that of Tabernacles cele-
brated the long sojourn in the desert. Later,
new festivals were added, to record the dedi-
cation of the Temple, under Solomon, and its
purification, under the Macabees, and the salva-
tion of the people from the cruel designs of
Aman. Many of the Psalms, or canticles sung
in the Temple, were likewise historical, or com-
posed by David on particular passages of his life.

LECTURK THK THIRD. 97

But in all this we see no power of develope-
ment ; no expressive force which allowed the
feelings and powers of each age to imprint them-
selves on the worship, and characterise it in
later times by the monumental remains of dis-
cipline and customs variable in every age. In
the sense which I have spoken of the Jewish
religion, the Christian worship is eminently
monumental, as the very festivals of which we
are treating do abundantly declare. And in
addition to this, it has continued, from age to
age, both to institute new festivities as memo-
rials of its varied relations with outward things,
and to mark its feelings at peculiar seasons, in
every part of its offices and prayers. The dis-
covery of the cross, under Constantine, the
dedication of the Lateran and Vatican basilicas,
and the recovery of the symbol of our salvation,
under Heraclius, are thus commemorated. In
later times, the foundation of institutes for re-
deeming captives, celebrated in a peculiar feast,*
records the miserable subjection of great part of
Christendom to barbarian tyranny ; and festivals
yet celebrate amongst us the victories by which
that power was broken, and the west freed for
ever from its fear.f When, in 1634, Pope Urban
VIII discovered the relics of St. Martina and

* S. Maria de Mercede. f On the festival of the Rosary.

98 LECTURE THE THIRD.

rebuilt her church, he himself wrote the hymns
for her office ; and there deposited the last
feelings of anxiety and the last prayers of the
Church for her liberation from the terrors of
Mahomedan power. In like manner will pos-
terity commemorate each succeeding year, in
the hymn and lessons appointed for the 24th of
May, the unexpected return of the venerable
Pius VII to the throne of his predecessors, after
his long captivity.* In the service of the Church
of England three or four historical events have
been, I believe, recorded ; the murder of Charles
I, the restoration of his family, the arrival of
king William, and the Gunpowder Plot. Each
of these commemorations is more connected
with political events than conducive to religious
feelings ; the last, perhaps, may be considered
as rather tending to keep alive a spirit very differ-
ent from charity and brotherly kindness. When
the contests for the crown of Naples used to
bring into Italy periodical incursions of French
armies, whose track was ever marked by rapine
and desolation, they were viewed in the light
of a public scourge, and their removal was
deemed a fitting subject for prayer. Hence in
the Missals of Lombardy, at that period, we find
a mass entitled, "Missa contra Gallos." But
no sooner was the evil at an end than the prayer

* A Festival observed peculiarly in Rome.

LECTURE THE THIRD. !M)

was, in good taste and charitable feeling, abo-
lished. The day, perhaps, \vill come when
similar motives may produce, in our country,
similar effects.

But what forms a distinctive property of
Christ's religion, is, that he left few or no regu-
lations concerning external worship. He insti-
tuted sacraments that consist of outward rites ;
but left the abundance, or parsimony of external
ceremony, to depend upon those circumstances
or vicissitudes through which his Church should
pass, and the feelings which they might inspire.
It is this idea which my discourse of to-day is
intended to develope, by representing to you the
ceremonies of Holy Week, as monumental re-
cords of various times and ages, each of which
has left its image stamped upon them as they
passed over. And thus, methinks, they will
possess an additional interest, as monumental
proofs of the continuous feeling which has pre-
served, as it embellished, them, from the very
beginning.

The most important functions of Holy Week
are referred to the common and daily liturgy of
the Church, and are joined to it as to a base
which they adorn for the time, with records of
events by them commemorated. Palm Sunday
has its blessings and procession only in prepa-
ration for the Liturgy or Mass ; and its solemn

100 LECTURE THE THIRD.

Passion is only the gospel adapted to the occa-
sion. Thursday and Saturday present nothing
peculiar, except additional ceremonies before or
after the same celebration ; and Friday's service
is a modification thereof, peculiarly formed to
express the mourning and the graces of that
day. The substance, therefore, so to speak, or
foundation, upon which every age has placed its
contribution, must form the oldest and most
venerable portion of the service, and should, in
fact, be as old as Christianity itself. And so in
truth it is. For the mass, whereunto all the
other ceremonial is mainly referred, is nothing
else than the performance of the eucharistic
rite instituted by our blessed Saviour. It may
be considered as consisting of two distinct por-
tions,— one essential and the other accidental.
The first consists of such parts as are, and must
be, common to all Liturgies, and comprises the
Offertory or oblation, the Consecration by the
words of Christ, and the Communion. These
are all to be found substantially the same amongst
all those Christians who believe the Eucharist to
be a sacrifice, and to contain the real body and
blood of Jesus Christ; for they occur in the
Liturgies of Latins and Greeks, Armenians and
Copts, Maronites and Syrians ; and, moreover,
in those of Jacobites and Nestorians, who have
been separated from us since the fifth century.

LECTURE THE THIRD. 101

But to this remotest period belong also many
ceremonies which, though not essential for the
integrity of the Liturgy, are clearly traceable
to the apostolic time. Such, for instance,
is the prayer for the departed faithful, which is
wanting in no Liturgy of the East or West ; the
commemoration of the Apostles and Saints ; the
mingling of water with the wine, the use of
lights and incense, which have been severally
acknowledged to be derived from the time of the
apostles, by Bishops Beveridge and Kaye, by
Palmer, and other Protestant writers. Most of
the prayers which constitute the present Liturgy,
are to be found in the rituals of St. Gregory the
Great, St. Celestine, Gelasius, and other early
popes ; and may be supposed, consequently, to
be still more ancient. I hurry over this period,
both because I have lately had occasion to treat
concerning it in another place,* and because
it is only remotely connected with the subject of
these Discourses. It was, however, necessary
to say thus much, to show the groundwork
whereon the solemn functions of this season rest.
For three centuries the Christians lived in per-
secution and concealment. This naturally led
to the selection of night, as the fittest time for

* This alludes to a sermon delivered shortly before. It
would be easy to add the acknowledgement of the "Tracts for
the Times," &c.

102 LECTURE THE THIRD.

the celebration of their sacred rites ; and caused
the greater portion of the Church office to be
allotted to that silent hour. We might likewise
expect to find whatever ceremonies retain the
remembrance of this state, partaking of the
symbolical and mystical spirit which such awful
assemblies must have inspired. Of this early
period, monuments are not wanting in the offices
of Holy Week. The very office of Tenebrse is,
in truth, no more than the midnight prayer of
that early age. It continued to be performed at
midnight for many centuries, especially at this
time, as appears from a very ancient manuscript
of the Roman Or do published by Mabillon,* in
in which it is prescribed to rise for them at mid-
night. Many centuries ago, the anticipation of
time, now observed, took place ; but the name
and other terms were kept to record its earlier
method of observance. The service itself was
called Tenebrce (darkness), and Matins, or
morning office ; and each of its three divisions
is styled a Nocturn, or nightly prayer. Ano-
ther monument of that early period may be
found in the mass of Holy Saturday. Through-
out it, the service speaks of the " night ;" it is
the night in which Israel escaped from Egypt,
and which preceded the resurrection of Christ.
For the entire service, as I observed in my first

* Mus. Ital. torn. ii. 19.

LECTURE THE THIRD. 103

Discourse, refers to this joyful event, and used
to be celebrated at midnight.

The rites connected with these primitive and
solemn offices are, as I have intimated, singularly
mystical. There have been two classes of writer-
regarding ceremonies. Some, like Du Vert, have
wished to trace them all to some natural cause ;
others have wished to give them exclusively a
symbolical and mysterious signification. It i>
probable that here, as usually, truth lies between
the two extremes ; and that, while circum-
stances suggested the adoption of certain expe-
dients, the faithful ever preferred so to modify
them in application, as to make them partake of
that deep mysticism which they so much loved.
Thus, no doubt, necessity as well as choice com-
pelled them to use lights during those nightly
celebrations ; but they arranged them so as to
give them a striking figurative power. In fact,
Amalarius Symphosius, (whom Benedict XIV
confounds with Amalarius Fortunatus, a writer
early in the ninth century), tells us that in his
time the church was lighted up with twenty-four
candles, which were gradually extinguished, to
show how the sun of justice had set ; and this he
adds, we do thrice, that is on three succeeding
evenings.* This shows the union, even at so
late an epoch, between the obvious use of these

* Bib. Pat. torn. xiv.

104 LECTURE THE THIRD.

lights and their mystical application. The
present disposition of them on a triangular
candlestick, is, however, much older than his
time ; and has been preserved in a manuscript
Or do of the 7th century, published by Mabillon.
The connexion between the rite and the hour
in which these offices were originally celebrated,
may warrant us in considering both of equal an-
tiquity.

The midnight service of Easter-eve, now
performed on Saturday morning, gives a similar
coincidence, and stronger authority for this con-
nexion. Before the mass, new fire is struck
and blessed, and a large candle, known by
the name of the paschal-candle, being blessed
by a deacon, is therewith lighted. This
blessing of fire or light is a very ancient cere-
mony, originally practised every Saturday, and
apparently restricted to Holy Saturday in the
eleventh century. In the Roman Church, how-
ever, according to Pope Zachary, in 751, this
ceremony was practised on Thursday. These
observations are but cursorily made. It is the
benediction of the candle which is the principal
feature of this ceremonial. The beautiful prayer
in which the consecration, or blessing, takes
place, has been attributed to several ancient
fathers : by Martene, with some degree of pro-

LECTURE THE THIRD. 105

bability, to the great St. Augustine,* who very
likely only expressed better what the prayers
before his time declared. It very beautifully
joins the two-fold object of the institutions.
For, while it prays that this candle may continue
burning through the night, to' dispel its darkness,
it speaks of it as a symbol of the fiery pillar
which led the Israelites from Egypt, and of Christ,
ever true and never failing light. But the rite
itself is much older than that age. Anastasius
Bibliothecarius says of Pope Zozimus, in 417,
that he allowed to parishes the power of blessing
this candle. This, as Gretser remarks, supposes
the blessing to have existed before, but to have
been confined to basilicas. St. Paulinus speaks
of the candle as painted according to the custom
yet practised in Rome ; and Prudentius mentions
its being performed in allusion, as F. Aravalo
plausibly conjectures, to the incense which then,
as now, was inserted in it. What still more
pleads for the antiquity of this rite is the exist-
ence of it in distant Churches. For St. Gregory
Nazianzen mentions it, as do other fathers, in
magnificent terms.

This year, being the seventh of the pontificate
of the present Pope, you will have the oppor-
tunity of witnessing another very ancient rite,
only performed every seventh year of each reign.

• Bened. xiv. p. 292.

LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE

106 LECTURE THE THIRD.

This is the blessing of the Agnus Dei, waxen
cakes stamped with the figure of a lamb. It
will take place in the Vatican Palace, on Thurs-
day in Easter Week, and a distribution of them
will be made in the Sixtine chapel, on the follow-
ing Saturday. The origin of this rite seems to
have been the very ancient custom of breaking
up the paschal candle of the preceding year,
and distributing the fragments among the faith-
ful. Durandus, one of the eldest writers on
church ceremonies, tells us, that on Saturday in
Holy Week, the acolytes of the Roman Church
made lambs of new blessed wax, or of that of the
old paschal candle, mixed with chrism, which the
pope, on the following Saturday, distributes
to the faithful.* He then enters upon their
spiritual and mystical signification. Alcuin,
our countryman, and disciple of venerable Bede,
tells us, that " in the Roman Church, early in
the morning of Saturday, the archdeacon comes
into the church, and pours wax into a clean
vessel, and mixes it with oil, then blesses the
wax, moulds it into the form of lambs, puts it
by in a clean place." These, he says, " are distri-
buted on the octave of Easter :" and he adds,
" the lambs which the Romans make, represent
to us the spotless lamb made for us, for Christ
should be brought to our memories frequently

* Rationale Divin. Offic. lib. vi. cap. 69, p. 349.

LECTURE THE THIRD. 1 <>7

by all sorts of things."* In the ceremony, as
you ^ill witness it, the Pope himself \vill bless,
and mingle with chrism, the figures of the
Agnus Dei already prepared.

Another portion of the service, which bears
us back to those earliest ages, deserves parti-
cular attention, from its being now, like the hist,
peculiar to Rome. It is well known to all that
have ever slightly applied themselves to the
study of Church history, that a system of public
penance existed of old, whereby such as had
scandalously transgressed God's law, were, for
a time, excluded from the communion of the
faithful, and subjected to a course of rigorous
expiation. This penitential system is acknow-
ledged by all to have reached back into times
of persecution ; for, we have repeated mention
of it in Tertullian, the oldest Latin ecclesiastical
writer ; and we possess entire treatises, or epis-
tles, of the glorious martyr St. Cyprian, regard-
ing it. The Catholic Church has everywhere
preserved the ceremony whereby the public
penance was enforced, to wit, on Ash- Wednes-
day : so called, from ashes having been, on that
day, placed on the public penitent's heads, as now
they are on those of all the faithful, with the very

* De Divinis Offic. ap. Ferras. De Cathol. Ecclesiso Divinis

Offic. Varii vetustor Libri, Rom. 1591, p. S'J. Vi.lr also

Amalar. Fortun. ib. p. 110.

11

108 LECTURE THE THIRD.

same words, " Remember that thou art dust,
and to dust thou shalt return." The course of
penance, thus enjoined, might last many years :
but, unless shortened by an indulgence, or
brought to a close upon danger of death, or of
persecution, the reconciliation of the penitents
always took place within Holy Week. St. Jerom
tells us, that Maundy-Thursday was the day
fixed for this solemn absolution,* and Pope Inno-
cent I confirms this observation. St. Ambrose,
however, observes, that the rite sometimes took
place on Wednesday, Friday, or some other day
in Holy Week.f

A remnant of this ancient custom has been
scrupulously preserved here. For, on the after-
noons of Wednesday and Thursday, the car-
dinal-penitentiary proceeds in state to the basi-
licas of Sta. Maria Maggiore and St. Peter : and,
seated on a tribunal reserved for that purpose,
receives the confession, or other application, of
such as may wish to advise with him and obtain
spiritual relief, in matters reserved to his juris-
diction.

Another, and a still more interesting usage,
of those primitive times, is yet retained in the
Roman Church, almost exclusively. In the
early ages, baptism was solemnly administered
only twice in the year, on the eves of Easter

* Epist. ad Oceanum. f Ad Marcell. Soror, Ep. 33.

LKCTLKK TIJK TII1KI). MM)

and Pentecost. The adult catechumens were
carefully instructed in the Christian faith ; al-
though many important dogmas \\ere withheld
from their knowledge till after baptism. On
Holy Saturday, or Easter Eve, they proceeded
to the church, under the guidance of the dea-
cons who had prepared them. Twelve lessons
from the Old Testament, descriptive of God's
providential dealings with man, were then read
in Greek and Latin ; during wrhich, they received
their final instruction in the faith. After this,
the baptismal font wras blessed wdth many solemn
ceremonies. Thus far the rite is universal, to the
extent that circumstances will permit : the lessons
are everywhere recited, or sung, and the font is
blessed wherever the privilege of having one
exists. But in Rome, the ancient usage is imi-
tated to the end. For, solemn baptism is al-
ways administered to converts, who are reserved
for that occasion, generally Jewrs, of whom a
certain number yearly enter into the Catholic
church. This takes place in the baptistery of
Constantine, adjoining the patriarchal basilica of
St. John Lateran.

Such are the principal points in the cere-
monial of Holy Week, wliich can be traced
with sufficient probability to the oldest period
of the Church, when she yet was in an hum-
bled and persecuted state : and they clearly

H2

110 LECTURE THE THIRD.

bear the impress of her condition and feelings.
The midnight assemblies still commemorated,
both in her sacred offices and in the Eucharistic
celebration, show the state of alarm in which
she then existed ; and the mystical signification
given to institutions, in a manner dictated by
necessity, exhibits the depth and nobleness of
idea which even then regulated her in her wor-
ship. The commemoration of that solemnity
wherewith she received repentant sinners back
to her peace, is a record of the purity which
distinguished all her members, and the zeal for
virtue which animated her pastors. In fine, the
rare and cautious initiation of her catechumens
through the sacrament of baptism, from danger
of their betraying the secrets of religion, is
commemorated in the lessons, and still more in
the actual rite as performed here on Holy Sa-
turday. And thus too, at Rome, there is a con-
sistency in the entire office of Easter, not to be
found elsewhere, inasmuch as the liturgy, du-
ring the following week, prays most especially
for those who have been just born again of
water and the Holy Ghost, that they may perse-
vere in the faith ; and the Sunday immediately
following Easter is still called, every where,
Dominica in albis, " Sunday of the white gar-
ments," as on it, the new baptized should lay
aside the white robe, put on them, by most

LECTURE TIIK THIRD. 1 I I

ancient usa^e, on their baptism. And this re-
minds me of another ceremonial, not. quite so
ancient, but still reaching to the fifth century.
I allude to the custom of the neophites. after
baptism, going to visit the tomb of the holy
apostles at the Vatican. Ennodius of Pa via
mentions this as a custom in his time. " See,"
he observes, "how the watery chamber (the
baptistery) sends forth its white-robed troops to
the portable chair of the apostolical confession."

Under Constantine the Church gained free-
dom, and the right to breathe, and still more
the power of expanding her outward form and
displaying all her beauty. To this period be-
long many of the functions of Holy Week, one
or two of which deserve more particular notice ;
and first is the act of solemn veneration shown
to the cross of Christ on Good Friday, knowrn
by the name of " The Adoration of the Cross."
Two things seem to deserve particular notice, the
origin of the ceremony, and the term applied to it.

When Helen, the emperor's mother, disco-
vered the cross of Christ in his sepulchre, we are
told that it was exposed to the veneration of
the faithful. From this moment the custom
arose in the Church of Jerusalem, and from it
spread so rapidly over the East and West, as
to become very soon universal. St. Paulinus
informs us, that once a year the portion of the

112 LECTURE THE THIRD.

same cross preserved there was solemnly brought
out, and that this was at Easter ; and he defines
the day more accurately, by saying it was on
the day which celebrated the mystery of the
cross, that is Good-Friday. St. Gregory of
Tours mentions the same custom.* This rite
was soon adopted at Constantinople, where a
portion of the same cross was offered to the
veneration of the faithful in the church of St.
Sophia, as Ven. Bede and other writers inform
us. Indeed, the Emperor Constantine Porphyro-
genitus has described minutely the ceremonies
used on that occasion. Leo Allatius has proved
the prevalence of the custom among other
nations in the East. Cardinal Borgia published
a manuscript preserved in the Propaganda, and
written in Syriac, entitled " The rite of saluting
the Cross as observed in the Syrian Church at
Antioch." Two other copies of the ceremonial,
formerly belonging to the Maronite College, are
now in the Vatican Library, and amply attest
the prevalence of this rite in the oriental Church.
Naironus, himself a Syrian, has minutely de-
scribed the ceremony as performed by the Ma-
ronites, or ancient Christians of Mount Libanus,

* Sophronius attributes the conversion of St. Mary of Egypt,
to her making a voyage and journey to Jerusalem to kiss the
cross on this day, and finding herself unable to enter the
church.

LKCTUKI. TIM, THIRD. I 13

on this very clay. The ritual is entitled, *w Order
of the adoration of the Cn»s," and is j>rcscribed
to be observed ou Good J'Yiday. The proclama-
tion and prayers are nearly word for \\ord tin
same as ours, and after them the cross is placed
on a seat or cushion in the church, and sur-
rounded by two priests and two deacons. \\ho
sing the Trisagion, or "thrice holy/' before
mentioned, just as you will find observed in the
Pontifical chapel.

The exact conformity of rites, and even words,
in the liturgies of different countries, is a strong
presumptive argument of great antiquity. In
fact, this rite seems to have been soon adopted
in the Western Church ; for we find it mentioned
in the Sacramentary of Pope Gelasius, the most
ancient existing, as approved and corrected by
the learned Muratori. The antiphon now used
at the ceremony is in the Antiphonary of St.
Gregory, and in the Roman order, which Ma-
billon refers to that Pontiff's time. What farther
confirms the origin of this rite from the custom
of the Church of Jerusalem is. that the expres-
sions used in it clearly refer to the true cross
there preserved : " Behold the wood of the cro>>
whereon our salvation hung." We have then
clearly, in this instance, a ceremonial expressive
of the triumph of Christianity — of the exaltation
of its sacred emblem above every other badge,

114 LECTURE THE THIRD.

a proclamation of the principle, that through it
alone salvation was wrought, the vindication of
it from ignominy and hatred, which, for three
centuries, had been its lot, and the paying of a
public tribute of honour, love, and veneration,
to him who hung upon it, in reparation of
the blasphemy, and, in his disciples, persecution,
wherewith he had been visited. All these are
precisely the natural feelings of the age, which
first saw Christianity not only free, but trium-
phant ; and which, having discovered the very
instruments of redemption, would have acted
unfeelingly, if, like the murderers of our Lord,
it had allowed them to be again thrown into
oblivion, and had not displayed, in their pre-
sence, some of the affectionate sentiments in-
spired by the event which they attested.

But I may be asked, why make this declara-
tion of sentiment in so strong a form, and why
give it so grating a name as " adoration" ? In
fairness, T should send any one asking such a
question, for his answer, to them who first in-
troduced the rite, and with it the name. For,
had we brought it in, since this word sounds
harsh, we might, peradventure, deserve blame,
as not having regard to others' feelings. But
if a word changes its meaning, after we have
adopted it, it would argue great weakness and
fickleness of purpose in us to abandon it, as it

LECTURE THE Till III). 1 If)

supposes some extravagance in those who ask
us to do it. For it is meet on the contrary, that,
amidst the fluctuations and changes in speech,
some landmarks should remain, to ascertain the
original meanings of words ; which would not be
the case if every use of them varied with them.
Our lawyers and our statutes chuse to preserve
the old words of our language, even where cus-
tom has long since changed their meaning, when
they speak of the Mtzi/i of an estate to signify
its lawful possession ; or of letting a man do an
action, when they mean to signify preventing it.
As the dialect of law, so is that of religion ; or
rather this is far more unchangeable, as are its
purposes ; and as the Church has chosen to pre-
serve the Latin language rather than adopt the
later tongues that have sprung up, so has she in
this kept her words as she first found them, and
not altered them wrhen men have given them new
meanings. The same principle has prevented
either change.

Now, wherever the rite of venerating the
cross of Christ has been introduced, it has ever
borne that maligned title of " adoration." Nay,
I can show you, that in the East and West this
expression was used, even when the hatred to
idolatry was the strongest. Lactantius, or the
author of a most ancient poem upon the Passion,
thus exclaims —

" Flecte genu, lignumque crucis venerabilc adora."

116 LECTURE THE THIRD.

" Bend the knee, and adore the venerable wood
of the cross." An ancient martyr is described,
by Bishop Simeon, as thus addressing his judge :
" I and my daughter were baptized in the Holy
Trinity, and his cross I adore ; and for him,"
that is Christ, " I will willingly die, as will my
daughter." This passage is from an oriental
writer, who surely would not have put into a
martyr's mouth, about to die for refusing to
worship idolatrously, words which savoured
themselves of that heinous crime. The Greeks
used the very same word. For in the old
Greek version of St. Ephrem, who was the most
ancient Syriac father, and which was made, if not
in his life-time, very soon after, we find these
words, " The cross ruleth, which all nations
adore, (irpoaKwovai) and all people."*

The word, therefore, signified veneration, and
the rite must be more ancient than the modern
meaning of " supreme worship," which it now
bears. And it would be as foolish in us to change
the word, because others have changed its mean-
ing, as it would be for the Anglicans to alter
the marriage rite, where the bride and bride-
groom declare, that with their bodies they wor-
ship one another ; because the Presbyterians, or
rather Independents of Cromwell, would have
worship paid to no man ; or, because in modern

* De Corrieris de Sessorianis Reliquiis. Romse, 1830, p. 134.

LECTUHi: TIIK Til I III). 117

speech, the word is restricted to divine service.
But if any one should prefer to give our word
its ordinary meaning, I have no j^reat objection,
provided he will allow us, who surely have the
right, to determine the object towards which our
homage and adoration tend, — to wit, Him who
hung and bled and died upon the cross, and not
its material substance. Nor would such a dis-
tinction savour of modern refinement and so-
phistry, seeing it is that of St. Jerom, who thus
speaks of Paula, in her epitaph : " Prostrate
before our Lord's cross, she so adored, as though
she beheld our Lord himself hanging thereon."*
The fathers of the seventh general council fully
explain this matter, and vindicate the words and
forms in which this worship is at present exhi-
bited. Thus much has seemed necessary, to pre-
vent any of you being withheld, by any mistaken
feelings, from fully valuing this most ancient
and venerable recollection of the first liberation
of Christianity from the house of temporal bond-
age, and its first erection of a public triumphant
worship. To this same period, I think, we may
safely refer the use of processions, especially
that of Palm Sunday ; for it, like the foregoing,
is to be found, immediately after, universal
throughout the Church. For in the East they
have, from the earliest ages, practised the cere-

* Gretser. De Grace, p. 566.

118 LECTURE THE THIRD.

mony of carrying palm and olive branches to the
church on Lazarus Saturday, as the eve of Palm
Sunday used to be called, and having them
blessed the next day. At Constantinople it was
customary for the emperor to distribute the palms
with great solemnity to all his courtiers. In
Rome it would seem, from old documents pub-
lished by Mabillon, that originally the blessing
of the palms for the papal chapel took place in
a small church, called our Lady of the Tower,
(Sta. Maria ad Turrim), from its being situated
beside the belfry of the old Vatican church, and
that thence the procession moved and ended at
the high altar of St. Peter's. It may not be out
of place to mention, that, anciently, the ceremo-
nies of each day used to be performed in different
churches, with the Pope's attendance, and that
the memory of this circumstance, unimportant
as it may be, has been- carefully recorded in the
service. For, to that of each day, you will find
prefixed the title of a church, as the station of the
day ; that is, as the place where the pontiff and
the faithful stood to pray. But, for some cen-
turies, this custom has been disused; and all
the functions have been reunited in the Vatican
and its chapels.

Martene had affirmed, that no trace of the
ceremonies of this Sunday could be discovered
in the Roman Church before the eighth or even

LECTURE TIIK THIRD. 1 1<J

the ninth century. But this assertion has been
fully refuted by Cardinal Tonnnasi, Meratus, and
others. For the old Roman calendar, published
by Martene himself, as belonging to the fourth
or fifth century, mentions the palms and the
station at St. John's. In the sacramentary of
St. Gregory, the prayer mentions the palm
branches borne in their hands by the faithful.*

This again is a ceremony strongly bearing,
like the one before described, the signet of its
age, beautifully characteristic of the season of
triumph and preeminence which the Church had
begun to enjoy : and an apt record of that feel-
ing, in which it could take part in the glories of
its acknowledged Lord, as well as sympathize
with him in his sufferings.

In the service of Good Friday, we have a little
fragment which belongs to a period somewhat
later than the foregoing, and betrays its origin
by its language. This is the Trittagion, sung al-
ternately with the Improper ia, both of which I
have several times had occasion to mention.
The Scripture has more than once recorded the
song of the spirits, who stand nearest to God's
throne, as being an unceasing repetition of "holy"
thrice pronounced. This formula of solemn
veneration the Church soon adopted in her daily
liturgy, where it yet remains. In the time of

* Benedict xiv., De Festis, p. 78.

120 LECTURE THE THIRD.

Theodosius an epithet was added to each of
these exclamations, and a prayer for mercy at
the conclusion. The Greek Menology not only
records this date, but gives a marvellous account
of the origin of the triple invocation. It tells us
that, in the reign of Theodosius, the city of Con-
stantinople was visited by a frightful earthquake
and apparently a whirlwind, in which a boy was
caught and raised aloft in the air. The em-
peror and the patriarch Proclus were present,
with an immense multitude, and cried out in the
usual form of supplication, " Kyrie eleison,"
" Lord have mercy upon us." The child came
down safe, and called aloud to them to sing the
Trisagion, or "thrice holy" in this manner:
" Holy God ! Holy and Mighty, Holy and Im-
mortal." He had scarcely finished these words
when he expired. Whatever may be thought of
this legend, there can be no objection to the date
which it supposes ; and certain it is, that, from
that time, it has often and often been repeated
in different parts of the Greek ritual. Thence
it passed into the office of Good Friday, where it
is repeated both in Greek and Latin ; — another
proof of antiquity, as it must have been admitted
before the separation of the two Churches by
Photius.

After this period we begin to plunge into the
obscurity of an age less distinct in its historical

LECTURE Tin: THI iu>.

monuments. It become •> extremely difficult to
assign the exact date of these ceremonies, \\ hieh,
during it, sprang up, or to discover the authors
Of the beautife] canticles then inserted into the
service. Yet this darkness is not without its
interest; and powerfully attests the spirit of
those ages in regard to religion. For a diffi-
culty in ascertaining the origin of certain rites
proceeds from the gradual, and almost impercep-
tible, manner in which they were communicated
from Church to Church. The love of dangerous
innovation had not yet appeared ; and it had not
been thought necessary to repress any manifes-
tation of devout feeling which might acciden-
tally spring up in particular places, from an as-
surance that it would be innocent, and strictly
according with sound doctrine. In this manner,
each great Church came to have its own peculi-
arities ; and if they wrere really worthy of the
honour, were soon embraced, at least in part, by
others ; and so being sifted through the experi-
ence of ages, that which was best came to be
universally kept, and the less perfect went into
disuse, till a certain uniformity was introduced.
The same is to be said of the hymns and other
compositions of the middle ages, as they are
called; beautiful specimens whereof have been
preserved in the Holy Week service ; but here
is an additional obstacle to our discovery of their

122 LECTURE THE THIRD.

origin. For, as in the former, there was no
particular necessity for ascertaining the Church
from which any special ceremony was received ;
so here the modesty, or, more christianlyto speak,
the humility, of the authors, led them to conceal,
in every way, their names ; so that while every
one admires those sweet, and often sublime
compositions, such as are also the Dies Irce,
Stabat Mater, &c., hardly one can be attributed
to its author with any degree of certainty. The
causes of obscurity are thus shown to attest the
spirit of this age, in the close communion and
charitable bond, without envy and jealousy, of
different Churches, and in the humility and true
modesty of its saints and sages.

But the functions and ceremonies of this
period may be considered in another light, no
less important and interesting ; as the remains
of customs once universal, or very general, but
during those ages abolished, yet preserved mo-
numentally in this particular season. In this
manner, they are not institutions so much as
fragments or remnants of old liturgical forms,
which would have disappeared entirely but for
this care. Let us illustrate this view by a few
examples.

It is well known, that, for several centuries,
the communion was generally administered to
the faithful under both kinds. Not, indeed, that

LECTURE TIIK TIMKI). 123

this was at all considered necessary for the vali-
dity, or even integrity of the sacrament, for it
would be easy to prove, by many pa— a^es and
histories, that it was often given in only one
form. Many circumstances, which it is not ne-
cessary to detail, conspired to induce the Church
to adopt, in lay communion, the form of bread
only. I will content myself with one circum-
stance, which seems to me worthy of notice, as
an additional justification of the restriction, after
what has been repeatedly urged with success.
The Christian religion is one for all times and
all places ; and its sacraments should be such as
to suit this universality of its destination. Now,
there are numberless situations in which the
faithful would be deprived of the Eucharist, could
it be lawfully and validly administered only in
both forms. For instance, in the interior of
China and Siam,with the neighbouring countries,
almost always in a state of persecution, there are
at least half a million of Catholics. Not to con-
sider the obstacles, arising from a state of perse-
cution, to a cultivation, which would betray its
object, and consequently defeat it, every attempt
to rear the vine has failed in these countries ;
and the missionaries are obliged to depend for
their sacramental wine, on the small quantities
which can, with risk even of life, be clandestinely
conveyed over the frontier, after it has come

i

124 LECTURE THE THIRD.

from very distant lands. Nay, they are often,
especially in the interior, for a long time unable
to celebrate mass, on account of this difficulty.
There can be no doubt that this multitude of poor
afflicted faithful, standing more in need than
others of spiritual nourishment, would have to
live and die without the comfort of this sacrament,
if the partaking of both species were absolutely
necessary. But to return ; with the exception
of a particular privilege granted to some sove-
reigns at their coronation, almost the only ex-
ample of the chalice being received by any except
the celebrating priest, occurs in the pontifical
mass on Easter Sunday, when the deacon and
subdeacon partake of the cup after the Pope.

But there is another observance connected
with this matter, which has been preserved only
here. One of the reasons, which led to the re-
striction of communion to one species only, was
the accidents to which the other was liable. For
communion being a practice even now, and, much
more anciently, of almost daily use in churches,
and on many occasions frequented by thousands,
it was almost impossible to prevent some portion
of the consecrated wine being spilt, especially
when received by the ruder sort. To remedy
this inconvenience, to some extent, the practice
was introduced, probably after the sixth century,
of administering the chalice through a silver

LECTURE THE THIRD.

tube ; so that the cup being held steadily in the
priest or deacon's hand, and only the tube placed
to the receiver's mouth, there would be but little
comparative danger of an accident, which the
Catholic belief concerning the Eucharist must
render particularly distressing. This tube was
called a siphon. Casalius informs us, that the
Abbot of Monte Casino used to receive the
chalice in this manner.* Paul Volzius first dis-
covered this to have been a usual practice, from
its being prescribed in an old book of signs (Liber
Signorum) extant in many Benedictine houses.
Among the oldest rules of the Carthusians, con-
temporary with St. Bernard, we have this order
in the fortieth chapter : " Let no church possess
any ornaments of gold or silver, except the
chalice, and the tube through which the blood of
our Lord is received." An old commentator on
Tertullian, mentions an inventory of the church
of Mainz, written nearly 800 years ago, in which
are enumerated, among the gold crosses and
chalices, six silver tubes used for the same pur-
pose.f The use of this tube has been gradually
abandoned everywhere, except in the pontifical
mass celebrated by the Pope three times a year,
of which one takes place on Easter-day. The
custom of thus receiving the sacred cupy oftenr

* Ben. xiv. ubi supra, p. 230.
f Tert. cum notis Beati Rhenani, p. 1

12

126 LECTURE THE THIRD.

appears novel and strange to persons unaccus-
tomed to it ; but it is a matter of interest to the
lover of ecclesiastical antiquity, who would not
willingly allow old usages to be abolished, espe-
cially in this their last hold and proper refuge.

I will instance another point of ancient prac-
tice, once probably common to every church, but
now hardly observed except in St. Peter's. The
altars are everywhere formally stripped on Holy
Thursday, and remain uncovered until the fol-
lowing Saturday. During Tenebrse on Thursday
evening, each of the canons, and other function-
aries of St. Peter's, receives a species of brush
curiously made of chip, and, after the office, the
entire chapter proceeds to the high altar, where
seven flagons of wine and water have been pre-
pared. These are poured upon the altar, and
the canons, passing six at a time before it, rub
it all over with their brushes, after which it is
washed with sponges and dried. Saint Isidore,
of Seville, in .the seventh century, mentions the
custom of washing the altars, and even the pave-
ment, of the church on this day, in commemo-
ration of that act of humility, by which our
Redeemer washed his disciples' feet; and St.
Eligius records, in similar terms, both the prac-
tice and the motive. The Roman Or do, Abbot
Rupert, and other writers, speak of this cere-
mony as commonly practised ; and many docu-
ments of the middle ages show it to have been

LECTURE THE TIIIHU. ll>/

observed at Sienna, Bmevento, Bologna, and
other Churches. It was no less practised in
England; for the Sarum Missal thus describes
it : " After dinner, let all the clerks meet in the
church to wash the altars. First, let water be
blessed out of choir and privately. Then let
two of the most dignified priests be prepared,
with a deacon and subdeacon, and twoacolyths,
all vested in albs and amices, and let two clerks
bear wine and water, and let them begin with
the high altar and wash it, pouring thereon wine
and water." After a minute description of the
prayers to be said in the course of the ceremony,
the rubric proceeds : " After the gospel has
been sung as at mass, the two aforesaid priests
shall wash the feet of all in choir, one on one
side and another on the other, and then shall
do the same mutually ." Many prayers are then
said, and another gospel read, during which it
is said, " the brethren shall drink the cup of
charity, charitatis potum."*

In the many learned treatises, written upon
the origin of this ceremony, this curious union
of two practices, elsewhere divided between
morning and afternoon, has been overlooked,
though it is the strongest confirmation of St.
Isidore's interpretation against the objections
of Du Vert, Batelli, and others. In the Greek

* Missalc Sarsb. fol. Ixxvi.

128 LECTURE THE THIRD.

Church the practice is still observed, as Leo
Allatius has proved at length, as it is among the
Dominicans and Carmelites. But almost every-
where else it has disappeared, except in the
Vatican basilica, where you may see it practised
on Thursday evening.

These examples will suffice to show, how the
ceremonies of Holy Week, as performed in the
Vatican, have preserved rites, formerly very gene-
ral in the Church, but which would have been
almost entirely lost in practice, had they not
been here jealously observed. There is another
great historical point, of which testimony has
been recorded in these sacred functions, and
which, therefore, must not be passed over. This
is the ancient union between the Latin and
Greek Churches, and the reconciliation after the
latter 's defection. Of the former, evidence is
given in the use of Greek words and phrases in
the Liturgy ; one instance, the Kyrie Eleison,
belongs to every day; you have seen, in the
adoption of the Greek Trisagion, a testimony
peculiar to the service of Holy Week. An-
ciently, there were other instances ; as for exam-
ple, one to which I before alluded, when I said,
that the lessons on Holy Saturday, intended for
the catechumens' instruction, used to be sung in
both languages. Anastasius Bibliothecarius tells
us, that Benedict III had a book written, in
which were the Greek and Latin lessons, to be

LECTURE THE THIRD. 1 '2<J

sung on Holy Saturday. Mabillon has brought
abundant evidence of this usage, which is men-
tioned by Amalarius about the year si'j, and
several other writers of the following centuries.
Later, it would appear, that the double recitation
was confined to the first of the twelve lesson-,
as otherwise the service would have been ex-
cessively long. We find, indeed, in the eleventh
century, the clause added to this rubric " Si
Dominus Papa velit," (if our Lord the Pope wishes
it ;) and thus probably, by its not being often
required, the custom gradually disappeared.
The same may be said of the practice which
formerly prevailed, of singing the epistle and
gospel, in Greek as well as Latin, on Good
Friday. Both these observances were revived
in the last century, by Pope Benedict XIII,
who was most studious and tenacious of ancient
rites, but relapsed into disuetude after his time.*
However desirable it might be to have these old
usages restored, I think these circumstances can
hardly fail to strike the eye, as strongly illustra-
ting the historical view I am taking to-day, of
these offices and functions. For we see, on the
one hand, that the Church has carefully kept all
that she received from the Greek Church, in
relation to the worship of Him who cannot
change ; for, whatever prayers she was used to

* Cancelliere, Descrizione della Settimana Santa, pp. 123.
169.

130 LECTURE THE THIRD.

recite in that language, she did not allow any
feelings towards that, her rebellious daughter,
and now bitter adversary, to abolish. But, such
instruction as used to be recited in that tongue,
for the edification of strangers who spoke it, and
happened to be present, she allowed to drop,
without any act of angry abrogation, into ne-
glect, as no longer of use. When, however, the
Greek Church, in the council of Florence, was
reunited to her, and owned obedience to the
Holy See, it was decreed that the Pope, on
solemn occasions, should be served by a Greek,
as well as a Latin deacon and sub-deacon, and
that the gospel and epistle should be sung in
both languages. This regulation has been ever
since duly observed, as you will see on Easter-
day ; when two Greek attendants, vested in the
sacred robes of their own nation, (the deacon
wearing the stole, as of old, upon his left shoul-
der, and having embroidered on it the word
aytoc, "holy," thrice-repeated), will sing those
two portions of the Liturgy in the Greek lan-
guage and chaunt. This completes the history
of the connexion between the two Churches.
The old prayers once common to both, and yet
retained by us, give evidence of former union.
The silent abolition of the instructions given in
that language, attests the subsequent separation,
and the rite prescribed to commemorate the re-
union, not only records that event, but by its con-

LECTURE THE THIRD. 131

tinuance, acts as a protest against the perfidy,
which violated the solemn stipulations there
made, and proves the readiness of the Roman
Church to keep up to all her engagements.

The principle by which I have endeavoured to
show, this morning, that the offices of the Holy
Week, especially as performed in Rome, ought
to be viewed, is the consideration of them as
monumental observances sprung up in different
ages, and accurately recording the condition
and feeling of each. Nothing but a divine
enactment can give to the external forms of
worship an invariable character, such as in
great measure was bestowed upon that of Israel.
Of any command or direction to give a specific
ritual we have no trace in the new law ; and the
Church, ever true to the finest principles of na-
ture, after prescribing all that was essential and
necessary for the sacraments — allowed the in-
stinctive and rational feelings of man to have their
play, watching carefully over their suggestions,
that they should not lead to error or impropriety,
and thus gradually formed its code of religious
and ceremonial observances, as every good con-
stitution has ever been formed, from the deve-
lopment of sound fundamental principles, through
the experimental knowledge accumulated by
ages. Was it wrong in so doing ? This, indeed,
is a question, which my next and last discourse
will better give materials to solve, when I speak

132 LECTURE THE THIRD.

of the influence which the offices of this week
have exercised upon the social and moral world.
But at present I may safely ask, does the
parallel I have just intimated, suggest that it
was wrong ? Is not that form of rule, political
and judicial, in our estimation most perfect,
which amongst us has risen in most ancient
times, and has retained upon, and within itself,
the impressions and experiences of ages, different
in purpose and in spirit. We love to trace our
jury to the institutions of the Saxons ; our fore-
fathers for years revered and demanded the
laws of good King Edward. We abolish not
easily the words and phrases introduced by the
Normans, though in a speech no longer our
own ; the Crier in our courts proclaims in
French, and the king agrees to, or dissents from,
parliamentary enactments in that language. Our
law of treason, one of the most perfect, we owe
to the third Edward ; and the rights of the sub-
ject-took all the time from John to William III^
to be fully developed. Every different state,
every change in character, every variation of
feeling, which successive vicissitudes produced
in the nation, is to be traced, as upon so many
monuments, in our laws, usages, and public
practices. The old oppression of the forest-laws
no effort has been able to cancel entirely from
our code ; in spite of modern ridicule, baronial
rights and feudal practices yet attest our former

LECTURE THE THIRD. 133

constitution under their influence : the municipal
charters of our cities form progressive monu-
ments of the development of power, which the
burghers gradually attained by industrious com-
merce ; our guilds and companies yet record
the spirit of religious confraternity, which ori-
ginally suggested them ; the universities have, al-
most in their own despite, preserved the forms,
institutions, and practices, of their Catholic
founders ; the Presbyterian rigour of certain
religious observances is yet struggling with
public good sense, to deepen the morose wrinkles
which it once left, so as not to be effaced upon
the frank smooth brow of former generations.
We have thus our history, our changes, our
variable feelings throughout successive genera-
tions, recorded on our public institutions. Would
any one for a moment entertain the idea, that
the whole should " at one fell swoop" be abo-
lished, and a stiff, stark " Code-Napoleon' sys-
tem of law be introduced, duly divided into
"titles," sections, and articles, upon every possible
subject, social and domestic, from the sovereign's
rights to the clerk's fees for a certificate; all
bearing the impress of only one age's, or one
man's mind? Would not this be considered
sacrilegious? Would it not be abolishing our
history, disowning our fathers, abrogating our
former existence, blotting out our monuments,
and saying like a child, whose fabric of cards

134 LECTURE THE THIRD.

has fallen, "I will begin anew." A similar
train of reflections I have wished to suggest re-
specting the offices and functions of next week.
I have represented these to you as an aggregate
of religious observances, gradually framed in
the Church, not by a cold and formal enactment,
but, by the fervid manifestation of the devout
impressions of every age, till they had acquired
a uniform, consistent, and compact form. They
have retained upon them the marks of that hum-
bled, and yet deeply mystical spirit, which the
persecuted Church necessarily possessed; they
have preserved the expression of triumph and
glory of its more prosperous condition ; they
have concealed in them symptoms of the modesty
and charity of the later period, and they are
depositaries of many relics of venerable anti-
quity, by yet keeping in observance rites once
general, but now elsewhere abolished.

In attending them, you may consider your-
selves as led by turns to every period of religious
antiquity, and in the institutions of each may
commune with its peculiar spirit ; they are as
a museum, containing the remains of every age,
not arranged chronologically, but, as the good
taste that presided over the collections has sug-
gested, their disposition mingled in a happy con-
fusion, which shows how well they harmonize
with each other, and how completely the same
spirit has presided over the institution of them-

LECTURE THK THIRD.

all. To abolish them, to substitute a new, system-
atic, formal, and coldly meditated form, would
be in truth a vandalism, a religious barbarism, of
which the Catholic Church is quite incapable.

There yet remains another view of these
offices and ceremonies, more interesting and
more important than any I have yet treated of,
and this shall form the subject of my concluding
discourse on Saturday.

LECTURE THE FOURTH.

LECTURE THE FOURTH.

RELIGIOUS VIEW OF THESE FUNCTIONS.

The influence of Holy Week upon public morals. — On the
conduct of princes. — Pardoning of injuries. — Their milden-
ing influence during the Middle Ages. — Their action ex-
tended over the entire year. — The Truce of God. — Influence
of the celebration of these functions upon the interior life. —
Devotion to the Cross. — Conclusion.

WERE I to let my subject remain where last we
left it, justly might I be charged with having
deceived fair expectation. For, till now, I have

140 LECTURE THE FOURTH.

spoken of the functions which to-morrow will
begin, as of things beautiful and venerable;
while of their holiness, I have not as yet spoken.
But, greatly would your conception of them fall
below their worth, and sadly should I have failed
in discharging my duty, were you, on departing
hence, for the last time, to consider them only
as objects wherewith the painter's eye may be
entranced, or the musician's ear bewitched, or
the poet's and antiquarian's mind pleased and
instructed ; and not rather as sacred institutions
by which the Christian's soul may be improved
and perfected. For, after all, it is not to a
mere display of outward ceremonial, framed
never so artfully, or conceived never so sublimely,
that you are summoned, but to assist at a solemn
commemoration of your Redeemer's most sor-
rowful passion and death. Whatever of beauty
there may be in the exterior forms of this com-
memoration, whatever pathos in its sounds,
whatever poetry in its words, whatever feeling
in its action, is but owing to the ruling thought,
the spirit of devotion and piety which forms
its soul, and has breathed its own influence
through these its manifestations. Vain, indeed,
and foolish, and ministering unto evil, are all
such things, unless a high destination consecrate
or at least ennoble them ; but where shall they
find a higher sphere, or an occasion worthier of

LECTURE THE FOURTH. 141

their heavenly power, than in the scenes which
commemorate the grandest and most pathetic
of all Christian mysteries ? When our blessed
Saviour expired, it would seem as though divine
power were exerted to bring into harmony with
the moment the appearances of nature. The
sky was darkened, and the earth trembled, and
rocks were rent, and sepulchres opened, that
whatever was seen or heard might sympathize
with the main action of the awful tragedy. It
would have been painfully unnatural, and dis-
cordant, had the catastrophe taken place, wherein
nature's Author suffered, amidst the liquid splen-
dours of a spring day's noon, while flowers
were opening at the foot, and birds chirping
their connubial songs round the head, of his
Cross. And it is in a similar spirit that the
Church, his spouse, observes annually the repre-
sentation of this heart-rending sight, seeking to
attune the accessories and circumstances thereof
to the melancholy and solemn depth of sentiment
which it must inevitably infuse. Therefore are
these days of fasting and humiliation ; for who
would feast and riot when his Lord is refreshed
only with vinegar and gall ? They are days bare
of all costly apparel and religious splendour ;
for who would be gaily vested when his Saviour's
seamless garment is cast for with lots ? They
are days of lamentation and lugubrious strains ;

LIBRARY ST. MARY S COLLEGE

142 LECTURE THE FOURTH.

for who would bear to hear joyful melodies in
commemoration of sighs and groans uttered
over sin ?

It is then no more than natural feeling, purified
by religious principle, which guided the Church
through succeeding ages, in gradually framing
that commemorative service which will occupy
next week. Art received its lessons from her
under this influence ; and hence all the circum-
stances have been made to accord with the
greater and solemner event which they surround.

And after having employed three Discourses
upon the less important considerations, it may
seem but little proportioned to the relative value
of things, that, into one, I should endeavour to
compress whatever regard the main purpose of
them all. For you have not forgot, I trust, that
I reserved to this my last Discourse, to treat of
the offices and ceremonies of Holy Week in a
religious point of view ; or, as I explained my-
self, to consider them "as intended to excite
virtuous and devout impressions.'** This portion
of my task is attended with many difficulties.
For, at first sight, it would appear rather to
belong to a more sacred place than this : it par-
takes of emotions which a sermon, rather than
an essay, should aim at exciting ; and the im-
propriety of assuming a tone unbecoming the

* P. 13.

LECTURE THE FOURTH. 143

place and circumstances of our here assembling,
must act as a curb upon that bolder and more
appealing form of address which would better
suit the theme. I feel, too, at present, as though
whatever I have said, till now, should in some
sort prejudice me in what remains. For, if my
former Discourses have made any impression,
they will have prepared your minds for watching
the beautiful combination of art and feeling
which I have striven to shew you in these cere-
monials ; and it is hard for the eye to be keen
in examination, and the heart, at the same time,
tender to emotion. I fear me, therefore, that
the two appearing incompatible, the one may be
preferred, to the prejudice of the better. And,
in fact, it is not once or twice attending such
functions, that can allow the mind simultaneously
to act through the various organs of perception
here called into play, so as to admit a general
result from their combination. It is only when,
after a time, it hath been familiarized with the
outward appearance, till novelty being worn out,
it seems to our minds the most obvious and
natural form it can assume, that leisure is left
for meditation, amidst the paintings, the music,
and the ceremonial of these offices. And medi-
tation is the only means through which the
religious feelings to them belonging, can be
properly reached.

ST. MARY'S COl

144 LECTURE THE FOURTH.

I shall, therefore, perhaps, require a greater
share of your indulgence this morning, when I
appear to come up even less than in any pre-
ceding Discourses to the greatness of my sub-
ject. I have already expressed my view, when
I proposed to treat of our coming solemnities,
as intended to convey virtuous and devout im-
pressions.

These two epithets must not be considered as
inadvertently placed; for they represent two
divisions of my subject, and consequently of
my Discourse. I consider the one as expressive
of the external, and the other of the internal,
influence of these institutions. Virtue is, indeed,
an inward principle, but strongly regulates our
relations witli others ; devotion is a feeling of
whose extent and intenseness God and our own
souls can alone be conscious. Virtuous conduct
may be noticed in communities or masses of
men ; while devotion is properly an individual
possession. I will endeavour to show how both
have been, and may be, nourished by the solemn
and detailed commemoration of next week.

Who shall gainsay, that men are power-
fully acted on by formal and external acts that
represent inward feelings, although even the
latter be not excited ? In times of bloody, and
often causeless, strife, who knows not, that
homage and fealty, solemnly given, bound men

LECTURE THE FOURTH. 145

often to loyalty and liege bearing, more almost
than principle r It was not perhaps, sometimes,
that the proud baron, or the monarch, who held
a fief, felt much the religious obligation of an
oath ; it was not that they feared punishment for
its violation, but there was a solemn force in the
very act of homage, in the placing of hand within
hand, and plighting faith upon the bended knee,
and with the attendance of a court.

Far more worth than all this circumstance,
would have been a stronger inward conviction
of obligation ; but such is man, that the deter-
minations of his fickle heart require some out-
ward steadying by formal declarations. Who
knows not, how much the coronation ceremony
has done for fastening the crown upon the heads
of kings ; how the pretender to a nation hath
fought bloody battles to have it done on him in
the proper place ; and how maidens have fought
with knightly prowess, that the rightful owner
should, in his turn, receive it ? And has not the
wavering fidelity of subjects been secured by the
fear of raising a hand against God's anointed ?
And in all this, which is not of divine or scrip-
tural institution, who sees anything less than
wholesome, as conducing to the strengthening
of sentiments in themselves virtuous and pub-
licly useful ?

In some respects similar is the institution of

146 LECTURE THE FOURTH.

a season set apart for outwardly exhibiting those
feelings, which should ever animate the Christian
soul towards his crucified Redeemer. It must
be greatly conducive to public virtue, to appoint
a time when all men, even the wicked, must
humble themselves, and act virtue. It is a
homage to the moral power, an acknowledg-
ment, at least, of its right to rule ; a recognition
of a public voice in virtue, which can stand on
the highway, and command even her enemies
to obey her laws. It is, moreover, a compulsion
to thought : many a virtuous life hath been led
in earnest, whose beginning had been in mockery
and scorn. You have always gained much upon
the soul, when you have brought the behaviour
to what becomes it. Now, all this hath the set-
ting aside one week to the commemoration of
Christ's passion effected ; because being not
merely proposed to the mind, but represented in
such a way as to oblige men to attend, with cer-
tain proprieties of deportment, and acting more-
over on the public feelings of society, it produces
a restraint and a tone of conduct which must
prove beneficial. But examples will illustrate
this better than words.

St. Bernard clearly intimates, that the most
abandoned, and even those who had no idea of
an effectual reform, were yet compelled, by
public decency, to abstain from vice during the

LECTURE THE FOURTH. 147

entire Lent, and more especially during the con-
cluding season. " The lovers of the world," he
exclaims, in his second sermon on the Resur-
rection, " the enemies of the Cross of Christ,
through this time of Lent, long after Easter^
that they, alas ! may indulge in pleasure ....
Wretches ! thus honour ye Christ whom ye have
received ? Ye have prepared a dwelling for him
at his coming, confessing your sins with groans,
chastening your bodies and giving alms, and,
behold, ye traitorously betray him, or force him
to go out by readmitting your former wicked-
ness.— Now, should Easter require less reve-
rence than Passion-tide ? But it is plain that ye
honour neither. For if ye suffered with him, ye
could reign with him ; if with him ye died, with
him ye would rise again. But now, only, from
the custom of this time, and from a certain simi-
lation, hath that humiliation proceeded, which
spiritual exultation followeth not."* He then
exhorts all to perseverance in the course of
virtue which they had assumed. But it is evi-
dent, from these words, that the scandal of vice
was arrested by the public solemnization of this
time.

It has been the custom, too, during these days,
consecrated by the remembrance of Christ's
passion, for sovereigns to lay aside their state,

* De Resurr. Dei, Ser. ii.p.168: Par. 1602.

1413 LECTURE THE FOURTH.

and proclaim, before their subjects, the equality
of all men when viewed upon Mount Calvary.
When the Emperor Heraclius recovered from
king Chosroes the relics of Golgotha, and bore
them himself in triumph to the Holy City, old
historians tell us how, arrived at the gate, he
found himself, of a sudden, unable to proceed.
Then the patriarch, Zachary, who was beside
him, spoke to him saying, " You are bearing the
Cross shod and crowned, and clad in costly
robes ; but He who bore it here before you, was
barefoot, crowned with thorns, and meanly at-
tired." Upon hearing which words, the empe-
ror cast aside his shoes and crown, and all other
regal state, and entered the city to the church.

The spirit of this reproof was fully felt in later
times through every Christian country. In
many, no one is allowed to go in a carriage
during the last days of Holy Week ; at Naples
this is yet observed, and the king and royal
family, for that time, are reduced, as to outward
pomp, to the level of their subjects. " Now,"
says a modern German author, speaking of Lent,
"the songs of joy gave place to the seven peni-
tential psalms ; the plentiful board was exchanged
for strict temperance, and the superfluity given
to the poor. Instead of the music of the bower
and hall, the chaunt of ' Miserere' was heard,
with the eloquent warnings of the preacher.

LECTURE THE FOURTH. 149

Forty days' fast overcame the people's lust :
kings, princes, and lords were humbled with their
domestics, and dressed in black instead of their
gorgeous habits. In Holy Week, the mourning
was still more strongly expressed ; the church
became more solemn ; the fast stricter ; no altar
was decorated ; no bell sounded, and no pom-
pous equipage rolled in the streets. Princes
and vassals, rich and poor, went on foot, in
habits of deep mourning. On Palm Sunday,
after reading out of the history of Christ, every
one bore his palm, and nothing else was heard
but the sufferings of the Messiah. After receiv-
ing the blessed sacrament on Maundy Thursday,
bishops, priests, kings, and princes, proceeded
to wash the feet of the poor, and to serve them
at table."*

In the life of that most amiable and holy
princess, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, we have the
following account of her practices during these
days : " Nothing can express the fervour, love,
and pious veneration, with which she celebrated
those holy days, on which the Church, by cere-
monies so touching, and so expressive, recalls to
the mind of the faithful, the sorrowful and un-
speakable mystery of our redemption. On Holy
Thursday, imitating the King of Kings, who, on
this day, rising from table, laid aside his gar-

* " Vogt, Rhenische Geschichte," ap. Digby Morus, p. 170.

15Q LECTURE THE FOURTH.

ments, the daughter of the king of Hungary,
putting oif whatever could remind her of worldly
pomps, dressed herself in poor clothes, and, with
only sandals on her feet, went to visit different
churches. On this day, she washed the feet of
twelve poor men, sometimes lepers, and gave to
each twelve pieces, a white dress, and a loaf.

" All the next night she passed in prayer and
meditation upon our Lord's passion. In the
morning, it being the day on which the divine
sacrifice was accomplished, she said to her at-
tendants : ( This day is a day of humiliation for
all ; I desire that none of you do show me any
mark of respect.' Then she would put on the
same dress as before, and go barefoot to the
churches, taking with her certain little packets
of linen, incense, and small tapers ; and, kneeling
before one altar, would place thereon of these ;
and, prostrating herself, would pray awhile most
devoutly, and so pass to another altar, till she
had visited all. At the door of the church she
gave large alms, but was pushed about by the
crowd, who did not know her. Some courtiers
reproached her for the meanness of her gifts, as
unworthy of a sovereign. But though, at other
times, her alms-deeds were most abundant, so
that few ever were more splendidly liberal to the
poor, yet a certain divine instinct in her heart
taught her, how, in such days, she should not

LECTURE THE FOURTH. 151

play the queen, but the poor sinner for whom
Christ died/'*

Every one will feel what an influence such
annual seasons of humiliation in sovereigns must
have exercised on the formation of their own
hearts, and, through them, on the happiness of
their subjects. But no one either, I believe, will
fail to notice the connexion established, by the
biographer, between the touching ceremonies of
these days and the conduct of this princess, as
of many others. Had there been no special com-
memoration, day by day, and almost hour by
hour, of our Saviour's actions and sufferings ;
had there not been services, which especially
separated them from all other days, for this
solemn occupation ; and had they not been such
as bring the feelings of men into harmony with
the occasion, certes such instances of royal
abasement never would have been witnessed.
Nor is this thought and practice far from your
own age and place ; if, on the evenings of Wed-
nesday and Thursday, you will visit the hospital
of the pilgrims, you will see the noblest of Rome,
cardinals, bishops, and princes, performing the
lowliest works of hospitable charity on the poor
strangers who have arrived from afar. Wash-
ing and medicating their galled feet, and serving
them at table ; while dames, of highest degree,

* Count Montalembert, p. 67.

152 LECTURE THE FOURTH.

are similarly ministering to the poor of their
own sex. And here you will see, I promise you,
no coldness, or precise formality, as though it
were an unwilling duty; but, on the contrary,
an alacrity and cheerfulness, a familiarity and
kindness, which proves it to be a deed of charity
done for Christ's sake, and in example of the
humble and suffering state to which he reduced
himself for us. And the relation between this
uninterrupted continuation of old charitable hos-
pitality, and the similar action of our Saviour,
commemorated in the Church ceremonial, will
sufficiently prove the influence which this has in
keeping up an exercise so accordant with his
precept.

But the effects of these solemnities were more
conspicuously useful, inasmuch as they suggested
an imitation not only of our Saviour's abase-
ment, but still more of his charity. I will not
detain you to quote the authorities of eminent
writers, to show how this week was ever distin-
guished by more abundant alms and works of
charitable actions. I will content myself with
instances of the influence it had in one rarer and
more sovereign exercise of this virtue. There is
a well-known anecdote of a young prince, who,
being yet in tutelage, besought in vain of his
council the liberation of a prisoner ; wherefore,
going into his room, he, with an amiable peevish-

LECTURE THE FOURTH. 153

ness, opened wide the cage of certain singing
birds, which he kept for his pastime, saying,
" If I cannot free any other prisoner, no one
can prevent my freeing you." With a better
spirit, but with an innocence of thought no less
amiable, it seemed a rule to expiate the crime of
Pilate and the Jews, in unjustly condemning our
Lord, by freeing captives on these days from
their bonds; and in this manner did it rightly
seem to Christian souls, that the liberation of
man from eternal captivity was most suitably
commemorated.

This practice began with the earliest empe-
rors. " Not only we," says St. Chrysostom, in
his excellent homily on Good Friday, " not only
we honour this great week, but the emperor,
likewise, of the entire world. Nor do they do it
slightly and formally, but they grant vacation to
all magistrates, that, free from cares, they may
employ these days in spiritual worship ; — let all
strife and contention, they say, now cease ; — as
the goods which the Lord purchased belong to
all, let us, his servants, strive to do some good
also. Nor by this only do they honour the time,
but in another way also ; and that no less ex-
cellent. Imperial letters are sent forth, enact-
ing that the prisoners' chains be loosed ; that,
as our Lord, descending into hell, freed all there
detained from death, so his servants, imitating

154 LECTURE THE FOURTH.

as much as may be their master's clemency, may
free men from sensible bands, whom they cannot
free from spiritual."*

The imperial law encouraged, likewise, private
individuals to imitate, as far as possible, this prac-
tice of sovereign clemency. For Theodosius pre-
scribed that, while every other judicial act should
cease during Holy and Easter Week, an excep-
tion should be made in favour of all such acts as
were necessary for the emancipation of slaves. f
St. Gregory of Nyssa mentions this practice of
manumission to have been a frequent manner of
honouring the season commemorative of our
Lord's death and resurrection. % At a late period,
St. Eligius, the friend of Dagobert, says in a
homily on Maundy Thursday, " Malefactors are
pardoned, and the prison gates are thrown open
throughout the world." Later, the kings of
France used to pardon, on Good Friday, one
prisoner convicted of some crime otherwise un-
pardonable ; and the clergy of Notre Dame, on
Palm Sunday, used to liberate another from the
prison of the Petit-Chatelet. Howard informs
us, that "in Navarre, the viceroy and magis-
trates used to repair twice a-year to the prisons,
at Christmas and eight days before Easter, and

* De Cruce, torn. 5, p. 540 : ed. Savill.
f Cod. Justin, lib.iii.tit. 12 de Feriis.
J Horn. iii. De Resurrect. Christi.

LECTURE THE FOURTH. 155

released as many prisoners as they pleased. In
1783, they released thirteen at Easter ; and some
years before they released all."* This shows that
the indulgence was not injudiciously granted,
but after a proper investigation.

But still more useful was the influence of
mercy, in accordance with the lessons of this
time, and the example of our Saviour, when it
served to temper personal and deadly hatred,
such as feudal strife was too apt to engender.
When Roger de Breteuil had been condemned to
perpetual imprisonment, for conspiracy against
William the Conqueror, the historian tells us,
that when the people of God were preparing to
celebrate the festival of Easter, William sent to
him in prison a costly suit with precious furs.
And, again, when Duke Robert wras besieging
closely a castle wherein his enemy, Balalard, had
taken refuge, it happened that Balalard' s clothes
were much worn ; whereupon he besought the
duke's son to supply him with all that was
necessary becomingly to celebrate Easter ; so
the young nobleman spoke to his father, who
ordered him to be provided with new and fair
apparel.f

When an ancient writer, speaking of the enor-
mous crimes of Gilles Baignart, tells us, that he
could not have obtained pardon " not even on

* Digby, " Mores Cath." b. iii. p. 87. f Ibid.

156 LECTURE THE FOURTH.

Good Friday/' methinks such an expression
speaks more powerfully than a volume of in-
stances, on the pleading for mercy, which the
solemnity of that day was supposed to make.
It seems to say, that a man's evil deeds must
have been almost fiendish, for pardon to have
been refused when asked on that day. What a
beautiful commentary on the expression does
the history of St. John Gualbert make. His
only brother, Hugo, had been slain by one whom
the laws could not reach. John was young and
passionate, and his father urged him to avenge
the murder, and wipe off the disgrace of his
family. It was in the eleventh century, when
such feuds between noble families were not
easily quenched ; and he determined to do the
work of vengeance to the utmost. It so hap-
pened that, on Good Friday, he was riding home
to Florence, accompanied by an esquire, when,
in a narrow part of the road, he met his adver-
sary alone, so that escape was impossible. John
drew his sword, and was about to despatch his
unprepared foe, when he, casting himself on his
knees, bad him remember that, on that day,
Jesus Christ died for sinners, and besought him
to save his life for His dear sake. This plea was
irresistible. To have spilt bood on such a day,
or to have refused forgiveness, would have been
a sacrilege ; and the young nobleman not only

LECTURE THE FOURTH. 157

pardoned his bitter enemy, but, after the ex-
ample of Christ, who received a kiss from Judas,
raised him from the ground, and embraced him.
And from that happy day began his saintly life.
All this was in conformity with what the
Church, in the office of that day, inculcates by
example. For, whereas it is not usual publicly
to pray, in her exercises, for those who live not
visibly in her pale (although she encourages her
children at all times to make instant supplica-
tion for them), on that day she separately and
distinctly prays for them, not excluding any
order, even of such as treat her like an enemy ;
but striving to make her zeal and love as bound-
less as her Master's charity. Nothing, surely,
but the inculcation of this feeling, or rather
the making it the very spirit of that day's solem-
nity, could have given it such a might in gaming
mercy. Hear, again, how wonderfully the pre-
cept of receiving the holy communion, at this
same season, worked effects of charity. When
the good king, Robert of France, was about to
celebrate Easter at Compiegne, twelve noblemen
were attached of treason, for designing to assas-
sinate him. Having interrogated them, he
ordered them to be confined in a house, and
royally fed ; and, on the holiday of the resur-
rection, strengthened with the holy sacrament.
Next day, being tried, they were condemned ;

158 LECTURE THE FOURTH.

but the pious king dismissed them, as his histo-
torian says, on account of the benign Jesus.*

Surely, when such effects as these were pro-
duced, by the observance of a holy season thus
set aside for the commemoration of Christ's
sacred passion and resurrection, no one will
deny that this must be a most wise institution,
as a cause and instrument of great public virtue.
And the power, which it had and hath, must not
be disjoined from the exact forms which it then,
as now, observed. For, manifestly, these days
would never have received consecration in the
minds of men, nor have been thought endowed
with a peculiar grace, if nothing had been acted
on them that distinguished them from other
times. In countries, where no mark seals them
with a blessed application, they slip over like
other days. Good Friday, alone, detains, for a
brief hour, the attention of men to the recital
of our Redeemer's dolorous passion ; but how
faint must be the impression thus produced,
compared with that of a sorrowful ceremonial,
which, step by step, leads you through the his-
tory of this painful event, pausing, as if to look
upon each distinct act of graciousness, and to
commemorate each expression of love, and to
study every lesson of virtue! And, indeed,
how powerful this influence was, the effects I
have described must show.

* Helgaldus Epit. Vitae Rob. p. 64, Hist. Franc.

LECTURE THE FOURTH. I ."><)

Nor must it be thought for a moment, that
they resulted rather from custom than from
feeling ; as though kings and princes were not
likely to assist with much earnestness at these
ceremonies, but rather left them to be performed
by priests in their churches or chantries. On
the contrary, they would have greatly shocked
their subjects had they neglected due and re-
spectful attention to these ecclesiastical offices.
When the pious emperor, Henry II, was return-
ing from Rome, where he had been crowned, he
staid his journey at Pavia, that he might cele-
brate Easter ; and so our own and foreign chron-
icles often record the place where the holydays
were passed. Rymer has preserved a writ of
Edward III, commanding the ornaments of his
chapel to be sent to Calais, where he meant to
keep the festival.* Abbot Suger has given us
a minute account of the magnificent way in
which the kings of France used to observe the
sacred time in the Roman style, as he expresses
it. On Wednesday, the king proceeded to St.
Denis, met by a solemn procession. There he
spent Thursday, (on which the ceremonies were
performed with great magnificence), and all
Friday. The night of Easter-eve he passed in
church ; and, after privately communicating in

* Tom. iii. part 2, p. 7.

160 LECTURE THE FOURTH.

the morning, went in splendid state to celebrate
the Easter festivity.*

It may be, perhaps, objected, that the impres-
sion thus made by a few days of devotion and
recollection, must have been very transient, and
can have produced no permanent effects. This,
however, was far from being the case. For the
Church, with a holy ingenuity, was able to pro-
long the sacred character of these days through-
out the year ; and to make the lessons we have
seen taught by them enduring and continued.
Every one, I presume, is aware, that Sunday is
but a weekly repetition, through the year, of
Easter-day ; for the Apostles transferred the
sabbatical rest from the last to the first day of
the week, to commemorate our Lord's resurrec-
tion. Now, a similar spirit consecrated, from
the beginning of the Church, the sixth day of
every week as a day of humiliation, in continued
remembrance of the day whereon he was cru-
cified.

From the beginning, Friday was kept as a fast,
and that of so strict observance, that the blessed
martyr, Fructuosus, bishop of Tarracona, in
Spain, when led to execution, in 259, though
standing much in need of refreshment, refused
to drink, it being Friday, and about ten of the

* Do vita Ludovici Grossi : Hist. Franc, p. 132.

LECTURE THE FOURTH. Mil

clock.* The motive for this fast, as well as of
that on Saturdays, the remains of which yet ex-
ist in the observance of these two days as days
of abstinence, is clearly stated to be what I have
described it, by Pope Innocent I, about the year
402. For, writing to Decentius, he says : " On
Friday we fast on account of our Lord's passion.
Saturday ought not to be passed over, because
it is included between the sorrow and the joy of
that season. This form of fasting must be ob-
served every week, because the commemoration
of that day is ever to be observed. "f Julius
Pollux, in his chronicle, says of Constantine :
"He ordered Friday and Sunday to be honoured ;
that on account of the Cross (or crucifixion) of
Christ, and this for his resurrection."

In after ages, this custom was rigidly observed,
as a learned and pious living author has proved
by examples. In an old French poem upon the
Order of Chivalry, Hue de Tabarie informs
Saladin of the four things which a true knight
should observe ; one is abstinence or temperance.
He then says : " And to tell you the truth,
he should, on every Friday, fast, in holy remem-
brance, that, on that day, Jesus Christ, with a
lance, for our redemption was pierced ; through-
out his life on that day he must fast for our
Lord." It is recorded, in old memoirs, of the

* Prudent, hymn vi. t Cap 4-.

L2

162 LECTURE THE FOURTH.

Mareschal de Boucicaut, that he held Friday in
great reverence, would eat nothing on it which
had possessed life, and dressed in black to com-
memorate our Saviour's passion. And hence, on
the other hand, the people of his time held it for
one of Robert le Diable's worst characteristics,
that he neglected that day's fast.*

This powerful association of one day in the
week, with the lessons of meekness and forgive-
ness which we have seen its prototype inculcate,
and this one day observed with humble devotion,
in honour of man's redemption, must have kept
alive a truly Christian spirit, or at least have
acted as a check, salutary and powerful, upon
the course, otherwise unrestrained, of passion.
The feeling which inspired this dedication is not
yet extinct. Here, in particular, all public
amusements are prohibited on the Friday, as in-
consistent with the mystery which it still com-
memorates. In England, it has lingered in the
form of a popular superstition, deeply rooted
and widely extended, that no new undertaking
should be commenced on that day.

But this perpetuation, throughout the year, of
the feelings which the last days of Holy Week
are intended to inspire, is much better and more
effectually to be acknowledged in another insti-
tution of past ages. The feudal system, how-

* " Broad Stone of Honour," Tancredus, p. 252.

LECTURE TI1K FOURTH. 163

ever beautiful in many of its principles, was a
constant seed-bed of animosities and wars. Each
petty chief arrogated to himself the rights of so-
vereignty ; and all those passions which disturb
great monarchs, revenge, ambition, jealousy, and
restlessness, were multiplied in innumerable
smaller spheres, which occasioned more real suf-
fering to those exposed to their influence than the
commotions of larger governments could have
caused. The Church, the only authority which,
unarmed, could throw itself between two foes,
and act as a mediating power, essayed in every
possible way to bring a love of peace home to
men's hearts. But they were men ever cased in
steel, on whom lessons of general principles had
but little power. Unable to cut up the evil by
the roots, it turned its care to the rendering it
less hurtful, and devised expedients for lessen-
ing the horrors, and abridging the calamities,
of feudal war. For this purpose, it seized upon
those religious feelings which I have already
shown to have resulted from the celebration of
Christ's passion during Holy Week ; and the
success was so marked, that the pious age in
which the experiment was made, hesitated not
to attribute it to the interposition of Heaven.

About the middle of the eleventh century,
as a contemporary writer informs us, a cove-
nant, founded upon the love, as well as the fear,

164 LECTURE THE FOURTH.

of God, was established in Aquitaine, and thence
gradually spread over all France. It was of this
tenor ; that, from the vespers of Wednesday
until Monday at day-break, no one shall pre-
sume to take aught from any man by violence,
or to avenge himself of his adversary, or to come
down upon a surety for his engagements. Who-
soever should infringe this public decree must
either compound for his life, or, being excommu-
nicate, be banished the country. In this also
did all agree, that this compact should bear the
name of the " Truce of God." There could be no
doubt regarding the principle of this important
regulation, if its original founders had left us in
the dark. The time pronounced sacred, and
during which war could not be carried on, is
precisely that which the Church occupies in
Holy Week in the celebration of Christ's passion.
That the ground of this consecration was this
passion has been clearly recorded; but it is
plain, that the limits thus assigned were not
drawn from the actual time during which our
Saviour suffered, seeing that he began his pains
on Olivet only in the evening of Thursday, but
rather from the ecclesiastical period of celebra-
tion, which is from the Wednesday afternoon at
Tenebrae till Monday following. Not aware of
this, several modern authors have fallen into the
mistake of shortening by one day this Truce of

LKCTURE THE FOURTH. 165

God, asserting it to have begun on Thursday
evening.

See, then, how the Church extended to the
whole year the virtuous effects produced, for the
welfare of men, by the offices of Holy Week ;
and turned the reverence which they excited to
good and durable account in promoting public
happiness. What a beneficial influence too !
For all men could now reckon, in each week,
upon four days' security and peace. They could
travel abroad, or attend to their domestic affairs,
without danger of molestation, shielded by the
religious sanction of this sacred convention.
The ravages of war were restrained to three
days ; there was leisure for passion to cool, and
for the mind to sicken at a languishing warfare,
and long for home.

Nor must it be thought that this law remained
a dead letter. The author to whom I have re-
ferred proceeds to say, that many who refused
to observe it were soon punished either by divine
judgments, or by the sword of man ; " And
this," he adds, " most justly ; for as Sunday is
considered venerable on account of our Lord's
resurrection, so ought Thursday, Friday and
Saturday, through reverence of his Last Supper
and Passion, to be kept free of all wicked
actions." Then he proceeds to detail one or two
striking instances, as they were considered, of

166 LECTURE THE FOURTH.

Divine vengeance upon transgressors.* William
the Conqueror acceded to this holy truce, ap-
proved by a council of his bishops and barons
held at Lillebonne, in 1080. Count Raymond
published it at Barcelona ; and successive popes,
as Urban II, in the celebrated synod of Cler-
mont, Paschal II, in that of Rome, and particu-
larly Innocent II and Alexander III, in the first
and second Lateran councils, sanctioned and
enforced it.f

This is a strong and incontrovertible example
of the happy influence which the celebration of
these coming solemnities has exerted upon the
general happiness, and the share they have had
in humanizing men, and rendering their actions
conformable to the feelings and precepts of the
gospel. For let me remark to you, that in none
of the examples I have brought can it be said,
that the vulgar solution of such phenomena will
hold good ; that a superstitious awe, or fanatical
reverence of outward forms, was the active
cause. In not one case will it be possible to
show, that the conduct has been devoid of a feel-
ing which all must pronounce virtuous and holy ;
or rather that it has not sprung, as a natural
result, from the inward sentiment which these
sacred observances had inspired. Nay, I have

* Glabri Rodulphi Historic, lib. v. c. 1 . Hist. Franc, p. 55.
t Nat. Alex. torn. vi. p. 783.

LECTURE THE FOIRT1I. 1(>7

passed over what, perhaps, would have been a
proof, stronger than any other, of their influence,
because I feared, that opinion concerning its
value might be divided, or the motives of many,
among those who gave it, might be more easily
suspected. I allude to the crusades, those
gigantic quests of ancient chivalry, when knight-
hood, of its own nature a lover of solitary ad-
venture and individual glory, became, so to
speak, gregarious, and poured its blood in streams
to regain the sepulchre of Christ. Could such
a spirit of religious enterprise have anywhere
existed, If the thoughts of men had not been
taught to solemnize his passion, by the contem-
plation of scenes which led them yearly in spirit
to Jerusalem, and inflamed their minds with
warm devotion towards the place of their re-
demption ? Would pilgrims have flocked to
Palestine, in spite of paynim oppression and
stripes, and even of death, if Passion-tide, in
their own country, had ever passed over, like
any other week, without offices, without mourn-
ing, without deep expressions of sympathy for
the sufferings of Christ ? Was it not the thought,
how much more feeling will all these functions
be, upon the very spot whereon what they com-
memorate occurred, that necessarily formed the
first link in the reasoning which led them from
their homes ? Could they have been induced to

168 LECTURE THE FOURTH.

undertake so long, so wearisome, and so perilous
a journey, with no other prospect, during the
season commemorative of the passion, than a
solitary every-day service on one morning of
the week ? And we know, that to secure these
pious palmers from the vexatious tyranny of the
infidels, was one of the great motives of these
expeditions.

But on this subject I do not wish to dwell.
Without entering on such contested ground, I
flatter myself that enough has been said to show
what an important influence, upon public virtue,
the solemn yearly celebration of Christ's passion,
through its aifecting ceremonial, has exerted.
It has brought men, even unwillingly, to the ob-
servance of propriety ; it has taught kings humi-
lity and charity ; it has softened the harshness
of feudal enmities, and produced meekness in
forgiving wrongs. But we have also seen this
week become, in some sort, the very heart of
the entire year (as its mystery is of Christianity)
sending forth a living stream of holy and solemn
feeling, which circulated through the whole
twelve months, beating powerfully at short inter-
vals through its frame, and renewing at each
stroke the healthy and quickening action of its
first impulse.

The effects thus produced upon society must
have depended, in a great measure, upon the

LECTURE THE FOURTH. 160

operation which this solemnization had in each
individual ; and we cannot doubt that these
were, as they now are, excellently beneficial.
For, if the death of Christ be the sinner's only
refuge, and the just man's only hope, according
as the Catholic Church hath ever taught, it can-
not be without good and wholesome effects, to
turn the mind of each, for a certain space,
entirely towards this subject, excluding, as much
as possible, at the same time, all other distract-
ing thoughts. To understand, however, the
power of this most wise disposition, it is fair to
consider this season with all its attendant cir-
cumstances.

And, first, wre should not forget that Holy
Week appears not suddenly in the midst of the
year, to be entered upon abruptly and without
preparation. It has a solemn vestibule, in the
previous humiliation of Lent, which, by fasting
and retirement from the usual dissipations of
the remaining year, brings the mind to a proper
tone for feeling what is to come. This is like a
solitude round a temple, such as girded the
Egyptian Oasis ; and prevents the intrusion of
thoughts and impressions too fresh from the
world and its vanities. As the more important
moment of initiation approaches, the gloom be-
comes more dense, and during Passion Week, in
which now we are, we feel ourselves surrounded

170 LECTURE THE FOURTH.

by sad preparations, inasmuch as every part of
our liturgy speaks of Christ's passion, and the
outward signs of mourning have already ap-
peared in our churches. During this Lenten
season there are daily sermons in the principal
churches, wherein eloquent men unfold all the
truths of religion with unction and zeal. In the
week just passed, you may have noticed how,
during certain hours of the afternoons, every
place of ordinary refreshment was empty and
closed. But instead of them the churches were
all open and full ; for, during those days, other
learned priests, in familiar discourse, expounded
to the people the duty of returning to God by
repentance, through the sacrament of penance.
They taught them, in the strongest terms, the
necessity of changing their lives, and effectually
turning from sin ; and then dwelt on the purity
of heart and burning love, with which at Easter
they should comply with the Church's precept
of receiving the sacred communion. These were
the themes prescribed to them during the week
just elapsed.

The work of preparation has not ended here.
For almost every order of men there have been
opened courses of spiritual exercises or retreats,
that is, perfect retirement, from all other occupa-
tion, to prayer and pious reflection. The noble-
men have held their's in the chapel at the Gesu ;

LECTURE THE FOURTH.

ladies at the oratory of the Caravita ; and the
numerous houses set aside for this purpose have
been crowded ; and not a few, whom infirmity
prevents from joining them, have observed these
pious practices at home. This evening, the uni-
versity, and every establishment of education,
commences a similar course of retirements and
devotions, which will close on Wednesday morn-
ing. During these days, the time is divided be-
tween hearing the word of God, chiefly in regard
to its most saving truths, and meditating thereon
in solitude.

It is thus prepared, that the Catholic ap-
proaches, or is desired to approach, the closing
days of the next week, and to assist at those
beautiful services, which lead us through the
history of Our Dear Redeemer's passion. The
conscience has been purged from sin, and the
pledge of salvation probably received, the ordi-
nary distinctions of life have been gradually ex-
cluded, and the temper of the soul brought into
harmony with the feeling they inspire. They
are not intended, therefore, to produce a sudden
and magical effect, but only to come upon the
soul with a natural sympathetic power, resulting
as much from the disposition of our minds as
from their own intrinsic worth.

This view of the last days, or rather of the
entire of Holy Week, as a time of individual

172 LECTURE THE FOURTH.

sanctification, is by no means peculiar to Rome,
or to this age. It is inculcated in every Catholic
country. In Paris, there are always such public
exercises preparatory to it ; and in Spain, as
well as every part of Italy, the same course is
pursued. In former times it was so in our own
country. In the book of ecclesiastical laws,
written originally by Theodulph, bishop of Or-
leans, in the eighth century, and adopted in
England, in 994, we find it enacted, that all the
faithful partake of the holy communion every
Sunday in Lent, and on the Thursday, Friday,
and Saturday of Holy Week, and Easter Sunday ;
and likewise, that all the days of Easter Week
be kept with equal devotion.*

That the observance of this time, in such a
manner, must be to many most blessed, no one
will, I think, deny. For opportunities are thus
certainly given, on occasion of it, to ponder
well upon the great duties of the Christian state,
and the means of accomplishing them ; and all
this, most surely, would not have been devised
nor executed but for the veneration with which
the celebration of our Saviour's death is re-
garded, and the holiness and purity with which
it seems to us, that so sacred a commemoration
and so awful a representation should be attended.

And if these can indirectly perform so much,

* Wilkins, Cone. Ang. torn. i. p. 280

LECTURE THE FOURTH. 173

through the preparation they require, what shall
we say of themselves ? Combining, in justest
proportions, all that can reach the soul, — beauty,
solemnity, dignity, and pathos, performed under
circumstances calculated to soothe the feelings
of the sternest mind, and dedicated to the most
Christian of all possible objects, must they not
have a devotional influence on all that court it
with a pious disposition ? Go to the Sixtine
chapel, with the impression that you are not
about to witness a ceremony, but to assist at an
annual remembrance of His death, whom you
should love, — a remembrance, too, wherein you
have a part, as you had in the reality — in which
your compassion, not your curiosity, your heart
and not your captiousness, ought to be engaged ;
unlock all the nerves of the soul, that emotion
may enter in through every sense ; follow the
words which are recited, join in the prayers
that are poured forth, listen to the pathetic
strains in which the Church utters her wail,
drinking in their feeling rather than admiring
their art, — and I will promise you, that, when the
evening shade has closed over the last cadences
of the plaintive music, you will arise and go home,
as you would from the house of mourning, " a
sadder but a better man."

And is not this truly the house of mourning
into which you will enter ? Is it not to the per-
petual anniversary of One most dear to us that

174 LECTURE THE FOURTH.

we are summoned ? When our nearest of kin
depart, we put on mourning weeds, and we
sorrow for a time. And when the year comes
round, so long as the dark suit upon our bodies
reminds us, we recal the day. The Church, un-
failing in her ordinances as in her existence,
willeth not that we so quickly forget. She sets
no limits to the religious remembrance of the
departed, in our supplications to God ; she per-
petuates their memory, if they live among the
saints, to the end of time. How, then, can she
ever forget that awful stroke which robbed earth
of its glory, and brought all nature into sorrow ?
Surely, to allow its anniversary to pass over,
without a celebration worthy of the event, would
be an unnatural indifference in her, not even
to be suspected.

Who knoweth not, how closely allied are the
tender emotions of piety unto sorrow ? Who
hath not felt, how moments of distress are mo-
ments of fervour for the soul that seeketh God ?
I believe, that hardly a religion, true or false,
will be found, without a festival of sorrow,
wherein men bewail the past loss of some wor-
shipped or honoured being. The ancient mys-
teries of Egypt had certainly such ; and the mai-
dens of Judah annually retired into the hills to
mourn over the virginity of Jephtha's daughter.
The Persians annually celebrate their Aaschoor,
or mourning feast, for Hussein's death. The

LECTURE THE FOURTH. 17-'>

squares arc covered with black, and stages are
erected on which the Mullahs relate the sorrow-
ful story, while the audience are in tears. For
ten days, processions, alms-deeds, and scenes of
extravagant sorrow, occupy the city, and cere-
monies are performed which graphically and
dramatically represent the fate of the young
Caliph.* These are all various expressions of
the same want, felt in every religion, of dedicat-
ing the tenderer emotions to the service of God,
as those which best can harmonize with affec-
tionate devotion. And shall the Christian wor-
ship alone, which presents a just, a moving, a
sublime occasion of sorrow, in the death of an
incarnate God for our sin, dry up, by stern
decree, the fountain of such pure emotion, or
afford no room for outwardly exercising such
true and holy feelings ?

Nay, rather, was she not bound to scoop out a
channel through which they might flow undis-
turbed by the troubled waters of worldly solici-
tude ? Could we have expected from her less,
than that she should have digged a cistern, deep
and wide, for such pure sentiments, and thence
sluiced it off, as we have seen her do, over the
barrenness of the remaining seasons, to refresh
them with a living stream ?

It is difficult to say from what principle of

* Thevenot, vol. ii. p. 383

M

176 LECTURE THE FOURTH.

self-knowledge the notion sprung in modern
religions, that outward forms destroy or disturb
the inward spirit. It should seem, that the
very knowledge of man's two-fold constitution
would expose the idea to scorn. It must be that
daily experience proves, how soon and how
easily men forget their inward duty, unless out-
wardly reminded, through the senses, of its obli-
gation. Wherefore it should have been decided
in later times, that the ear alone is the channel of
admonition and encouragement, and that the eye,
— that noblest and quickest of senses, which seizes
by impulse what the other receives by succes-
sion,— is not worthily to be employed for religion,
I own the reason is hidden from me. One hand
fashioned both ; and why should not both be
rendered back in homage to Him ? If the
splendour of religious ceremony may bewitch,
and fix the eye upon the instrument instead of
the object, as surely may the orator's skill, or
the ornaments of his speech.

And applying these ideas to our present sub-
ject ; if the meditation upon Christ's Passion be
the worthiest employment of any true Christian,
what shall prevent our endeavouring to engage
every good feeling, and every channel of inward
communication, in assisting us to the exercise ?
Or, who shall fear that we shall thereby fail ?
When the unfortunate Mary Stuart was upon
the scaffold, having prayed for her implacable

LECTURE THE FOURTH. 177

persecutor, Elizabeth, she held up the crucifix
which she bore, exclaiming, " As thy arms, O
God, were stretched out upon the Cross, so re-
ceive me into the arms of thy mercy, and forgive
me my sins." Whereupon the Earl of Kent un-
feelingly said : " Madam, you had better leave
such popish trumperies, and bear Him in your
heart." Now, note her meek and just reply :
' I cannot hold in my hand the representation
of His sufferings, but I must, at the same time,
bear Him in my heart."* Who of those two
spake here the language of nature? Whom
would any one wish most to resemble in senti-
ment,— the fanatic who presided, or the humble
queen who suffered at the execution? Sir
Thomas Brown is not ashamed to own, that the
sight of a Catholic procession has sometimes
moved him to tears. Who will say that these
were not salutary ?

But the best proof that the attention paid to
the commemoration of Christ's Passion, during
the ensuing days, does not rest outside the heart,
but penetrates to its very core, saturating it
with a rich and lasting unction of true devotion,
would be drawn from the writings of our Catho-
lic authors. It would be impossible even to
enumerate the works which we possess upon the
Passion, filled with a fervour of eloquence, a
depth of feeling, and a penetrating power, which

* Lingard, vol. v. p. 467 ; 4th edit.

178 LECTURE THE FOURTH.

no other writings possess. Whoever can read
St. Bernard's sermons on Palm-Sunday, Holy
Thursday, and Good Friday, and not feel the
tears in his eyes, will not easily be moved by
words; and he must be absolutely without a
heart, who should pronounce, that the mysteries
of those days produced only a sensible and inef-
fectual devotion.

But there is another writer upon this inex-
haustible subject, who more than any other will
justify all that I have said ; and, moreover,
prove the influence which these festivals of the
Passion may exercise upon the habitual feelings
of a Christian. I speak of the exquisite medi-
tations of St. Bonaventure upon the life of Christ,
a work in which it is difficult what most to ad-
mire, the richness of imagination, surpassed by
no poet, or the tenderness of sentiment, or the
variety of adaptation. After having led us
through the affecting incidents of Our Saviour's
infancy and life, and brought us to the last
moving scenes, his steps become slower, from the
variety of his beautiful but melancholy fancies :
he now proceeds, not from year to year, or from
month to month, or from day to day, but each
hour has its meditations, and every act of the
last tragedy affords him matter for pathetic ima-
gination. But when, at the conclusion, he comes
to propose to us the method of practising his
holy contemplations, he so distributes them, that

LECTUKK TIIK FOURTH.

from Monday to Wednesday shall embrace the
whole of our Saviour's life ; but from Thursday
to Sunday inclusive, each day shall be entirely
taken up with that mystery which the Church
in Holy Week has allotted to it.* In this man-
ner did he, _ with many others, extend throughout
the whole year the solemn commemorations of
next wreek, for the promotion of individual de-
votion and sanctification, even as the Church
had done for the public welfare.

These are but a few examples. What shall I
say of the tender and continual devotion of so
many holy persons to the Passion of Christ ?
Of St. John of the Cross ? Of the blessed
Teresa, who, from childhood, never slept till
she had meditated on it ? Above all, of that
sublime saint, the seraphic Francis, " The Trou-
badour of love" as Gorres has justly called him,
whose poems, the earliest ascertainable in the
Italian language, breathe nothing but a devotion
towards Christ and Him crucified, which proves
how deeply he bore Him in his heart. But this
topic would lead me far astray. Before, how-
ever, taking leave of it, I would remark, that out
of the abundance of the heart the mouth speak -
eth, and that not only in individuals but in their
communities. It is this St. Bernard observes
of his constant repetition of his Saviour's name.
" It is in my heart," he says, " and thence it

* Cap. 101, p. 581, torn. ii. Oper.

180 LECTURE THE FOURTH.

leaps to my mouth." It is difficult to imagine a
religion whose inward and vital principles are
not expressed in its public offices, and recorded,
as on monuments, in its religious enactments :
and yet it would not be impossible to find an
example of such a phenomenon. When the se-
paration of religion took place in England, one
of the great charges against the Church wras,
that it had abandoned Christ and the sole trust
in his blood, and had rather sought favour from
saints and angels ; and these things were called
abominations and foul corruption. Now, if
posterity had to judge on this matter, how asto-
nished would it be to read the Act of 5 and
6 Edward VI, for the regulating of feasts, and
find every saint's day enjoined to be kept holy,
which the Catholics now keep, and many more ;
but every day omitted which in the leastwise
alludes to the death and Passion of our Lord !*
But amongst us no such inconsistency will be
discovered. We profess to honour Christ and
his blessed Passion by inward and devout affec-
tion, and we carefully lay aside days and cir-
cumstances in which to testify our feelings.

It is time, however, that I bring you to some
conclusion. I have proposed to you separate
views of the functions and offices of Holy Week,
not as distinct and divisible prospects, whereof
each may choose one for himself, but rather as

* Statutes, vol. iv. P. i. p. 133.

LECTURE THE FOURTH. 181

an aggregate of harmonizing sentiments, all
uniting for the loftiest and holiest of purposes.
The Christian feeling that Christ is to be un-
boundedly honoured by the best of such gifts as
he hath bestowed upon man, the deeper senti-
ment, that in no state doth he more deserve
our honour and affection than when abased and
afflicted for our sakes ; the religious enthusiasm
which such a contemplation of him must excite ;
these have guided the Church, from age to
age, in the formation of a ceremonial the most
beautiful and poetical ; these have inspired the
musician with his plaintive strains ; these have
directed the artist's mind and hand to conceive
with grandeur and adorn with solemnity a
theatre befitting so holy, so great a celebration.
Thus considered, the subject of these Discourses,
disjointed as it may have appeared, receives an
unity ; for we have been only considering the
various emanations of one and the same ruling
influence. Who would wish that these things
were not so ? Who would hail with delight a
reforming power that should remodel all that he
should witness upon the type of later institutions,
and work those changes which such an altera-
tion would require ? Away with the towering
canopy of St. Peter's basilica, with its angels and
cross ; extinguish for ever the lights that have
there burnt for ages ; fill up the venerable con-
fession where the apostles' bones have rested,

182 LECTURE THE FOURTH.

and hew down the marble altar ; then throw a
screen from side to side, to be locked up
save for one short hour ; place an ordinary table
at the upper end, exalt the organ beneath the
dome, and fill up the intermediate space with
pews and stalls. Banish Palestrina's magnificent
song to the concert-room ; shut up the Sixtine
for a museum, to be seen by permission ; abolish
the entire service, and make the days which
solemnize the anniversary of Christ's torments
and death, undistinguishable from those which
precede and follow them. What would religion
have gained? Would a purer love for Him
have been thus shown to have descended among
men ? Would it seem to you that thus He was
more truly honoured ? Could you desire for a
moment to see such changes ?

If any one's heart here answer, Yes! I entreat,
I implore him not to attend the offices of the
next week. He certainly will not enjoy them ;
he certainly will suffer pain, and moreover find
himself distracted by them in that more spiritual
and peculiar way in which he intends to comme-
morate his Saviour's Passion. He will be doing
even worse, for he will necessarily inspire by his
conduct the feelings of his neighbours. But
whoever shall go with a mind duly prepared,
and with a heart unprejudiced, and with a soul
alive to religious impressions, will not surely
return disappointed.

LKCTTUK Til I- IIMKTH.

With these remarks I take my leave, conscious
that I have but glanced over the surface of my
undertaking, and that I have but done little
justice to its beauties. To do this wrould require
a treatise rather than a few short essays. I shall
be satisfied, however, if I have fulfilled the
moderate promise which I made at the outset,
of presenting such general views as might be
preparatory to appreciating the beauties, and
imbibing the feeling, of these simple yet magni-
ficent ceremonials.

INDEX.

GENERAL INFORMATION.

ARCHITECTURE.

A ivliitcrture, (Christian) its spirit, 31.— Origin, 32, 33.— Northern

or Gothic, its origin and spirit, 31, 32. — Comparison brtwirn it

and the Grecian and Roman, ib.

Basilicas, why so called, 30. — First erected by Constantine, ib.
Catacombs, Churches in them, 30.

Dome (The), incompatible with columnar architecture, 33.
Ge"nevieve's (St.) 33.

Pauline Chapel erected by Paul III, 29.— Its paintings, ib.
Peter's (St.) its architecture influenced by the Catholic ceremonial,

34. — Its front, 36. — Painted windows incompatible with it, 37.
Sixtine Chapel, erected by Sixtus IV, decorated by Julius II, 28. —

Feelings inspired by it, 15. — Temples, heathen, omvrrtrd into

churches, 31 .

MUSIC.

Arezzo, Guido of, 72.

Bordone falso, the only example of, sung on Easter Sunday, ib. —

Attributed to Guido of Arezzo, ib.
Canto fermo figurato, 67-73.
('haunt, old church, rhythmic, 70. — The only rxaniph- of it sung on

Good Friday, 71.
Chaunting alternate, introduced in the West, by St. Ambrose ; his

music probably founded on the Greek method, 68.
Chaunt (plain) used in the Sixtine choir, 67. — Introduced by St.

O

INDEX.

Gregory, 68. — Its qualities, 69.— Examples of in Holy Week, ib.
Sung in two parts in the mass and antiphons in the Sixtine, 73.

Eximeno, his eulogium on the Pange lingua gloriosi, 71.

Instruments not used in the Sixtine, 73. — Keys, number of, deter-
mined by an appeal to Charlemagne, 69.

Lamentations, how sung, 70. — Harmonized by Allegri and Pales-
trina, 84.

Missa Papse Marcelli, 81.

Miserere, music of the, 12.

Music, (church), ancient and modern compared, 85. — Reformed by
St. Gregory the Great, 68. — Corruptions introduced after the re-
turn from Avignon, by the French choir, 73, sqq.

Palestrina, his history, 76, sqq.— Music, ib. — Death, 86.

Passion (The), sung by three interlocutors, 57-8.

Responsories sung by the choir, 58. — Composed by Thomas de Vic-
toria, ib. — Manner of singing them preserved traditionally in the
Pope's choir, 59.

Scale (octave), its notes received their present names from St. Gre-
gory, 68.

Trent, Council of, forbids profane music in churches, 78. — Proceed-
ings of the congregation for carrying it into effect, 79.

PAINTING.

Angelico Beato, chapel painted by him in the Vatican, 25.— Pressed
to accept the archbishopric of Florence, nominates St.Antoninus, 26.
Avanzi, (Giacomo), his piety, 26.

Bolognese (Franco), ib.

Buonaroti (Michelangelo), employed by Julius II in the Sixtine, 27.
Finishes the ceiling in twenty-two months, 28. — Influence of his
style upon Raffaello, ibid. — Two paintings by him in the Pauline
chapel, 29.

Last Judgment (The), 16-21.

Opie, remarks on painters, 17. — Paintings in the Sixtine, their cha-
racter, 16, 17. — Artists employed on them, 21. — Subjects, ib.

Perugino (Pietro,) his paintings in the Sixtine, ib.

Raffaello, ib.

Reynolds, (Sir Joshua), remarks on Michelangelo, 1

Schools of painting in Italy, the Byzantine, 18. — Of Florence, 19,

INDIA

It> ill-din*', 20.— Of rmhria,itsri-e, */,.— Its principal m;M.

The two latter nnitcil in the Sixtinr ehap« •!, il>.
Simone (lei CroeelivM, \\h\ M> ealleo1.
Vitule, diseiple of Franco Bolognese, 26.

POETRY

Dramatic, the pre\ ailing eharaeter of the poetry of these fimetioiis,
40.— Objections against this term removed, 46, 47. — Kxplana-
tion of it, 47, 48.— Abounds in the Old Testament, ib.— Ex-
amples, il>.

Hymns of Holy Week highly poetical, 45.— The Gloria laus et
honor, ib. — Story connected with its author, ib. — The Pange linijnn,
1(5. — Olliees and prayers, their deep poetical feeling, 4s.
ample* &om the office of the dead, 48. — Of Advent, 49. — Christ-
mas- uay 51.

TENEBILE.

Derived from the early ages, in what they consist, 102.

Lights, custom of extinguishing existed in the ninth century, 103.

Miserere (The), 12, 86.

Singing, 12, 52, 67. — Sung in the Gregorian chaunt, 70.

Time when sung in the Sixtine, 7.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Agnus Dei blessed by the Pope in Easter Holy Week, 106.

Borromeo (St Charles), his opinion of Palestrina, 79.

Boucicaut (Marshal de), strict observance of mortification on every

Friday, 162.

Canova, statue of Clement xin, 35, 36.
Ceremonies, their influence on art, 35. — Instances, 49, 51. — Are also

monumental, 95. — Instance in the office of St. Martina, 97.
Christmas-day, poetry of its office, 49.
Crusades influenced by the ceremonies of Holy Week, 167-8.
Dominica in albis, why so called, 110.

Easter, how observed by Edward III and the kings of France, 159.
Edward III, his law of treason, 132.
Eucharist (the blessed,) why not received by the laitv in both kinds,

1'24.— Ancient canon commanding it to he received by all the

faithful in England every Sunday in Lent, Easter Sunday, and the

three days preceding, 17'2.

INDEX.

Feelings of sorrow alone suited to the commemoration of the suffer-
ings of our Saviour, 140. — The excitement of them conducive to
piety, 146. — Perpetuated in the church service, 162.

Florence, council of, orders the Pope on solemn occasions to be served
by a Greek and Latin subdeacon and deacon, 130.

Friday, a day of humiliation on account of Our Lord's death, 160. —
Extract from Innocent I on this subject, 161. — All knights ex-
pected to fast on it, ib.

Fructuosus (St.), refuses to break the fast of Good Friday, 160.

Heraclius recovers the relics of the Passion and bears them into Jeru-
salem, 148.

Lent, a preparation for Holy Week, 117. — Sermons preached during
it, 170. — Vice restrained by it, 171.— Vogt's description of it, 168.

Lights, use of, derived from the Apostolic times, acknowledgments
of Protestant writers, 101 .

Martina (St.), her relics discovered by Urban VIII, he composes the
hymn for her office, 99.

Mass, instituted by Christ, 100.— How divided, ib.— Substantially
contained in the Liturgies of various oriental Churches, 101. —
Pontifical, celebrated by the Pope three times a year, 125.

Office of the Church, its divisions, etymology of its names, 6. — Its
mystic signification, 103. — Office and ceremonies, monumental 95.
— Examples, 96-8. — In the Jewish Festivals,^. — Of the Church
of England, ib.— Office of the dead and of Advent, 49.

Passion, devotion to the, of various saints, 177-9.

Penitents received absolution during Holy Week in the ancient
church, 107. — This custom preserved at Rome, 108.

Retreats, spiritual, observed by all classes in Rome, France, Italy,! 70.

Sitientes Sunday, 10, note.

Sorrow, festivals of, observed by various oriental nations, 174.

Stations, meaning of the term, 1 1 8. — Their recurrence marked in the
Missal, 119.

Symphosius, Amalarius, confounded by Benedict XIV with Amala-
rius Fortunatus, 103.

Tapestries of Raffaello formerly displayed in the Sixtine chapel, 15.

Theodulf, author of the Gloria laus, &c. 45.

Tickets for seeing the ceremonies of Holy Week in Rome, how ob-
tained, 9, note.

IMMA

Truce of God, its origin and length, 1«>1.— Obsened in England ami
other eonntries, eonlirmed by popes ;ind eouneils, 166.

I'nhersities in England preserve tin- institutions of their Catholie
founders, 133.

Victoria (Thomas de), composer of the responsories of tin- Passion, f>8.

Week (Holy), its various names, 4. — Its objtrt, 5. —General effect of
its office, 64-5. — Princes laid aside their state during it, 1 17-8. —
How observed by St. Elizabeth, 149.— Described by St. .Mm
Chrysostom, 153. — Its influence on the feudal system, 1(53, and
on the Crusades, 1 (57.

OFFICES OF PARTICULAR DAYS

Palm Sunday.
Ceremonies observed, 5.
Dramatic character of its office, 52.
Hymn sung on it ; its author Theodulf, 45.
Origin of the name, 4.

Palms blessed by the pope, 54. — Antiquity of this rite, 118.
Passion sung, 6, 57. — Contains twenty-one responsories, 59.
Procession with palms, its mystical meaning, 54-5.
Responsories, examples of, 59.
Stabat Mater, composed by Palestrina, sung at the offertory, 84.

Wednesday.

Lamentation (first,) harmonized by Palestrina, 84. See Tenebrte.
Maundy Thursday.

Altars uncovered, 126.— Washing of in St. Peter's, ib.— This cere-
mony once general, ib. — Formerly practised in England, 127.

Benediction (papal), at St. Peter's, 8.

Cardinal-Penitentiary goes to St. Peter's and Sta. Maria Maggiore,
reason explained, 108.

Communion formerly ordered to be received by all the faithful in
England on this day, 172.

Lamentation, harmonized by Allegri, Hi.

Maundy Thursday, origin of the English name, 8.

Miserere, composed by Bai, 86.

Pavement aneiently washed on this day, lUii -Reason of this rite, ib.

INDEX.

Prisoners, formerly released in France, 154,

Washing the feet of the poor and of pilgrims, 9, 62. — Its dramatic

effect, 63-4.— Practised by St. Elizabeth, 149.— Still practised in

the Hospital of the Pilgrims at Rome, 151.

Good Friday.

Cardinals, their robes of serge, not of silk, 65.

Ceremonies observed, 9.

Church prays publicly for her enemies, &c. 157.

Cross, adoration of, meaning of the term, 114-15. — Its origin, 111,
112. — Practised in the East, 112. — Catholic doctrine respecting it
explained, 113. — Confirmed by examples from antiquity, ib.

Elizabeth (St.), her manner of celebrating this festival, 150.

Entertainments forbidden, 162.

Epistle, sung anciently in Greek and Latin, this custom revived by
Benedict XIII, 129.

Eucharist, the blessed, anciently ordered to be received by all on this
day in England, 172.

Gospel, anciently sung in Greek and Latin, 129.

Improperia, 10. — Their antiquity, 119.

Injuries, forgiveness of, on this day, example of St. John Gualbert
and others, 155-6.

Lamentation (the first), harmonized by Allegri, 84.

Miserere (Allegri's), its character, 86, sqq.

Name, origin of the, 9.

Pange Linyua, sung, 46. — This hymn the only remnant of the an-
cient rhythmic style, 71.

Passion (The), 9. — Contains fourteen responses sung by the choir,
59. — Manner of singing the last of them, 60.

Prisoners released on this day, examples from ancient and modern
practice, 153.

Relics of the Passion exposed in St. Peter's, 10.

Sepulchre (The), a dramatic representation of Our Saviour's passion,
63.

Tenebra?, 84. — The prayer of Jeremiah, 70.

Vestments, black, 65.

Holy Saturday.
Baptism solemnly conferred at Rome, 108-9. — Lessons read to the

INDIA

catechumens, 109.— Were sung anciently in Greek and in Latin,

129.

Catechumens' visit to St. Peter's, 111.
Font, blessing of, 109.

1 ''unctions in St. John l^ateran, 10. —In theSixtine chapel, 11.
Mass sung at the Sixtine, composed by Palestrina, 81.— Derives its

rites and terms from the early Church, 102.
Orders conferred at St. John Lateran's, 10.
Paschal candle blessed, antiquity of the rite, 104.— Described by

several ancient fathers, 105. — The music of the blessing, a perfect

specimen of plain chaunt, 70.

Easter Sunday.

Functions,— High Mass in St. Peter's, 11.— The Gloria Patri, how
sung, 72.— The papal benediction, 11, 37, 106.

Ceremony of embracing the cardinal deacons, 63. — The chalice re-
ceived through a silver tube, 125. — This custom anciently general,
ib. — The Pope attended by a Greek and Latin deacon and sub-
deacon, 130. — Who sing the Epistle and Gospel in their own
language, ib. — Reason of this custom, ib.

Illumination, 11.

Name, English, its meaning, 1 1.

Princes, their generosity at Easter, 155. — Manner in which they ob-
served Easter-tide, 159.

C. RICHARDS, PRINTER, ST. MARTIN'S LANE, CHARING CROSS.

Wiseman, Nicholas P.

264.02 91710

W755

Wiseman, Nicholas P.

Four lectures on the offices and cere-
monies of Holy Week