beloved disciples; and then remembering
those sins, by which he offended that dear and agonising parent, and
touched with sorrow and repentance, yet more and more excited by the
music, I might almost call it celestial, his heart calls loudly for
that mercy to obtain which Jesus died. He joins with God's minister
in fervently repeating the prayer imploring God's blessing on those
for whom Christ suffered and died: the noise which follows it recals
to his mind the confusion of nature at the death of her creator; the
lighted candle once more appearing reminds him that His death was only
temporary: and he departs in silence impressed with pious sentiments,
and inflamed with devout affections.

[Sidenote: Miserere, its music.]

They who have assisted at the office of Tenebrae will not be surprised
at the saying of a philosopher, that for the advantage of his soul he
would wish, that when he was about to render it up to God, he might
hear sung the _Miserere_ of the Pope's chapel. In no other place has
this celebrated music succeeded. Baini the director of the Pontifical
choir, in a note to his life of Palestrina, observes that Paride de
Grassi, Master of ceremonies to Leo X, mentions that on holy wednesday
(A.D. 1519), the singers chanted the _Miserere_ in a _new_ and
_unaccustomed_ manner, alternately singing the verses in symphony.
This seems to be the origin of the far-famed _Miserere_. Various
authors, whom Baini enumerates, afterwards composed _Miserere_[52];
but the celebrated composition of Gregorio Allegri a Roman, who
entered the Papal college of singers in 1629, was the most successful,
and was for some time sung on all the three days of Tenebrae. Then one
composed by Alessandro Scarlatti, or that of Felice Anerio, used to
be sung on holy thursday: but these were eclipsed by the _Miserere_,
composed in 1214 by Tommase Bai a Bolognese, director of the choir of
S. Peter's. From that time only Allegri's and Bai's were sung in the
Pope's chapel; till Pius VII directed the celebrated Baini to compose
a new _Miserere_, which has received well-merited applause. Since the
year 1821 all three, viz. Baini's, Bai's, and Allegri's _Misereres_
are sung on the three successive days, and generally in the order in
which we have mentioned them: the two latter are sometimes blended
together. The first verse is sung in harmony, the second in plain
chant, and so successively till the last verse, which alone is sung in
harmony by both