e college of
cardinals tacitly restricted the choice to the members of their own
body,--and still more effectually, when, by the same silent usurpation,
they resolved that Adrian of Utrecht should be the last of foreign
pontiffs. For three hundred and forty years none but Italians have been
called to the chair of St. Peter's, thus, by an inevitable result of the
unnatural alliance of temporal with spiritual sovereignty, confining the
birthright of Christendom to the nation which all Christendom delighted
to humiliate and oppress.

Theoretically, also, the election of the Pope is made by the special
intervention of the Holy Ghost, although the doings of most conclaves
fill many pages of very unholy history. Intrigues begin the moment the
Pope's health is known to be failing, and grow thicker and more
intricate with each unfavorable bulletin. There are few among the
cardinals who do not feel that they have at least a chance of election;
and not one, perhaps, but enters the conclave prepared to make the most
of his individual pretensions. Some even, like Consalvi at the conclave
of Leo XII., set their hearts so strongly upon it that they have been
supposed to have died of the disappointment. Great services are not
always the best recommendation; for it is difficult to serve the public
well without making some private enemies. Little griefs, long forgotten
by the offender, but carefully treasured up in the more tenacious memory
of the offended, have more than once proved insurmountable obstacles in
the path to the throne. Each, too, of the great Catholic powers has a
right to exclude one among the candidates, if the exclusion be announced
before the votes are all given in: a privilege which, as it narrows the
circle of the eligible and increases individual chances, seldom fails to
be faithfully exercised. Indeed, up to the last moment, no one can tell
who may and who may not be chosen. The most prominent candidates are
often the first to be set aside; and the election, like all elections,
from that of a President of the United States to that of a
village-constable, is oftener decided by a combination of personal
ambitions and interests than by those pure and elevated motives which
look so attractive in the programme.

The death of the Pope is announced by the tolling of the great bell of
the Capitol, and with all convenient haste the nine days' funeral
begins. Everybody that has been at Rome will remember the beautiful
li