Cardinal of Otranto. I will vote for whom you please." "I will vote for you, then, Cardinal of Bologna," cried Otranto. "I will follow you," said the Cardinal of Aquileia. "And I, too," cried another, till eleven votes were counted, when the Cardinal of San Sisto arose and said, “And I, Thomas of Sarzana, make thee Pope on this day, which is the vigil of St. Thomas." The windows of the Conclave were then opened, and the Cardinal Colonna announced the new Pope to the multitude under the name of Nicholas V.

After the death of Nicholas V., in 1455, Calistus III. was Pope for two years, and died; and another Conclave was formed, which resulted in the election of Eneas Sylvius Piccolomini, who took the title of Pius II. This Conclave met in the Apostolical Palace, near St. Peter's, where there were two blocks of buildings with chapels. In the one cells were made for the cardinals; in the other were constructed chambers for deliberation and for the ballot.

The cardinals in conclave amounted again to eighteen; the necessary majority was therefore twelve. The Cardinal de Rohan, the candidate of the French faction, on the second day obtained eleven votes. Efforts were made in the course of the following night to induce Piccolomini to vote for the Cardinal de Rohan; but he refused, and called together the Italian cardinals, and exhorted them to frustrate the machinations of the French party, upon which seven of the Italian cardinals at once offered him their votes. On the morrow it so happened that the Cardinal de Rohan was himself a scrutator of the ballot, and as Piccolomini was descending from the altar after voting, the Cardinal de Rohan said to him, "Have you given me your vote?" "What matters it what such a worm as I do?" replied Piccolomini; and it was found on examination of the tickets that Piccolomini had nine votes and Rohan only six. Then came the time for the per accessum. The cardinals took their places in silence, watching each other with anxiety. Rohan crumpled the lace fringe of his rochet; Piccolomini made cocked hats of paper, fixing on the undecided cardinals looks in which were expressed an infinity of promises. Rodrigo Borgia replied to one of these looks, and got up and said, "Cardinalem accedo, I give you my vote;" and then dead silence and anxiety came again upon the assembly. Piccolomini had ten votes. Two cardinals, in order to prolong matters, got up and left the hall. But the ruse was of no avail; another cardinal rose and gave his vote to Piccolomini. But one more vote was wanting. The tension of expectation was universal when the Cardinal Colonna rose. Both Rohan and Bessarion pulled him by his robe to stay himone on each side—but without avail, for Colonna cried out from his seat, "Et ego Senensem cardinalem accedo, papam facio!" ("And I too give my vote to the Cardinal of Sienna, and make him Pope!")

It was, however, in the middle and towards the end of the sixteenth century that the art of managing Conclaves was brought to the greatest pitch of perfection and art. Spain and Austria and France

were then contending for the supremacy of Europe. The Farneses and the Medicis were disputing for preponderance in Italian affairs, and the College of Cardinals were so much increased in number by the nomination of successive Popes-one of whom, Clement VIII., created fifty cardinals-that sometimes the Conclave consisted of fifty or sixty members.

Moreover, from September 1590 to January 1592, for a space of sixteen months, the Conclave was almost en permanence; for the Sacred College was summoned together four times during that period, four Popes dying within its limits. The first Pope elected during this time, Urban VII., was made Pope on September 15, and he died on the 27th of the same month. Gregory XIV. lived only ten months after his election. Innocent IX. was Pope but one month, while Clement VIII., the last elected of the four, lived fourteen years; after which Leo XI. was elected by the Conclave, and was Pope only twentyone days.

Most of these Conclaves were battles fought out with intense ardour on both sides; not only ruse and cunning and stratagems of every kind were brought into play, but force itself was occasionally made use of to drag along a recalcitrant cardinal. The chief actor in these Conclaves was Cardinal Montalto, the nephew of Sixtus V., and Montalto generally succeeded in getting his candidates seated in the Papal chair. A minute study of these Conclaves could not be made without diverging far and wide and diving deep into the troubled stream of European politics ; but even a cursory inspection of them teaches one thing-that it is for the most part beyond the power of all calculation to divine beforehand who will be the Pope of a Conclave. If you put fifty eels into a basket, he would be a bold man who would wager on any particular eel getting a firm place on the top of his fellow. Indeed, for the most part the Pope who has been the least thought of before the Conclave has come out Pope after it.

The Old Stonemason.

A SHOWERY day in early spring—

An old man and a child

Are seated near a scaffolding

Where marble blocks are piled.

His clothes are stain'd by age and soil,
As hers by rain and sun;
He looks as if his days of toil
Were very nearly done.

To eat his dinner he had sought

A staircase proud and vast,

And here the duteous child had brought

His scanty noon repast.

A worn-out workman needing aid;—

A blooming child of light;-
The stately palace steps ;-all made

A most pathetic sight.

I had sought shelter from the storm,
And saw this lowly pair,

But none could see the Shining Form

That watch'd beside them there.

FREDERICK LOCKER.

230

The Hand of Ethelberta.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE ENGLISH CHANNEL.-NORMANDY.

N Monday morning the little steamer Speedwell made her appearance round the promontory by Knollsea Bay, to take in passengers for the transit to Cherbourg. Breezes the freshest that could blow without verging on keenness flew over the quivering deeps and shallows; and the sunbeams pierced every detail of barrow, path, and rabbit-run upon the lofty convexity of down and waste which shut in Knollsea from the world to the west.

They left the pier at eight o'clock, taking at first a short

easterly course to avoid a sinister ledge of limestones jutting from the water like crocodile's teeth, which first obtained notoriety in English history through being the spot whereon a formidable Danish fleet went to pieces a thousand years ago. At the moment that the Speedwell turned to enter upon the direct course, a schooner-yacht, whose sheets gleamed like bridal satin, loosed from a remoter part of the bay: continuing to bear off, she cut across the steamer's wake, and took a course almost due southerly, which was precisely that of the Speedwell. The wind was very favourable for the yacht, blowing a few points from north in a steady pressure on her quarter, and having been built with every modern. appliance that shipwrights could offer, the schooner found no difficulty in getting abreast, and even ahead, of the steamer, as soon as she had escaped the shelter of the hills.

The more or less parallel courses of the vessels continued for some time without causing any remark among the people on board the Speedwell. At length one noticed the fact, and another; and then it became the general topic of conversation in the group upon the bridge, where Ethelberta, her hair getting frizzed and her cheeks carnationed by the wind, sat upon a camp-stool looking towards the prow.

"CAN YOU TELL US THE WAY, SIR, TO THE HOTEL BOLD SOLDIER?