air.

The day, whose decline we have hinted at in the preceding chapter, was
fast verging towards its close, as the inhabitants of the streets on
the western bank of the Tiber prepared to join the crowds that they
beheld passing by their windows in the direction of the Basilica of St.
Peter. The cause of this sudden confluence of the popular current in
once common direction was made sufficiently apparent to all inquirers
who happened to be near a church or a public building, by the
appearance in such situations of a large sheet of vellum elaborately
illuminated, raised on a high pole, and guarded from contact with the
inquisitive rabble by two armed soldiers. The announcements set forth
in these strange placards were all of the same nature and directed to
the same end. In each of them the Bishop of Rome informed his 'pious
and honourable brethren', the inhabitants of the city, that, as the
next days was the anniversary of the Martyrdom of St. Luke, the vigil
would necessarily be held on that evening in the Basilica of St. Peter;
and that, in consideration of the importance of the occasion, there
would be exhibited, before the commencement of the ceremony, those
precious relics connected with the death of the saint, which had become
the inestimable inheritance of the Church; and which consisted of a
branch of the olive-tree to which St. Luke was hung, a piece of the
noose--including the knot--which had been passed round his neck, and a
picture of the Apotheosis of the Virgin painted by his own hand. After
some sentences expressive of lamentation for the sufferings of the
saint, which nobody read, and which it is unnecessary to reproduce
here, the proclamation went on to state that a sermon would be preached
in the course of the vigil, and that at a later hour the great
chandelier, containing two thousand four hundred lamps, would be lit to
illuminate the church. Finally, the worthy bishop called upon all
members of his flock, in consideration of the solemnity of the day, to
abstain from sensual pleasures, in order that they might the more
piously and worthily contemplate the sacred objects submitted to their
view, and digest the spiritual nourishment to be offered to their
understandings.

From the specimen we have already given of the character of the
populace of Rome, it will perhaps be unnecessary to say that the great
attractions presented by this theological bill of fare were the relics
and the chandelier.