atre, where the new pieces of the city theatres may be represented, after a certain time, with the usual gratuity to the authors. These are tolerably frequented. There is also a small theatre in the Rue Chanteteraine (provisionally used for the Italian opera when established in fashion sixteen years ago, under the auspices of Viotti, as leader, with Mademoiselle Naldi as debutante,) which has been of late years occasionally opened for the representation of Italian comedies, but more frequently for professional concerts. The other public amusements of Paris consist of Musard's New Concert Room, in the Rue Vivienne, where instrumental concerts, profane or sacred, are nightly performed; and Musard's Old Concert Room, in the Faubourg St. Honoré, where instrumental concerts are performed, interspersed, during the carnival, with masked balls, altogether profane. Though the entrance to these concerts, as to the one formerly held by Musard in the open air in the Champs Elysées, is but a franc, (less than a shilling,) the rooms are almost deserted, and cannot repay the cost of an expensive orchestra. The Jardin Turc, where similar concerts are performed, under the superintendence of Tolbecque, with an orchestra as celebrated for its waltzes as that of Strauss of Vienna, obtained a temporary vogue last summer; when the discharges of musketry introduced into the contredanses, from Meyerbeer's "Huguenots," seemed like an echo of the discharge of Fieschi's infernal machine, which had so recently vibrated on the spot. It was in the cafe, situated in the Jardin Turc, that the bodies of his victims were deposited! Tivoli, the Vauxhall of Paris, is situated in the highest part of the Rue de Clichy, and boasts of well-planted gardens and a beautiful little villa, frequented by pigeon-shooters and the sporting world during the morning; and in the summer season opened three times a week for the display of fireworks and illuminations. The monotony of the entertainments prevents Tivoli from being frequented by the higher classes; but occasionally, on a very fine night, it is still the resort of the beau monde. Such are the public amusements of the most amusing capital in Eu THE TWENTY-FIFTH ODE OF “Οταν πίω τ' οινον," κ. τ. λ. WHENE'ER I quaff the generous bowl, Death's mandate comes-we must obey, Let Iö pæans ring around! Let's drain the joy inspiring bowl! For while I drain the cup profound, Life's softest transports fill my soul. R. S. F. SKETCHES OF BOHEMIA, AND BY HENRY REEVE, ESQ. V.-THE CORONATION OF FERDINAND OF AUS- FOR Some days previous to the time fixed for the triumphal entry of the Emperor Ferdinand, on the solemn occasion of his coronation as King of Bohemia, the city of Prague was unusually animated, and vast preparations were made in all the public places. To the eye of a lover of antiquity, the patching, plastering, and adorning, which the venerable fronts and gables of the public buildings and private houses underwent, was no slight trial. In the course of three days I had the misery of seeing a fine head of St. John the Baptist painted grass-green, an incomparable St. Sebastian pipe-clayed like a cuirassier, the venerable towers and arches of the Town-Hall chequered with gaudy carpets, and a hundred ells of broadcloth, festooned with sun-flowers, dangling out of my own bed-room windows. Every chimney and every window had its flag; the black and yellow banners of Austriathe colours of jealousy and death-mingling with the red and white stripes of Bohemia-the emblems of valour and inno cence. This magnificence, however, must not be attributed so much to the zeal of the inhabitants, as to the excellence of the police, which had taken care to inform the people, about ten days beforehand, how • Continued from page 179. The cortège ascended the Hhradschin to the Chapel of St. Adalbert, at the entrance of the cathedral, where, according to immemorial custom, the sovereign was met by the heads of the most illustrious families, the great hereditary officers of the kingdom, and the clergy of the realm. The Prince Archbishop of Prague, in his vesper robes, with his mitre on his head, and his crosier in hand, welcomed the king in a short Latin oration; and, after having given his Majesty the golden crucifix of Charles IV. to kiss, he led the way into the church, where a Te Deum was sung, to celebrate the arrival of the Austrian Emperor in the midst of his Bohemian subjects to receive the honours of the Bohemian crown. much enthusiasm they were to expend. it would be hard to find a more mournful The line of the procession was carefully one. marked out for decoration, and no passage however insignificant, no monument however venerable, escaped the relentless interference of these Ediles. The proprietor of the above-mentioned St. Sebastian, which forms part of some very beautiful sacred bassi-relievi on a house dividing one of the principal streets in Prague, ventured to remonstrate,-observing, that, to spoil an old house, was a wretched way of welcoming a new king. The police, however, graciously informed him that he was mistaken; and that, if he persisted in his attachment to his old walls, an official mason would coat them over, the expense to be afterwards defrayed by himself. Thus the St. Sebastian was condemned to the brush; and the glory of the Virgin above him turned into chalk. Resistance of this kind was rare, and the Bohemian palaces of the first dignity showed a laudable emulation in loyalty and bad taste. The control which the States of BoheAt length the important day, the 1st of mia once exercised, and still nominally September, 1836, arrived: and, by nine possess, over the supplies levied upon o'clock in the morning, the younger that kingdom, has now dwindled into the branches of most of the noble houses in insignificant office of granting money for Bohemia, were assembled near the Invali- a court pageant, and voting honorary subden Haus, at the extremity of the city, to sidies to the prince whose ordinary demeet and welcome the emperor. Trium- mands they cannot refuse. On the prephal arches had been erected at the gate sent occasion, a splendid present of money of Prague, and in the great square, under was offered by the states to the emperor which the procession wound along. The and the empress, and the Count Chotek, was various guilds of burghers, each with a allowed any sums which he might judge ban of music, and a bird-tail-shaped pen- requisite to the shows and festivities of nant, lined the streets. It was pleasing to Prague. A programme had accordingly remark, that, with the exception of the been drawn up, which appointed some troops in the procession, no soldiers were ceremony or fresh pageant for every day, to be seen on duty, and perfect order was during the fortnight which the court was maintained without them. The proces- expected to remain in the city. A large sion was led by officers of distinction in sum of money had been bestowed upon a splendid hussar uniforms, with straight grand theatrical representation of the plumes and aigrettes in their Hungarian "Crociato in Egitto," to which the empeturban-caps; they were followed by twelve ror was invited by the nobility. The postilions, on post horses, blowing with most splendid costumes had been preall their might in honour of their imperial pared, the excellent corps dramatique of master. Then came the detachments of Prague was strengthened by Madame troops which preceded the royal carriage, Schröder Devrient from Dresden, and the and the royal party supported by the opera was got up with the utmost magyounger peers of Bohemia on horseback, nificence. The evening of the day followin scarlet and silver uniforms. The na- ing the triumphal entry of the court, was tional hymn played as the emperor pass-appointed for the performance. At an ed; and he returned the faint huzzas of the people by a cold, mechanical motion of the hand: but to a stranger, bred in the warm and proud feelings of constitutional loyalty, the scene was one which raised the most melancholy thoughts. To see the head of so great a monarchy thus coldly welcomed-to have so much prepared, and so little spontaneous, feeling to hear the air rent by fanfares, and heavy ordnance, and church-bells, but scarcely stirred by the delightful shouts of a universal people-on such a day, and in such an hour to behold the fortunes of Bohemia, and the splendour of her nobles, centering about the person of an idiot in a gilded coach, was a spectacle than which early hour the house was filled with the persons who had received tickets of invitation from the states. The pit was occupied by natives and strangers of all ranks and countries, in the most splendid variety of dress: the scarlet and silver uniforms of the Bohemian nobles were intermingled with the richer scarlet and gold of the German guard: here you saw the white moustache and veteran hussar uniform of the officers who had served through the great wars, there the tight garb and furred jacket of the Hungarians, The boxes were crowded with the peeresses in magnificent jewels, the members of the several embassies, and the great officers of state, who wore the insignia of the imperial orders in diamonds. The shape of his head is almost conical, and royal box in the centre was freshly would seem to a phrenologist to be a moadorned with crimson velvet, bearing the del of firmness and justice. His face excrown and double-tailed lion argent of presses his consummate ability in the afBohemia; and the boxes adjoining it fairs of life, and something of that cool were reserved for the archdukes and the contempt with which old politicians are numerous members of the family of Aus- wont to regard the world: his features, tria. A little after seven o'clock, the im- naturally hard, and now rugged with care perial party arrived; whilst the trumpets and age, are refined with an aspect of nowere braying their shrill welcome, and bility, but beneath their impassible lineathe national anthem was sung by the ac- ments, I thought that I discerned the penetors behind the curtain, my attention rested trating energy of a mind which never with the pleasure of gratified curiosity ceases to think, and which looked with a upon the personages who occupied the sort of curiosity on the showy scene about front of the central boxes. The eye could him, as the pilot watches the clouds floatdwell with but little interest, indeed, on the ing along the horizon, even on summer stolid countenance of the emperor himself, days. or even on the graceful but melancholy In the course of the fortnight which the features of his consort. By their sides, court passed in Prague, I had daily opporwas the heir presumptive of their barren tunities of meeting M. de Metternich, both throne, the Archduke Franz Karl, with his in public and in private. The interest wife, the shrewd and enthusiastic Princess which had been excited by previous assoSophia of the Bavarian house. But in the ciations, and by a first impression, was so boxes sat the uncles of the reigning em- far from being diminished, that the more peror, who claim a more distinguished I saw of him, the less I could take my eyes place in history; the Archduke Charles off him. In public, M. de Metternich is was on one side, with his sons, who have usually stiff and reserved; but he has negrown to manhood before he has lost even ver the appearance of falling into reverie, the outward appearance of that firmness, or of allowing his attention to wander from dignity, and vigour, which have made his the scenes and persons about him. At own career so illustrious, and with his court, a stranger would take him for one pretty and amiable daughter, the Arch- of the imperial family, as much from his duchess Theresa, who has since mounted perfect familiarity with the members of the the throne of Naples. The Archduke reigning house, as from the extreme defeJohn was on the other side, and his placid rence paid him-indeed, there is no one features bear witness to the strength and in Vienna who does not take off his hat to benignity of his character. He is a prince "the prince" sooner than to the emperor. respected among men. He rarely leaves In private society, the same marked attenhis simple home in Styria, where, amongst tions are paid, but M. de Metternich una happy and affectionate population, bends with all the ease and propriety of whom he has largely benefited, he may the highest breeding: he is ever ready forget the ruffled scenes of earlier days, with a compliment to a beauty, a bon-mot and the fatality which connects his name to a dowager, and I have seen him stand with the disasters of Hohenlinden and beating time to a quadrille, or turning Wagram. There, in his tranquil province, round to chat the instant he had ceased to he devotes himself to farming, field-sports, debate. But at these very moments he is and civil as well as military engineering, most deeply engaged in his combinations in which science he is exceedingly accom- for the evening, which are arranged as plished; he rides about the country in an sagaciously as the combinations of a Con old coat, entertains travellers very hos-gress. In the midst of the gayest ballpitably, as Captain Basil Hall testifies, and has married the daughter of a neigh bouring postmaster. One of the last amiable traits of the late Emperor Francis, was his kind reception of this plebeian sister-in-law, whom he ennobled, and presented himself to her imperial relations. room, he will retire a few steps with this ambassador, or that officer, and in an instant the old noble turns into the consummate statesman. He thus gives a succession of audiences on the same evening, and I observed that the personages who knew his habit were evidently waiting for The adjoining boxes, in the grand tier their turn. After the first salutation, his of the theatre, were occupied by Count features assume their impassible mask, Kolowrat, Prince Esterhazy, and Prince and he listens with perfect composure, Metternich. It was with no common in-putting the stick, which he usually carries, terest that I gazed upon that remarkable across or between his knees. When he man, who was for so many years the co- has heard his interlocutor, he begins to adjutor and the mask of the silent but ac- talk, generally at considerable length, with tive Francis, and who retains, since the a good deal of action, in a voice which is death of his master, the sole command of inaudible a pace off, without appearing to that spell by which the motley provinces be suppressed: his face changes from the of the Austrian empire are united and ad-authority of a judge, to the insinuating ministered. In person, Prince Metternich mobility of an advocate. He listens with is tall, and not deficient in dignity; the perfect seriousness, but speaks with as much liveliness, as if he were bent solely and the obedience of the lieges anciently on amusing the person he addresses; and depended. the conversation, in which some question of the day has perhaps been decided, generally ends with a bot-mot. These observations interested me at the time more than the opera: and the Knights of Rhodes upon the stage were eclipsed, notwithstanding their splendid costume, by the glittering circles of nobles and soldiers in the audience. I left the theatre reflecting upon the variety of minds and men thus gorgeously disguised as I went out, the imperial outriders, with lanterns in their hands, and the running-footmen, with long blazing branches of fir, surrounded the state carriages at the door. In a few minutes afterwards the splendid scene broke up, and the train of the princes disappeared in clouds of dust and smoke. Early in the morning of the 3d of September, the emperor and the states of the kingdom attended high mass in the cathedral, which was performed by the bishop of Leitmeritz; the archbishop of Prague appeared with the court, in one of the galleries, dressed in the plain rose-coloured silk robe of a prince of the church. The emperor was seated in a closet on the left of the altar, and was attended by the court marshal with the sword of state; the nobles, knights, and representatives of the cities of Bohemia, in their respective uniforms, filled the body of the church. After mass had been sung, the assemblage adjourned in procession to the hall of Ladislas in the palace, which had been adorned with scarlet and white cloth for the occasion. The emperor, preceded by the earl marshal of Bohemia bearing the sword of state, ascended the throne at the further end of this vast Gothic apartment, and covered himself. The spiritual peers and great hereditary officers of state were placed on the steps of the throne, which was surrounded by the temporal peers, knights, and burgesses, in their several ranks. The ceremonies of the coronation in Bohemia have retained many vestiges of the time when that solemnity consisted not in the anointing of an hereditary prince, but in the sanction given by the church to the election of a national king by the States of the realm. Perhaps the custom of tendering an oath of fealty to the sove- The solemnity began by a speech in the reign some days before he has actually Bohemian language, which was addressreceived the crown, originated in the ex-ed by the grand marshal to the States, in ercise of their electoral function by the his majesty's name; to which the OberstStates; and notwithstanding the entire abolition of those privileges by the house of Austria, this ceremony is by no means symbolical of that feudal dependence which our English nobility acknowledge at the coronation of the king,* but it is the celebration of a constitutional pact, between estates of the realm and their elected prince, upon which the royal dignity *My accomplished friend and relative, Mr. Arthur Taylor, in his excellent Treatise, entitled "The Glory of Regality," has very clearly shown the distinction still to be traced even in the ceremonies of the English coronation between the acts which are political and those which are feudal, (Gl. of Reg. pref. viii.): and he demonstrates from the highest anthorities (sec. 3) that the ceremony of coronation is also a ceremony of national election, preceded by the recognition, at which the people express their assent by acclamation. In England the actual ceremony of the homage was anciently performed "secundâ die post coronationem," or "in crastino." In Bohamia, besides the oath of fealty, which, as we have seen, is used to be taken some days before the coronation, the consent of the estates seems to have been further invoked at the altar. After the deposition of the Emperor Rudolph by his brother Matthias of Hungary, the land marshall exclaimed from the altar, to the people assembled at the coronation of the latter prince, "Is it your will that his Royal Grace be crowned ?" To which they replied by acclamation, "Yes, it is our will." (May, 1611.) But it should be remembered that this took place at the coronation of an usurper. burggraf, or head of the nobility, replied in the same tongue. After different formalities, the oath of allegiance was read in Bohemian by the Clerk of the Diet, and repeated with acclamations by the estates, by spiritual peers laying their hands upon their breast, and the temporal states raising the three first fingers of the right hand, as a symbol of the most Holy Trinity by which they swore. The oath was again read in German, for those nobles who were unacquainted with their native language, or who are of German families; but it was remarked that a large majority repeated the formulary as it was read the first time in Bohemian, and that Prince Metternich himself, though not of Bohemian extraction, took the oath in that language. The morning of Sunday, the 4th of September, broke in the same cloudless beauty which had hitherto favoured all the imperial ceremonies; and before eight o'clock we were on horseback, to meet the court at the Church Parade, on a vast peninsula formed by the Moldau below the city, which is used for military exercise. From the heights outside the ramparts of the Hradschin, we discovered long lines of troops, to the number of 10,000 men, drawn across the vast field in three files, flanked by the Bohemian artillery, and backed by the superb regiments of cuirassiers. In the centre of the plain, more intense devotion flung across the air to elevate the hearts of an assembled people; never were rites more solemnly performed than in the midst of this great multitude, which stood hushed and bare-headed around the army. A slight roll of drums interrupted the music, and it was immediately answered by the bugles of the cavalry a few notes sufficed, and the silence, which was before that of attention, became the silence of solitude. The chargers ceased to champ tents had been erected, beneath one of of the simple Gregorian chorales of the which stood the field-altar where high Catholic church. Never were strains of mass was about to be performed, and under another, seats were destined for the imperial family. These tents were surrounded by a ring of grenadiers, placed at a few yards' distance from one another, and the whole area was kept open by piquets of Polish lancers stationed at intervals. On descending into the plain, we found the road crowded with the populace of Prague, and glittering with the brilliant staff which awaited the emperor, with the impatient chargers of the imperial officers, and the ranks of the Hungarian and German guards on duty. From time to time the clash of the gong and the deep tones of the kettle-drum, broken by the tuckets of the cavalry, struck the ear: but the mass of troops remained stationary, though the wild Slavonian hulans scoured the plain in light detachments to clear the ground and to prepare the order of the ceremony. At length the emperor arrived with his court, in eight carriages, each drawn by six Hungarian grey horses: they dashed down the hill, and in a few minutes Ferdinand and the Archdukes mounted their chargers on the field, whilst the princesses retired to the tents. The emperor, who is a timid horseman, ambled across the plain to inspect the first line of troops; whilst the archdukes, princes, and generals, in white, green, and red uniforms, with difficulty checking the fiery attitudes of their steeds, bounded after the sovereign to the front of the battalions, in all the glitter of arms and the pride of military bearing. As this brilliant cortège passed, the clash of the military salute, and the swelling notes of the Austrian hymn, were heard from the ranks and from the bands of each regiment. The emperor himself was excited by the splendour of the scene; and by his side rode the Archduke Charles, whose quick eye seemed to scrutinize the troops as he passed. When the military inspection was finished, we retired to a neighbouring eminence, which was covered with immense masses of people, and the court entered the tents in the centre of the plain; whilst, by a rapid maœuvre, the troops were formed into a hollow square around the military chapel. The spectators were then allowed to approach the ranks; the enormous crowd which was collected, amounting certainly to tens of thousands, passed around the troops; and thus, in the free air, and in the hearing of so great a congregation, the rites of public worship began. The bands of the artillery, composed entirely of Bohemians, had been selected to accompany the service. Their music was not of the light or inappropriate kind which is the common defect of a military mass; but with the deepest feeling and the heart-stirring power of their harmonious horns, they performed the service to one the most heedless drew their breath; till the tinkling bell announced the Elevation of the Host across that immense plain, and the whole assembled congregation sank upon their knees and crossed their breasts-the soldiers in the ranks, the people on the grass, and the emperor in his tent, all kneeling together at the blessed sight of the consecrated element: "Nos quoque confusis feriemus sidera verbis, Et fama est junctas fortius ire preces." The priests resumed the solemn chorus of their praise, which melted away in the tender but melancholy strains of the wind instruments: the people bent their eyes with speechless devotion on the ceremonies of their church; and, notwithstanding the pomp and equipage of modern war, and the common appearance of a crowd issuing from the streets of a great city, the religious feeling which pervaded the multitude gave to the whole scene the pious and heroic character of the olden time, and of that mysterious people whose camp was drawn, in all their wanderings, about the tabernacle. High mass having been said, the court took its station at the foot of the hill, on one side of an immense avenue of men, which reminded us of the bare space of a race-course, hemmed in by walls of human beings. The ladies in waiting were somewhat hastily marched off across the stubbles to their carriages, surrounded by a strong party of grenadiers; but the Archduchess Theresa remained in an open calèche, in front of the staff, and the troops began to defile. Nothing is more striking than a large body of Austrian troops, as much from their marked and various national peculiarities, as from their excellent military appearance. As these battalions-strange men-compounded machines-marched hastily by us, the arms, the uniform, and the general bearing of each corps reminded one of the traditions of some distinct province of the Austrian empire. In no career are national feelings so warmly kept alive as in a military life; they are generally allied to the use of some favourite weapon, to some national badge, or to those brave achievements which dwell longest in the memory of men; and they are fostered as much by |