Vice, ravening vulture, on her vitals preyed; Her peers, her prelates, fell corruption swayed: Their rights, for power, the ambitious weakly sold:

The usurpation, my lords, of regal power must be made evident by somewhat more than general assertions, must appear from some publick act like that of one of the prelates left regent of the kingdom by Richard the first, who, as soon as the king was gone too far to return, in the first elevations of his heart, began his new authority by imprisoning his colleague.

Before the commands of the angry Pontiff could reach the heads of the orders in Venice, people, priests, and prelates throughout the dominions were forewarned; they must continue in every accustomed practice of their religion; they might neither receive nor publish any minatory papersthese must be instantly brought to the government, under severest penalties.

Offending prelates were brought from distant sees to meet the displeasure of the Republic; hesitating priests were silently hastened to decision by scaffolds, looming suddenly within their precincts.

"To the Most Reverend the Patriarchs, Archbishops, and Bishops of our Venetian Dominions," said this "Protest," "and to the Vicars, Abbots, Priors, Rectors of Parochial Churches, and other Ecclesiastical Prelates, greeting:" forthwith proceeding to declare that "the Interdict which his Holiness was 'said' to have published was null and void, and forbidden to be observednot having been incurred by any fault of Venice.

But now his anger was transferred to her confessor who had bewitched her, to all those Roman prelates who had paid her courta mere child, not able to defend herself nor to understand, killing herself for a question beyond her!

Now it was a barefooted friar to be watched for at Mantua, coming with powers plenipotentiary from his Holiness over all the prelates of the rebellious realm; or it might be this same friar, in lay disguise, still armed with those ghostly and secret powers, for whom the trusted servants of Venice were to be on guard.

Upon this assembled, besides the King and his officers of State, twelve ecclesiastical peers, together with those prelates whom the King might be pleased to invite, and six lay peers, with other officers or nobles.

Painters and sculptors therefore commit a serious error in representing the prelates and monks of those times with large beards.

406 and 407.Costume of the Prelates from the Eighth to the Tenth CenturiesAfter Miniatures in the "Missal of St. Gregory," in the National Library of Paris.

Lords, If ye could range before me all the peers, Prelates, and potentates of Christendom, The holy pontiff kneeling at my knee, And emperors crouching at my feet, to sue For this great robber, still I should be blind As justice.

PRELATES, why the, of the church have given the pre-eminence to faith, which is of truth, above charity, which is of good, 126.

There is many folk that has a face to the religion that is in fashion, and there is many folk, they have ay a face to the old company, they have a face for godly folk, and they have a face for persecutors of godly folk, and they will be daddies bairns and minnies bairns both; they will be prelates bairns and they will be malignants bairns and they will be the people of God's bairns.

And that the said curses be twice a year denounced and published by the prelates aforesaid.

And if the prelates or any of them be remiss in the denunciation of the said sentences, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York for the time being, as is fitting, shall compel and distrain them to make that denunciation in form aforesaid.

With the exception of the three customary feudal aids which still remained to the crown, 'no scutage or aid shall be imposed in our realm save by the Common Council of the realm;' and to this Great Council it was provided that prelates and the greater barons should be summoned by special writ, and all tenants in chief through the sheriffs and bailiffs, at least forty days before.

By committing and prosecuting divers worthy prelates for humbly petitioning to be excused from concurring to the said assumed power.

The Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, born in 1579, was descended from an illustrious Bolognese family, who had formerly been the sovereigns of that state, and had produced alike great warriors, renowned poets, and celebrated prelates.

At that time he was seventy-six years of age, and, on that account, when the protesting prelates were, for this act of duty, committed to the Tower, he was remitted to the custody of the usher; and then, so little had he regarded the mammon of unrighteousness, that he had scarcely wherewith to defray the fees and charges of his confinement.

So engrossed was he that at first he could not pay attention to the strange sounds in the air about him; for these cuffs, though black, were marked at their upper edges with a purpled line such as prelates wear.

He had imagined (he scarcely knew why) the Vatican to be a place of silence and solemn dignity and darkness, with a few sentries here and there, a few prelates, a cardinal or twowith occasionally a group of very particular visitors, or, on still rarer occasions, a troop of pilgrims being escorted to some sight or some audience.

Rich presents were made him; the prelates and barons of his kingdom came to visit him; they feasted him and rejoiced with him, as it was seemly to do; and the king received them sweetly and handsomely, for well he knew how.

An effort was made to dissuade him; and "several prelates and barons of France told him that he was committing great folly when he was minded to again put himself in danger from the King of England.

The history of the need-fire can be traced back to early Middle Ages; for in the reign of Pippin, King of Franks, the practice of kindling need-fires was denounced as a heathen superstition by a synod of prelates and nobles held under the presidency of Boniface, Archbishop of Mainz.

But we know that in the face of these things the prelates of trickery are sitting in Washington allowing throats to go unthrottled that talked tenderly about the "negro slave;" we know worse: we know that mixed blood has asked for equal rights from a son of the Louisiana noblesse, and that those sacred rights have been treacherously, pusillanimously surrendered into its possession.