Oscar II. (Bernadotte IV.) and his Queen were crowned on
Monday with much barbaric pomp in the Storkyrka of Stockholm. The King was anointed on the breast, hands, feet,, and forehead,—the Queen on the hands and forehead. How strange the superstition which clings to the use of oil on such occasions in Protestant countries, a use quite abandoned, we believe, in Catholic coronations ! In Catholic countries, indeed, the practice of coronation itself seems to be abandoned, as a logical preliminary doubtless to the abandonment of the institution of Monarchy. Certainly it is in Protestant Europe at present that thrones seem to be most strongly loved. In Sweden, nevertheless, there was a party opposed to the ceremony on the score of the expense, which did not quite amount to £4,000.. Austria sent a special Envoy, the Metternich who represented her at Paris during the most brilliant days of the Second Empire ; Germany the Blumenthal who dealt such fatal blows to that• Empire ; all the European Powers except England seem to have sent ambassadors. Do we still regard the Bernadottes as parvenus, or do we object to coronations, or is it stinginess, or what ?
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