there is much that is good; much good Latin as far as we can judge, much good verse, much that is poetical, and very much scholarship. Of this last we must confess there is to our liking even too much. We cannot appreciate the operation of piecing together a poem from a number of Virgilian or Horatian tags and centos. Even in the case of boys writing verses-here we are certainly in a minority-we cannot like the process, but when men are professing to compose poems it seems simply abominable. Poetry should be of all effusions the most original, it should speak most of its author; such a process kills originality outright; it makes us work not with thoughts but with words alone. But whatever be the merits of the custom it certainly obtained largely amongt the French writers. We have before remarked that their classical priming set them off on all occasions. They were not content, as Denham said Cowley was, to wear the garb without wearing the clothes of the ancients. In some cases, for instance in the poems of Hossius, a column parallel to the poem is always devoted to the passage under imitation, and in this column the gaps are neither wide nor many. In other cases we can hardly open at a passage which we do not recognise without such aid. Take as an instance perhaps the most successful of the Didactic poems, Father Rapin's De Hortis, which was meant as a compliance with Virgil's hint when mentioning that subject that he has no time to do more— Verum hac ipse equidem spatiis exclusus iniquis Thus taken up, the work was strictly an imitation of the Georgics, so strictly indeed that we meet in it old friends with slightly new faces at every turn. We take an instance or two almost at random. First the opening, like Virgil's opening as to phra seology, as it is like it in setting forth the great branches of the subject Qui cultus lætis felices floribus hortos Efficiat; melior nemori quæ forma serendo ; Talking of the beauties of spring- Non illo quisquam me tempore durus in urbem Ire velit, jubeatque meo discedere rure.† Georg. iv. -Non illa quisquam me nocte per altum Ire, neque a terra moneat convellere funem.-Georg. 1.456-7. Or again Multum adeo rutili precibus qui lumina solis Conciliat, placetque Deum, juvat arva, neque illum Sometimes imitation was yet more servile. The Abbé Flechier thus describes a sentinel keeping back a too forward mob within a barrier At tristis custos nunc hos nunc dejicit illos. Some authors even composed whole poems professedly in Virgilian centos. But if we wish to see the Latin Muse to advantage we must look elsewhere than in these her ambitious efforts, in which sooth to say she was sadly beyond her depth. We must look to such minor works as inscriptions and epigrams. That these are minor, except in point of bulk, many have denied. South, we know, considered an epigram as difficult of accomplishment as an epic; and in France, Father Rapin thought that the man should die content who had made one good one. Those who poured them forth by scores did not, of course, quite agree with this verdict, which may certainly be considered excessive in its severity. Yet no doubt more than half of the published epigrams, even of the most successful authors, were better done without. Too many forgot the rule Omne epigramma sit instar apis; sit aculeus illi; Sint sua mella; sit et corporis exigui ; and too often the epigram had neither point nor honey, but had bulk. Yet with all this there was much that was pleasing and successful; Parnassus was not so much in the way, and nature had a chance. We will conclude for the present with a few specimens of the minor genera of poems. For inscriptions the Latin tongue is specially adapted, and in inscription the Latinists won some of their most unquestionable triumphs; though we do not remember in the field we are now studying anything so striking as the epitaph on Franklin- Eripuit Cœlo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis. Santeuil was the most successful French writer of inscriptions; that on the fountain by the gate of St. Denis was by him— Nympha triumphalem sublimi fornice portam Admirata suis garrula plaudet aquis. Multum adeo rastris glebas qui frangit inertes Vimieneasque trahit crates, juvat arva, neque illum Flava Ceres alto nequidquam spectat Olympo.-Georg. 1. 94-6 And that on the dial of the courts of justice-- Tempora labuntur, rapidis fugientibus horis ; Eternæ hic leges fixaque jura manent. On the royal arsenal was an inscription, by an unknown author, much, we think excessively, admired— Ætna hac Henrico Vulcania tela ministrat, Tela gigantæos debellatura furores. For the Louvre, Du Perrier proposed with due flattery- Magna quidem, domino non tamen æqua domus. In fact when the Muse came into the presence of le grand monarque there was danger of her forgetting to be poetical in striving to be adulatory. The following inscription, proposed by Ménage for the royal library, is wretchedly weak and pointless: Qui tot Mavorti posuit memoranda tropæa Has Phoebo et Musis Ludovicus consecrat ædes. Perhaps the happiest inscription of all was a simple quotation. On the medal struck on occasion of the founding of the observatory we read (it would we think have been still more apropos on a telescope)- -Sic itur ad astra. As to epigrams, a kindred species, what we have quoted will give idea enough, but we are tempted to add a specimen or two more. The Jesuit Vavasseur had pressed Ménage to write epigrams. Ménage replied: Epigrammata factitare bella Frustra tot monitis doces, Vavassor : Argutis, lepidis et eruditis, Deterres epigrammatum libellis. Here is the same author's song of triumph over the Elzevir edition of his works : Quid rerum video? O Dii Deæque ! Nostros scilicet Elzevirianis Excusos video typis libellos! O typos lepidos et elegantes! O comptum et lepidum novum volumen ! Et candore nives papyrus æquat. Epigrams with stings were also not uncommon. A very audacious one was sometimes thought worthy of the Bastile. We can only hope that one of the most celebrated amongst them may not be applied to what we must confess to be our trifling and unsatisfactory sketch of a large subject :— Paule, tuum inscribis nugarum nomine librum The Basilica of St. Peter. PART THE SECOND. As in a dissolving view which represents the same object under different aspects, the leading features are continued through and survive the transposition, so there are two classes of objects, which, by retaining in the modern Basilica of St. Peter, all that importance which they held in the ancient Basilica, form, along with the Confession, a connecting link between the two. The first of these is the "Cathedra Petri," or actual chair in which the holy Apostle fulfilled the more solemn offices of his Apostolic ministry, when he came to Rome to plant there the Holy See and to shed his blood for the faith of Christ. We can but describe it briefly, and give the history of the position it occupied within the ancient Basilica, without discussing the question as to its origin or identity. According to the descriptions of Torrigio, of Febei, and of Cardinal Wiseman, the general appearance of the chair of St. Peter suggests that it was a curule chair, presented very likely to the Apostle by some senator of opulence whose property it had been. The form of the seat is quadrangular, its width is four Roman palms, its depth a little more than two palms and a half, its height from the ground three palms and a half. The length of the back is between five and six palms, and the supports are about four fingers thick, and are bound together by bars of iron. The upper part of the back is composed of a cornice, above which rises a triangular front or moulding; below it are rows of small columns dividing the whole back into eighteen compartments in three ranks, each column being one palm two inches in length, while the little arches formed between these are two palms and a half long; similar columns and arches form the two sides. The chair is encrusted with ornaments of the most costly and exquisite workmanship in ivory and metal, and each compartment contains a bas-relief in ivory executed with marvellous finish, and representing some achievement of Hercules. In this chair it was always the custom for the newly-elected Pope to be placed on the day of his enthronement, until the removal of the Papal residence to Avignon, after its return from which place this, along with many other ancient customs, was laid aside. At one time the Chair of St. Peter stood near the entrance of the Basilica. Adrian I., in the year 772, removed it to a chapel within the lefthand transept. Having been placed in considerable danger of destruction by fire, it was for greater safety transferred to the sacristy of the Basilica. Whilst kept there it was, on the greater Feasts, surrounded by candles and incense, and carried by Canons into the choir, where it was exposed for the veneration of the Faithful. Finally, Alexander III. had a rich receptacle in bronze designed for it, and raised it to its present relative position, namely, behind the high altar. Nor may we omit to mention the greater relics of St. Peter's, which are at the present moment such prominent objects of veneration. The Veil of Veronica, or of the Holy Face, was brought to Rome in the very first era of Christianity and has never been taken from it. Pope John III., in the beginning of the eighth century, erected an altar for its reception close to the entrance of the Basilica in the nearest right-hand aisle. The relic of the Holy Cross rested over the altar which we have already described as prepared for it by Pope Symmachus in 498. The Emperor Justinian presented for its reception a very splendid reliquary. The Sacred Lance was found by St. Helena beneath the surface of Mount Calvary, where it was buried along with the Cross itself, and it remained at Jerusalem till the end of the eighth century. In the invasion of Palestine it was rescued and taken to Constantinople, and preserved in the Church of St. Sophia, where by some accident it was broken. The upper part, after being sold by the Latin Emperor of Constantinople to some Venetians, was recovered from them by Louis of France, and placed in the famous Sainte Chapelle. The lower part was still preserved at Constantinople, and was presented by Mahomet II. to Innocent VIII. Benedict XIV. compared a careful drawing of the part of the relic in Paris with that which he how possessed, and found that the parts fitted exactly together. The Pope kept the relic till his death in his own chamber, when it was transferred to the Basilica and placed in a sumptuous chapel, already described by us as being at the left-hand corner of the nave, nearly in front of the choir. As though the main structure of the Basilica were wholly insufficient to do complete honour to St. Peter, to contain all the gifts and relics that were to be gathered round his shrine, or to satiate the devotion of future worshippers, many a large and rich side-chapel clustered round the exterior walls, like suckers round about a tree, or like the crystallisations that form themselves upon a solid substance. These, in every variety of size and shape, skirted the exterior walls of the nave on both sides, and were, indeed, too numerous to be described in any detail. We may, however, enumerate them, before we tell how their removal was one of the first steps towards the erection of the modern Basilica. Behind the tenth pillar on the left, or north, side stood a large choir chapel which was entered from the Basilica. The very rich altar of this chapel was dedicated to the Conception of the most Blessed Virgin Mary, to St. Francis of Assisi, and to St. Anthony of |