Beside her, marked from all the thousands there, The stately shepherd; and the youth, whose joy 5. "Father! and ye, my brothers!" On the breast 6. Her free thoughts flowed. She saw the pomp no more, Her spirit turned. The very wood-note, sung Winning her back to nature. She unbound The helm of many battles from her head, And, with her bright locks bowed to sweep the ground, Lifting her voice up, wept for joy, and said, "Bless me, my father, bless me! and with thee, To the still cabin and the beechen-tree, Let me return!" Oh! never did thine eye Felicia Dorothea Hemans, an English poetess, born in Liverpool, MRS. HEMANS.' September 25, 1793; died near Dublin, May 16, 1835. II. 75. THE ENTRANCE TO ST. PETER'S. S you approach St. Peter's you are at once struck with its A beautiful piazza, in every way worthy of the majestic pile 2 to which it conducts you. It is adorned with a pōrtico four columns deep, which opens out semi-circularly on either side before the façade of the church, and gives it a breadth proportioned to its depth. This colonnade forms a great covered gallery, surmounted by a balustrade,3 on which are placed one hundred and thirty-six statues of martyrs, founders of religious orders, and at intervals the arms of the sovereign pontiff under whom it was erected. 2. Alexander VII. laid the first stone of this portico on the 25th of August, 1661. It was built on the plan and under the inspection of Běrnïnï. In the middle of the piazza is an obelisk,1 of one block of granite, seventy-four feet high, and which, with the pedestal it rests upon and the cross by which it is surmounted, rises to one hundred and twenty-four feet from the ground. This obelisk is one of those attributed to Pheron, the son of Sesostris, who, according to Herodotus, had consecrated two obelisks in the Temple of the Sun. The emperor Calig'ula 7 brought it from Al'exan'dria to Rome. The ship employed for this purpose was, according to Pliny, the most extraordinary that ever moved upon the waters, and was itself a real wonder. 1 PĬ ǎzʼza, a portico or covered walk, supported by arches or columns: a square open place surrounded by buildings. 2 Facade (fa sad'), front; front view of a building. 3 Băl'us trāde, a row of small columns surmounted by a rail. 4 Ob'e lĭsk, a tall, four-sided pillar, tapering as it rises, and cut off at the top in the form of a flat pyramid; any pillar, especially one set up in an open square or court. 5 Se sos'tris, an Egyptian monarch, also called Ramē'sēs, who reigned about 1400 B.C. 6 6 He rŏd'o tus, a Greek historian, born in Halicarnassus, Asia Minor, about 484 B.C.; died, probably in Italy, about 420 B.C. He is called the father of history. "Caius Cæsar Augustus Germanicus Caligula, third emperor of Rome, born at Antiam, Aug. 31, A.D. 12; put to death at Rome, Jan. 24, A.D. 41. 8 Plin'y, a Roman author, born A.D. 23; died in 79, from the effects of that great eruption of Vesuvius which destroyed the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. 3. This obelisk was still standing in the circus of Nero when Pope Nicholas V. conceived the ide'a of transporting it to the piazza of St. Peter's; but death prevented him from executing this project. Paul III. wished Michael Angelo Buonarotti1 to undertake the task; but he declined, fearing that he should not be able to overcome the difficulties with which it was attended. Thirty years later Sixtus V. ascended the pontifical throne. Endowed with a firm aud enterprising character— such as was required for the government of the Church, then assailed by furious tempests-this Pontiff was, perhaps, not sorry to show the world that he was not to be retarded by obstacles deemed insurmountable by his predecessors. 4. His first câre was to make efforts to adorn the piazza of St. Peter's with this monument. With this view, he invited to Rome many architects and machinists. They assembled from all Italy, and some even came from Greece. More than five hundred plans were presented, and a committee was named to examine them. After a long investigation, this committee adopted the plan of Domenico Fontana, reserving, however, the execution of it to two more agèd, and therefore more experienced architects. The Pope thought this an injustice; and rightly judging that the inventor of such a plan was most capable of executing it, he ordered him to undertake it, and vested 2 him with extraordinary power. 5. The greatest difficulty arose from the size of the obelisk, which, according to the calculations of Fontana, weighed nine hundred and sixty-three thousand five hundred and thirtyseven Roman pounds. On the 15th of April, 1586, it was raised two pälms (seventeen and a hälf inches) from its pedestal; on the 7th of May it was lowered to the ground, and notwithstanding the short distance, four months were occupied in transporting it to the place where it was to be erected. Finally, on the 10th of September, by the aid of forty-four machines, moved by eight hundred men and one hundred and fifty horses, it was gradually raised, and placed perpendicularly on enor 1 Michael Angelo Buonarotti, a celebrated Italian artist, born in Tuscany, March 6, 1474; died in Rome, Feb. 17, 1563. He excelled in all the arts, being at once poet, painter, sculptor, and architect. 2 Věst'ed, put in possession; endowed. mous bars of iron, which sustained it on its resting-place. This was the work of five hours. 6. Immediately the firing of cannon and the ringing of bells announced a result so glōrious for the architect and so satisfactory to the Pontiff. It is, however, related that Fontana was mistaken in his calculation as to the length of the ropes; and that the obelisk would not have been raised, had not a sailor from San Remo, named Busca, perceiving the defect, cried out, in defiance of the prohibition to speak under pain of death, "Wet the ropes!" and by this means apprised the architect of the defect, and pointed out its remedy. 7. It is added that, to reward this brave man, he and his descendants were granted the privilege of furnishing pälms on Palm Sunday to the Roman churches. "Perhaps," remarks the writer from whom this anecdote is borrowed, "this is one of the thousand tales by which mediocrity 1 consoles itself for the success of superior talents." This fact, however, is represented in the frescoes 2 of the Vatican library. On the twentyseventh of the same month the obelisk was blessed after a solemn procession, and on its summit was placed the sign of our redemption, as is the case with the other obelisks of Rome. The expenses incurred amounted to forty thousand dollars. III. 76. ST. PETER'S CHURCH AT ROME. UT lo! the dome!-the våst and wondrous dome, BTo which Diana's3 marvel was a cell- Christ's mighty shrine above His martyr's tomb ! 1 Mē di ŏc'ri ty, a middling degree of excellence; that which is ordinary and commonplace. 2 Frěs' cões, paintings executed on walls. 3 Di a'na, a heathen goddess. A magnificent temple was erected in her honor at Ephesus, a city of Asia Minor, which was called one of the seven wonders of the world. Allusion is made to it also in the fourth verse of this stanza. 1 I have beheld Sophia's 1 bright roofs swell Their glittering mass i' the sun, and have surveyed Standèst alone, with nothing like to thee; Power, glory, strength, and beauty, all are aisled 3. Enter: its grandeur overwhelms thee not; BYRON. SECTION XXI. I. 77. THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD. THE “HE věry stěadfastness of the Almighty's liberality, flowing like a mighty ocean through the infinite våst of the 1 So phĩa, the great mosque in Constantinople, which was formerly a Christian church dedicated to Sancta Sophia, or Holy Wisdom. It was founded by Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, A.D. 325, rebuilt by Justinian in 532-38, and changed into a mosque in 1453. 2 Sï'on, a hill in Jerusalem, where on was built the royal palace of King David and his successors. The allusion in this line and that which follows is to the destruction in A.D. 70 of the temple and city of Jerusalem, which was the city of God's predilection under the Jewish dispensation, as Rome is under the Christian. |