ST. JOHN LATERAN.

EXT to St. Peter's, the venerable Basilica of St. John Lateran, is, in many respects, the finest in Rome; and certainly that to which is attached the most peculiar interest. It was the first Christian Church erected here; and it is on record that Constantine the Great assisted with his own hands in digging the foundations. It is further remarkable for five General Councils held within it, which constitute important eras in the history of the Church.

The façade is built of travertine, with ten fine columns supporting a massive entablature and balustrade, on which are colossal statues of our Lord and ten saints. The rich mellow colour which age imparts to the travertine, adds not a little to the general aspect of the edifice.

The interior has been several times changed, and at present loses much of the imposing effect which its vast space and fine nave would otherwise produce, from the stucco and whitewashing with which the ceiling and the walls have been barbarously covered.

The great ornament of the nave is the Corsini Chapel: it

is truly a superb collection of all that is most gorgeous and beautiful! Highly finished ornaments of every descriptiongilding, bas-reliefs, columns of marble almost with the transparency of agate, and so precious that their cost cannot be estimated; sparkling gems, too, are not wanting; and yet there is an exquisite taste pervading the whole, which completely prevents the glare which so much magnificence might otherwise occasion.

On one side of the Chapel is a celebrated porphyry sarcophagus, the Tomb of Clement XII., taken from the Pantheon. Of the four figures which are placed in niches, one by Rusconi pleased me particularly, from its simple grace; but it was in a little gloomy vaulted Chapel below, that we saw by far the most interesting piece of sculpture. The group is cut out of a single block of the very purest marble, and consists of the Virgin Mary bending over the dead body of our Lord. It is the only representation of the subject in marble I have seen, in which both the expression of the features, and position of the inanimate form of the Saviour, are at all satisfying. I was exceedingly disappointed with the treatment of the same subject by Michael Angelo, in St. Peter's, although so generally admired. The workmanship, no doubt, is fine; but even in this respect I cannot think Bernini's need yield; while in the latter, the unutterably touching expression of the Virgin's face— the blending of earthly sorrow with Divine consolation-excites the deepest interest and sympathy.

From the Church we went to the cloisters, which are good specimens of the Gothic of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The twisted columns, with the old mosaic ornaments upon them, are very beautiful. A broken pillar is pointed out, said by Church tradition to have been brought from Jerusalem, and to have been thus split when the veil of the temple was rent

in twain.

Attached to the Basilica is a fine portico, where the "Scala Santa" is placed. This far-famed staircase consists of twenty-eight marble steps, brought, it is said, from the house of Pontius Pilate, and the identical stairs by which the Saviour descended when he was taken from the judgment-hall. It is impossible to look at, and to tread upon those steps without a feeling of deep and peculiar interest; for so positive, and, so far as I am aware, unquestioned is the tradition relating to them, and at the same time so far from improbable in itself, that I do not see why we should refuse to receive it. To protect the marble from being actually worn away by the multitudes who are continually ascending these steps upon their bare knees, it has been found necessary to cover them over with a wooden casing; and this, we were told, has already been several times renewed. I certainly felt, as I watched the poor penitents slowly ascending in this humble attitude, that however mistaken their motives for so doing, yet that this was the fitting posture in which to recall, in the presence of this memorial, that which caused the foot of the Son of God once to rest there!

In a Chapel at the top of the "Scala Santa," is a portrait of our Lord, attributed to St. Luke, and supposed to have been taken when He was twelve years of age!

The Baptistery of this Basilica, formerly contained the immense porphyry font (but very lately indeed removed to the Vatican) in which Constantine received the rite of baptism. In this same font Rienzi bathed on the night of August 11, 1347-the night before he shewed himself with his badges of knighthood, and was crowned in this Church with the symbolical seven crowns.

PICTURE GALLERIES.

OME days have been regularly devoted to systematic sight-seeing, and a very fatiguing thing I must own it to be, even with all its enjoyments; nay, I almost think it is when

one sits down quietly to arrange one's recollections, and class them under different heads, that the greatest amount of enjoyment is felt. Be that as it may, I must see how far, without wearisome repetition, I can record the most prominent features of what I have seen.

I find it difficult, even with all my love for paintings, to sketch them with my pen, some of those I most admire possessing a kind of beauty which nothing but a pencil dipped in a Raphael's colours can pourtray, or the pen of a Rogers' can describe. Yet my own little cabinet would seem blank without, at least, an outline of them.

The Borghese Gallery must take the first place therein; and I will begin with the "Entombment of Christ," the first historical picture by Raphael, and painted by him when in his twenty-fourth year. As usual with this great artist, the spectators' personal sympathies are irresistibly appealed to by the

passions depicted. Perhaps one of the first objects on which the mind dwells is the mother's anguish. She sees the Saviour borne to the sepulchre, his lifeless body about to be laid in the "new tomb." She has stood near him through his dying agony, and received his farewell of tender care as He bequeathed her to the disciple "whom he loved.” "Last at the cross, and earliest at the tomb," she never left him while life remained. But now that his lifeless body is borne away, the mother of Jesus for the first time gives way to her own sorrow, and falls back well-nigh as lifeless as her Lord.

There is something so natural in the imagined filling up of the sacred story by the painter in this picture, that one cannot but go along with him in all he has defined. Scarcely less touching is the intense grief of St. Peter, St. John, and Mary Magdalene, whilst the gathering together of these three-"the disciple whom Jesus loved," and the two whom our Lord himself described as "loving much, for much had been forgiven them," adds much to the truthful expression of the whole.

The picture which most fascinated me, after the one I have described, is so different, that perhaps it should not come immediately after a subject taken from Sacred Scripture; yet no other gave me anything like the same degree of pleasure, though pleasure of another kind. In naming this, I must at the same time speak of one bearing the same name in the Capitol, and indeed the finer of the two; yet are their expressions strangely different. The beauty of this face is more touching, more innocent. She is younger,―fairer. In the Sybil of the Capitol,-as I looked into the depths of her dark eyes, so wild, so lustrous-I fancied her in the cave which bears her name, the light of torches flashing on her