classification, and preservation of the Celtiberian, Greek, Roman, Gothic, Hebrew, Arabic, Hispano-Arabic, and Christian historical antiquities now in process of dispersion and destruction throughout the country. S. Contreras offers some suggestions for their temporary preservation. Subscriptions are being made in England to ward the long-contemplated renovation of St. Paul's Cathedral, so that Dean Milman's ideas will possibly be carried out at last. The Athenaum suggests that before any large amount of money is spent, a part of one of the side-aisles ought to be colored by way of experiment. It also wishes that some of the wretched statuary could be expelled. Prizes for the best designs for a Schiller monument, to be erected in the Schiller-place at Vienna, have been offered, and 50,000 francs have been already subscribed. pothesis is based: The giant exhibited at Rouen, A statue of Leonardo da Vinci is to be erected haps more prolific in producing them than the in Milan. VARIETIES. Hereditary Peculiarities.-An officer whose little finger had accidentally been cut across, and had in consequence become crooked, transmitted the same defect to his offspring. Another officer, wounded at the battle of Eylau, had a scar reproduced on the foreheads of his children. When the new-born infants of Europeans are compared with those of savage nations, the shape of the toes in the former is found to have been modified by the fact that their parents were in the habit of wearing shoes. It has often been observed that the Hapsburg, or Austrian royal family, for some generations back, have had a thick upper lip, which first appeared after an ancestor of theirs had intermarried with the Polish family of Jagellon. A gentleman communicates the information that he has himself witnessed a single white lock of hair in two successive generations of a family, which family moreover bore a surname that may possibly have been first suggested by the phenomenon now described. Observations analogous to those which have been recorded have been made also in the case of the lower animals. In Carolina, a dog which had accidentally lost its tail transmitted the defect to its descendants for three or four generations. A sheep in Massachusetts, with a long body and short legs, in 1791 became the progenitor of an apparently permanent breed, possessing the same characteristics, This now occurs in various parts of North America, is called the otter sheep, and is prized by farmers, as its short limbs prevent its being able to leap over the fences. There were Giants in those Days.-In one of his recent lectures, Prof. Silliman alluded to the discovery of the skeleton of an enormous lizard of eighty feet. From this the professor inferred, as no living specimen of such magnitude has been found, that the species which it represents has become degenerated. The verity of his position he endeavored to enforce by allusion to the wellknown existence of giants in olden times. The following is the list upon which this singular hy present. But the history of giants during the olden time was not more remarkable than that of dwarfs, several of whom were even smaller than the Thumbs and Nutts of our own time. Marvels of Memory.-The following examples of the marvels of memory would seem entirely incredible, had they not been given to us upon the highest authority: Cyrus knew the name of each soldier in his army. It is also related of Themistocles that he rould call by name every citizen of Athens, although the number amounted to 20,000. Mithcidates, king of Pontus, knew all his 80,000 soldiers by their right names. Scipio knew all the inhabitants of Rome. Seneca complained of old age because he could not, as formerly, repeat 2,000 names in the order in which they were read to him; and he stated that on one occasion, when at his studies, 200 unconnected verses having been recited by the different pupils of his preceptor, he repeated them in a reversed order, proceeding from the last to the first. Lord Granville could repeat, from beginning to end, the New Testament in the original Greek. Cooke, the tragedian, is said to have committed to memory all the contents of a large daily newspaper. Racine could recite ali the tragedies of Euripides. It is said that George III. never forgot a face he had once seen, nor a name he had ever heard. Mirandola would commit to memory the contents of a book by reading it three times, and could frequently repeat the words backward as well as forward. Thomas Cranmer committed to memory, in three months, an entire translation of the Bible. Euler, the mathematician, could repeat the Æneid; and Leibnitz, when an old man, could recite the whole of Virgil, word for word. It is said that Bossuet could repeat not only the whole Bible, but all Homer, Virgil, and Horace, besides many other works. Mozart had a wonderful memory of musical sounds. When only fourteen years of age he went to Rome to assist in the solemnities of Holy Week. Immediately after his arrival he went to the Sistine Chapel to hear the famous Miserere of Allegri. Being aware that it was forbidden to take or give a copy of this renowned piece of music, Mozart placed himself in a corner, and gave the strictest attention to the music, and on leaving the church noted down the entire piece. A few days afterward he heard it a second time, and following the music with his own copy in his hand, satisfied himself of the fidelity of his memory. The next day he sang the Miserere at a concert, accompanying himself on the harp sichord; and the performance produced such a sensation in Rome, that Pope Clement XIV. requested that this musical prodigy should be presented to him at once.-Oliver Optic's Magazine. Illumination of St. Peter's.-The tramontana was still blowing, not hard, indeed, but enough to make the task of the 365 lamplighters employed not only unpleasant but difficult. In a perfect calm, the right course is to go first to the Piazza of St. Peter's, and see all the lines of the architecture picked out in light. I elected to take first the view from the Pincian. At that distance the mischance of a few lamps here or there did not signify; and what one saw was an edifice not so much illuminated as itself of fire. I never saw the architectural design to better advantage, insomuch that I said to myself, "Now, this is St. Peter's as it existed in the architect's mind before he had to do it in stone and lead." Yet there is a novelty in the fiery design. The outline of the dome and the cupola surmounting it becomes more flowing and graceful, and acquires even an Oriental character. At that distance the illuminated colonnade vaguely suggests a region of light out of which rises its own fitting temple. The sky was a clear green, and the stars a pale blue, over the redder fires of human art. The sword of Orion hung just over the cross as the illumination was completed. But the chief contrast was that of the glowing pile with all the domes and towers and towering edifices between us, on the Pincian, and the fading twilight. In a moment-and had one not been looking that way, one must have missed it--a shower or mantle of brighter glory seemed to fall from heaven, and, beginning with the cross, changed every light to a brighter and purer flame. It is scarcely possible to conceive how it is done, but the change is really instantaneous. At first the wind blew flakes and sheets of fire far away from every part, as in our own city conflagrations, but soon the lights were all as steady as before, and much more brilliant. The effect is due, not to a multitude of smaller lights, but, I believe, to only 4,000 large ones literally fire-pots. By this arrangement the design of the dome is improved, even in its lower portion, or bulb, the lines being relieved with what we should call lozenge-shaped interruptions. Later in the night, when even the larger lamps were beginning to expire, and the smaller ones were mostly out, I went to the Piazza. From the bridge of St. Angelo what one saw was a mountain, as irregular as an Alp, and any height one might imagine, for it might be near and it might be far, all of a glow, as if it had burst out of the burning centre of the earth by the fracture of its crust. It looked an incandescent mass, the stones only glowing somewhat less vividly than the flames themselves, bursting out where they could. The Piazza itself was almost as light as day, and, as it were, wrapped in the surrounding, though now expiring flames. So closed Easter Day, 1870.-The Correspondent of the Times. English Authorized Bible.-Mr. Faber, writing as a Roman Catholic, says: Who will not say that the uncommon beauty and marvellous English of the Protestant Bible is not one of the great strongholds of heresy in this country? It lives on the ear like a music that can never be forgottenlike the sound of church bells which the convert hardly knows how he can forego. Its felicities often seem to be almost things rather than mere words. It is part of the national mind, and the anchor of national seriousness. The memory of the dead passes into it. The potent traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. The power of all the griefs and trials of man is hidden beneath its words. It is the representative of his best moments, and all that has been about him of soft, and gentle, and pure, and penitent, and good, speaks to him forever out of his English Bible. It is his sacred thing, which doubt has never dimmed and controversy never soiled. In the length and breadth of the land there is not a Protestant with one spark of religiousness about him whose spiritual biography is not in his Saxon Bible. tent. Flogging in Russia.-Many noble ladies have been flogged in Russia; indeed, anecdotes of such flagellations could be multiplied to almost any exIt was stated a few years ago in a German newspaper that three of the most beautiful women of St. Petersburg were driven direct from one of the imperial balls in their own carriages, in all their finery of satin and lace, to the police station, and, after being mounted on a man's shoulders, with their dress tucked up, were smartly whipped with a birch rod." No explanation was given, but they were dismissed with the significant caution to hold their tongues in future. other imperial party some young ladies, who had been chatting too freely, were politely escorted by a maitre d'hôtel to a distant apartment, where, being made to kneel over an ottoman, they were severally smacked by a female housekeeper with their satin slippers, and then sent home.-A History of the Rod in all Countries. At an The Dickens Family.-With respect to Mr. Dickens's family it may be news to many to hear that he had ten children (eight of whom are living), namely, two daughters and eight sons. Of the sons one is in the Royal Navy, and now stationed at Valparaiso; one in India, and two sheepfarming in Australia, near Melbourne. The youngest of the sons is at college, and the eldest is now the conductor of All the Year Round. Of the daughters, one is married to Charles Collins, brother to Wilkie Collins. She is the heroine of Millais's famous painting of the "Black Brunswicker." The unmarried daughter, like Miss Thackeray, is a novelist of more than average talent, her best known works being, "Aunt Margaret's Trouble," "Mabel's Progress," and "Veronica." The best and largest photographs of Dickens were taken in America, and a large supply of them is daily expected in England.Court Journal. BATHS AND BATHING-PLACES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. Von Rome. That city and indeed all the Ro ART. VI.-I. De Balneis omnia quæ ex- Is many matters regarding material coruforts and even public health, Rome was in advance of modern Europe. We do not sinde to mere self-indulging Juxury, in sehőch the Romans probably for exceeded ma; but in some of the most hoportant improvements of the present dorian the supply of good drinking water and in the construction of public baths--we are now only going over the same ground as ancient NEW SERIES-VOL. XII., No. 4. 712 |