the new religion pushing its way among the inmates of the classical Pantheon. On this important point the ruins have hitherto been silent. The only indication of Christianity which has even been held plausible depends upon an unsatisfactory story told by Mazois. and to have been restored by Numerius (or Nonnius) Popidius Celsinus, at his own expense. This earthquake was probably that of the year 63 A.D., sixteen years before the destruction of the city. From this temple were taken the famous Isiac table of basalt now in the Museum at Naples. This fine In one of the row of small shops extending relief contains fourteen figures, thirteen of along one side of the so-called house of which are turned towards the first, which is Parsa, when newly-discovered, there was supposed to represent Osiris. Beneath are found on the wall of the passage leading to twenty-five lines of hieroglyphics, which the posticum a Latin cross marked in bas- have been interpreted by M. Champollion relief upon a panel of white stucco. This fils to be an invocation of Osiris or Isis. It wall, being at the end of the passage, and is, however, denounced by Overbeck as a directly facing the street, was in full view sham. In a niche on the court wall frontof the passers-by. On this symbol, Mazois ing the temple stood a painted figure of founded the conjecture that the owner of Sigaleon or Harpocrates, otherwise called the shop was a Christian. No vestige of Orus, the son of Osiris. Beneath this was the cross now remains, and we find it dif- a shelf, intended perhaps to receive offerficult, with Dr. Dyer, to conceive, even ings, and under it a board supposed to be were the cross in use at that time among for the knees of the worshippers. In anothChristians, that any one should have ven- er part of the court was found a beautiful tured to exhibit that sign of the religion so statue of Isis, with the sistrum and the key publicly as this. Mazois himself, too, was of the Nile sluices, her drapery painted puzzled to account for the juxtaposition of purple, and in part gilt. From several of this symbol with the ordinary Pagan em- the pictures and bas-reliefs we obtain interblems. Could the same man at once bow esting evidence of the influence exercised before the cross of Christ, and pay homage by classic symbolism upon Christian art. to Janus, Ferculus, Limentinus, Cardia, An instance of this occurs in the ugly conthe deities of the thresholds and the hinges ventional glory with which the heads of saof doors? Still more, could he adore it in cred personages are commonly encircled. combination with the guardian serpents of This usage was borrowed by the Italian Esculapius, or with the obscene emblem of painters from the Greek artists of the lower an incomprehensible worship, possibly Or- Empire, in whose paintings it generally asphic or Mithraic, which is over the hearth. sumes the appearance of a solid plate of The Commendatore Fiorelli explicitly de- gold. In a small house at Pompeii, decoratnies that any Christian symbols have been ed with subjects from the Odyssey, a paintdiscovered at Pompeii. "It is said, indeed," ing of Ulysses and Circe was copied by writes Dr. Dyer, "that in a house in this Mazois in 1812, which is remarkable as exVia del Lupanare may be traced written in hibiting the head of Circe crowned with a charcoal a graffito with the letters,.. NI halo of aureole of this precise kind. GAUDII... HRISTIANI; which have outer limb or circumference is solidly and with so slight probability been supplement- sharply defined, not shaded off, and divided ed igni gaude, Christiane (" rejoice in the into rays, as we usually see it in works of fire, Christian.") Dr. Dyer has clearly not the Italian school. This painting has since seen this inscription himself, and neither perished. A similar aureole surrounds the the reading itself nor the interpretation grand figure of Jupiter in the house of seems to us at all satisfactory. If rightly read, Zephyrus and Flora. The god is here sitthe words proceeded at all events from a ting in a contemplative attitude, the eagle Pagan, and they may have reference, Dr. at his feet, and his golden sceptre in his Dyer suggests, to the burning of Christians hand. His mantle is of violet colour, and at Rome in the time of Nero. They are as lined with azure, the throne and footstool likely to refer to the charge of setting Rome are golden, ornamented with precious stones, on fire brought against the Christians. We a green drapery covering the back of the should like more direct evidence of the ba- throne. These pictures, like most of those sis of the whole story. Evidences of Egyp- discovered at Pompeii, were executed on tian worship are not unfrequent. An elegant temple disinterred next to that of Esculapius is shown by an inscription over the entrance to have been dedicated to Isis, to have been overthrown by an earthquake, The the plaster of the wail. It appears, however, that movable pictures were not unknown. In the handsome house in the street of Stabiæ, excavated in 1847, and assigned on the evidence of an inscription to interest. M. Lucretius, a Flamen of Mars and Decu-|ly as a new-born infant — kept in an unvarying rio of Pompeii, the walls of the tablinum temperature, if it is to be of any real use. To are painted with architectural subjects. play at billiards, therefore, people have had to Among these are spaces for two large paint-go to a public table, and generally to an hotel. ings, which have either been carried away, late hours and brandy and water. The game has come to be associated with or had not yet been fixed in their places ing has brought gambling with it. But bagaPublic playwhen Pompeii was overwhelmed. A full telle boards, sufficiently accurate to afford conaccount of the principal paintings and siderable amusement, are cheap enough to be sculptures, together with a critical discussion within the reach of persons of very moderate of the methods and materials in use among means; and they have been made of a form and the artists of the age, is given by Dr. Dyer. size which render a special room unnecessary. Of these, the noblest mosaic is beyond com- Bagatelle, therefore, has been dissociated from parison that discovered in the house of the the evils which have given an evil name to bilFaun, not less than 18 feet long by 9 broad, liards; it has made home pleasant; the girls supposed to represent one of the battles of the nobler game has lost its reputation from bad and boys have played with their father. While Alexander and Darius, probably that at the company, the inferior game has kept its honour Issus. Few paintings of any age can excel almost stainless. Again: there are large numin fire and animation the celebrated head of bers of good people who look kindly upon the Achilles giving up Briseis, in the house of rod and the line, though they regard a man that the tragic poet. And statuettes like those carries a gun (unless he happens to be an Afriof the dancing Faun, the Silenus, and those can missionary or a Western settler) as belongof sundry animal figures, are not surpassed ing to the devil's regiment. How is this? Has by the finest remains of classic art. We lay Izaak Walton made all the difference? Would down Dr. Dyer's work with regret at not praises had been sung by a spirit as pure and shooting have been as innocent as fishing, if its being able to afford space for a more comsimple as that of the biographer of the saintly plete epitome of its multifarious points of George Herbert? Hardly. Perhaps the root of the distinction lies in this - that men commonly go alone to the river, and in parties to the stubble. The angler is generally a quiet, meditative man; he is silent, solitary, and gentle; he "handles his worm tenderly;" half his enjoyment lies in penetrating into the secret places of Nature, in surprising her shy and hidden beauties, in watching the pleasant wooing which is always going on in shady places in summer time between the murmuring, rippling waters, and the ash, the beech, and the willow, which stoop to kiss them as they pass. He loves stillness and peace. The country parson may think over his text while his float drifts lazily with the current, or while he wanders by the stream watching for the silver flashes which tempt him to throw his fly. The men that delight to hear the whirr of the partridge are generally of another sort. Anyhow, September brings shooting dinners as well as birds; and with many people heavy drinking is inseparably associated with heavy bags of game. They do not object to eat the partridges when they are shot; but they have the impression that the men who shoot them are a roystering, rollicking set, with whom it is undesirable that their sons should be too intimate. All this is rapidly changing; in many parts of the country it has quite disappeared; but I am inclined to think-speaking of those whom I know best that though a Nonconformist minister, with a cast of flies on his hat, and a rod on his shoulder, would feel no shyness at meeting accidentally the very gravest of his deacons, he would rather be on the other side of the hedge if he happened to have on his gaiters, and to be carrying his gun. — Good AMUSEMENTS. For instance, it is no doubt quite as easy to play at chess for money as to play at whist for money; but people who want the excitement of gambling are impatient of the tedious length to which the one game often extends, and prefer the more rapid movement of the other. The two games are equally games of skill, and require an equal amount, though a different kind, of intellectual effort; but by the one a clever player may win a good number of sixpences or half-crowns in an evening, while the other is too solemn and slow to be made subordinate to the pecuniary profits of success. Professionals may play for a heavy stake, and heavy bets may be laid on the rival players as the fortunes of the game ebb and flow; but under ordinary circumstances chess is not a convenient disguise for gambling. This is probably the reason that a chess-board may be found in hundreds of houses where the difference between spades and diamonds is quite unknown. There can be no more harm in playing with pieces of coloured pasteboard than with pieces of carved ivory; but cards have been always associated with gambling, and chess has not. Nor is it difficult to explain why bagatelle is allowed, and billiards are forbidden. A billiard table is a large and costly piece of furniture. It needs a room for itself, and a room such as few families belonging to the middle classes have ever been able to spare for the purpose. It must be treated as tender-Words. POETRY: A Riddle by Garrick, 322. My Love and I, 322. A Death-bed, 322. SHORT ARTICLES: The Tent on the Beach, and other poems, 342. Washing, 360. The Private Letters of St. Paul and St. John, 384. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the Living Age will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year; nor where we have to pay a commission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. Second " The Complete work 88 64 220 " Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense the publishers. A RIDDLE BY GARRICK. KITTY, a fair but frozen maid, Kindled a flame I still deplore. At once he sought the midway air, And soon he cleared with dexterous care She kindles slow but lasting fires; Say by what title or what name, The answer is "A CHIMNEY SWEEP;" and the cleverness of this trifle is shown in its throwing guessers off the scent by sending them to explore the region of fades, common-places about love, and flames and cupids. MY LOVE AND I. AND we sat in the quiet evening, All alone, my love and I, For she sang me a gay song sweetly, In a dream I was still beside her In the summer woods and dells, And I led her on in the sunlight To the sound of village bells. And she sang me a grave song sadly, That was soft and sweet and low, Of the good Book's golden promise, That wine and oil should flow. From the Westminster Review. THE LAST GREAT MONOPOLY. HUDSON'S BAY TERRITORY. -RED RIVER COUNTRY. 1. Papers relative to the Exploration, by the Expedition under Captain Palliser, of that portion of British North America which lies between the Northern Branch of the Saskatchewan and the Frontier of the United States, and between the Red River and the Rocky Mountains, and thence to the Pacific Ocean. Presented to the House of Parliament, 1860-63-65. 2. Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society from 1859 to 1865. London: 1865. Sir GEORGE SIMPSON, Governor-inChief of the Hudson's Bay Territories in North America. London: 1847. THE possession of almost absolute power over a vast extent of territory, by a trading company claiming a right to the land in fee simple, and an entire monopoly of the trade therein, is an anomaly which is still exhibited within the bounds of the British empire. The great merchant company of the East is indeed dead, but its hardier brother of the North, although never attaining such gigantic luxuriousness of growth, still stands strongly rooted, and sturdily resists the many blows from time to time directed against it. The Hudson's Bay Company remains the Lord Proprietor of a portion of North America more than half as large as Europe, over which it rules supreme and 3. The North-West Passage by Land. Be- alone, the Last Great Monopoly. The ing the narrative of an Expedition trading monopoly has to some extent been from the Atlantic to the Pacific, under-shorn of its former grand proportions by the taken with a view of exploring a route loss of Oregon and Washington Territory, across the Continent to British Colum- which became the property of the United bia, through British Territory, by one States by virtue of the treaty of 1846, and of the Northern Passes in the Rocky of British Columbia and Vancouver Island, Mountains. By Viscount MILTON, which have become crown colonies, and the F.R.G.S., F.G.S., &c., and W. B. company there reduced to the condition of CHEADLE, M.A., M.D., F.R.G.S. simple traders, without any exclusive privileges. The original grant by the royal charter included only that area of country which is drained by rivers flowing into Hudson's Bay, the rest of their territory being merely held on lease for the purpose of exclusive trade and sole government. But the whole of the vast watershed of Hudson's Bay, the Rupert's Land of the charter, comprising the greater portion of America north of the forty-ninth parallel, is, if the charter be valid, not only entirely in the hands of the Hudson's Bay Company, but their property absolutely and completely, except in so far as the Indians of the country may dispute their title. The only oasis of civilization in this enormous extent of wild and virgin country, is the solitary settlement of Red River, situated at the point where that river is joined by the Assiniboine, about forty miles before it falls into the great Lake Winnepeg. This little colony, numbering some 10,000 people, is, with the rest of Rupert's Land, under the sole and absolute control of the Hudson's Bay Company. How this condition of things arose requires a brief explanation. In the year 1670 Charles the Second incorporated by royal charter an association of certain noblemen and gentlemen, with Prince Rupert at their head, into one 4. Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Hudson's Bay Company. 1857. 5. Narrative of the Canadian Red River Exploring Expedition of 1857, and of the Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Exploring Expedition of 1858. By HENRY YOULE HIND, M.A., F R.G.S. Lon don: 1860. 6. The Hudson's Bay Company, its Position and Prospects. By JAMES DODDS. London: 1866. 7. America from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 8. Physical Features of the Central Part of |