course, twice, and the following palaces once; the Borghese, richest of all the private collections of paintings in Rome, the Doria, the Corsini, and the Barberini, famous for its one picture, the Cenci, so often copied, but so inimitable.

Of the ruins of Rome we walked over some dead men's graves, heeding them not; over others we bent long and patiently to reach the past. The Coliseum, the Arch of Titus, the Baths of Diocletian need no guide; they tell their own tale. We spent one day at Frescati and neighborhood, where, mirabile dictu, a railway now runs from Rome across the Campagna. We climbed the hill of Tusculum, walked on to Marino, and then up the shady hill to the rocky ridge of Alba Longa, and the lake lying below.

These were the principal landmarks we sighted during our short stay in Rome, and which we record for the benefit of others as pressed for time as we were. As for the rest, for minor churches and out-of-theway antiquities, we say to the ordinary tourist, avoid them. When a Mussulman has seen every sight in a town, has embraced his friends, and has nothing further to do or see, he crosses his legs, lights his pipe, and enjoys his keff. He puts his soul and body to sleep, and dreams on for a week until it is time to start. Now, rather than spend a season, as many do, in Rome, going from post to pillar, from one ugly pile of stucco to another, we would at once take a Mohammedan keff, and spend the rest of our time conjuring up gorgeous dreams of what we had seen. Thanks to the Empress of Russia, we saw the two grandest sights of Rome to the greatest advantage. On Monday St. Peter's was illuminated from the pavement to the cross. The night was dark and mild, and the lamps, suspended four hundred and thirty feet in the air, were not once put out by the wind. As the bell struck nine the torches were suddenly lighted all round the roof, and it seemed as if the great pile was on fire, while the bells ringing a peal seemed like alarm bells rung at a fire. It was difficult to get the impression out of the mind that St. Peter's was on fire, and we awoke next morning almost inclined to ask had the whole pile been burnt down in the night.

We did not see the Coliseum by moonlight, so we are saved a description of what is the common stock of all travelers

to Rome; we saw it instead by torchlight. At nine o'clock on Saturday evening, at the discharge of a rocket, the whole circumference of the Coliseum broke out in a blaze of light. Bengal lights, set behind every arch, sent out a glare of light which, for a few minutes, was as bright as day. Then thick columns of smoke rolled up, covering the great amphitheater as if with a curtain, like the awning which once stretched across it in the days of its glory. Then as the lights turned red, it seemed as if some great conflagration had happened in the city, and the crowds that elbowed their way out as the empress drove off, seemed to be flying for their lives, with the cry of fire in their ears. The outside was then illuminated in the same way as the inside. Each story of arches could be distinctly counted, the plants that grew in the crevices of the walls, and even the marble slab inserted here and there in the brick surface, with the name of the pontiff who had restored the Coliseum, could be distinctly read. It was a glorious sight. Artificial lights set off best the works of man, as God's two great lights alone can the works of God. A mountain by torch-light is ridiculous; the torches are seen, not the mountain; but the Coliseum by torch-light was effective; the building was not too vast for the illuminating power. By night, too, the great works of nature are hid from view; the distant mountains do not drag down our mole-hills of brick and stone, or our torches pale their ineffectual fires before the eye of day. We yield to the graceful delusion, and think for a moment there is nothing grander than man, or more surprising than his works. But Bengal lights soon go out, and sober reason resumes her sway. We turn our steps homeward, and next day laugh at our own childishness.

We had engaged a vetturino to start with us after the illumination to Civita Vecchia, to catch the steamer for Leghorn next day. So at ten P. M. we made our way through crowds of Romans who had turned out, like ourselves, to see the fireworks, to the office of the pope's privileged diligences, where our slow-coach stood with three lazy black horses harnessed to it, to crawl all night over the road from Rome to Civita Vecchia.

We threaded the narrow streets again in darkness; again crossed the Ponte St.

Angelo, and again passed the barrier as we had entered it seven nights before, and stole away up the hills, and out of sight of the lamps of Rome.

DOGS BEFORE MEN.

men

ders, by the emperor. To carry a dog for a certain distance was, in the time of Otto the First, and after it, one of the severest punishments inflicted on unruly princes. Nobles of lower rank carried, instead of the dog, a chair; peasants, a plow-wheel.

Emperor Frederic Barbarossa went to

walked first, and it was not unnatural that they should be received as household deities, who were set up by the priests as symbols of the supreme power, watching over people in their homes and driving evil from their thresholds. For a like reason the ancient Romans dressed the images of their Lares, or household gods, in dog-skin. In the present day even the very smallest dogs are to be found cherished as household deities.

Gunar, a Swedish tyrant, once upon a time, to inflict shame on his subjects, set a dog over them to be their king, and gave the dog bad ministers, in order that the public might be well plagued in his name. It also happened that when the people of Drontheim had slain the son of Oisten, Prince of Upland, Oisten bade them choose whether they would have for their king his slave Taxe, or his dog Saer. The Drontheimers chose to be ruled by Saer the First, because they hoped to make a good dog of him, and to enjoy much liberty under his chain. Saer had not long been seated on the throne before he was enchanted by his subjects, and became the wisest monarch of his time, having, it is recorded, as much wisdom as three sages. He also became able to talk, in every three words of a sentence, barking two and speaking one, very distinctly.

This story ought not to be doubted. For was not the famous shepherd's dog, of Weissenfels, taught by a boy who pinched his throat and put fingers into his mouth until he had learned to speak words like a man, and did not an Austrian travel through Holland in the year 1718, who could say his, or rather our, alphabet, except only the letters, L, M, N? Read Drechsler on the Speech of Brutes.

Among the old Franks, Suabians, and Saxons, a dog was held in small esteem; nevertheless, and, indeed, for that cause, he was not seldom set over the highest nobles of the land. If a great dignitary had, by broken faith, disturbed peace in the realm, a dog was put upon his shoul

The

when upon his way, found that there was murderous strife between Hermann, Count Palatine of the Rhine, and the Archbishop Arnold of Mayence. By this quarrel the banks of the Rhine were stained with much blood. After his return, therefore, Barbarossa called a Diet at Worms, before which he cited both the disputants. They appeared, each expecting that his adversary was to be discomfited. emperor, having heard the case, ordered the Count Palatine and ten counts, his allies, to march over the border, each with a dog upon his back; the other nobles concerned in the quarrel were to take the same march of a German mile, carrying stools, and the peasantry to go after with plow-wheels. The clergy were condemned to suffer a like punishment; but, saving their reverence, it was allowed to be performed for them by proxy. Soon after the year twelve hundred, Gerhard, a lord in Querfurt, had, with other nobles, fallen upon a pious man, Deacon of Magdeburg cathedral, as he journeyed on the highway, and deprived him of his eyes. peror Philip fined this Gerhard very heavily, and made him walk at the head of five hundred of his knights from the spot on which the outrage was committed to the gate of Magdeburg cathedral, each man with a dog upon his shoulders.

Em

The ancient Persians symbolized Ormazd, their god, in the form of a dog; for, to a nomad race, there is no animal so dear, no type of a Divine watchfulness so true, as the protector of the herd. A thousand lashes was the punishment for maiming any able dog, and it was capital offense to kill one. The sight of a dog by dying men was said to comfort them with bodings of the conquest of all evil and of their immortal peace. In later times the Persians held it to be a good token for the dead if a dog approached the corpse and ate from between the lips a bit of bread that had been placed 'there; but, if no dog would approach the body, that was held to be a sign of evil for the soul.

THE Snow has left the cottage-top;
The thatch-moss grows in brighter green;
And eaves in quick succession drop,
Where grinning icicles have been,
Pit-patting with a pleasant noise

In tubs set by the cottage-door;
While ducks and geese, with happy joys,
Plunge in the yard-pond brimming o'er.

The sun peeps through the window-pane, Which children mark with laughing eye, And in the wet streets steal again,

To tell each other Spring is nigh. Then as young Hope the past recalls, In playing groups they often draw, To build beside the sunny walls

Their spring-time huts of sticks or straw.

And oft in pleasure's dream they hie

Round homesteads by the village side, Scratching the hedge-row mosses by, Where painted pooty shells abide; Mistaking oft the ivy spray

For leaves that come with budding spring, And wondering, in their search for play, Why birds delay to build and sing.

The mavis thrush, with wild delight,
Upon the orchard's dripping tree
Mutters, to see the day so bright,
Fragments of young Hope's poesy;
VOL. XII.-19

And dame oft stops her buzzing wheel, To hear the robin's note once more, Who tootles while he pecks his meal From sweet-briar hips beside the door.

AF

A VISIT TO WYOMING MONUMENT. FEW weeks since, while on my way home from the coal-regions of central Pennsylvania, I left the Wyoming dépôt. to view the ground where the celebrated battle of Wyoming was fought. It was with peculiar feelings that I approached the monument erected to commemorate that interesting incident in our Revolutionary struggle. While there is nothing very picturesque in the granite pile before you, it refers one back to the time when this beautiful valley, where nature comes forth in all her loveliness to cheer the weary traveler, was running with human gore; when a combined British Tory and Indian force was slaughtering our patriotic countrymen, spreading devastation and waste on all sides.

In view of the courage of those who fought against thrice their own numbers with valor that deserved success, I thought if I could take any part to commemorate their bravery, by taking a sketch of the monument for publication, I would do it with all willingness.

It is of granite, sixty-three feet high, with a door on the side from the public road, and with marble slabs in the other three sides, with the following inscription: "Near this spot was fought, on the afternoon of the third of July, 1778, the Battle of Wyoming, in which a small band of patriotic Amer

icans, chiefly the undisciplined, the youthful, and the aged, spared from inefficiency by the distant ranks of the 'republic, led by Colonel Zebulon Butler and Colonel Nathan Dennison, with a courage that deserved success, fearlessly met and bravely fought a combined British Tory and Indian force of thrice their number. Numerical superiority alone gave success to the invader, and wide-spread havoc, desolation, and ruin, marked his savage and bloody footsteps through the valley.

"This monument, commemorative of these

events, and in memory of the actors in them,

has been erected over the bones of the slain by their descendants and others, who gratefully appreciated the services and sacrifices of their patriotic ancestors."

Upon the slabs placed in the right and left sides were the names of the slain, of which there were two officers, ten captains, ten lieutenants, and six ensigns. I did not count the number of privates, for the shrill sound of the whistle was borne to me by the gentle zephyrs, announcing that the train was approaching; so I left in haste, arrived at the dépôt in time to get comfortably seated, and was swiftly borne from the beautiful valley of Wyoming.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE BIBLE.

ABRAHAM, THE FATHER OF THE FAITHFUL.

I'

[T is said of Abraham, in the epistle to the Romans, that he believed God, and it, that is, his belief, was counted unto him for righteousness. The apostle quotes from the book of Genesis, thereby evincing not only that the New Testament teaching is the same as that of the Old, but that the cardinal doctrine of salvation by faith was no novelty even in the time of Moses. He tells us, not that Abraham merited anything by his obedience, by his diligence, or even by his love, but that he believed, and that his belief was counted to him for righteousness.

To a delineation of his character and to his personal history the sacred writer devotes more space than he has occupied with all who preceded him; and, throughout the Bible, frequent reference is made to his faith and his obedience. He is styled the father of the faithful and the friend of God.

Abraham was by birth a Chaldean, but the precise location of Ur, his birthplace, is unknown. It is supposed to have been in a district which lies above the confluence of the Tigris and the Euphrates, which afterward became the seat of the great Babylonian monarchy. The inhabitants were idolaters, and worshiped the stars of heaven. To these Chaldean stargazers is traced the origin of astronomical science, and among them Sabianism, or the worship of the heavenly bodies, and other idolatries, had already greatly perverted the simple forms of the patriarchal religion, and obscured the great design of its typical ceremonies. It is probable that Abraham, in the early part of his life, was himself an idolater, for although that fact is not distinctly stated, it is said that his fathers served other gods.

He is first introduced to us when he had already reached his seventy-fifth year, and of his early life and of his conversion to the true religion we have no account upon which any dependence can be placed. The Jews fill up this space in the life of their great progenitor with many ingenious fictions. One of these, accounting for his conversion, I shall here subjoin as a specimen of their traditions:

As Abraham was walking by night from the grotto where he was born to the city of Babylon, so runs the story, he gazed on the stars of heaven, and among them on the beautiful planet Venus. Behold, said he within himself, the God and Lord of the universe. But the star set and disappeared, and Abraham felt that the Lord of the universe could not thus be liable to change. Shortly after, he beheld the moon at the full. Lo, he cried, the Divine Creator, the manifest Deity! but the moon sunk below the horizon, and Abraham made the same reflection as at the setting of the evening star. All the rest of the night he passed in profound rumination; at sunrise he stood before the gates of Babylon, and saw the whole people prostrate in adoration before the great luminary of day. Wondrous orb, he exclaimed, thou surely art the Creator and Ruler of all nature! but thou, too, hastest, like the rest, to thy setting! neither then art thou my Creator, my Lord, or my God.

While Abraham dwelt in Ur, the sacred writer tells us that the God of glory appeared to him, in what manner we are not informed, but certainly in a way that was satisfactory to Abraham, and said unto him, Get thee out from thy country and from thy kindred, and go into the land which I shall show thee. In unhesitating obedience Abraham went out, not knowing whither he went. He was accompanied by his wife Sarah, Terah his father, his brother Nahor, and Lot, his nephew, a circumstance which seems to indicate that they also had abandoned idolatry, and were now worshipers of the true God They pitched their tents, at first, in Haran or Charran, in Mesopotamia, an extensive tract of country, so called from its lying between the great rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, and after remaining there a few years his father Terah died, at the age of two hundred and five years.