such an ignorance of artistic character-such a confusion of words and things so much parade of learning with such shallow scholarship-so many errors exhibited in so narrow a compass, since the time when that adventurous youth, the Hon. Charles Boyle, undertook the forlorn hope of proving that the supposed epistles of Phalaris were genuine! Fortunately, however, they are so very patent that it does not require the powers of a Bentley to demolish them" (9).

The chair is described as ornamented at the sides and on the back with a series of pilasters or columns supporting arches, which is a style of architecture that Dr. Wiseman thinks characteristic of the Augustan age. The chair, therefore, is manifestly of Roman workmanship-a curule chair, such as might be occupied by the head of the Church, adorned with ivory and gold as might befit the house of a wealthy Roman senator; whilst the exquisite finish of the sculpture forbids us to consider it more modern than the Augustan age, when the arts were in their greatest perfection." And having rings at the sides—which Dr. Wiseman thinks to be evidence that it was intended to be borne on the shoulders of men, "this peculiarity fixes it at a period not earlier than the reign of Cladius" when "sella gestatoria" began to be used by men of rank in Rome.

Mr. Rich asserts that "the practice of supporting arches upon columns or upon pillars was unknown to the architects of the Augustan era." "There is no instance on record, nor any authentic example in existence, of such a method of construction till long after the age of Augustus or of Claudius, probably not earlier than the time of Constantine;" so that this first note of antiquity is turned against Dr. Wiseman. But next, the chair is manifestly a curule chair. Indeed (says Mr. Rich), Dr. Wiseman seems to think the being borne on men's shoulders made it so:

"The curule chair, sella curulis, was a small portable seat, constructed so that it could be folded together like our camp stools, and expanded to receive a cushion for sitting upon when in use; but its legs or branches were bent into a curve instead of being straight, whence the Greek writers call it the crooked-footed seat. The contrivance was adopted by the Romans from Etruria, and the thing itself was invented for the convenience of being transported with its owner wherever he went-whence it received his name, as the old Roman antiquarians (Aulus Gellius, Festus, Servius) indicate, who connect the analogy with currus, like equus, curulis, &c....... But the contradiction does not end here. The privilege of using curule chairs was confined to the sovereign, the consuls, prætors, and curule ediles; and as it is not recorded that St. Peter enjoyed either of these dignities, it is clear that he could not have used his present when he got it" (13).

But even the assertion concerning sellæ gestatoriæ is shown by Mr. Rich to be an anachronism. For in the time of Claudius the use of this luxury was confined to the emperor. Dio Cassius expressly states this fact saying-"Now, in my time, the employment of sedans is not confined to the sovereign exclusively, for we also who are of consular dignity are carried in them. Dio flourished 194 years after Christ, or more than a century later than the assumed residence of St. Peter at Rome" (15).

Chimentelli, who received a golden medal from Alexander VII. for the description of St. Peter's chair and for the eulogiums passed upon the Pope for honouring this sacred relic, describes it as being of wood and of very coarse workmanship" Lignea est, et admodum rudi opificio.". Dr. Wiseman describes it as being of ivory and gold, and its workmanship as most exquisite. How are these statements to be reconciled? A statement of Severanus de Septem Urbis Ecclesiis helps us to reconcile these things; for he says, that, when a fire in the Vatican broke out, everything in the building was consumed saving St. Peter's chair. "S. Petri lignea cathedra exorto forte incendio, et omnia circum-circa late depascente, in mediis flammis, divina ut credimus virtute illæs a permansit" (152).

This solves the mystery: the old chair, which Severanus says was of wood, was burned; but it would never do to lose the credit of so precious a relic; therefore another was got in its place, and a handsome chair of ivory and gold-none of your old wooden chairs of coarse barbarous workmanship! The figure in Chimentelli, which alone will agree with his description, "is a low four-legged stool, without any back to it, not at all resembling Dr. Wiseman's" (27).

And what would our readers suppose to be the subjects of these ornamental sculptures of the ivory chair, the workmanship of which Dr. Wiseman says is so exquisite? The subjects are none other than the fabulous history of the heathen god Hercules and his twelve labours! Is it credible that St. Peter would countenance Pagan idolatry by accepting such a gift, or by permitting such kind of sculptures to profane the assemblies of Christians ?-assuredly not. But at the time when the conflagration took place they had been long familiarised with this mixture of Heathen and Christian emblems; and those who substituted the ivory for the wooden chair might even have imagined that there was something very appropriate in the ornaments, and that there

was a great analogy between the labours of Hercules and those of St. Peter.

Mr. Rich reminds us that Trajan carried away the royal chair, decorated with ivory and gold, amongst the spoils of his Parthian victories; and that this chair, though often reclaimed by the Parthian envoys, and even promised to be returned by Hadrian, was never restored. And he says that it is far more likely that Dr. Wiseman's is this Parthian chair than any other hypothesis that has been proposed. There is a stone chair at Venice which was brought from Antioch in the time of the crusades, and which had formerly been held in great reverence, as having been occupied by St. Peter during his stay at Antioch; and, as it is never the Roman practice to be behind any of her neighbours in such respects, the ivory Parthian chair became a very good set off against the stone chair of Venice.

Of the facility with which a heathen god now passes into the Roman Church, we have an instance in the so-called statue of St. Peter, which every good Papist is in the constant habit of adoring without being conscious that he is kissing the foot of the statue of Jupiter. And another instance is given which is still richer, inasmuch as four saints are manufactured out of the heathen god Bacchus, and stand together with himself in the Roman calendar :

"Crowds of Christians may be seen every day in the Vatican basilic, kissing the bronze toe of that divinity, who has had the Paganism taken out of him by Papal consecration, and the substitution of a door-key for a thunderbolt in his hand. How many Pagan temples of old Rome, when no longer tolerated as such, have yet been tolerated when converted by a fresh inscription into Papal churches? How many Pagan gods, goddesses, heroes, and abstract personifications, have been tolerated into Romanised saints? I will only trouble my readers with a single instance, which is too edifying and too appropriate to be omitted. The ancient Greeks worshipped Bacchus under the name of Dionysius, and gave him also the title of Eleutherius, which the Romans translated into Liber, the usual term by which this god is styled amongst them. Two principal fêtes were appointed in his honour-one at spring-time, which was celebrated in the city, and thence termed the town fête (urbanum) the other in the autumn, which was celebrated in the country, and thence termed the rustic fête (rusticum). To this latter an extra day was subsequently added, called the festival of Demetrius, out of flattery to Demetrius King of Macedon, who held his court at Petra on the Gulf of Thessalonica, and who was adopted in the year 303 into the Roman martyrology as the martyr of Thessalonica. The jolly god of wine appears also as a martyr under his oriental name of Saint Bacchus,' who suffered martyrdom in the East in the year 302,' precisely the

same cra as Saint Demetrius in Macedon. Now, the Pagan calendar would announce the autumnal fêtes of Bacchus in the following terms-The rustic festival of Dionysius Eleutherius-festum Dyonysii Elutherii rusticum-and in the modern Roman calendar it figured thus: The festival of St. Dyonisius or Denys, and of his companions St. Elutherius and St. Rustic! They found that the Pagan calendar announced on the previous day the feast of Demetrius; and, therefore, on the one preceding their own they inserted the vigil of St. Demetrius, martyr of Thessalonica;' and, on the one before that, the feast of St. Bacchus so that if we refer to the, breviary or calendar of the modern Roman priest, there will be found the following directions-7th of October, festival of St. Bacchus; 8th, festival of St. Demetrius; 9th, festival of Saints Denys, Eleuther, and Rustic !' Five gods of one person!" (22).

This same Denys is the patron saint of France; and, in the legend appointed to be read on this day, it is gravely affirmed that, being beheaded when he was more than a hundred years old, he took up the head and walked for two miles with his own head in his hand :-"De quo illud memoriæ traditum est, abscissum suum caput sustulisse, et progressum ad duo millia passuum in manibus gestasse." It was to this tale that the wit rejoined "C'est le premier pas qui coute." And though we copy it from an Austrian breviary and have no doubt that it is retained in Spain and Portugal, and probably in Italy, it is now struck out of the breviaries used in England and France as too gross for the countries where some portion of intelligence and sense is exercised in religion.

The frauds of all descriptions practised by the Romanists, even at the present day, wherever the medieval ignorance still lingers, would exceed belief were they not so well attested; like the two heads of John the Baptist in Spain which is gravely accounted for by one of them being taken off when he was a young man; or, "like the revelation of St. James, that was written by the apostle's own hand, and lay buried in Spain from that time to the fifteenth century, but had some parts in modern Spanish, which was not in being in the time of the apostle! When it was objected that this circumstance proved it to be a forgery, the learned Aldrete boldly asserted that St. James foreknew, by the gift of prophecy, when his writings would be dug up, and therefore used the language that would be current at the period of their discovery" (28). Such may be the nature of the shifts employed to get rid of Mr. Rich's proofs of the late manufacture of this chair-" a bit of rotten upholstery (as Father Gavazzi calls it), which modern imposture exalts to a pinnacle of shameless fraud."

Yet these exposures have immediate effect upon all intelligent persons, and through them will tell, sooner or later, upon the most ignorant. It is the consciousness of this exposure of their evil deeds, by the letting in of light, that makes the Romish priests so desperately opposed to the education of the people; it is the only hope they have of maintaining their ascendancy. But when the results of an intelligent observation and patient study of ancient monuments and customs are reduced into active operation, and practically applied as subordinate to, or confirmatory of, the evidence extracted from written texts, they afford the best, because the most striking, aids towards the discovery of historical truths" (31). And this service Mr. Rich has well performed in the work before us.

Sermons on Romanism and Tractarianism, and other Subjects suited to the Times. By EDWARD GIRDLESTONE, M.A., Vicar of Deane. London: Painter. 1851....

I

We shall best explain the author's object in publishing this volume of sermons by the following extract from the wellwritten preface:

"The late Papal aggression has stirred up, from John o'Groat's house to the Land's End, such a loud and hearty Protestant outcry as has had no parallel since the glorious days of the Reformation. This movement, on the part of the Roman Church, has thus proved as illtimed for her own interest as favourable to the cause of evangelical truth. There is, indeed, little occasion for fear with respect to open and avowed Popery. The gulf by which this is separated from Protestantism is almost impassable, unless spanned by some artificial structure. Such a bridge is Tractarianism, Puseyism, Anglo-Catholicism-the preaching of Roman doctrine and adoption of Roman ceremonies in the bosom of the Church of England itself. The entrance to this bridge is most elaborately concealed by music, painting, sculpture, architecture-the revival of medieval pageant, ceremony, and discipline-so that it is scarcely possible for any one to ascertain the precise moment at which the foot is first set upon it. It leads, nevertheless, as surely as insensibly, to an undue exaltation of the Prayer Book, the denial of the right of private interpretation of Scripture, the setting up of the Church in the place of Christ, the recognition of a sacrificing priesthood; and so, by a certain and easy passage, to the bosom of Papal Rome itself.

"With such a bridge, courting on every side the approach of the unwary, the author would have thought himself very remiss had he not availed himself of the powerful means supplied by the life and death of his martyred predecessor for providing his people with a practical safeguard against Popery, and all which savours of it, or leads to it. The great interest which the announcement of the four Sermons on