lites. He and they, incited by their old hatred, tried to fix on the Bishop and his followers the guilt of the sedition. One of their first acts was to sequestrate the property of Balthasar Slör, public notary, and the Bishop's agent. They also denounced him to the Emperor as a mutineer. Slör implored from the Emperor an impartial judgment on the whole circumstances, but his beseechings remained unregarded. He then sought the protection of Sickingen, already well known as the puissant friend of the wronged and the unfortunate. Sickingen, finding that milder forms of intercession on behalf of Slör were in vain, proclaimed war against the city, and carried on hostilities for three years with untiring vigour and unrelenting hate. The city, after suffering immense damage, was at last relieved by imperial troops. Sickingen was placed under the ban of the empire. But, before any attempts were made to execute it, friends obtained his pardon from the Emperor. He now turned his arms against the Landgrave of Hesse. He besieged Darmstadt, and did not agree to withdraw his army till a ransom of thirty-six thousand Hessian florins was paid. He then attacked Antony Duke of Lorraine, at the request of Count Gargolf von Geroldseck, on account of certain grievances which he had suffered at the hands of the Duke. He compelled the Duke to make ample indemnification to the Count for all the injuries of which he complained. His work as the redresser of wrongs multiplied. Many citizens who had been banished from Metz, seeking fruitlessly elsewhere a hand willing and able to help them, repaired to him. He marched against Metz with four thousand cavalry and seventeen thousand infantry. The inhabitants were glad to prevent matters from coming to extremities, by the payment of large sums and by agreeing to whatever terms in other respects he chose to dictate. A more dangerous and important enterprise than any in which he had yet been engaged next awaited Sickingen. He was selected by the Emperor as an instrument eminently fit to chastise Duke Ulrich von Wurtemberg, who had proved himself a haughty and re

bellious vassal, and who had sullied his glory as a prince and his honour as a knight by the most shameless misdeeds. It was not with his whole heart that Sickingen engaged in this enterprise, for he saw amid all that was evil in the Duke qualities which he could not help respecting and admiring. If he did not however bring his whole heart, he brought his whole talent and valour, and did not disapappoint the expectations that were formed of him. Of all the subaltern powers in Germany none had contributed so materially to the elevation of Charles the Fifth to the imperial throne as Sickingen. As a natural consequence he received demonstrations of the most distinguished favour from the new Emperor. He was appointed, along with Count Henry of Nassau, commander of the army that was sent against Francis the First of France. But a divided command is always a cardinal blunder, and so it proved in this case. Instead of annihilating the enemy in the open field, as Sickingen wished, Heinrich von Nassau preferred besieging Mézières. The city was not strongly fortified, and, when vigorously attacked by Sickingen's artillery, was on the point of surrendering, when it was saved by a stratagem of the celebrated Chevalier de Bayard who was at the head of the garrison. This led to the retreat of the imperial army. Thenceforth Sickingen is most notable for us as an enthusiastic furtherer of the Reformation and the generous protector of the Reformers. The ban of the empire was a second time hurled at him. He had to battle bravely for his existence and for the great principles which he upheld. He was at last besieged, in 1523, by overwhelming forces in his castle at Landstuhl. offered a valiant resistance, but the great guns of the assailants soon smashed the walls to pieces; he was dangerously wounded by the falling of a beam, and at last compelled to capitulate. He had been conveyed to a subterranean vault to protect him from the balls, and there he was found dying, and only able to utter a few broken words full of stoical strength and Christian resignation. Monkery exulted over his grave as much as every true German heart deplored,

He

To the Reformers his death was the direst of disasters. All his immense possessions were confiscated, and it was only on humiliating conditions that his descendants recovered a small por

tion of them. Such was the man who was much influenced by and who much influenced Ulrich von Hutten; grand knightly natures both.

FRANCIS HARWELL.

AMONG the various restorations of the works of our national architecture which distinguish the present generation, there are many more useful, but none more pleasing and gratifying to the eye of taste, than those of the elegant monumental crosses of our forefathers. The two remaining crosses of Queen Alianor, at Waltham* and Northampton,† are among those which have received this attention; and it was from them (particularly the former) that the beautiful Martyrs' Memorial erected at Oxford was designed. The monument raised to the memory of Sir Walter Scott at Edinburgh has also been erected after the model of the ancient crosses, and it is a gorgeous mass of pinnacle-work, though inconsistently applied as the canopy or shrine of a colossal seated figure. Another monument, erected near Sleaford, in Lincolnshire, to the memory of the late Mr. Handley, M.P. for that county, has also taken this favourite form, and it has been applied with considerable success.

The Bristol High Cross, one of the most graceful of our ancient monuments of this class, was banished from that city by the Vandalism of the last century, and was preserved only, at a distant spot, by the taste for landscape gardening which owed its esti

mation to the popularity of Capability Brown. A better feeling has at length sprung up among the citizens of Bristol, and it has manifested itself in a desire to possess again this relic of their ancient glories. The return of the original Cross, however, were its present owner disposed to part with it, would be next to impossible from the decayed state of its material; and measures have consequently been taken to erect a new Cross designed in strict accordance with the earlier portions of the original. This has just been completed, under the superintending care of Mr. John Norton, M. R. Inst. B. A.,§ who very handsomely volunteered his services for the purpose. From the reports which this gentleman has made to the committee of subscribers, we are enabled to gather the following accurate particulars.

The original situation of the High Cross at Bristol was, as at Gloucester,|| Chichester, and other large towns, at the intersection of the main streets in the centre of the city. It received material repairs in the year 1633, when the upper part was rebuilt, with the addition of new statues. But just one century later a silversmith, who lived near it, conceived that it so far obstructed the access to his shop that he offered to swear before the magistrates

that every high wind his house and life were endangered by its shaking and threatening to fall. This attack was triumphant; in 1733 the roadway was "improved" by its removal, and its parts were laid by in the Guildhall. Still there were many of the citizens who regretted its removal, and, after a few years, by the interposition of Alderman Price, and a few gentlemen in the neighbourhood of the College Green, it was rescued from its obscurity and erected in the centre of the green, with the approbation of the Dean and Chapter.

Here for a time it was viewed with pleasure as a curious piece of antiquity, and regarded as an appropriate and admirable ornament.* But the changes of time again interfered with its position. The College Green happened to be then the fashionable promenade with the visitors of the Hot Wells, and in 1763 it was discovered that the old Cross interfered with the practice of ladies and gentlemen walking eight or ten abreast! The Dean and Chapter consenting to its removal, a subscription was raised for "improving the Green," and also for rebuilding the Cross in any unexceptionable place. But the money was expended in the walks, and the Cross was thrown by in a corner of the Cathedral, where it lay long neglected, until in 1780 Dean Barton gave it to Mr. Hoare of Stourhead. It was erected at the entrance to his grounds from the village of Stourton, at the expense of about 3007.

Mr. Norton, on examining its condition in 1848, found it in a lamentable stage of decay, and from the very ruinous state of the angle-buttresses, &c., had some difficulty in determining exactly its original design. Its material being a coarse-grained oolite, had readily absorbed moisture, and consequently suffered from frost. During its early days this was counteracted by successive coatings of paint, which were applied not only to the statues, but to the whole surface of the work. The colours used were red, vermilion,

blue, and gold. The gilding may still be traced in every part; but the vermilion is the best preserved, being even now of a rich hue, while the blue has faded to a pale grey. The dresses of the figures were generally painted with vermilion, their mantles and minor portions of dress with blue, the borders and other subsidiary ornamental parts being relieved with gold.

Besides the decay resulting from the neglect of a renewal of the paint, another destructive agency has resulted from the oxydisation of the iron cramps used in connecting the several parts; some of which have so swollen as to raise the stones from their position, and thereby to occasion the disruption and fall of important portions. The lower story was filled up with solid masonry upon its re-erection, for the purpose of support. The size of the original central column is therefore not ascertained; but Mr. Norton has judged it most accordant to the spirit of the design to make it as light as is consistent with safe construction, bearing in mind that the superincumbent weight is very considerable. The form of the arch in this stage is flat, being segmental, and nearly approaching to a four-centred arch. The ogee arch being high, a large spandrel space is left for foliation. The crockets and finial are unusually large, and very boldly carved; the character of the trefoil open panelling of the lower pedestals is late, and the whole detail is of good Perpendicular, but partaking somewhat of the earlier or Decorated character. From the elegance of the present outline,t Mr. Norton concludes that the original form and height have been preserved, though the upper portion has been renewed in a debased and heterodox character, and in the lower stages some traces of a later taste are also discoverable, particularly in some cusp terminations resembling Italian cherubs' heads. Above the sitting figures is also a tier or frieze of boys bearing shields, evidently of Charles's time, which looks crowded and excrescence