we observed in England, a country that glories in having shaken off the "superstitions of Popery," the horse-shoe nailed up in similar situations, with a like purpose! Yet admitting the possibility of Satanic intrusion, is not the cross the more Christian palladium of the two?

PAU.

A romantic little town, interesting at once to the historian, the antiquary, and the lover of beautiful scenery. Upon entering the gloomy courtyard of the castle, one seems to take leave of the present day, so identified are the surrounding walls with the aspect and associations of feudal times. A vaulted staircase, with a gorgeously groined roof, leads to the apartments of state, all in a sufficiently dilapidated condition, saving one freshly decorated vestibule, in the centre of which is exhibited the cradle of Henri Quatre, a huge shell, wherein tradition reports him to have been, at his birth, immersed in wine. This historical relic is suspended from spears interlaced in trophy-like fashion. From each of those spears were formerly suspended white flags, emblazoned with the ancient arms of France; but after the revolution of 1830, they were torn down. A most pitiable and ineffective species of indignity! The folly of Charles the Tenth, and madness or knavery of his ministers, could no more have tarnished the fleur-de-lis-emblazoned banners of St. Louis and Henri Quatre, than the vices and weaknesses of a Caligula or a Claudius could have thrown disgrace around the victorious eagles of Julius and Augustus Cæsar.

In an upper chamber of spacious dimension, and now utterly devoid of furniture, Henry of Bearn first drew breath. Adjoining is a small closet, alleged to have been his "cabinet de toilette."

From the terrace, or castle parapet, a most enchanting prospect is enjoyable. Immediately beneath is the picturesque old town, rising out of a valley, through which the brawling river Gave winds its fertilizing course. A long antiquated bridge, leading to the village of Juvençon, famed for its wines, green hills, undulating in graceful variety; and, at an apparently trifling distance, the gigantic Pyrenees, their snow-covered summits contrasting with occasional inward glimpses of the beautiful vallies that lie embosomed in that mountain range,-combine to form as exquisite a landscape as fancy ever conceived, or nature realized.

Henry the Fourth's park, the promenade of Pau, and commanding all the above scenery, presents to the lover of contemplation a field for

the enjoyment of his most romantic imaginings, particularly if he linger amidst its umbrageous walks when the peerless moon of southern Europe beams forth from a dark clear sky in cloudless brilliancy.

AUCH.

The "dim religious light" so loved by Milton, is perhaps more perfectly exemplified in the venerable cathedral of this ancient town, than in any other church in Europe, so great are the number and magnificence of the stained windows which decorate the choir aisles and the Lady chapel. Nothing can exceed the richness of colouring and delicacy of execution which distinguish this exquisite galaxy of painted glass. Broken into a thousand streams of varied light, the powerful rays of a southern sun invade the solemnity of the sanctuary, and almost seem to impart to the saints whose actions on earth the storied panes record, the glorified splendours of their celestial home.

TOULOUSE.

In the middle of a vast and sultry plain, the horizon of which is on every side bounded by mountains, stands the ancient and gloomy city of Toulouse. Traversing the Garonne by a broad and stately bridge, the traveller enters a long fauxbourg, then passes under a fine triumphal arch, and finds himself amidst narrow and intricate streets, thinly inhabited, prototypes of dulness and desertion. No breath of wind seems to relieve the oppressive monotony of the ever clear and heated atmosphere; and but for a really admirable system of general irrigation, by means of which every street is supplied with a rivulet of limpid water, and therefore wears a certain appearance of freshness, Toulouse might be compared to the focus of a burning-glass.

If to a person in full health the first aspect of this place be so lugubrious, how mournful must often be the feelings of those who repair thither as a place of last refuge from pulmonary disease! How many a beautiful English girl, pining under that hopeless malady, must have felt, upon entering for the first and last time, the melancholy city of Toulouse, after a long and wearisome pilgrimage from home, of how little avail its heat and closeness were to prove in her behalf, and has lamented having bidden farewell to the friends, and scenes, and associations of her native land, to linger out a brief remnant of existence here!

THE TOMB OF NARCISSA AT MONTPELlier.

The mortal remains of the young and beautiful daughter of Dr. Young, the author of the Night Thoughts, repose in the botanical garden of Montpellier. Ecclesiastical regulations forbade her being interred in consecrated ground,-a circumstance that was at the time, perhaps naturally enough, regarded and resented by our sublime poet as a gross indignity; in consequence of which, however, his daughter's tomb has attained a celebrity it had not otherwise laid claim to. A white marble slab in an arched grotto, approached by a winding path, records in three words the fate of the child, and the feelings of the parent :

"Placandis Narcissæ manibus."

LA MAISON CARRÉE, NISMES.

This exquisitely beautiful temple, the most entire specimen extant of an ancient religious edifice, is in architecture what the Venus of Medicis is in sculpture,- —a chef-d'œuvre of art and elegance, of which no modern drawing, model, or imitation, can furnish an adequate notion.

"La Maison Carrée" is 70 feet in length, 36 in breath, and 36 in height, and is externally surrounded with fluted Corinthian columns, thirty in number, of most graceful and delicate workmanship. With these dimensions, inconsiderable enough of themselves, the perfect symmetry and proportion of the building, in all its parts, combine to throw around it a general character of gem-like smallness, that rather adds to than detracts from the beauty and classic simplicity of the whole.

It seems a matter of surprise that in England "La Maison Carrée” has not been oftener selected as a structure of which fac-similes might at no very considerable expense be raised, to serve the purposes of church or chapel, town-hall or museum.

LE PONT DU GARD.

Upon entering the lonely valley in which this magnificent structure is situated, the landscape assumes a character of wild sublimity. Through a winding gorge, on each side of which are seen lofty hills partly clothed with forest trees, and their rocky summits peering above, the river Gardon winds its silent course, and its dark deep waters roll beneath one of the arches of the great aqueduct. "Le Pont du Gard" gradually bursts on the sight, its three tiers of arches towering one

above the other, until, the whole being developed to the view, the eye is hardly able at one glance to comprehend its immensity.

How different, in grandeur and solidity, are the monuments of the Romans from the noblest edifices of modern times! That amidst the wreck of nations which the fall of the Roman empire involved, and notwithstanding the inundation of barbaric powers that devastated the architectural records of its glory, such magnificent structures as the Colosseum and "Le Pont du Gard" should still survive, in their fallen and half-ruinous state still wonderful and unsurpassed, is a fact not to be explained without admitting that, in many respects, the boasted perfections and civilization of modern times fall very short of Rome in her "palmy state."

Six arches form the lower tier of "Le Pont du Gard," the largest whereof, through which the river flows, is seventy-six feet in breadth. The intermediate tier consists of eleven arches,-the uppermost one, of thirty-five. Over the last, a covered-in passage formed the aqueduct by which water was anciently conveyed from Uzes to Nismes, and this passage is roofed by a noble terrace, eight feet wide, composed of huge flat stones, which, stretching from mountain to mountain, forms perhaps the most magnificent bridge in the world. It is 850 feet in length, and 150 above the level of the river. The promenade across this bridge, undefended as it is by any parapet from the abyss over which it is thrown, is a nervous although not difficult undertaking. The wild grandeur of "Le Pont du Gard" and its surrounding scenery, are enhanced by the legendary tales related by the peasant guides that attend the traveller, of wolves that prowl in the solitary valley, of a gloomy, yawning cave of which the labyrinthine intricacies are alleged to terminate in a bottomless chasm, and of the enormous depth of the water beneath the gigantic bridge, of which the dark clear wave almost justifies, to the eye at least, the tradition of its unfathomable profundity.

ST. PETER'S, ROME.

Upon entering Rome for the first time, a man feels the historical associations of early days so vividly realized in his mind, that all the ordinary considerations of life seem for the moment merged in the overpowering, the almost awful consciousness, that he, the creature of an hour, now stands within the walls of the Eternal City.

Attracted, like the needle to the pole, by the immediate vicinity of St. Peter's, he hastens with breathless expectation in the well-indicated

direction of its dome; and crossing the Tiber-word of classical enchantment!—he arrives before the glorious cathedral of the Christian world, and with wonder that words may not pourtray vainly endeavours to survey at one glance its grandeur and immensity. He enters the church, and its magical symmetry bewilders for the moment every preconceived notion of its vastness. The sense of astonishment soon reawakens, as he more closely surveys the columns which adorn and support each beautiful cupola,-the huge circumference of the great dome, -the brazen pillars, the marble high altar, the treasures of pictorial and mosaic art. On every side the eye embraces some fresh object to gaze on and admire. Without, the cross-crowned obelisk of Heliopolis, its surrounding colonnades, and the sparkling fountains on either side, maintain the character of unexampled magnificence to which the basilica of the arch-apostle is so nobly entitled, above all the other religious edifices of Christendom. From a first visit to St. Peter's, one returns impressed with the feeling that it is indeed the temple of the GOD of nations, in magnitude, in splendour, without rival; inconceivable, until seen, and when seen, beyond the grasp of description.

THE ENGLISH BURIAL GROUND, Rome.

A walk to this retired and unostentatious little cemetery, suggested feelings of unusual and melancholy interest. The graves of so many of our countrymen, reposing in ground unconsecrated by the religion. of the country, seem to exert a peculiar claim upon our mournful sympathy. The living have ties and recollections to recall them home; but here, death has sealed and chronicled a sentence of everlasting exile!

HERCULANEUM, POMPEII.

Nothing can well be imagined more curious than the small portion yet discoverable of the buried city of Herculaneum. A stratum of lava, eighty feet in thickness, separates it from the surface upon which stand the populous villages, or fauxbourgs, of Portici and Resina, a circumstance which most unfortunately prevents the prosecution of subterranean discovery. The only edifice as yet completely excavated, is a theatre, of which the stage, orchestra, consular seats, proscenium, corridors, and places for the spectators, are very distinguishable. Several arabesque and stucco paintings yet adorn the walls, and costly marble cornices are here and there discernible, memorials of human grandeur, in one of its veriest mausoleums!