the object avowedly aimed at, to raise the dome of the Pantheon and suspend it in the air.''

The dome of St. Peter's is a grand manifesto at once of art and history, when it blazes with fire on nights of high festivalthe grandest, perhaps, which the Latin church, with all its vestige and splendor, can beacon forth to the world.

We are accustomed to consider the Reformation of Luther, which accomplished so much for the world, as a mighty but simple effort to restore religion to its primitive gospel purity. It was this, but it was far more than this. It was the effort of mind to throw off its thraldom. It was the struggle of freedom, in the guise of a fierce democracy, to get rid of oppressive authority, political and religious.

So, with the religious parties in the contest there were violent political factions: witness the peasant war, which arose after Luther's manifesto, and in which—as in England in the. · demand for the charter, and in the Barons' war-nobles led, because the peasants' cause, however intemperately championed, was the cause of mankind. Authority triumphed in the main, and for the time, in the persons of the emperor and the pope, because they had system and arms and material and prestige. The famous Council of Trent, called to consider the appeal of the Protestants from the decision of the pope, set forth indeed articles of dogmatic theology, and thus fixed and established theological errors and superstitions; but it did far more: it effectually perpetuated the temporal power of the pope and the inherited claims of the Roman Catholic princes; and, still further, and most germain to our subject, it subsidized, with haste and lavishness, art of all kinds to strengthen its efforts.

To return to St. Peter's, in this immediate connection: the erection of this magnificent church at Rome marks the sagacity of the popes in the conduct of this controversy. All the later history has shown that the power and influence of that single edifice, in supporting the claims of the Latin church, are simply beyond calculation. While the new enlightenment denied the claims set forth for the apostle to whom that cathedral was dedicated; while it was boldly declared, in the face

1 See C. C. Black's "Michael Angelo Buonarotti," p. 115.

of time-sanctioned assertion, that St. Peter was never bishop of Rome, but more probably bishop of Antioch; while it was becoming clear that the Roman primacy was but an outcome of the supremacy of the city of Rome, so long the capital of the world-this, the grandest of temples, poised its massy dome, with the surmounted lantern, over the spot simply declared, without even a tittle of traditional proof, to have been the place of the apostle's crucifixion, and asserted the vicarage of Christ and the claim of exclusive authority. It appealed to the eyes and the cars of the world, and it has not appealed in vain. Ignorant and obedient multitudes accept the august testimony, and, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, although the temporal possessions of the pope have torn themselves from his holding, the holy days at Rome bring throngs to the splendid shrine from every nation under heaven, and systematic pilgrimages, as devout as those that swarm to Mecca, fill with worshippers this home and head-quarters of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church.

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Thus the great cathedral age was one of Roman Catholic assertion against Protestant reformation. The cathedral germ had indeed been planted long before, during the middle ages, but it was fostered into might" by this opposition. As the Protestants became more importunate, blind faith became also stronger, and popes and princes hastened to show their rekindled zeal by erecting or completing these splendid temples.'

VII. I have not intended in this paper to give any systematic view of Christian architecture in the modern period, but only to present a few suggestive illustrations; I cannot, however, leave the subject without calling the attention of the reader to the wealth of history contained in the structures of Spanish art. Here the student is truly embarrassed by his riches. To the ordinary and rapid traveller Spain presents a conglomerate of architecture, but to the patient scholar there is disclosed a system in the midst of this labyrinth. There are Roman remains, Gothic ruins, Arabian mosques and alcazars, cathedrals of the Renaissance, Tuscan enormities, and modern French palaces -each set marking a great historic period, full of interest and romance. In no country is it so true-true as it is everywhere

'All the great English cathedrals were built by the Roman Catholic Church, and became Anglican and Protestant at the Reformation.

—that art is the interpreter of history. I pass by the more picturesque illustrations, which are chiefly Moro-Arabian, to dwell for a moment upon two which contain a volume in themselves.

The first architectural work of the Renaissance in Spain was the Cathedral at Granada, a building that stands in the boldest contrast to the far-famed Moorish palace of the Alhambra, on the neighboring eminence; the contrast is eminently historic. The Cathedral was begun in 1529, only thirty-seven years after the Moorish city—the last foothold of Islam in the peninsulahad fallen into the hands of Ferdinand and Isabella. Their grandson, Charles V. of Germany, was on the throne of Spain, the church-hero of the anti-reformation.

The Cathedral is a noble structure, four hundred feet long and two hundred and thirty wide, with side chapels, that of the king being of special historical interest. Poetic justice built it on the site of the great mosque, and made this royal chapel (Capilla de los Reyes) the burial-place of Ferdinand and Isabella, of Philip and Joanna. The chapel was built before the Cathedral by order of the joint sovereigns, who, as the inscription says, crushed heresy, expelled the Moors and Jews from these realms, and reformed religion!"'There are the splendid Italian tombs, with reclining effigies of the great monarchs, and in a small vault below are the rude leaden coffins, with simple initial letters, containing their remains. As the awe-inspired visitor lays his hand upon them, he feels nearer to the history than ever before-to the romantic conquest of Granada, to Columbus and the great discovery; and the feeling is intensified when, passing from the place of tombs, he is shown, in the adjoining sacristy, the box which had once contained the jewels sold or pawned by Isabella to fit out the expedition of the great admiral, and the plain sword which Ferdinand wore in his campaigns against the Moorish kingdom.

Take the second illustration, which is even more pertinent than that just presented. When Philip II., the greatest of royal bigots, whose allies were hardly pressed at the battle of St. Quentin, on the day of St. Lawrence, his patron saint, made a vow of gratitude for the victory, he displayed, in its fulfilment, the morbid piety of his father and the insanity of his grand

mother, Crazy Jane. "He was the proudest among kings, and the most devout among monks, and it was not all his fault if he built convents that look like palaces, and palaces that were also convents." In compliance with this vow, the Escurial was built, to become the abode of a gloomy ecclesiastical despotism. It was a fancy-not founded, however, on any thing in the Carta de dotacion, or any thing which he has left-that it was built in the form of an inverted gridiron, to represent the mode of St. Lawrence's martyrdom. The long interior courts are supposed to form the spaces between the bars, and the corner towers the feet; the palace is the handle. Be that as it may, it tells the tale of that fearful reign, in every part.

Erected on a great square of seven hundred and fifty feet, nearly equal to the base of the pyramid of Cheops, it contains a palace, a convent, a library, and a church. The site was appositely chosen-ten leagues from the gayeties of Madrid, on the rocky, wild, and secluded side of the Guadarrama. The church within it, undisclosed from the exterior, is of Græco-Roman architecture, the Doric predominating. Even among churches it is colossal, being three hundred and twenty feet long, two hundred and thirty wide,, and three hundred and twenty high, to the top of the cupola.' Below is that curious mortuary chamber in which are ranged, tier above tier, the coffined remains of many Spanish kings and queens-a ghastly sight in the glare of torches or by the light of the central chandelier-the most unpleasant memento mori I have ever witnessed.

The Escurial is unrivalled as a historic landmark. "What Versailles is to France and to the history of the French Renaissance architecture, the Escurial is to Spain and its architectural history; they are both of them the greatest and most deliberate efforts of the national will in this direction, and the best exponent of the taste of the day in which they were executed.'

An analytical examination of French architecture will be full of similar historical instruction; it can only be suggested, without illustration.

VIII. To go back in the calendar, it will be observed that

1 Just off the high altar, and opening upon it, is a small chamber into which Philip was taken to die, while his glazing eyes looked their last on the elevation of the Host.

2 Fergusson's "History of Modern Architecture."

nothing has been said of Roman statuary. The reason is obvious: there is very little that is distinctive. For this form of art the Romans had little taste and less appreciation. As they conquered Greece, they carried off the best works of sculpture. "How little they were prepared to appreciate Grecian art is illustrated in Mummius, who threatened the laborers packing the paintings and sculpture taken from Corinth, that if any were injured or lost they would have to make others! Even Pliny himself exclaims, 'What use can be perceived as derived from them?'"' A few Greek statues were imitated; rude and amorphous equestrian figures were produced, but the great art seemed lost during the later Roman supremacy.

And this brings us to the consideration of a strange explanatory fact this poverty of sculpture was in great part afterwards due to Christianity itself. The Church, which had from the first so splendidly fostered architecture, and was soon to foster painting, for its own purposes, was to sculpture a power of injury and degeneracy.

In place of ideal figures, of perfect form, in pure marble, or in ivory and gold; as the adoration of saints and of the Virgin grew stronger, images were wanted for shrines. In most cases form was ignored, for they were to be clothed in costly dresses, and adorned with gold and silver and precious stones. They were no longer designed to elevate critical taste, but for the worship of the superstitious multitude. Then they were carved in wood, such as those known to the Greeks as oara; and later they were fashioned in baked clay-terra cotta. These colored and bedecked images, especially those of the Virgin, were more pleasing, not only to the multitude, but to the higher orders, in an ignorant age, for what they lacked in grace and genius was more than made up in sanctity. This was at least one great cause of the utter degeneracy of sculpture in Christian Rome and during the middle ages until the great revival.1

'Samson's "Art Criticism," 186.

In the church of the Atocha, at Madrid, is a very old black and ugly image of the Virgin, carved by St. Luke! and brought to Spain by St. Peter! The Beloved Physician was a far better gospeller than image-carver. It is laden with jewels, surrounded by relics, noting miraculous cures, and its wardrobe is enriched yearly with the dress worn by the queen on the feast of the Epiphany. (See Ford's HandBook, ii. 711.)