specimens of medals, gems, vases, and other treasures, contains also a choice collection of bronze statues.

As of old every heathen town had its tutelary god", so now almost every town in Sicily has its tutelary saint, nor is Catania worse provided than others in this respect; S. Agatha-who suffered martyrdom here during the reign of Decius, partly for her refusal to gratify the passion of Quintianus, partly for her firm adherence to the Christian faith-being the Patron Saint.

In the old church of S. Agata delle Sante Carceri is an altar-piece of the fourteenth century, representing the Martyrdom of that Saint, and bearing the following inscription: Bernardinus Niger Graecus faciebat, 1338 -a work of which it is scarcely too much to say that its antiquity constitutes its principal merit. It derives some interest, however, from the circumstance of the painter's having introduced into it a representation of the Catanian amphitheatre, which has since been overwhelmed by a stream of lava.

To this Saint is dedicated the present cathedral, an elegant structure, the façade of which is decorated with superb granite columns taken from the ancient theatre.

* Non Divos specialibus faventes
Agris, nubibus, insulisque, canto;
Saturnum Latio, Jovemque Cretæ,
Junonemque Samo, Rhodoque Solem,
Ennæ Persephonem, Minervam Hymetto,

Vulcanum Liparæ, Papho Dianam. Sidon. Apollin. i. Car. 10.

The old cathedral built towards the close of the eleventh century, but destroyed by the earthquake of 1693, had been dedicated to the Virgin; but, on the rebuilding of the edifice, the inhabitants, unable to decide between the claims of the Virgin and S. Agatha-for during the tremendous eruption of 1669, when the lava was rolling down in an enormous torrent towards the sea, the veil of S. Agatha being carried in procession, and held up be-fore the fiery stream, its progress was arrested, and the city spared-hit upon the expedient of drawing lots in order to determine to which of the two they should dedicate it; when fortune declared in favour of the Saint. Accordingly, a grand festival, recurring twice a year— in February and August-has ever since been observed in honour of herself and veil.

Blunt, in his "Vestiges of Ancient Manners discoverable in Modern Italy and Sicily," has given a detailed and interesting account of this festival; tracing it through all its coincidences with the ceremonies of Paganism, particularly those observed in honour of Ceres. Thus, for example, the horse-race which takes place in the Corso, and ushers in the festival, is, as we learn from Ovid, only a repetition of what took place at the festival of Ceres:

Circus erat pompâ celeber, numeroque Deorum,

Primaque ventosis palma petetur equis.

Hi Cereris ludi.-FAST. iv. 391.

With pomp adorned, with gods in gallant train,
With rival coursers scouring o'er the plain,

The Circus greets kind Ceres.-Blunt.

And what makes the coincidence the more remarkable is, that, as the magistrates of Catania preside over this. modern mockery of a horse-race, so did the Prætor preside over those of old*.

A second coincidence may be traced in the enormous wax candles borne in procession on the third day by the different trades, as we may also learn from Ovid:

Et si thura aberunt, unctas accendite tædas:

Parva bonæ Cereri, sint modo casta, placent.-FAST. iv. 411.

Then light the unctuous torch, should incense fail:
With Ceres, chaste, not costly gifts, prevail.-BLUNT.

There is, however, this difference between the cases in question; that wax tapers might, with some shew of reason, be offered up to Ceres, considered as emblematic of the pines which she had plucked up and lighted at Ætna, when she traversed Sicily in quest of her daughter Proserpine:

Illic accendit geminas pro lampade pinus:

Hinc Cereris sacris nunc quoque tæda datur.-FAST. iv. 594.

There for a torch two lofty pines she lights,

And hence the flambeaux grace her mystic rites.-BLUNT.

Whereas no such reason can be assigned for making a similar offering to S. Agatha.

The ceremonies of the fourth day—when the silver

See Vol. i. p. 291.

throne, supported upon shafts about twenty yards long, on which the Saint is borne in procession through the city, by means of hundreds of men clad in white frocks and caps; the male spectators rending the air with cries of Viva S. Agata, and the females (masked the while) seizing the hats, sticks, and gloves of the gentlemen whom they encounter, and expecting them to be redeemed by some display of gallantry-present various points of resemblance with the customs observed at the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries; not only with regard to the colour of the dress worn by those who take part in the procession, for then, as now, white was the only colour adopted:

Alba decent Cererem; vestes Cerealibus albas

Sumite, nunc pulli velleris usus abest:-FAST. iv. 620.

In Ceres' games be all your garments white;

That goddess loathes the colour of the night:-BLUNT.

not only in the silver throne and the Viva S. Agata, which are but modern editions, the one of the Kaλaliov, or Holy Basket, drawn about in a consecrated cart at the festival of Ceres; the other, of the Xaɩpe Anuntɛp (Hail Ceres!) of the Pagan worshippers;-not only in these particulars may we trace the coincidence, but also in the very day selected for the exhibition (the fourth in both cases), as well as in the practical jokes of the masked females, probably derived from the jesting and raillery levelled against all who passed over the bridge of the Cephisus, during the celebration of the Eleusinia.

The exhibition, on the fifth day, of such parts of the body and dress of the Saint, as are still said to exist, may, it is thought, have been copied from a similar exhibition of relics at the Eleusinia. "Veils," says Psellus, "were generally spread before the shrines, to conceal the things which were contained therein. At the Eleusinian mysteries, however, they were exposed; it being judged better to display them periodically only, lest that which was sacred should be too often submitted to the eyes of the profane*.

Finally," observes Blunt," as the greater and less Eleusinia were celebrated twice in the same year, at an interval of six months, so are there now two annual festivals to S. Agatha-the one in February and the other in August. These differ not from each other in any material points, except that the one in August is on the whole more splendid, and in particular that the idol is exalted upon a stupendous car, high as the roofs of the loftiest houses, and is thus drawn in triumph about the town by upwards of twenty yoke of oxen. The festival of S. Rosolia, the patron saint of Palermo, exhibits a similar spectacle; and I doubt not that both the one and the other derive their origin from a common source-the honours paid to pagan deities, but especially to Ceres, whose worship, radiating from Enna, the centre of Sicily, and the throne of her glory, extended to the most remote and inaccessible shores of the island. Is it asked,

*Meurs. Eleusin. Vol. ii. p. 480.