rators then returned as they came, accompanied by drums and music, and occasionally chanting forth some national hymn, in praise of honour and earthly glory. The cha_ racter of the ceremony is much changed from its original destiny,—the triumph of France is forgotten-pleasure, festivity, and extravagant mirth, alone prevailing in the form which the pilgrimage to Saint Barbe assumes at present.

THE PONT DU GARD, NISMES.

"Above the Roman's ruined pile,

Look'd o'er the depth of waters proudly,

And seem'd in silent scorn to smile
Upon the flood that rushed so loudly."

ROMAN RELICS.

WHETHER this grand relic be regarded in reference to the stupendous design for which it was constructed, or to the beauty, solidity, and durability of the workmanship, or as being one of the most perfect monuments of Roman grandeur in existence, too much admiration can scarcely be bestowed upon the Pont du Gard. Placed between two bare and sterile mountains, and in a narrow defile, through which the Gard rolls its impetuous waters in the midst of silence and loneliness, this stately structure presents subject for deep contemplation upon the fate of kingdoms. Its nobleness, its grandeur, its beautiful proportions, are perhaps less striking to the traveller than its remote and rural position.

Designed originally to convey the waters of Eure near Usez, and of Airan near St. Quintin's, to the city of Nismes, a fact which remains in various parts of the line testify, it extended not less than eight and twenty miles. By whom it was designed, or in what reign it was constructed, is uncertain, but the received opinion is, that it was one of the great public works with which Marcus Agrippa, son-in-law of Augustus Cæsar, and husband of his daughter Julia, beautified and embellished the province of Gallia Narbonensis. The design, which fills the entire gorge between the opposing hills, consists of three arcades, one above the other, rising to the height of two hundred feet above the river, and extending, at its highest elevation, eight hundred and eighty feet in length. The lowest arcade includes six arches, the breadth of the valley admitting no more; of these, four are always dry, a fifth becomes a water-way when the river is much swollen, but the sixth shows the regular channel of the waters. The second tier or story includes eleven arches, eighty feet in height; and the third, or highest, consists of thirty-five openings, twenty feet in height. This range sustains a conduit, four feet in depth and width, by which the waters were conveyed across the valley.

The extent, elevation, design, and site present a combination that does not fail to affect the traveller of taste and feeling; and a closer examination of this interesting monument, will repay the more philosophic inquirer. Built in the Tuscan order, as

most suitable to works of magnitude, and rural localities, a species of Cyclopean architecture is adopted. Blocks of stone, some tons in weight, raised in a neighbouring quarry, are employed, and, in laying them together, neither mortar nor cement is used. They are bound by tenon and mortise solely, their weight being sufficient, on the completion of the design, to preserve an indissoluble union. The bed of the conduit, however, was carefully coated with tenacious cement, and, where it has decayed, and the rain been allowed a passage, stalactites may be seen depending from the arches underneath.

The conduit being covered with flags, a level surface is formed, on which visitors may safely cross the valley, and behold with advantage its solitude and grandeur. About the commencement of the seventeenth century, it was resolved to make the aqueduct minister to convenience, as well as ornament; and, by widening the lower tier of arches, a carriage-way was formed on a level with the second arcade. The experiment did not prove very successful; and although single horses may yet pass safely, carriages could not continue to do so, without endangering the stability of the whole structure. Accordingly the states of Languedoc constructed a more permanent description of bridge in the year 1743.

The following extract, from the diary of a lady-traveller, will be read with interest, and may probably suggest to her followers in exploring the beauties of France, that it is by dwelling sufficiently on individual subjects, that their beauties or their uses can be understood or estimated :-" As we first approached this spot, the sun was setting-the brilliant sun of Languedoc, which, gilding the stupendous arches, and diffusing a glow of radiance over all the surrounding country, produced an effect inconceivably sublime. As I stood and contemplated the ruin, lost in astonishment, I could scarcely help exclaiming 'Why was not the head that could imagine, why were not the hands that could execute such a work, immortal as the work itself!' Alas, while the work stands unshaken, the head that contrived, the hands that executed it, are long since mouldered into dust! and who can say that this or that particle of earth once belonged to them! Yes, as I contemplated this wonderful monument of Roman magnificence, I could not help inwardly sighing, to think that, while this still exists, and exists with almost undiminished splendour, the nation to which it owed its origin is destroyed, and those who succeeded to the soil were for ages sunk into moral degradation. Never weary with surveying the object before us, we remained contemplating it till the evening closed so fast upon us, that the darkness was almost stealing it from our sight, yet rendering it therefore more sublime; and this sublimity was immeasurably heightened before we quitted it, by vivid flashes of lightning, that began to issue from a dark cloud in the horizon, and appeared to play directly through the lofty arches. This was one of those adventitious circumstances, which being wholly out of the power of man to command, he is peculiarly fortunate when it occurs, to give a great additional effect to a scene already so grand and striking."

TOMBS OF THE KINGS, IN THE CRYPT OF ST. DENIS.

"Struck by the vast and deep solemnity

Of this thrice-hallow'd spot, the spirit shrinks,
Itself astounded, mid the deep repose

That wraps th' illustrious dead.-Here I behold
Each in his own sad marble monument,
The crumbling relics of once-sceptered kings."

J. S. HARDY.

PUBLIC places of sepulture were adopted in the earliest ages, and by the most civilized nations, but interment in temples, or churches, or sacred edifices, was of much later occurrence. The Egyptians embalmed their dead, and laid them in catacombs; the Romans burnt their's on the funeral pile, and placed the ashes in urns, which were preserved as an evidence of ancestral pomp; and the ancient Germans laid the bodies of their deceased relatives in groves consecrated for that purpose by the priests. To be deprived of the rites of sepulture has always been deemed a species of ecclesiastical punishment, and Heathens appear to have been even more scrupulous than Christians in this respect. Roman sepulchres were generally marked by a stone, upright or recumbent, inscribed with the name of the deceased, his title, the date of his death, and the words "Sit illi terra levis." In this supplication is traced the original of the well-known epitaph: "Light be the earth on Billy's breast,-and green the sod that wraps his grave."

The Israelites of old, and the early Christians after them, were interred in fields, and the most eminent amongst them in caverns. These recesses were subsequently chosen as the sites of chapels, or mausolea, or shrines, so that at last it was an object of the deepest interest-one sought with the utmost eagerness-to discover a spot where the bones of a Christian martyr had been laid, that a chapel might be built above them. During the persecution of the Christians in the first ages, these tombs, little more than cavernous retreats, like the grotto of St. Rosalia at Palermo, were their only places of devotion; for there, while scen of God, they escaped human observation. They were called crypts, from the Greek verb xpurrw, signifying to conceal, or hide; and it is from this original that the crypts of our churches are entitled. These are supposed to have been built in commemoration of the early state of the primitive church, and it was expected that a comparison between the gorgeousness of the choir, and nave, and aisles of the cathedral, with the simple crypt, or underground-church, would moderate the pride of churchmen. For this reason it is, that crypts are found principally under the noblest and most costly churches.

A second purpose to which crypts were subsequently applied, was as chambers of repose for the bones of martyrs, hitherto concealed from the fury of their persecutors