latter is a minister of Mohammed, with a copy of the Koran in his hand, ready to swear any votary of the Arabian prophet that may be called as witness. Next to him stands a priest of Brahma, with a cup of sacred water in his hand, and the tolu leaves, sacred to the god Shéva, prepared to swear any Hindoo that may be called upon to give evidence. The four figures immediately below the witness-box, without the court-rail, are the heads of the police of four districts, attending to make their report of the civil state of their respective districts, according to the provisions of the police regulations, introduced by Sir Alexander Johnston, in 1806. In a box, on the right of the last row of jurymen, appears the crier of the court proclaiming silence. The principal figure of the group, at a short distance from the sheriffs' officer, who stands without the dock in the centre, is a native of Tanjore, of considerable influence, who, in consequence of the interest which had been excited among his countrymen, by natives in India being permitted in Ceylon to sit as jurymen, had proceeded to Columbo from his own country, which is situated in the Southern part of Hindoostan, in order to ascertain the nature of trial by jury. He is in the act of explaining what is passing in the court to a group of Mohammedan merchants. The group of figures in the fore-ground of the picture to the left, the centre figure of which has a book in his hand, from which he is reading, is composed of three chief Brahmins of the three principal pagodas in the northern province of Yaffna, who assisted Sir Alexander Johnston in revising the Hindoo code of that province in 1806, and in introducing trial by jury among the natives. One of these Brahmins is reading to his two companions a work composed in Sanscrit and Tamoul, by order of the President in Council, and read to the people at all their great festivals; it contains an explanation of the trial by jury, and of the rights and duties of jurymen. Another of the three Brahmins is holding in his hand a revised copy of the Hindoo code, and is pointing out the resemblance between trial by jury, and the ancient Hindoo trial by Punjeet, mentioned in that code. The group in the fore-ground, a little to the right, dressed in European costume, consists of some of the principal Dutch inhabitants of Ceylon, who, out of gratitude for the rights and privileges conferred upon them, came to a resolution, that all children born of their slaves after the 12th of August, 1816, in that year, should thenceforth be free. This resolution was afterwards unanimously adopted by the other wealthy inhabitants of the island. The man who had been the principal instrument in producing so general a concurrence in the measure, is reading the resolution to a group of female slaves, who attended in public court to express their grateful sense of the blessing which had been obtained for them and for their posterity. The figure on the extreme right of the picture, armed with a sword, and having the left hand a little elevated, as in the act of speaking, is a native chief of the cinnamon-department, which includes a population of about twenty-five thousand. He was the first native chief who proposed to confer freedom upon the children that should be born of his slaves. He is explaining to the principal Boodhist priest of his department, the change which had been produced in the condition of the natives of Ceylon, by conferring on them the right of sitting upon juries, and the propriety, on their part, of putting an end to domestic slavery. In the very centre of the print, in the fore-ground, stands one of the most learned of the Boodhist priests, explaining to two of his pupils, the nature of trial by jury, and the reasons which have induced the Ceylonese to abolish domestic slavery. At a short distance to the left, is a group of Malay princes, one of whom stands with his back towards the beholders. They had been dethroned by the Dutch government at Java, and exiled to Ceylon, while it was in possession of the Dutch. They were most active in persuading their countrymen on the island, to accede to the abolition of slavery. In the extreme corner of the print, on the left hand, facing the beholder, is a Catholic priest, who was the superior of ninety thousand Catholics in Ceylon. He is accompanied by two boys belonging to the school, established by the Catholics of this island, for the instruction of children brought up in their own religious persuasion. On his right hand is seen in conversation with him, the head of the Wesleyan Mission established in Ceylon, immediately behind whom are two pupils of the Wesleyan School. On the right of the picture, just below the rails that separate the witness-box from the court, on the left hand of the sentinel, are two dancing-girls from the province of Yaffna, who composed several hymns and songs, in praise of the trial by jury, and the abolition of domestic slavery; and made use of the great influence they possessed in their native province, by their popularity and talents, to carry those measures into effect. They had actually walked from Yaffna to Columbo, a distance of 225 miles, in order to be present at trials by native juries, and to confer with the chief legal authority, as to the best mode of adapting it to the habits and customs of the Hindoos in their own province. Behind these dancing girls stand the Brahmin and Boodhist priests, who prepared for the court every year, the Hindoo and Cingalese almanacks, the one for the north of the island, and the other for the south, and reported to the court upon questions of the Hindoo and Boodhist religion and astrology, which might be connected with any proceedings before it. In the right-hand corner of the print is a board, put up at the commencement of every session, containing, for public information, a list of the number and character of offences committed in the district of each magistrate, since the preceding session. On the opposite side of the court is another board precisely similar, put up also at the commencement of every session, and containing a list of offences committed by persons of each religious versuasion, since the former session. The magistrates of all the districts for which the Session was about to be held, and the priests of all the religious persuasions belonging to those districts, attended the opening of the court; and after having heard the list of offences publicly read in the several languages of the country, were praised or admonished by the court, according as offences had either decreased or multiplied, within the limits of their jurisdiction or influence, since the former Session. This public exhibition of the state of the districts, had a very great effect in inducing both priests and magistrates to exert their utmost activity in improving the people's morals, and in preventing the commission of crime. J. H. C. REUBEN and Rachel, though as fond as doves, WHAT are all excellencies without respect of their use? How much good ground is there in the world, that is neither cultured nor owned? What a world of precious metals lie hid in the bowels of the earth, which shall never be coined? What a store of pearls and diamonds are hoarded up in the earth and sea, which shall never see the light? What delicacies of fowls and fishes do both elements afford, which shall never come to the dish? How many wits are there in the world, which lie willingly concealed? Whether out of modesty, or idleness, or lack a wished opportunity. Improvement gives a true value to ali blessings: a penny in the purse is worth many pounds, yea talents, in an unknown mine. That is our good which does us good.-BISHOP HALL. THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. THE life of the late SIR ROBERT PEEL, at all times valuable as a subject of biography, acquires peculiar interest at the present period, from the circumstance of the recent elevation of his eldest son to the high office of Prime Minister of this great and powerful empire. The present sketch is abridged from a more extended memoir of the worthy and patriotic baronet, published upwards of thirty years ago. Sir Robert Peel, Bart., of Drayton Manor, in the county of Stafford, and M. P. for the borough of Tamworth, third son of Robert Peel, Esq., of Peel Cross, in the county of Lancaster, was born in the year 1750. Very early in life, and while fortune appeared to shut the door of advancement against him, Mr. Peel entertained strong hopes of being the founder of a family; and at the age of fourteen, he avowed to his brothers his determination to raise himself to consideration in society. He founded these hopes on a conviction, that, in this country, almost any situation of honour or of profit is accessible to every individual of competent ability, aided by prudence and industry. The distinction to which he arrived, and the splendid fortune which he enjoyed in landed and personal property, afford a striking instance of the effects of perseverance, in a country where such exertions have the encouragement of good laws impartially administered. The cotton-trade was, at this period (1770), but a small branch of commerce, although the late ingenious Sir Richard Arkwright had made some happy discoveries, in the application of mechanism to the saving of manual labour. This furnished a wide field for the display of the talents and industry of Mr. Peel. He devoted himself very early to explore the powers of mechanical combinations, particularly where they could be converted to the use of his leading pursuit; and he soon became sensible of the improvements which might be made. Mr. Peel continued under the roof of his parent to the twentythird year of his age. At this period, in conjunction with William Yates, Esq., he embarked in an extensive cotton-manufactory at Bury, in Lancashire. After fourteen years of silent industry, and, we may add, of uninterrupted success, in 1787, he married Miss Yates*, the daughter of his partner, then little more than seventeen years of age. It has often been a question of surprise, at what time, and by what means Sir Robert acquired those intellectual attainments which he afterwards displayed: but the contemporaries of his youth have stated, that he discovered a strong and early attachment to books, and an insatiable thirst of knowledge. The hours that others dissipated under pretence of recreation were employed by him in the cultivation of his mind. The judicious plan of reading which he early prescribed to himself, and which he always continued, was singularly adapted to give originality and quickness to his perceptions; a plan, which he not only recommended to his children to pursue, but in the practice of which he daily trained them. "His eldest sont," says the biographer of the day, (1804,) a youth of the most promising talents, who is little more than fifteen years of age, has been so much in the habit of exercising the retentiveness of his memory, conformably to this method, that very few indeed, of his age, can carry with them more of the sentiments of an author, than himself. When he reads a book, closing the volume, he immediately retraces the impressions which were made Having lost his first lady, Sir Robert married secondly, in 1805, Miss Clarke, who died in 1824. The present baronet. on his memory; and the mind, we know, when conscious that it is to reflect the images presented to it, embraces them with avidity, and holds them with more than common tenacity." In 1780, Mr. Peel published a pamphlet entitled The National Debt productive of National Prosperity. The ingenuity and novelty of the inferences maintained in that work, occasioned considerable attention. At the close of the American War, the fears of the nation in many quarters were very powerfully excited by the vast growth of our funded debt; it being imagined by many, that increased burdens would soon fetter our exertions, if not involve the nation in bankruptcy. Mr. Peel, if we are not mistaken, was the first to maintain, that the national wealth was not diminished by the increase of the national debt, and that statesmen had misconceived its operations by confounding a public with a private engagement. In this work he argued, that a domestic public debt, owed by the community at large to a part of the same community, could not impair the aggregate wealth; and that if a given sum, however large, was annually raised from the people, to pay the interest of the debt, the same sum (being received by the public creditors, and laid out in the purchase of articles of necessity and comfort for themselves, provided by national industry,) circulates at home; and, in passing from one possessor to another, gives birth to new sources and modifications of wealth. Having, in 1787, purchased a large estate in Lancashire, and subsequently acquired extensive property in Staffordshire and Warwickshire, he obtained that stake and consideration in his county which entitled him to a seat in Parliament. Accordingly, at the following general election in 1790, he was returned member for the borough of Tamworth ‡. This place had long enjoyed a considerable trade in the clothing manufacture, but owing to its rivals in Yorkshire, was then reduced to a low ebb. Extensive cotton-works were immediately erected, and the inhabitants soon began to resume their habits of industry, and to exhibit once more the smiling aspect of plenty. In the voluntary contributions of 1797, at a time when the British shores were threatened by a hostile invasion, we find the names of Messrs. Peel and Yates subscribed for TEN THOUSAND POUNDS. In 1798, besides the patronage which he extended to the Lancashire Fencibles, and the Tamworth armed associations, Sir Robert placed himself at the head of a corps of volunteers, consisting of six companies, mostly of his own artificers. At that awful juncture, Napoleon, the general enemy to peace, was preparing an attack upon our native land, intending to destroy its liberties, and spoil its strength; when an unexpected army sprung up, raised by true-born Britons, without any other motive than a sense of the blessings they saw to be in jeopardy, and of the great danger which impended. These were the means of drawing forth the inherent energies of the country, in behalf of whose defence, a memorable and successful appeal was made. More than half a million of freemen, self-armed, self-sustained, devoted to the good cause, and combined against a common foe,-such a spectacle did the volunteers present in their stedfast and well-ordered ranks, in the year 1803. The spark was no sooner kindled in one part of the island, than the flame of it penetrated to the other; and the Sovereign felt himself enthroned in the hearts of his people. In 1799, in the debate on the Union with Ireland, Sir R. Peel took an active part, He was re-elected for Tamworth six times. and delivered a speech containing a body of plain and useful argument, which was circulated largely. In 1801, the king conferred on him the title of Baronet, as a mark of his Majesty's approbation of his conduct, both in public and private life. In 1802, he brought into parliament, and succeeded in getting passed, a Bill To better the condition of apprentices in the cotton and woollen trade;' having prepared the way for this improvement, by introducing salutary regulations into his own factories; limiting the hours of labour; providing proper nutriment for the children; insisting on the observance of cleanliness; and affording them instruction, religious and moral. The number of persons employed by him, at that time, were not fewer than 15,000! and he paid upwards of 40,000l. annually to the excise-office on printed goods alone. Sir R. Peel was, in his person, tall and manly; his address was affable, and very engaging. Unaffected, and unassuming himself, he possessed the art of dispelling the diffidence of strangers. The friend of merit, however humble, he was equally disposed and competent to resist the insolence of oppression, and to rebuke arrogance and selfsufficiency. With the utmost liberality towards those who differed from him in religious opinions, Sir R. Peel was the decided supporter of the Established Church. He gave every encouragement, by undeviating example, to promote religion among his work-people; and by his regular attendance on divine worship, with his numerous family of children and domestics, he excited among his tenantry a more lively interest in their respective duties. To detail all his private and public acts of benevolence, as well as his moral virtues, would give this memoir too much the air of panegyric, when it is only a collection of facts, from which the reader may draw his own inferences. As the merit by which he acquired, rendered him worthy of his fortune, so the use which he made of it in communicating the means of comfort to all around him, exceedingly endeared him to a very extensive circle. Long after he had ceased to regard the accumulation of wealth as productive of happiness, except as the means of doing good, he pursued his accustomed habit of minute attention to his finances. His mansion was the residence of hospitality, but unencumbered with ostentatious display. His ear was at all times open to the suit of the modest petitioner, and none ever retired from his gates before their wants had been listened to. Public institutions of extensive utility, found in Sir R. Peel a kind and active patron: Christ's Hospital, of which he was a governor; the Literary Fund, of which he was vice-president; and the Society for bettering the Condition of the Poor, the fund of which he augmented in 1801, by a donation of 1000l. He was president of the House of Recovery in Manchester, and he made annual donations of large sums to the poor of Tamworth, as well as to those of Bury in Lancashire. Among various acts of his munificence, the following deserves to be noticed. A rectory on his estate having become vacant, he solicited the Chancellor, with every prospect of success, to bestow it upon the Rev. J. H., a gentleman every way worthy of his patronage. The seals, however, being suddenly placed in other hands, the desired presentation did not take place; but to alleviate the disappointment, Sir Robert purchased, and presented to his friend, a living of equal value. A house of the first consequence in the cotton-trade, by imprudently advancing beyond its capital, was from some unforeseen circumstances, on the eve of bankruptcy. Informed of the pressing exigency, and convinced of the honour and integrity of the parties, this excellent man rescued them from their impending calamity, by an immediate loan of 14,000l. A family consisting of two sons and three daughters, all whose property, which was very large, had been embarked in trade, was suddenly reduced to a complete wreck and the daughters, who had intrusted their portions, about 5,000l. each, to their brothers, shared in the domestic misfortunes. Sir R. Peel obtained honourable and lucrative employments for both the sons, and presented a thousand pounds each to the daughters. Many instances of prompt and delicate benevolence are omitted, as much for the sake of the party benefited as of the benefactor; and we shall here close our memoir, conscious that we have already placed before the eye of the public such a collection of facts, as will enable every reader to form a due estimate of the character of Sir Robert Peel. Sir Robert died May 3rd, 1830, aged eighty, and was succeeded in the baronetcy, by his eldest son, to whom a pleasing allusion is made in the course of the above memoir. [Public Characters of 1803 and 1804.] MOTHERING SUNDAY. In many parts of England, especially in Wilts, Somerset, and Gloucestershire, the fourth Sunday in Lent, commonly called Midlent, is observed as a festival under the above title; and servants and apprentices are then allowed to visit their parents and friends, to partake of a regale of wheat furmity, and mothering-cake, the last of which is analagous to the twelfth-cakes of London, sugared and ornamented on the top. On the day previous, the pastrycooks and confectioners in Bristol, Bath, Gloucester, and other considerable places, decorate their shops with evergreens, flowers, and various devices of coloured lamps, which are lighted up in the evening, to attract customers for their mothering-cakes, after the manner of the London pastrycooks at the festival of the Epiphany, or Twelfth Day, to which, however, the country-folks pay no attention. In addition to the furmity and cake, a quarter of lamb is provided for the Sunday's dinner, by such as can afford it, the remains of which are distributed among their more needy neighbours, who cannot purchase for themselves. The day is, indeed, a season of festivity, benevolence, and mutual congratulation. As is usual in such cases, the parties adhering to this ancient observance, can rarely give a reason for it, because they are ignorant of its origin. This is to be found in the practice of our Roman Catholic ancestors, going in procession, on Midlent Sunday, from the most distant parts of their parishes, to visit the Mother Church; and, according to the custom of the times, when large assemblages of the people were drawn together, the day, though nominally set apart for a religious service, was devoted to festivity and mirth. Instances of such perverted institutions are to be met with in the saints' festivals, the wakes, the revels, the church-ales, and fairs, of which many are still kept up in country villages, to say nothing of the more diffused and general riotous festivities of Lent, Easter, Whitsuntide, and Christmas. But it may be inquired, whence the particular appropriation of furmity and plumcake to this day? It is to be feared they are of heathen origin, engrafted during a corrupt and dark period, upon the stock of Christianity. The Greeks had a great goddess, called Damater by the Dorians, and Demeter by the Ionians; she was the reputed mother of the gods, and cakes of a particular kind were at certain seasons dedicated to her. By the Babylonians she was called Mylitta, and similar offerings were made to her in Chaldea *. The Romans called her Vesta, and the Saxons Eostur, or Eostre. The latter sacrificed to her in the month of April, which commenced with the new moon nearest to the vernal equinox, and was called Eostre month, whence the name of the modern festival of Easter, which occurs on the first Sunday after the full of the same moon. Agreeably to this ancient practice, we find Midlent, or Mothering Sunday, fixed for the Sunday nearest to the change of the paschal or Easter moon, and not, where its title of Midlent would lead us to expect it, on the third Sunday in Lent, which wants but a day of one half of the forty days' continuance of that season. The mothering-cake can, therefore, be only considered as a relic of the ancient sacrifice to Eostur, and analogous to the cake offered to Damater, or Mylitta, with whom also Diana, or the moon, is considered by mythologists as synonymous, and to whom also cakes were offered or dedicated by the Greeks and Romans. But Ceres was also another personification of the same idol, to whom corn, and especially wheat, was sacred; and hence the wheatfurmity of the Midlent revels. The lamb is evidently derived from the Jewish paschal sacrifice, and seems to have been superadded to the festival in an age when superstition was mistaken for religion, and Pagan, Mosaic, and Christian rites were confounded in one heterogeneous mixture. J. A. rent. HISTORY OF THE ARCH IN BUILDING. THE first bridge was probably a tree which had fallen from one bank to the other of some mountain-torThe method of communication thus supplied by accident, men would soon learn to obtain for themselves, by the rude resources of art; and ere long the opposite banks of rivers would come to be connected by means of timbers, or flag-stones, supported upon piers. The application of this notion of a bridge seems to have constituted the whole art of bridge-making up to a comparatively recent period in the history of mankind. It is, however, altogether inadequate to the passage of deep or rapid currents, and fatal to navigation, and we accordingly find that the Egyptians, although they swarmed along both banks of the Nile, never built for themselves a permanent bridge across that river. -The Tigris, too, and the Euphrates, on whose banks dwelt that other enterprising and highly-polished nation of remote antiquity, the Chaldees, were bridgelesst. And even in the age of Pericles, there was no stone bridge over the river Cephissus, at Athens. Necessity is said to be the mother of invention : there are certain matters in which she has been exceedingly slow in coming to the birth, and of this the discovery of the arch is a memorable example. Of Europeans, the first who appear to have made the discovery were the Etruscans; and the earliest existing specimen of the arch in Europe, is said to be found among the ruins of the Etruscan town of Volaterrat. The cake offered to Mylitta was called boun, and had upon it the representation of two horns, like a crescent, or new moon. The Greeks supposed it to be a substitute for oxen; but it was a type of the ark, the great mother of the human race after the deluge. Have the boun of Chaldea and the hot cross-bun of Christendom any relationship? • They had bridges of boats. Micali, Antichi Monumenti. To the Chinese, the secret of the arch appears to have been known from time immemorial. In fact, it is difficult to fix upon any useful contrivance which is not at present, in some degree, known to that singular people; or any period of history when they did not know it. They certainly used the arch long before it was thought of in Europe. It covers the gateways in their great wall; they availed themselves of it in the construction of monuments § to their illustrious dead, and in the formation of their bridges. Kircher, in his China Illustrata, tells us of stone bridges in China three and four miles long, and an arch six hundred feet in span. From the Etruscans, the secret of the arch passed to the Romans; and was soon employed in the construction of bridges over the Tiber. Of these several remain; they are, however, but awkward specimens of the art of bridge-making. Their narrow arches are supported upon huge unsightly piers, which form a serious obstruction to the current; and they thus involve a principle of weakness in their very strength. The Romans have, nevertheless, left us, in other parts of their dominions, bridges of extraordinary strength and great beauty. Of these, that of Alcantara is perhaps the most remarkable ||: its road-way is 140 feet above the level of the stream which it crosses, and its arches 100 feet in span. It was built by Trajan, under whose reign was also erected a bridge over the Danube, of which many incredible things are told by Dion Cassius; and of which nothing is to be seen, but now and then the foundation of a pier. He built it that he might conquer the Dacians; his successor destroyed it, that he might restrain their incursions into the empire. In those troublesome times which succeeded the fall of the Roman empire, no bridges were built. Rivers were, for the most part, passed by fords or ferries; these frequently became subjects of contention between neighbouring barons, or were taken possession of by outlaws; and travellers, in availing themselves of an insecure method of transfer, were subjected to the certainty of being heavily taxed, and the chance of being plundered." It was about the commencement of the twelfth century, that one Benezet, a cow-herd, appeared in multitude a special mission from heaven for the the Cathedral of Avignon, and announced to the erection of a bridge over the Rhone at that city. By efforts little less than miraculous, this singular erect a bridge which, whether we consider it in refeenthusiast contrived, in the course of a few years, to rence to its enormous dimensions, or the local difficulties to be overcome in its construction, claims to that have ever been erected by the skill and ingenuity be ranked among the most remarkable monuments of man. Unfortunately, a flood of the Rhone carried it away. The labours of Benezet did not, however, altogether disappear with his bridge; he obtained a place among the saints of the Roman Calendar, and became the founder of a religious order, called the Brethren of the Bridge, by whom some of the finest bridges in Europe have been erected. Of these, that of Saint Esprit on the Rhine, is not far short of a mile in length, and that called La Vieille Brioude, feet in span, and until the erection of the Chester over the Allier, is a single semicircular arch of 180 Bridge, which is 200 feet in span, the largest arch. § Monumental and triumphal arches are said to be scattered in such numbers over the face of the country as to give a character to the scenery. It is remarkable that the arch should have been erected in honour of illustrious men, both by the Chinese and the Romans. One arch of this bridge was blown up, by order of the Duke of Wellington, during the Feninsular War. (See NAPIER.) Of the same date was the old London Bridge, the work of Peter of Colechurch; it would, however, greatly suffer by comparison with the labours of the Brethren of the Bridge. From this period up to the present, the art of bridge-making has continually progressed, and most of the rivers of the Continent are now spanned by arches, with which the labours of former ages will bear no comparison, either as it respects the boldness and grandeur of their design, or the perfection of their detail. The art appears to have attained its perfection in the magnificent structures which have of late been erected across the Thames, and in the great arch of Chester. These have no parallel in the universe. [MOSELEY on Mechanics applied to the Arts.] SARAGOSSA. II. IN a former number*, we gave an account of the curious Leaning Tower at Saragossa, with some details of the remarkable siege which that city sustained against the French in the year 1808. To complete our notice of so famous a place, we now furnish a sketch of its chief architectural monuments, especially those devoted to ecclesiastical purposes. The subject chosen for our present Engraving, is the noble bridge of free-stone which stretches across the Ebro, and serves to connect the main portion of Saragossa with its suburbs. It consists of seven arches, the largest of them is 122 feet in diameter,-about the same size as the arches of our own Waterloo Bridge, and the rest are not very much smaller. This bridge is not, however, the only one which Saragossa possesses; it has a second, which is built of wood, and is said to be more beautiful than any other of similar materials in Europe. The city also boasts of two cathedrals, both of which are highly remarkable for their external architecture, and perhaps still more so for the wonders of their interior. Distinguished, however, as they both are, their attractions are of a very different character; no contrast can be more striking than that which they offer to each other. The one is all grandeur and solemnity, the other is light and rich, even to excess. "That," says the Rev. Mr. Townsend, "which is called El Asen, is vast, gloomy, and magnificent; it excites devotion, inspires awe, and inclines the worshipper to fall prostrate, and to adore in silence the God who seems to veil his glory; the other, called El Pilar, spacious, lofty, light, elegant, and cheerful, inspires hope, confidence, complacency, and makes the soul impatient to express its gratitude for benefits received." The cathedral El Asen, is more ancient than the other; strictly speaking, it is the cathedral. Its origin is referred to the early portion of the twelfth century; and it is said that when it was first erected, Pope Gelasius the Second granted indulgences to all persons who would contribute toward the work, "and thus," as Mr. Southey observes, "introduced a practice which contributed as much to the grandeur and magnificence of ecclesiastical architecture, as to laxity of morals, and the prevalence of superstition †." The body of the edifice is built in the Gothic style; the portal is of more modern design. The interior of this cathedral has the same general character as its exterior. The choir is nearly in the centre of the building, and surrounding it are four aisies, crowded with chapels, each of which was once rich in splendid offerings of gold and silver, and in *See Saturday Magazine, Vol. VI., p. 2. Our readers may remember how the Cathedral of Orleans was built. (See Saturday Magazine, Vol. V., p. 138.) what the superstitious people deemed yet more valuable, a profusion of curious relics. The greater part of these were suddenly removed at the time of the French invasion, and in the confusion which necessarily followed, many were stolen or destroyed. Mr. Locker says, that it is "a noble structure, having that air of solemn magnificence which is peculiar to the Roman Catholic countries. Much of this fine effect is produced by the artificial gloom in which they are generally enveloped; and this seldom fails to increase, in minds disposed to serious thoughts, that sense of reverence which the Gothic style of architecture is so well calculated to inspire, while it conceals from the eye of the stranger the deformity of those trumpery ornaments which mistaken zeal has heaped upon every altar." The cathedral del Pilar, though less ancient, is more famous than the one we have just described. In former times, the reputation of Saragossa throughout the Peninsula was derived from its being the city of our Lady of the Pillar, Nuestra Señora del Pilar, whose legend is still firmly believed by the people and most of the clergy of Spain, insomuch that it was frequently appealed to in the proclamations of the different generals and juntas during the French war, as one of the most popular articles of the national faith. A festival in honour of the patroness is still kept up. "The feast of our Lady of the Pillar," says Mr. Locker, "was celebrated during our visit to the Arragonese capital, and conducted with considerable splendour, though doubtless very inferior to that which was exhibited, before the spoliation of the church abridged the means of doing honour to their great patroness. A surprising concourse of visiters assembled from all parts of the country to assist at these ceremonies, which lasted several days. The incessant ringing of bells, firing of guns, and other festal noises, wearied our ears; while processions continually parading the streets, and all the glitter of crosses and banners, and the blaze of innumerable wax-tapers dazzled our eyes and kept us in a constant whirl. All the houses and churches were decorated with tapestry and other hangings. Triumphal arches and wreaths of flowers were stretched across the streets, through which the crowd rolled slowly along, as the people in their best attire wandered from church to church, mingling mirth with devotion, and indulging their curiosity with all the varieties of the spectacle.” The origin of the present structure is referred to the middle of the fifteenth century, when it replaced the fabric which had first been erected in obedience, as the Romish legend says, to the injunction of the Virgin. The exterior of the edifice is not in the purest style of architecture; its most remarkable feature is the domes which surmount it, one large one and several smaller. In the centre of the interior, immediately under the great dome, is a little chapel of striking beauty; within this the image of our Lady of the Pillar is contained. This image is held in high estimation by the ignorant people; formerly, indeed, the veneration paid to it was such that none but crowned heads and cardinals were permitted to behold it. Before the period of the war of independence against Buonaparte, Saragossa possessed a very large number of religious establishments,-as many as forty-four convents, and seventy churches and chapels. The most famous of all these buildings was the convent of St. Engracia, which was blown up by the French when they retreated from their first and unsuccessful |