the Venetians may be considered as a proof of the popular animosity rather than of royal avarice.* To appease in some degree the loud and angry murmurs of his subjects, Henry, the next year, on Easter day, announced that a new cross had been prepared for their consolation, of the same shape, size, and appearance as the stolen relic, and asserted, most probably with perfect truth, that in divine powers, or claim to religious worship, it was but little inferior to its model. "The people of Paris," says Estoile, an eye-witness of this transaction, "being very devout, and of easy faith on such subjects" (he is speaking of the sixteenth century), "gratefully hailed the restoration of some tangible and immediate object for their prayers. Of the original fragment I can discern no further authentic trace; and here, then, it seems to have ended its long and adventurous career.

Before I conclude, I ought, perhaps, to make some mention of the pretended nails of the passion, which were obtained by Constantine the Great at the same time with the cross. He melted a part of them into a helmet for himself, and the other part was converted into a bridle for his horse, in supposed obedience to a prophetic text of Zechariah : "In that day shall there be upon the bells (bridles) of the horses, holiness unto the Lord."+ Yet, though the helmet alone might

*See L'Estoile, Journal de Henri III., vol. i. p. 125, 161, ed. 1744. † Zech. ch. xiv. v. 20.

appear to have required all the nails which could póssibly be employed in a crucifixion, it is not unusual in southern Europe to meet with fragments of old iron, for which the same sacred origin is claimed. Thus, for instance, at Catania, in Sicily, I have seen one of these nails, which is believed to possess miraculous powers, and exhibited only once a year with great solemnity. There is another in a private oratory of the Escurial; and I was surprised in observing in the same case a relic of St. Thomas à Becket. All the nails, from the time of Constantine, are rejected as spurious by Cardinal Baronius;* yet a former pope had expressed his belief in their authenticity;† and the ingenious idea of miraculous vegetation might have been easily applied to them. But to trace the other parts of this history, and more especially their insertion in the iron crown of Lombardy, would require, though scarcely deserve, a separate essay.

real or fabulous

* Annal. Eccles. A.D. 326, No. 54.

+ See a letter from Innocent VI. ap. Raynald. Annal. Eccles. A. D. 1354. No. 18.

THE LUTE.

BY L. E. L.

OH! sing again that mournful song,
That song of other times!
The music bears my soul along,
To other, dearer climes.

I love its low and broken tone;
The music seems to me

Like the wild wind when singing lone
Over a twilight sea.

The valleys where your childhood grew,

The memories of your spring.

My father's house, my infancy,

Rise present to my mind,
As if I had not crossed the sea,
Or left my youth behind.