will be your general, the judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field." Hear her also after the defeat of the Armada, when kneeling down at the west door of St. Paul's, she openly and audibly praises God, who had "delivered the land from the rage of the enemy," and it will not be matter of surprise that Elizabeth won for herself the honourable and distinctive name of the "Good Queen Bess," or that her name is still traced in letters of gold upon the brightest page of our history. At the back of the court is the interesting monument of the beautiful Lady Hertford and her sons.

THE next court is one devoted to some of the finest works of Italian sculptors and artists. At each end of the court are copies from the exquisite tomb of the Medici-the great patrons and encourages of the revival of classic art. After the death of Leo X. no monument for several years marked the place of his sepulture. The Cardinal Ippolito de Medici, upon removing the remains of Leo from the Vatican to the chapel of Santa Maria ad Minervam, employed Alfonzo Lombardi to erect some fitting memorials to the memory of the two Pontiffs, to whom he stood so nearly related. The sketches for the tomb were furnished by Michael Angelo, and Lombardi commenced the work: the death of the Cardinal, however, put an end for a time to the further progress of the work. Through the influence of Lucrezia Salviati, the execution of the tomb was entrusted to Baccio Bandinelli, who completed the beautiful monument, and it was placed in the choir of the church of Santa Maria, which was built on the ruins of an ancient temple of Minerva-hence its name Santa Maria ad Minervam. It is stated that Pope Clement VII., in order to compel Michael Angelo to complete his statue for the tomb, threatened to excommunicate him in the event of employing himself upon any other work until he had finished the tomb.

The fountain in the centre is a copy of the "Tartarughe" at Rome; the beautiful figures which surround it were the works of Taddeo Landini, and Giacomo della Porta, two able pupils and followers of the school of Michael Angelo. At the end of the court is a beautiful specimen of painted architecture, from the Casa Taverna at Milan, by the celebrated Bernardo Luigi. Among the statues will be noticed the Pieta and the Slave by Michael Angelo, and the charming Madonna, executed for the Cardinal Rohan, in the same chapel as the Medici tomb, when the artist was but twenty-four years of age. There is also in another part, a noble work of art, the statue of Pope Julius, of which it is said, that when the Pope observed the vigour of the attitude, and the energy with which the right arm was extended, he asked Michael Angelo whether he intended to represent him as dispensing his benediction or his curse? to which the artist very prudently replied, that he meant to represent him in the act of admonishing the citizens of Bologna, and, in return, the Pope was asked whether he would be represented with a book in his hand? “No,” replied the head of the church militant, "give me a sword, I am no scholar." At an outbreak of popular fury in Bologna, the original statue cast in brass was mutilated, and after having been indignantly carried about the city was broken into pieces, and sent by the French commander to the Duke of Ferrara, who formed it into a cannon, to which he gave the name of Julio. The head alone was preserved, and for some time it ornamented the ducal palace of Ferrara. The cost of the statue was 5,000 gold ducats. The colossal figure of Moses, also the work of Michael Angelo, from St. Peter's Church at Rome, is included in the collection of works of Italian sculptors. The sonnet to which this fine work of art gave rise will be read with interest ::

"And who is he that, shaped in sculptured stone,
Sits giant like? Stern monument of art,
Unparalleled, whilst language seem to start
From his prompt lips, and we his precepts own?
'Tis Moses; by his beard's thick honours known,
And the twin beams that from his temples dart.
"Tis Moses; seated on the mount apart,

Whilst yet the Godhead o'er his features shone.
Such once he looked when ocean's sounding wave
Suspended hung, and such amidst the storm
When o'er his foes the refluent waters roared.
An idol calf his followers did engrave;

But had they raised this awe-commanding form,
Then had they with less guilt their work adored."

In the other parts of the court are some bas-reliefs of Michael Angelo, representing the Madonna, in a circular panel, from the chapel of the Medici, at Florence, and an unfinished, but still

beautiful, bas-relief on the same subject, which has been for a long time the neglected and unvalued property of the Royal Academy. There is also a copy of the most famous work in sculpture, by Raffaele, the subject being Jonah, the foot of the prophet being just placed in the opening of the mouth of the whale. The exquisite design and perfect style of execution which this work displays, excited unbounded admiration at the time it was first executed, and in the present day it is justly considered as displaying a degree of excellence scarcely equalled by the finest remains of ancient art. The original statue is in the Chigi Chapel, in the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo at Rome. The other works in the court are the Triton, by Montorsoli, from the Doria Gardens, at Genoa, a rich doorway from a palace at Genoa, and a Pieta, by Bernini.

The façade of the court is a representation of the palace of the illustrious Farnesse family, the decorations of which were the work of Vignola, the celebrated fresco painter.

At the back of the court is a beautiful ceiling in "grisaille," by Sebastiano Serli, from the splendid library at Venice, and the four famous Venetian standards, including the celebrated statue of Mercury, by John of Bologna.

A SMALL Vestibule adjoining the Italian court, filled with some of the choicest productions of Italian art is the last of the series of courts devoted to the illustration of the Fine Arts of a past epoch. The charming paintings on the upper portions of this vestibule are imitations of the paintings round the open galleries of the Vatican. The pictures which cover almost the entire surface of the centre, are copies of the works of Vandyke, Titian, and other old masters, made upon a cabinet scale by Mr. West, whose abilities in this peculiar kind of work are most remarkable. The casts of the doors of St. Mark's, Venice, by Sansovino, in this vestibule, are worthy rivals of those of Ghiberti in the Renaissance Court. Mr. Digby Wyatt, speaking of these doors executed about eighty years after those of Ghiberti, says "The particular point in which she must advance, appears to have been made in the interval which separates the two works, is the acquisition of a free command over the application of classical connection which attaches with propriety to the several degrees of relief, and which were founded by the ancients on profound observation and study. A just appreciation of the skill with which Sansovino has contrived his round and flattened mouldings would not fail to be serviceable to those who would desire to reproduce works of similar elegance in the present day. With Sansovino closed the series of those artists who in Italy treated bronze in a distinctive and metallic manner.

At the back of the Italian vestibule is a beautiful reproduction of Raffaele's finest ceiling, that from the Camera della Segnatura in the Vatican; the ceiling has been characterised as a work so daring in its design, and so complex in its composition as to have given rise to various conjectures respecting the intention of the artist," and it has been generally but erroneously called "The Dispute on the Sacraments." The copy of this admirable work was