Here tall grass bowed its tasselled head
In dewy tears above the dead,

And there they lay in crooked fern,
That waved and wept above by turn;
And farther on, by sombre trees,
They lay, wild heroes of wildest deeds,
In shrouds alone of weeping weeds,
Bound in a never-to-be-broken peace.

ST. PETER'S

We enter between the points of the great extended arms, as it were, of St. Peter's, the central point, the church of the head of the Roman church, the wonder of architecture upon which untold sums of gold and three centuries of labor have been lavished.

We pause just inside the grand piazza, or great open space in front of the huge edifice, to try to get a proper idea of its vastness which is almost impossible in a first visit. On each side of us extend from the church those well-known great semicircular porticos, or pavilions, so familiar to everyone who has ever seen a picture of the building. We descended from our carriages, and the longer we gazed upon the great work the more its grandeur and beauty grew upon us.

The great porticos, which at first sight seem a low row of pillars inclosing the area, you discover are supported by pillars sixtyfour feet high and twenty feet apart, there being two hundred and eighty-four of these pillars, and each portico being fifty-five feet wide. The top of these grand pavilions is crowned with an

army of saints, for one hundred and sixty-two figures, each twelve feet in height, look down upon the spectator, and the widest breadth between these two great encircling arms of the church is five hundred and eighty-seven feet.

In the centre of the great enclosure rises the tall red granite obelisk that formerly stood in the circus of Nero, where it was placed by the emperor Caligula. It was the only obelisk in old Rome that was never thrown down. Its removal to its present place was considered little less than a miracle, as the difficulties in raising it from its old pedestal and conveying it without injury to this spot seemed almost insurmountable.

But let us turn our attention to St. Peter's. Like most visitors who have advanced thus far into the square, I was disappointed by having the noble proportions of the huge dome cut off by the great façade of the building, which is three hundred and fiftyseven feet long and one hundred and forty-four feet in height. Above this is a balustrade with the statues of Christ and the Apostles, apparently of life size, but which are actually eighteen feet in height. After ascending the broad flight of marble steps, we find ourselves in the vestibule, which is a grand structure in itself.

It is not without a quickened beat of the heart that we step within the wondrous temple into an atmosphere that is ever its own, and into the midst of a wilderness of wondrous architecture that is fairly bewildering.

From a glance at the polished marble pavement under foot, the eye at once glides away along the great central nave, a surpassingly grand vista. On each side, massive Corinthian pillars rise, pilasters crowned with elegant capitals, arches leading into lofty side chapels, over which are recumbent angels, the great

vaulted semicircular roof enriched with sunken panels, ornaments, sculptures, bas-reliefs, and mosaics - a prodigality of decoration in every direction.

But the vastness of the interior is what astonishes the visitor. Distant people appear dwarfed to the size of children. You go up to the fluting of a pillar and find it to be a niche big enough for a life size statue. You approach the infantile cherubs that support the shell of holy water near the entrance, and find them to be children six feet in height, and begin then to educate the eye to the vastness of the scene before you, beautiful in all its harmonious proportions. Glancing down at the pavement, we find marked the comparative length of St. Peter's with the other noted Christian churches. Thus, St. Peter's is six hundred and thirteen feet; St. Paul's, London, five hundred and twenty; Milan Cathedral, four hundred and forty-three, St. Sophia, three hundred and sixty.

Another interesting record in the marble floor is a round slab of porphyry, where emperors stood when crowned by the Pope.

Almost the first walk one takes after the surprise and wonderment of his eye-sweep of the nave is over is down towards a row of faintly glittering lamps, that the visitor sees before him upon a circular balcony of marble, and which appear in the distance like a wreath of yellow roses. These lamps are in clusters of three, are one hundred and twelve in number, and are constantly kept burning. They surround the sanctum sanctorum of the great church the tomb of St. Peter. The visitor finds on reaching them that the balustrade that holds them is placed above two flights of marble steps that lead down to the door of the sepulchre.

Beneath the great dome you look up and almost forget that it is the work of man's art, or that there should be any desire to look up any more than to bend one's gaze upon the sky which we know is above. Feet and inches seem to convey but a faint idea of the proportions of this grand pile.

The height from the pavement on which I stood to the top of the gorgeously decorated dome, or base of the lantern or little cupola that surmounted the dome is nearly twice as high as Bunker Hill Monument. The four great pillars that you observe support it are over two hundred and fifty feet in circumference, and the interior of this magnificent globe is one hundred and thirty-nine feet in circumference on the inside; and we find afterwards that there is another entire cupola outside, as we ascend it, and that there are commodious stairways and rooms between the two domes. So while we stand and calculate that two buildings like the Capitol at Washington could be piled one on top of the other between where we stand and the top of this great temple, we begin to appreciate its vastness.

As the eye soars up again into this magnificent vault, with its recesses, arches, spandrels, and decorations, the gaze is arrested by the four medallions of the Evangelists, with their emblems that appear where you stand like smoothly executed paintings, but which when you climb to them, are mosaics of -pieces of colored stone big as your thumb, and the figures great staring giants. St. Luke, with a hand that would answer for a dinner table, grasps a pen seven feet in length, and each letter of the mosaic inscription that runs round the base of the dome fair sized letters as seen from below is in reality six feet high.

These figures give a faint idea of the vastness of the propor

tions of St. Peter's, but its architectural management is such that all appear to harmonize.

An attempt to describe St. Peter's in detail will hardly be expected from any traveller or writer of ordinary experience. The great side chapels which we visit are large enough for ordinary churches. On every side the eye encounters rich decorations, marbles, carvings, frescoing, and gilding.

The Tribune is at the extreme end of the nave beyond the dome, and beyond what is known as the choir in cathedrals. At the base is a grand altar; at each side upon two great ornamental pedestals stand two mitred figures, one with extended hand, the other reading from a book. Behind these are two others whose extended right and left hands apparently hold or point to a large ornamental casket between and above their heads, in which you are told is inclosed the identical chair in which St. Peter and many of his successors sat when officiating as head of the church. Above this two cherubs support the inevitable tiara and keys, and above them is a glory of numerous angels and rays of golden light, the dove forming the centre and the surroundings being rich in gilding and frescoing.

St. Peter's should not be visited hurriedly or with a large party who will rudely disturb the hushed reverence which its grandeur and beauty impose upon you as you stand beneath its marvellous dome, feel dwarfed by the side of its huge pillars, and note the comparative silence which seems to pervade the interior, no matter how many be present.

A quiet leisurely saunter with time to spare, and a revisiting again and again is necessary to enable the mind fully to grasp and properly appreciate its grandeur as a great architectural wonder.