THE YOUTH'S INSTRUCTER AND GUARDIAN. JANUARY, 1852. THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO. EARLY in the second century of the Christian era, the Emperor Hadrian, fond of massive structures, and longing to perpetuate his memory by some material monument, resolved to erect a mausoleum for the reception of his body. One of his predecessors, Augustus, had reared such a building in the Campus Martius; and he fixed on a site just opposite, the skirt of the Marian Mount, on a reach of the Tiber, in the gardens of Domitia, where he resolved that it should arise in solidity and beauty superior to anything of the kind that he had seen in all his travels. Thus rose the Mole of Hadrian: a vast pile, square at the base, and circular aloft, as it appears in the engraving, but with this difference, that it was surrounded with marble columns, adorned with statues, in marble and in bronze, of men, and horses, and chariots, wrought by the first artists that were yet remaining in the Queen of cities, and rose to a much greater height. Hadrian himself was architect; and the taste which he displayed in the great wall bearing his name in the north of our island, was far surpassed in the preparation of that sumptuous tomb. But the elevation was afterwards reduced, the architectural and sculptural decorations removed, and the span of the "Mole” shrank under the hands of an envious and a declining posterity. Constantine the Great, intent on the provision of temples for Christian worship, is said to have removed entire orders of column VOL. XVI. Second Series. A that had graced the mausoleum, and transferred them to St. John of the Lateran, and other Roman churches, where antiquarians, as they believe, even now can point them out. And when the Goths invaded Italy and besieged the city, the desperate citizens broke the statuary of Parian stone, and hurled the fragments on the heads of the besiegers. Thus was it stripped and diminished, until it seemed as if the Mole of Hadrian, too truly answering to its name,* * would become a ruinous heap. Thus it frowned over the Tiber for centuries, an unsightly mass of masonry, covering the ashes of a builder, for whose memory, Pagan that he was, no man cared; and it is not unlikely that the deepening superstition of successive generations would people the ruin with figures of ghosts or angels. An illusion, however, or a fable, contributed to rescue the pile from utter demolition. An angel, it was reported, had appeared on the top, after a pestilence had been wasting the population, and by some gesture, or other signal, intimated that the plague was ended. The name of that angel no one was able to divine; and, in the lack of a more specific designation, they called him "the Holy Angel;" (il Sant' Angelo;) and as the building had been used as a castle, from the beginning of the Gothic invasion, it was thenceforth called "the Castle of the Holy Angel." Those who fain would throw a veil over the follies of past ages, say that this name originated in the time of Benedict XIV., who placed in the castle an image of the angel Michael. But Benedict ascended the throne in 1740; and we have just read the legend in a book printed in Rome in 1652, when the Castle had been known from time of old by its present name. It is vain for the art of the present age to fling its robe over the superstitions of the past, too ample to be concealed by so scant a covering. When Charles VIII. of France threatened to invade Italy, in order to recover the sovereignty of Naples, on the one hand, and when the Turk, on the other, was also threatening to overwhelm the divided and sinking states of Italy, Pope Alexander VI., one of the most warlike and licentious of all that ever wore the triple crown, repaired the walls in places where time and violence had made breaches. Moles, "a heap." And when the French army had crossed the Alps, and, passing through the country, had taken possession of Ferrara without resistance, that Pope, forsaken by all his Cardinals, except two, who went with him, and perhaps hated by the people of Rome as bitterly as Pius IX. is hated now, shut himself up in the newly-repaired fortress, and refused to see Charles, who entered the Flaminian gate, and was welcomed with joy as if he had come to save them from the Papacy. But the King compelled him to come out; and some Priests, wishful to save Rome for their Church, managed to mediate between them, and adjust their differences. For many ages this Castle of St. Angelo has served the Popes for the twofold use of a fortress and a prison. There, as in the Tower of London, in olden time, the Priest-Kings have laid up their ammunition, lodged a little garrison, overawed the city, and held fast state-prisoners. Within the dreary enclosure that you see pictured on our frontispiece, there are chambers with walls impenetrably thick, and small, very small windows opening inward, obscured with strong gratings of iron that no perseverance nor ingenuity of a captive could remove. There are dark dungeons, in which the man immured cannot see a ray of light. There are depths lower than the ashes of Hadrian, where living victims might be buried, and probably have often been buried. Some who have lately tenanted the less horrible cells, tell us of iron rings, and of chains, by which former occupants were bound, and of names and sentences written on the cold black walls, just as aforetime in the great state-prison of England. Within that inclosure, hostages have been detained, disgraced Cardinals laid in fetters; Popes themselves have trembled, and Princes have perished, there. Every reader will remember that Dr. Giacinto Achilli, having been seized by the Inquisitors, was imprisoned in the Castle of St. Angelo, the Roman citizens having dilapidated the cells of the Inquisition in 1849; and many who have heard him raise his voice in this free country to warn us against the artifice of Rome, will not be displeased to see a representation of the exterior of his prison. From the height of St. Angelo the cannon belch out their flames when the name of a newly-elected Pope is first proclaimed from a window of the neighbouring Vatican. Then, and at the great festivals, the artillery of St. Angelo makes the dome of St. Peter's vibrate with its peals. Now the French have possession of the fortress. They have filled it with men and ammunition, and could batter down the palace of the Popes, if the Pope that now is were to resist their pleasure. They keep him quiet, but they also keep the slaves of the Papacy in subjection. There it was that Arnold of Brescia hoisted his flag, while the Pope was disowned, and he ruled the commonwealth. Very lately, the tricolor of the Roman republic waved from that flag-staff; but what flag will be next unfurled thereon, is a question which the Cardinals are asking, as they sit within sight of it in Consistory, looking at each other. In January, 1852, we cannot hope to answer; but we, as our fathers, live in the confidence that the Lord God Omnipotent will, in His good time, take down the Papal standard, and the apocalyptic vision shall be fulfilled, when that huge sepulchre shall be restored to the use for which Hadrian built it,-to hide the dead,-and the avenging angel shall cry mightily over the Castle of St. Angelo, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." 66 HEBREW DATES AND NUMBERS. ONE book of the New Testament, the Revelation of St. John the Divine, is written in a very remarkable style. It is not only, like the Gospel of St. Matthew more particularly, and all the other books to some extent, full of Hebrew allusions and Hebrew forms, but abounds, beyond them all, in both allusions and forms which are distinctively rabbinical. In proportion as a calm and non-controversial criticism is employed on this book, its Jewish character stands out with increasing clearness to the apprehension of the student, as distinct from the general Hebrew character which it also has, in common with all the writings of the same volume. And this is a fact in sacred literature which deserves far more serious and grateful |