were called Tullian, from Tullus Hostilius, who built them; and Mamertine, either from Ancus Martius, who enlarged them, or from the Vicus Mamertinus; unless, indeed, that district received its name from them. The Gemonian steps, which were necessarily beside the prison, plainly show that it had no door for entrance to the ground-floor, nor in the front, but an entrance to the Campidoglio from behind, over a bridge, from which there was an easy descent to the door of the prison. These steps are the celebrated Gemonian, where the executioners, after having killed the culprits inside the prison, brought them up, and exposed them to public view before the building. Sometimes they killed them there, or by throwing them down the steps from the bridge. Sometimes they left them to perish with hunger in the Tullian prison; as did Jugurtha, the chiefs of the Etolians, Quintus Plemminius, Lentulus Spinther, and others."

There it was that the early confessors of Christianity suffered for their Master's sake: and if the same spirit which animated them, and bore them triumphant through bonds and death, had survived the age of martyrdoms, idolatry would not have returned to occupy again those deserted temples; altars would have had no place there, as exhibited in our engraving of the Temple of Bacchus, or Church of St. Constance; and the visiter to the Mamertine Prison would not now be constrained to exclaim, in contrasting the severe, unbending faith of the old Romans with the spiritual degeneracy of their children, "How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!"

BIBLE-READING IN OLD ENGLAND.

IT is scarcely needful to observe that the history of the Bible blends, in a remarkable degree, with that of Protestantism, of vital godliness, and of liberty. Most interesting is it, in particular, to remark the influence of Scripture-reading on the English Reformation. The word of God was extensively read, in the language of this island, long before Luther arose in Germany; and it was honoured in the arrangements

of Grace and Providence, to be the main instrument in bringing about that auspicious change.

From the beginning of the seventh century to the reappearing of letters in the fourteenth, we are accustomed to reckon "the dark ages." Even in these, however, a few glimmering lights, both eastern and western, may be traced. Among the latter, our subject will lead us to name Venerable Bede and King Alfred. Before the Reformation, be it just noted, art and learning had revived in Italy. There, in truth, was far less disposition to bow to the Pontiff, than in the remoter states of western Europe. The British isles were especially yielding. While Milan was resisting the hierarch, -and Venice, as though feeling secure in her defence of rocks and Adriatic waves, was laughing at the impotent thunders that pealed from the Vatican, and maintaining commerce free; vindicating civil rights, and humbling the warriors who came with crosier, sceptre, sword, and the Pope's irreversible blessing, and while the poet of Florence was not only singing of paradise, but writing against the assumed supremacy,-in a word, while cities all but under the shadow of Rome were fighting for liberty, these goodly lands of ours were submitting to the yoke of bondage. About this date, the Pontiff's income from England was thrice as much as that of native royalty. For ages after the Conquest, as well as during the Anglo-Saxon period, we were bowing more obsequiously than many others to the Seven Hills. Monastics, who had very discriminating eyes, were choosing for themselves our loveliest and most fruitful spots; and St. Peter's successor, so called,-little thinking that, after a few centuries, we should be quoting his words in the hearing of indignant thousands,-said, "Truly, England is our garden of delight. It is an unexhausted well! and where so much abounds, much may be acquired." Yet in Britain, as in Germany and Italy, the fourteenth century is marked by events full of hope. Some attention was already paid here to learning, especially to sacred learning. One example shall be cited, if not from Britain, yet from Ireland, a country to which we owe no little sympathy. There flourished, in the middle of the fourteenth century, a Primate, Fitzralph, who

may be viewed as, in some sort, the forerunner of a more illustrious man, just now to be named. The testimony of Fitzralph is beautiful in the extreme:—

"The Lord had taught him," he said, "and brought him out of the profound vanities of Aristotle's philosophy, to the Scriptures of God. To Thee," he adds, "be praise, glory, thanksgiving, O Jesus most holy, Jesus most powerful, Jesus most amiable, who hast said, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life;' a way without deviation, truth without a cloud, and life without end! For Thou the way hast shown me, Thou the truth hast taught me, and Thou the life hast promised me. A way Thou wast to me in exile; the truth Thou wast to me in counsel; and life Thou wilt be to me in reward."

Fitzralph died, but Wycliffe arose : Wycliffe, whose undying fame it is, that we trace to him the first instance, in modern Europe, of the entire Bible translated for the common people. "It is," says the annalist of the English Bible, "at least, the only one in the fourteenth century upon which we can now lay our hand, no continental nation having anything similar to produce."

Leaving the Rector of Lutterworth in possession of this unfading wreath, we may for a little while deviate into some inquiry respecting earlier versions attempted within these islands. As much information as we are just now seeking may be found, in compend, in the Introduction to the second edition of Mr. Bagster's "English Hexapla."

It is clear from a famous passage in Tertullian, (Adv. Judæos, cap. 7,) that Christianity prevailed within these shores in the second century. The places which he describes as "inaccessible to the Romans," but "subdued by Christ," are probably the mountains of North Britain. An exception, as the proverb runs, proves the rule; and we know, in regard to the country at large, that language followed in the train of conquest, and ultimately spread beyond the last trophy of the great Roman power. We may therefore conclude, at once, that Latin versions were used. After the Saxons had done much to reduce the land to Paganism, the light of truth revisited it in the sixth century; and, before the end of the

seventh, the entire Heptarchy professed the faith. In various monasteries, particularly at Iona, one of the Hebrides, and in Ireland, copies of the Latin Scriptures were multiplied. There were, also, early attempts at Saxon versions. For, it is most important to observe, that formal objections to vernacular translations belong to a later date; and if we find no very general anxiety for such a boon, it may be supposed that comparatively few were able to read, and that the cultivated orders preferred the Latin, already hallowed by use. At all events, there appeared in the seventh century that metrical paraphrase of sacred history which is ascribed to Cædmon, Monk of Whitby. This was, clearly, no translation; unless we allow many a modern poem on Scripture subjects to be such. Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne, produced a version of the Psalms about A.D. 700. Guthlac, the Saxon anchoret, claims to be mentioned also. But, passing by sundry metrical paraphrases, renderings of the Psalms and Daily Lessons, &c., we come down to the early part of the eighth century, and then find the illustrious Bede, an untiring student, and a lover of all learning, executing the first regular translation from the New Testament, of which we can speak particularly. His dying effort was put forth in dictating the last chapter of St. John's Gospel. When the scribe announced, "It is done,” the reply of the expiring saint was, "Thou hast well said: all is now finished. Lift me up, that, sitting where I have loved to pray, I may call upon my Father." And, with faltering voice, attempting to sing, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost," he escaped from earth to finish the strain in heaven. Nay, never to finish it, but to take part in the new, the old, the everlasting "song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb."

Among Anglo-Saxon translators, every one has heard of King Alfred. It is the custom to extol the doings of Princes, and to magnify their virtues into heroic proportions. But we have, at least, the Ten Commandments, and passages from three following chapters of Exodus, translated by the Monarch, and prefixed to his body of laws. You do not desire, on this occasion, anything like a minute bibliography; and it shall suffice, therefore, to add, in the briefest terms, that at the

close of the tenth century Elfric professed to translate a large part of the Old Testament; that biblical studies were suspended by the Danish invasion; and that, unless we assign to the Anglo-Norman or early English dialect a version of the Gospels executed in the transition-state of our language, we can report little, beyond a few humble attempts in verse, of the times of the Conqueror and of nine succeeding Kings. It is a little remarkable that thus, a second time, metre preceded literal translation. The first known portion of Scripture in English prose is the work of Rolle, hermit of Hampole; which belongs to the former part of the fourteenth century.

BISCAY AND THE BISCAYANS.

ON leaving St. Jean de Luz for Spain, the road winds into the heart of the smiling hills of the Basque country, meeting here and there some pretty mountain-village, or else a solitary house, which shows, across a clump of trees, its white walls and red shutters. It thus ascends little by little, till, suddenly arriving at the top of a long and rapid slope, you discover a lovely valley, narrowing on the left, and losing itself in the gorges of the Pyrenees, whilst on the right it expands and runs off to the sea, between the point of St. Anne and Cape Figuier. The Bidasoa, the Isle of Faisans, are at your feet: two great names in geography and history. Alas! the first has so little water, that at low tide it loses itself in the sand, before reaching the ocean; the other, wasted by the surge of every spring, is nothing but a bank of sand, where a few willows find a scanty covering for their roots but at that rivulet France ends, and on this islet Louis XIV. and Philip IV. met each other. The greatness of the reminiscences, and the inexplicable feeling with which one crosses the frontiers of his country, compensate for the intrinsic littleness of objects, and you descend the slope, you traverse Behobia and its wooden bridge, almost without being aware of the fact; and you will have scarcely cast a stray glance on Fontarabia, the Spano-Moorish town, which, from the height of its isolated rock, stretches its bastions into the