earth to earth, and dust to dust, for Christ's sake!' He endeavoured to obey this last command, but being full of years, and troubled and weak, his strength failed him, and a lion came out of the wood and aided him, digging with his paws till the grave was sufficiently large to receive the body of the saint, which being committed to the earth, the lion retired gently, and the old man returned home, praising God, who had shown mercy to the penitent."

In single figures and devotional pictures, Mary of Egypt is portrayed as a meagre, wasted, aged woman, with long hair, and holding in her hand three small loaves. Sometimes she is united with Mary Magdalene, as joint emblems of female penitence; and not in painting only, but in poetry,—

"Like redeemed Magdalene,

Or that Egyptian penitent, whose tears

Fretted the rock, and moisten'd round her cave
The thirsty desert."

Some

Thus they stand together in a little rare print by Marc Antonio, the one distinguished by her vase, the other by her three loaves. times, when they stand together, Mary Magdalene is young, beautiful, richly dressed; and Mary of Egypt, a squalid, meagre, old woman, covered with rags: as in a rare and curious print by Israel

von Mecken.1

Pictures from her life are not common. The earliest I have met with is the series painted on the walls of the Chapel of the Bargello, at Florence, above the life of Mary Magdalene: they had been whitewashed over. In seeking for the portrait of Dante this whitewash has been in part removed; and it is only just possible for those acquainted with the legend to trace in several compartments the history of Mary of Egypt.

1. Detached subjects are sometimes met with. In the church of San Pietro-in-Pò, at Cremona, they preserve relics said to be those of Mary of Egypt: and over the altar there is a large picture by Malosso,

1 B. Museum.

representing the saint at the door of the Temple at Jerusalem, and She is richly dressed, with a broad

repulsed by a miraculous power. brimmed hat, and stands on the step, as one endeavouring to enter, while several persons look on, some amazed, others mocking.

2. Mary of Egypt doing penance in the desert is easily confounded with the penitent Magdalene. Where there is no skull, no vase of ointment, no crucifix near her, where the penitent is aged, or at least not young and beautiful, with little or no drapery, and black or grey hair, the picture may be presumed to represent Mary of Egypt, and not the Magdalene, however like in situation and sentiment. There is a large fine picture of this subject at Alton Towers.

3. The first meeting of Mary and the hermit Zosimus, has been painted by Ribera: in this picture her hair is grey and short, her skin dark and sunburnt, and she is clothed in rags.

4. In another picture by the same painter she is passing over the Jordan by the help of angels; she is seen floating in the air with her hands clasped, and Zosimus is kneeling by. This subject might easily be confounded with the Assumption of the Magdalene, but the sentiment ought to distinguish them; for, instead of the ecstatic trance of the Magdalene, we have merely a miraculous incident: the figure is but little raised above the waters, and the hermit is kneeling on the shore.'

5. St. Mary receives the last communion from the hands of Zosimus. I have known this subject to be confounded with the last communion of the Magdalene. The circumstances of the scene, as well as the character, should be attended to. Mary of Egypt receives the sacrament in the desert; a river is generally in the background: Zosimus is an aged monk. Where the Magdalene receives the sacrament from the hands of Maximin, the scene is a portico or chapel with rich architecture, and Maximin wears the habit of a bishop.

6. The death of Mary of Egypt. Zosimus is kneeling beside her, and the lion is licking her feet or digging her digging her grave. The presence of the lion distinguishes this subject from the death of Mary Magdalene.

It was in the Sp. Gal. in the Louvre, now dispersed.

St. Mary of Egypt was early a popular saint in France, and particularly venerated by the Parisians, till eclipsed by the increasing celebrity of the Magdalene. She was styled, familiarly, La Gipesienne (the Gipsy), softened by time into La Jussienne. The street in which stood a convent of reformed women dedicated to her, is still la Rue Jussienne.

We find her whole story in one of the richly painted windows of the cathedral of Chartres; and again in the " Vitraux de Bourges," where the inscription underneath is written "Segiptiaca."

Among the best modern frescoes which I saw at Paris, was the decoration of a chapel in the church of St. Merry, dedicated to Ste. Marie l'Egyptienne: the religious sentiment and manner of Middle-Age Art are as usual imitated, but with a certain unexpected originality in the

conception of some of the subjects which pleased me. 1. On the wall, to the right, she stands leaning on the pedestal of the statue of the Madonna in a meditative attitude, and having the dress and the dark complexion of an Egyptian dancing girl; a crowd of people are seen behind entering the gates of the Temple, at which she alone has been repulsed. 2. She receives the communion from the hand of Zosimus, and is buried by a lion.

On the left-hand wall. 3. Her apotheosis. She is borne aloft by many angels, two of whom swing censers, and below is seen the empty grave watched by a lion. 4. Underneath is a group of hermits, to whom the aged Zosimus is relating the story of the penitence and death of St. Mary of Egypt.

I do not in general accept modern representations as authorities, nor quote them as examples; but this resuscitation of Mary of Egypt in a city where she was so long a favourite saint, appears to me a curious fact. Her real existence is doubted even by the writers of that Church which, for fourteen centuries, has celebrated her conversion and glorified her name. Yet the poetical, the moral significance of her story remains; and, as I have reason to know, can still impress the fancy, and, through the fancy, waken the conscience and touch the heart.

There were several other legends current in the early ages of Christianity, promulgated, it should seem, with the distinct purpose of calling the frail and sinning woman to repentance. If these were not pure inventions, if the names of these beatified penitents retained in the offices of the Church must be taken as evidence that they did exist, it is not less certain that the prototype in all these cases was the reclaimed woman of the Scriptures, and that it was the pitying charity of Christ which first taught men and angels to rejoice over the sinner that repenteth.

1

The legend of MARY, the niece of the hermit Abraham must not be confounded with that of Mary of Egypt. The scene of this story is

1 Santa Maria Penitente.

placed in the deserts of Syria. The anchoret Abraham had a brother, who lived in the world and possessed great riches, and when he died, leaving an only daughter, she was brought to her uncle Abraham, apparently because of his great reputation for holiness, to be brought up as he should think fit. The ideas of this holy man, with regard to education, seem to have been those entertained by many wise and religious people since his time; but there was this difference, that he did not show her the steep and thorny way to heaven, and choose for himself" the primrose path of dalliance." Instead of applying to his charge a code of morality as distinct as possible from his own, he, more just, only brought up his niece in the same ascetic principles which he deemed necessary for the salvation of all men.

Mary, therefore, being brought to her uncle when she was only seven years old, he built a cell close to his own, in which he shut her up; and, through a little window, which opened between their cells, he taught her to say her prayers, to recite the Psalter, to sing hymns, and dedicated her to a life of holiness and solitude, praying continually that she might be delivered from the snares of the arch-enemy, and keeping her far, as he thought, from all possibility of temptation; while he daily instructed her to despise and hate all the pleasures and vanities of the world.

Thus Mary grew up in her cell till she was twenty years old: then it happened that a certain youth, who had turned hermit and dwelt in that desert, came to visit Abraham to receive his instructions; and he beheld through the window the face of the maiden as she prayed in her cell, and heard her voice as she sang the morning and the evening hymn; and he was inflamed with desire of her beauty, till his whole heart became as a furnace for the love of her; and forgetting his religious vocation, and moved thereto by the devil, he tempted Mary, and she fell. When she came to herself, her heart was troubled; she beat her breast and wept bitterly, thinking of what she had been, what she had now become; and she despaired, and said in her heart, "For me there is no hope, no return; shame is my portion evermore!" So she fled, not daring to meet the face of her uncle, and went to a distant place, and lived a life of sin and shame for two years.