huge avalanche, threatening destruction to all below. The last days of Hong Kong seemed approaching-it was a grand but truly awful sight."

The stone buildings which have since risen by the sea and on the slopes of the hills under the name of Victoria, will, it is to be hoped, prove a better shelter against this terrible scourge than the bamboo and palmyra leaves of these primitive habitations, but we doubt not that the disadvantages under which our countrymen in this inhospitable colony suffer, have become the object of serious consideration on the part of those on whom the responsibility devolves.

THE CHURCH OF ST. PETER'S, AT ROME

But lo! the dome- -the vast and wondrous dome

To which Diana's marvel was a cell,

Christ's mighty shrine above his martyr's tomb !

I have beheld the Ephesian's miracle

Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwell

The hyæna and the jackal in their shade;

I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swell

Their glittering mass i'the sun, and have surveyed

Its sanctuary, the while the Moslem pray'd;

But thou, of temples old, or altars new,
Standest alone-with nothing like to thee-
Worthiest of God, the holy and the true.
Since Zion's desolation, when that He
Forsook his former city, what could be,
Of earthly structures, in his honour piled,

Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty,

Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled

In this eternal ark of worship undefiled.

Enter its grandeur overwhelms thee not;
And why? it is not lessen'd; but thy mind

Expanded by the genius of the spot,
Has grown colossal, and can only find
A fit abode wherein appear enshrined
Thy hopes of immortality; and thou
Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined,
See thy God, face to face, as thou dost now
His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow.

These glorious stanzas express so truly the feelings which fill the mind on first entering the wonderful church of St. Peter's, the interior of which is here presented to our readers, that it would be presumption to attempt any expression but in the words of own great poet.

The remains of the Apostle St. Peter were buried in a cemetery in the Campo Vaticano, in which was the circus of Nero. An oratory had been raised over his grave, and the emperor Constantine erected here a basilica, supported by ninetytwo marble pillars. This edifice exhibiting symptoms of decay, pope Nicholas the Fifth, in 1460, commissioned Bernardino Rosellini and Leonardo Battista Alberti, to begin a new church. The building was continued, about the beginning of the sixteenth century, after the plan of Bramante, under the superintendence of Sangallo, Fra Giscondo Domenicano, and the great Raffaelle, during the reign of pope Leo the Tenth. Subsequently, Peruzzi da Siena changed the Latin cross

of the original design into a Greek one, and Michael Angelo Buonarotti continued the erection in the same plan. The bold idea of the cupola was suggested by the daring genius of Michael Angelo, who had intended to erect the façade of the church in the style of the Pantheon of Agrippa, but he died, and this grand design was never executed. Pius the Fifth ordered the architects, Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola and Pirro Ligorio, to conform in every respect to the plans of Michael Angelo. Under the direction of Giacomo della Porta, who superintended this great work during the reigns of three popes, Gregory the Thirteenth, Sixtus the Fifth, and Clement the Seventh, the great cupola was completed, and adorned with that profusion of mosaic, which excites astonishment at the time and expence necessary to produce such vast works in minute detail. One hundred and fortyfive years were required to complete this manificent fabric, if, indeed, it could be called complete; and the expenses incurred have been estimated at about eighteen million pounds sterling.

An edifice, which was erected under the superintendence of so many architects, and of which the execution was carried on during such a long space of time, and under the influence of the necessary changes in art, cannot but exhibit some of the disadvantages consequent upon a frequent change of plan, but we may still adhere to the enthusiastic opinion of a Roman antiquary, that all the arts have contributed to the decoration of this superb edifice, the most remarkable monument of modern Rome, and of the whole world, that the greatest masters in painting, mosaic and sculpture have devoted their talents to it; so, that if in Rome every thing but this temple were destroyed, it would still be worth while to make a pilgrimage to behold it.

Five gates, or doors, open into the vestibule of the church, and the same number open thence into the interior. Of these latter one is walled up; it is open on the day of the Great Jubilee, and hence called Porta Santa, or Holy Door. The dimensions of St. Peter's are as follow:-the interior length from the entrance door to the end of the tribune is six hundred and fourteen English feet; the breadth of the nave, two hundred and seven feet; the breadth of the cross, seventy-nine feet ; the diameter of the cupola, one hundred and thirty-nine feet; the height from the pavement to the first gallery, one hundred and seventy-four feet; to the second gallery, two hundred and forty feet; to the representation of the Deity in the lantern, three hundred and ninety-three feet; and to the summit of the exterior cross, four hundred and forty-eight feet. As our own St. Paul's ranks next in dimensions to that of St. Peter's at Rome, it is not uninteresting to compare these two great buildings. St. Paul's was begun and completed by one architect and one master-mason, and Compton was bishop of London during its erection, which