twenty-seven days the emperor will occupy a mat-shed adjoining the hall, and after that will return to the palace. Fruit and viands will be brought each morning and evening into the hall, and there daily sacrifices, libations, and prayers will be offered up by the emperor, the princes, and nobles, whose duty it will also be to see that the coffin is varnished the prescribed forty-nine times. Emperor Tung-chi will be there gathered to his fathers. Seen from a little distance the grounds look like a vast and well-wooded park, and it is only now and again that one can get a glimpse - over the high wall which surrounds them or through the magnificent gateway at the entrance of the roof of the mausolea, where lie the illustrious dead. When the time shall approach for the removal of the coffin to its "original palace" officers will be sent to offer sacrifice and to rear an altar on the southeast side of the tomb, and to make votive offerings to the god of the soil. As the distance to be traversed is considerable, halting-places will be fixed upon, and at each a "travellingpalace" will be erected, the road will be levelled and repaired, and a cottage will be built for the accommodation of the emperor by the side of the mausoleum. Next among the more important rites which follow comes that of choosing the posthumous title of the deceased emperor. As the real name of an emperor is held to be too sacred to be pronounced, he adopts during his lifetime a designation for his reign, and after his death a further title is added to his other epithets of honour. On the day before the choice of characters that are to compose it will be made the presidents of the Board of Rites will invite the princes, the minis- Early in the morning on the day apters, the members of the privy council, pointed the Imperial equipages and the and others, to assemble on the morrow, large bier, together with the stands for and to them will be submitted a number the posthumous tablet and seal, will be of high-sounding titles from which they posted outside the gate of the Coffin Palwill make a selection for inscription on ace. In stately array the princes, the the votive tablet and seal. The choice dukes, the ministers, and the court-ladies having been made, the tablet and seal will will take up their respective stations in be carried with exuberant ceremony to attendance, and when the proper moment the "Pure Mansion," where the inscrip- arrives the emperor, at the invitation of tions will be cut on them. Being a Son the presidents of the Board of Ceremoof Heaven, it is necessary that this title nies, will present himself before the should be made known to the unseen coffin, and with tears and lamentations powers, and officials will therefore be sent pour out libations. Presently, when the to inform heaven and earth, the Imperial emperor has retired, the widowed emancestral temple, and the gods of land presses, accompanied by the concubines and grain. On the day appointed the of the three ranks and the ladies of the tablet and seal will be taken with every court, will approach and make their obeitoken of respect and escorted by princes sance to their dead lord. This over, the and ministers to the hall of "Great Har- princes, the ministers, and the presidents mony," where the emperor will inspect of the Board of Works will enter with the them and prostrate himself before them. smaller bier and will reverently place the They will be then carried in state pre- coffin upon it. Through lines of kneeling ceded by armour-bearers and a state um-grandees and officials it will be borne out brella to the Coffin Palace. Here with through the centre door on the larger much pomp they will be met by the dukes, earls, and others, and the inscriptions they bear will be proclaimed by the presidents of the Board of Rites, after which they will be deposited on tables in the hall, and will be there left in company with the mortal remains of him in whose honour they have been called into being. In a wooded valley about forty or fifty miles west of Peking and close to the Great Wall stand the tombs of the emperors of the present dynasty. There lie the ashes of Shun-che, Kang-hi, Yung-cheng, Kien-lung, Kia-king, Taokwang, Hien-fung, and next month the bier. As the bier is carried forward the emperor will escort it on foot, and the empress and the concubines will watch the departure of their husband, and with him their liberty. They will follow him to his grave, and will then retire into the seclusion of the "cold palace" for the remainder of their days, unless their guardians should be lax in their duty or the walls be not insurmountable to any of the hundred and twenty young ladies who make up the required number of the harem. When the procession shall have passed out of the city the emperor will mount his chariot, and will find his way through by-lanes to the first halting-place, where he will await the arrival of the cof-on hearse will pass along the tramway fin. The empress and ladies will move into the "original palace," and the Imby the same secluded roads to the same perial remains will be placed in "eternal destination; and it will be the duty of repose" on the dais. And now the the princes, ministers, and officials to "stone door" of the sepulchre will close accompany the bier on horseback. On on the dead. The spirits hovering round reaching the end of the first stage, the the other tombs and the god of the soil coffin will be placed in the centre of the will be informed that the last ceremony hall of the "travelling-palace." In front has been completed. The wearied emof it will be put a sacrificial stand and a peror will perform the last sacrificial table, and on the left and right the posthu- rites, and will then return to the capital mous tablet and the seal. At sunset the to go through the daily routine of official emperor will bow before the coffin, and business and wearying ceremonies until will pour out libations. He will then it shall be his turn to find eternal repose retire, and the door will be shut. within the stone door of a sepulchre in the Eastern Hills. As the distances traversed each day are but short, probably three or four days will be spent on the road, and on each the same ceremonial will be observed, not forgetting the adoration of the local officials, who, at every hundred Chinese miles, will salute the coffin on their knees on the right-hand side of the road. On arriving at the tombs the emperor will pay his respects to the graves of his ancestors, while the empress and the concubines will take up their places at the mausoleum. He will then receive the coffin on his knees, and will personally superintend its removal to the "Hall of Felicity," where it will be deposited with much solemnity in company with the tablet and seal and abundance of viands, together with ninety thousand paper bills, and the baskets containing the cap and clothes of the late monarch. Certain rites will then be performed by the emperor, and the viands and paper bills and the baskets containing the cap and clothes will be burned with fire. And now the closing scene approaches, and officers will be appointed to announce to heaven and earth, the ancestral temple, and the god of the soil, that yet another ruler of the "Eighteen Provinces " is to be laid with his forefathers in the wooded valley among the Eastern Hills. From The Spectator. GARIBALDI AND THE TIBER. FEW will be inclined to quarrel with the latest pronunciamiento of the Italian patriot. Clerical and Liberal may alike welcome his exchange of the sword for the pruning-hook. From time immemorial the Tiber has defied the efforts of senate and people, of pagan emperor and of Christian pontiff, but at length it seems that modern science must prevail, and sentence of divorce be pronounced against the "uxorius amnis." For such a work - the diversion of the river at a point thirty miles from its mouth - the enthusiasm of the Italians must be awakened, and for this task Garibaldi is of all men the most fitted. But enthusiasm unaided will hardly dig through the Campagna, and the navvy requires more solid sustenance than patriotic fervour. Capital is the one thing needful, and at the same time, perhaps, the thing most difficult to obtain in Italy itself. It is to England, therefore, that the general looks for material as well as moral support. In England, the progress of such an enterOutside the gate of the "Square City," prise must surely be watched with interand adjoining it, the Board of Works will est. Without doubt, many a disappointed erect a wicker hall in which the "dragon tourist has condemned the Tiber as an hearse" will stand, and a lacquered insignificant and muddy stream, and bridge from the "Square City" to the looked with contempt on "the noble river gate of the mausoleum. On this a wood- that rolls by the towers of Rome." But en tramway will be placed leading di-on the other hand, many Englishmen, rectly to the dais in the "original palace," though knowing Italy from books alone, or the sepulchre. With due ceremony could trace the windings of the Tiber and with many prostrations the coffin from the beech forest in which it rises will then be removed to the "dragon to the marshy shore where its turbid curhearse" in the wicker hall. On the fol- rent mingles with the blue waters of the lowing day, amid the sound of woe and Mediterranean. In view, however, of the in the presence of kneeling crowds of all important works now about to be comthe great and noble of the land, the drag-'menced, the sympathy of the scholar will be of less importance than the favour of the capitalist. It is proposed to turn the waters of the Tiber into the channel of the Teverone as far as Ponte Mammolo, a short distance above their present confluence. Thence a new channel must carry their united waters to the sea. At first, the idea of meeting the "headlong Anio" face to face is somewhat startling, but Horace's epithet is applied to the falls at Tivoli, below which the stream loses the violence which characterizes its upper course. Hence Silius Italicus describes it as "gently creeping,” – Sulfureis gelidus qua serpit leniter undis brim. along the river's banks, but till Cæsar became master of Rome no effectual remedy seems to have been even proposed. One of Cicero's letters tells of a caller dropping in at his Tusculan villa — one Capito, an industrious news-gatherer with the intelligence that Cæsar had determined to turn the Tiber from its course at the Mulvian Bridge, and to bring it along the foot of the Vatican, while the space between this new channel and the abandoned one was to form a new Campus Martius. Cicero pricked up his ears at this, for it would materially affect the value of Scapula's gardens, Ty-chase. In a few months, however, Cæsar which he had long been wishing to purwas murdered, and with him fell both this scheme and others for a new port at Ostia and a canal through the Pontine Marshes to Terracina. As to the cost of such an undertaking, it would be at present premature to hazard a conjecture. One prediction, however, may safely be uttered. Whatever sum may be named in the first estimates will be largely exceeded. The benefits to be secured are threefold; the drainage of the Campagna, the permanent protection of the city from inundation, and the de-ney to Brundusium." Theodoric the velopment of the port of Rome. That the Agro-Romano was in ancient times the home of a thriving population is well known; that it is now a wilderness is equally undeniable. Whether the drainage of the stagnant pools now formed in the hollows will suffice to remove the curse of malaria remains to be seen. The attainment of so important a result will, without doubt, be greatly facilitated by the improved agriculture which will be developed if the new waterway is brought through the lifeless wastes of the Campagna. Equal in importance with the reclamation of the Roman territory is the prevention of the inundations which have periodically caused so much misery to the inhabitants of the low-lying districts of the city itself. The original level of the Roman Forum was only just above the level of the river in its ordinary state; and though the surface of the soil is now considerably raised by the débris of the city, the river-bed also must have risen to some extent, if we consider the vast quantity of alluvial matter which must be constantly deposited by "the yellow Tiber." In the time of the republic, we hear of the Campus Martius being inundated twelve times in a single year; and the waters seem sometimes to have reached far down the Appian Way. The losses of life and property became, of course, more serious as the city spread further Of these schemes, the last alone has been taken in hand with some profitable result. Augustus constructed along the line of the Appian Way the canal which has been immortalized in Horace's "Jour Ostrogoth and Pope Boniface VIII. are said to have done something to improve the drainage of the Pontine Marshes; and Leo X. repaired and enlarged their chief outlet, the canal of Badino, which passes through the ridge stretching along the coast from Monte Circeo to Terracina. But no systematic and sustained effort to grapple with the difficulty was made till within a hundred years of the present time. In 1777, when sixty thousand acres were under water, Pius VI. availed himself of the services of Rapini, who, by clearing out old excavations and forming new, contrived to keep the waters within due bounds, and connected the canal of Badino with the port of Terracina by a navigable canal. The work occupied fifteen years and cost £360,000. Under Napoleon a commission was appointed to superintend these hydraulic works, but from that day to this nothing, we believe, has been done in the matter beyond maintaining the system of drainage as it was left by Pius VI. Part of the reclaimed land forms rich pasture for cattle, on other parts are raised large crops of rice and corn; but the pestilent exhalations from a basin, of which some portion lies even below the level of the sea, forbid the permanent residence of any considerable population. In the reign of Tiberius a plan to turn aside the chief tributaries of the Tiber was discussed, only to be abandoned, though at present this idea is to a slight extent | tween the Ponte St. Angelo and the Marcarried out by conducting some of the morata ? - waters which How into the Val di Chiana To the commercial world the third obnorthwards to the Arno. Among theject proposed the construction of a evil omens that foreshadowed the fall of ship-canal to Rome - will especially Otho is recorded an inundation which commend itself, and the co-operation of bore death and destruction into the higher districts, before deemed secure from such visitations, and produced that terror of Roman rulers, -a scarcity of food among the common people. Such were the constantly recurring disasters when Roman power was at its greatest height. In the confusion of the Middle Ages, the only barriers raised against inundation were the ruins of the city, and even in our own day, any attempt to protect Rome by embankment would in all probability be but a postponement of calamity. The scheme now brought forward seems likely to give free passage to the waters, and to avoid the winding reaches which in the existing channel must seriously impede the hurrying flood. To the antiquarian, this question is peculiarly interesting, for who knows what treasures of bronze and of marble, what relics of pomp or war, lie hidden in those reaches of the Tiber be Prince Torlonia will greatly facilitate its realization. He undertakes to aid in reopening the port which Claudius constructed to take the place of the still more ancient port of Ostia, and he will drain the lake of Trajan. The preparation of the necessary plans is said to have been already entrusted to an English firm, and it is hoped that the works will be commenced at an early date. But the port must not only be reopened,- it must be kept permanently clear. The old mouth of the Tiber has long been rendered useless by the vast accumulation of sand. The coast-line has grown two miles beyond the port of Trajan. The work to be undertaken is great, and will entail watchful care for the future. While answering to their leader's call, the Italians should give heed to his advice to imitate the steadfastness of England. SOME interesting facts about the woodcarving industry of the Bernese Oberland are given in a recent official report from Mr. Jenner. This industry, which does not date further back than 1815, now furnishes employment for upwards of two thousand workmen, and within the last few years the sales have risen to an average of nearly 80,000l. These sums have sufficed to spread ease over districts the inhabitants of which were formerly much pinched by want; the work, too, is of such a nature that it does not interfere with many other avocations. The cowherd and shepherd tending their flocks in the Alpine pasturages, the charcoal-burner watching his fires, and the peasant families sitting round their stoves, during the long winter evenings, can, at the expense of but little physical exertion, add greatly to their store of comforts by means of some little skill in carving. A very large proportion of the cheaper articles are actually produced in this manner. The wages of regular workmen range from one to eight francs a day. Almost every variety of timber may be utilized; fir, lime, walnut, oak, pear, and apple trees have all their special applications, and of late years the most renowned makers have taken to carve “palissandre" or rosewood, mahogany, cedar, &c. Side by side with the wood-carving industry, but greatly surpassing it in pecuniary results, is the manufacture of parquets, which is of still more recent introduction. This trade is carried on in eighteen out of the twenty-two cantons of Switzerland, and is now in the most flourish. ing condition. As nearly as can be ascer tained, the annual production of the twenty odd establishments which carry it on reaches the value of 8,000,000 francs (320,000). Scarcely a Swiss house with any pretension to comfort is now built without a parquet in at least one of its rooms. HERE is a singular sketch from Winstan ley's "Lives of the Most Famous English Poets; or, the Honor of Parnassus," 1687: "John Milton was one whose natural parts might deservedly give him a place among the principal of our English poets, having written two heroick poems and a tragedy, namely Paradise Lost,' Paradise Regain'd,' and Sampson Agonista.' But his Fame is gone out like a Candle in a Snuff, and his Memory will always stink, which might have ever lived in honourable Repute, had not he been a notorious Traytor, and most impiously and villanously bely'd that Blessed Martyr King Charles the First." |