looked over a large volume of Calvin's epistles: the handwriting is small, close, and scarcely legible. There are many also of Beza's and Bullinger's. A letter of our own great and good Sir Isaac Newton's is here preserved; interesting as a memorial of him, though simply one of complimentary acknowledgement: it begins "gratias tibi debeo," &c. and is addressed in the superscription "Celeberrimo Doct. Arlaud." Also a letter of J. J. Rousseau, containing some remarks on music, in the scientific and judicious manner in which he was accustomed to write on that subject; it is dated "Aux Eaux Vives," and penned in an excellent hand.

In the long room of the library is a clock in the form of a temple, on the dome of which stands a figure of the strutting bird, "whose lofty and shrill-sounding throat awakes the God of Day." The mechanism being wound up, chanticleer flaps his wings and crows lustily: whereupon twelve figures, representing the Apostles, dance to the music of chimes, round a peristyle: still lower down the mimic structure is a balcony, in which the Virgin Mary sits enthroned; to her, out of a door on the right, comes a winged figure, representing the Angel of the Annunciation-presently after, from another door on the left hand side, a skeleton, as the image of Death, advances, and falls prostrate at the feet of the Virgin. At that moment, a personage in the centre of the dome, behind "our Ladye," opens a third door, and strikes upon a bell the time of day. On this whimsical piece of horology the date of 1650 is inscribed.

Monsieur Bourrit, the head-librarian, had the politeness to shew me these curiosities: a mark of attention to a self-introduced and nameless stranger, in which, whilst

grateful towards him myself, I recognised the influence of urbanity co-operating with a still higher sense of the conduct that best becomes a public functionary. In the MSS. room the same gentleman shewed me a small piece of marble, on which, by a lusus naturæ, a complete little picture has been imprinted; it is not less remarkable for its combinations of light and shade, than for the close resemblance of its objects to those of a fine landscape. Also an exquisite miniature copy, in enamel, of Le Brun's Alexander in the Tent of Darius, by that admirable artist, the elder Petitot, who was born in this city, 1607. In the same room are portraits of Michael Roset, Arlaud, Burlamaqui, Tronchin, Bonnet, and Abauzit, natives of Geneva, and men of high renown in the annals of science and literature. In the large room are those of Calvin, the Turretins, Daubinee, Sartoris, illustrious Genevese. The portrait of Calvin is fine, and forms part of a series in which Luther, Huss, Zisca, Beza, Bullinger, Zuinglius, and the real author of the Reformation in England, our own Wickliffe, are interestingly combined. Near them I observed those of Coligni, Cardinal de Chattelar, Erasmus, Scaliger, Hugo Grotius, Descartes, Diodati, Spanheim, and a host of other men of letters.

The principal pictures in the rooms of the Societé-desArts are, a very fine copy of the Danae of Titian; the original portrait of Saussure, by Saint Ours, whose reputation as a painter of history and conversations also stands very high; and a grand landscape by Delarive, representing Mont Saleve. As containing the productions of native artists, this gallery redounds highly to the honour of Geneva.

The Great Hospital is capable of containing four hundred

patients, in cases of fever and casualties; and offers a refuge for foundlings of both sexes, and an asylum for lunatics. I went into most of the wards, two of which were nearly filled with the victims of a dreadful fire, which about a week before took place at Salins, one of the neighbouring towns on the Savoy side of Geneva; where four hundred houses were burnt to the ground (as it were) in an instant. These unfortunate men were in a most melancholy state of mutilation and suffering: some of the cases were deplorably bad. The rooms are all clean and well ventilated: of the corridors communicating with them, it appeared to me that the same desirable degree of care was not taken. But coming as I did from a kingdom, and in particular from a city, where the management of such institutions is perfect in every respect, my perceptions might perhaps have been somewhat too fastidious. Their refectory and kitchen are well ordered, and the provisions good. Besides being an asylum to the sick, the suffering, the insane, and the helpless, who belong to Geneva, this charitable establishment devotes a portion of its revenues to a weekly distribution of alms to the passing poor, and gives away small sums to families in indigent circumstances. Strangers however are not received into it indiscriminately: a person to obtain admission must prove the fact of having fallen ill in the city. Without this precaution the hospital would be crowded with patients beyond all possibility of accommodating them. The chapel is appropriated by the directors to the use of the English residents every Sunday morning, when the service of our excellent Church is performed by the Rev. Mr. Burgess and other Clergymen: the expenses being defrayed, and this most desirable

object supported entirely by the voluntary contributions

of our countrymen.

In the afternoon my friend H. and I directed our steps to St. Peter's; still called the Cathedral, though the city in which it stands has for the last three hundred years ceased to be an episcopal see. Before the body of a fine Gothic church they have placed a Grecian façade! Its Corinthian columns, entablature, and pediment are on a scale of grandeur, and in a stile of workmanship, not unworthy of the Augustan model from which the ordonnance is said to be taken. But even if the builders of the last century could have transplanted the identical front of the Rotunda at Rome, to the very spot where they have erected this appendage, it would still have been a flagrant and displeasing incongruity.-This however, as a mere question of taste and architectural propriety, calls but for a subdued severity of remark. But I do feel inclined to cry "shame" of that irreverent carelessness, which leaves the steps and pavement of the portico in a filthy state, and allows a vender of papers for hanging rooms, to keep shop in a recess of the exterior walls.-The age of this church, to all appearances, as exhibited in the interior and on the outside to the east, (which is round-ended) is considerably more remote than the fourteenth century, to which æra the concierge ascribed it. I should rather conjecture, that to say the tenth if not the eighth century would be nearer the mark, in designating the antiquity of some parts of it. The arches that spring are pointed; but in the

from the lower range of pillars upper tier they are circular. The columns of the nave display foliage and figures in all the capitals, various in design, sculptured in high relief and with great sharpness,

The inside of this Temple, like the rest of the Calvinistic places of worship, is very bare: the communion table is placed under the pulpit at the time of celebration. The seats are all marked, as in the parish churches, with labels on which different names are printed, to distinguish the families by whom they are occupied: this gives them a secular and shabby look. There are a few subjects of painted glass in the windows of the east end. The organ at the western extremity is a handsome object. Almost the only monument in the church is that of Henry, Duke of Rohan, chief of the French Huguonot Nobility in the 17th century; and the only altar in it is (strange to say) a Pagan one. It is as fine a Roman remain of the kind as I have ever seen, being both large and perfect; its form that of a square pedestal-about four feet high-having on the upper side the round hollow place designed to receive the blood of the sacrifice. This antique stone (placed under the organ loft) bears the following inscription :

DEO. INVICTO.

GENIO. LOCI.

FIRMI DEVS. SE

VERINVS. M. II.

LEG. VIII. AVG. P. F.

COS. II. P. XXVI.

ARA. EX. VOTO.

Three more lines follow, too imperfectly preserved for my decyphering; but doubtless containing the name of the Emperor in whose reign this votive altar of the Eighth Legion was erected. Surely however it would now find a more appropriate repository in the Museum or the Public Library. Had it been dedicated to Apollo instead of the Unconquered Genius of the Place, it might be presumed