Notes On Literature, Science And Art.

" IV . The napkin of Veronica , said to have been used by our Saviour , on his way to Calvary , to wipe the sweat from his brow ; and which was found to have received tha impress of his countenance . " Br . Robinson adds : — " Near the confessional we saw the statue of St . Peter , said to have been cast b y Leo the Great

, from the old statue of Jupiter Capitolinus . The extended foot is so eagerly kissed by devotees , who then rub their foreheads against its toes , that we were told it had been found necessary ( I don't remember how frequently ) to supply the foot with fresh extremities . Protestants may well wonder at the feeling it excites , but who can be surprised at the strong feelings of ordinary worshippers , when Gregory ther Second said' Christ is my witnessthat when I enter the Temple of the Prince of the Apostles

, , and contemplate his image , I am filled with such emotion , that tears run down my cheeks like rain from heaven . ' On the day of the jubilee of Pins the Ninth , June 16 th , 1871 , this statue was attired in a lace alb , stole , and gold embroidered cope , fastened at the breast by a clasp of diamonds . Upwards of thirty thousand visitors kissed its foot that day . "

No marvel that Popery and Freemasonry are antagonistic to each other : both prize symbolic teaching highly ; but in the hands of the Papists it is prostituted to enslaving the human mind ; in that of the Craft , it is the powerful lever for raising the intellects and morals of its disciples higher and higher . Though there be " lions in the path , " Truth must conquer in the end , and Falsehood perish .

I know of no more agreeable companion in a rustic ramble than my dear old friend , Dr . Spencer T . Hall , " the Sherwood Forester . ' ' Nearly thirty-four years have passed . over us both since we wandered together , by pleasant footpaths , on a fine day in May , from Stokesley to the " Mont Blanc of the neighbouring plains , " as Henry Heavisides called it , Rosebury Topping ; and I have since had the pleasure of his company in other , but not more beautiful , parts of the country . But with such a genial companion ,, the dreariest desert would seem delightful . And oftenwhen far apart in bodyI have

, , wandered with him in spirit , seeing , with what Hamlet calls " the mind ' s eye , " scenes in his beloved native Nottinghamshire ; spending joyous Days in Derbyshire with him ; viewing with him The Peak and the Plain ; or listened to his instructive Biographical Skeiclies of Remarkable People ; for every Forester ' s Offering laid hy him on the altar of his country ' s literature , is one worth having , and likely to live when he himself has what somebody calls " paid the debt of nature" and his poet-spirit has been called to tune

, its lyre in a happier state of existence . Residing at present at Burnley , it is not wonderful that he should have made Pendle Hill and its Surroundings the subject of a delightful little shilling book , very neatly printed by E . Wrigley and Sons , of Rochdale . Like all that my valued friend writes , whether in prose or in rhyme , it deserves a p lace alike in the rich man's mansion and in the poor man ' s cot .

The provincial printers are fast emulating the London press in the neatness of their work , as witness a nicely printed little volume , got up by Mr . Atkinson , of the TeesdaU Mercury , written , I believe , by a Barnard Castle Solicitor , to record the History of the Darlington and Barnard Castle Railway . Such little aids to local history have a value of their own ; and until local history is better understood , the history of the nation will always be behindhand .

One of the sweetest singers of English song—hopeful , as every true bard should be , of the future progress of the human race—and not confining himself to the old ruts cut or worn by the chariot wheels of former poets on the broad pathway of poesy , is Alfred Tennyson ; and I sincerely hope that the shilling volumes of his poems now issuing will meet with a large sale , so as to bring him to the firesides of many to whom he has previously been a stranger . Vols . I . to III . consist of his " Miscellaneous Poems , from which any real lover of literature may easily cull a thousand beauties . What a finely-quaint poem , for instance , is his " Mariana , " elaborately carrying out , in the way