tomb of Galla Placidia or the chapel of the Bishop's Palace. They are like jewelled and enamelled cases; not an inch of wall can be seen which is not covered with elaborate patterns of the brightest colours. Huge date-palms spring from the floor with fruit and birds among their branches, and between them stand the pillars and apostles of the church. In the spandrels and lunettes above the arches and the windows angels fly with white extended wings. On every vacant place are scrolls and arabesques of foliage, birds and beasts, doves drinking from the vase, and peacocks spreading gorgeous plumes-a maze of green and gold and blue. While overhead the vault is powdered with stars gleaming upon the deepest azure, and in the midst is set an aureole embracing the majestic head of Christ, or else the symbol of the sacred fish, or the hand of the Creator pointing from a cloud. In Galla Placidia's tomb these storied vaults spring above the sarcophagi of empresses and emperors, each lying in the place where he was laid more than twelve centuries ago. The light which struggles through the narrow windows serves to harmonize the brilliant hues and make a gorgeous gloom.

Besides these more general and decorative subjects, many of the churches are adorned with historical mosaics, setting forth the Bible narrative or incidents from the life of Christian emperors and kings. In St. Apollinare Nuovo there is a most interesting treble series of such mosaics extending over both walls of the nave. On the left hand, as we enter, we see the town of Classis; on the right the palace of Theodoric, its doors and loggie rich with curtains, and its friezes blazing with coloured ornaments. From the city gate of Classis, virgins issue, and proceed in a long line until they reach Madonna seated on a throne with Christ upon her knees, and the three kings in adoration at her feet. From Theodoric's palace door a similar procession of saints and martyrs carry us to Christ surrounded by archangels. Above this double row of saints and virgins stand the fathers and prophets of the Church, and highest underneath the roof are pictures from the life of our Lord. It will be remembered in connection with these subjects that the women sat upon the left and the men upon the right side of the church. Above the tribune at the east end of the church it was customary to represent the Creative Hand, or the monogram of the Saviour, or the head of Christ with the letters A and 0. Moses and Elijah frequently stand on either side to symbolize the transfiguration, while the saints and bishops specially connected with the church appeared upon a lower row. Then on the side walls were depicted such subjects as Justinian and Theodora among their courtiers, or the grant of the privileges of the Church to its first founder from imperial patrons, with symbols of the old Hebraic ritual-Abel's lamb, the sacrifice of Isaac, Melchisedec's offering of bread and wine,-which were regarded as the types of Christian ceremonies. The baptistery was adorned with appropriate mosaics representing Christ's baptism in Jordan.

Generally speaking, one is struck with the dignity of these designs, and especially with the combined majesty and sweetness of the face of

Christ. The sense for harmony of hue displayed in their composition is marvellous. It would be curious to trace in detail the remnants of classical treatment which may be discerned, Jordan, for instance, pours his water from an urn like a river-god crowned with sedge-or to show what points of ecclesiastical tradition are established by these ancient monuments. We find Mariolatry already prevalent, the names of the three kings, Kaspar, Melchior and Balthazar, the four evangelists as we now recognize them, and many of the rites and vestments which our fastidious young Tractarians regard with so much superstitious reverence.

There are two sepulchral monuments in Ravenna which cannot be passed over unnoticed. The one is that of Theodoric the Goth, crowned by its semi-sphere of solid stone, a mighty tomb, well worthy of the conqueror and king. It stands in a green field, surrounded by acacias, where the nightingales sing ceaselessly in May. The mason bees have covered it, and the water has invaded its sepulchral vaults. In spite of many trials, it seems that human art is unable to pump out the pond and clear the frogs and efts from the chamber where the great Goth was laid by Amalasuntha.

The other is Dante's temple, with its bas-relief and withered garlands. The story of his burial, and of the discovery of his real tomb, is fresh in the memory of every one. But the "little cupola, more neat than solemn," of which Lord Byron speaks, will continue to be the goal of many a pilgrimage. For ourselves-though we remember Chateaubriand's bareheaded genuflection on its threshold, Alfieri's passionate prostration at the altar-tomb, and Byron's offering of poems on the poet's shrinewe confess that a single canto of the Inferno, a single passage of the Vita Nuova, seems more full of soul-stirring associations than the place where, centuries ago, the mighty dust was laid. It is the spirit that lives and makes alive. And Dante's spirit seems more present with us under the pine-branches of the Bosco than beside his real or fancied tomb. "He is risen,"—"Behold I am with you always,"-these are the words that ought to haunt us in a burying-ground. There is something affected and selfconscious in overpowering grief or enthusiasm or humiliation at a tomb.

Female Education in Germany.

WHEN I first went to Germany it was with the expectation of finding in every tenth woman an uncrowned Corinna, and in every twentieth a silent Sappho; and when I say silent, I mean it simply in the same sense as the poet who spoke of "mute inglorious" Miltons. It is true I did not seek my Corinnas at the Capitol, nor my Sapphos at Lesbos, since a cruel fate compelled me to turn my steps to remoter Northern regions, where the climate and the social peculiarities of the people were such, that it at once became evident to me the classic creatures I sought could not by any possibility exist in those monotonous coasts. I found much hospitality, considerable wealth, singular prejudices, and an amount of conservatism and aristocratic exclusiveness such as to strike one as being infinitely comie in these nineteenth-century days. But my Corinnas and my Sapphos I found not, nor did I indeed, seeing the physiology of the country, expect to find them. I consoled myself with the thought that, as I was not condemned to drive all my life in eccentric vehicles, behind four "foxcoloured" horses, over impossible roads, nor pledged to consume smoked geese, liver-sausages, and sauerkraut to the end of my days, I might accept the interlude with philosophy, and enjoy my sojourn in that corngrowing country as much as the nature of things in general would allow.

But the times of "peace and plenty," of shampooing drives and plethoric repasts came to an end, and I made " mes malles," and departed from those shores with a certain sense of repletion, the fulness of which clings to me yet. My time was come, and amidst much kissing of the dexter and sinister cheek, and many banquets, I departed, not without some regret (for I had found a kindly people, honest if not brilliant, and friendly if not precisely amusing), but with yet more pleasant anticipations of what was in store for me.

It was perhaps an unjust thing on my part to have preconceived any notions at all of the people and country to which I was going, but that I had conceived very strong ideas I cannot deny. I was possessed with a sort of Teuto-mania, all the more unaccountable because I did not know a word of the language, and had never, to my knowledge, come in contact with any natives of the country I so much, and so blindly, admired, if I except a German governess who had kept guard over us on half-holidays at school, with a bird's-nest on the top of her head in the shape of hair, a white linen pocket-handkerchief tied round her neck by way of a collar, and knitted cotton stockings which she displayed liberally in her walks abroad, as she had a weakness for square-toed shoes tied on with pieces of narrow black ribbon, which I am told are technically termed "sandals."

Thus my only German acquaintance can scarcely be said to have justified my preconceived notions as to my fair Saxon sisters. I had read (surreptitiously, I am free to confess,) a translation of the Sorrows of Werther; but having already Thackeray's immortal verse by heart, the aroma of the greater poet's conception was lost to me, and with the rashness of youth I had adopted our great humourist's view of the bread-and-butter-cutting proclivities of Mrs. Charlotte, and had not therefore found my stolen fruit quite as sweet as I had expected it to be. I had read a translation of Schiller's Bride of Messina, and of Fouqué's works; I was acquainted with Grimm's fairy tales (as what English child worth salt to its porridge is not?), and I had even looked into Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, but not being able to find out any story, and the whole thing mystifying me unpleasantly, I had returned the volume to its bookshelf, and consoled myself with a translation of Schiller's Cabal und Liebe. Thus I think it may fairly be said that my previsions were innate, of themselves, and not owing to any special influence from without.

And let me here observe that, when speaking of female education in Germany, I mean less the amount of knowledge, positive and abstract, theoretical and real, instilled into the minds of her young girls and women, than the general and determining outer influences which help to form their character and to make them what they are. Let me also say that I do not speak of the " upper Ten," as we understand that mystic number, but that I speak of the great majority which forms the nation. I speak also of Northern and Central Germany, and not of Austria or the more southern parts; for the difference between a Viennese and a Hanoverian is almost as marked as that between a French and an English woman. In large towns, such as Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, there are, of course, circles and drawing-rooms where the talk, the dress, the manners, are cosmopolitan. This is the result of a conflux of foreigners of every nation, the various elements being fused together into a sort of social mosaic, harmonious as a whole, though differing widely in detail: men of position and wealth; women who have seen the world, and are tolerant, facile in their conversation, elegant in their toilettes, and most agreeable in their pretty, brilliant talk, which is gay without being laboured, and lively without being ill-natured. Of such as these I do not speak. It has been said that Paris is France; and I believe that this statement may be taken as substantially true. London is not England; nor do I think that even the marvellous powers of absorption shown by Prussia can pretend that Berlin is Germany. And it is of Germany and German women that I now would fain speak; not of Prussia or the fair Berlinese, but rather of the inhabitants of those smaller and much-despised "tin-pot States," with their charming little Residenz-towns and old-world notions.

Some verses arise in my mind (written, I believe, by a distinguished member of one of our universities,) which would well describe my journey from that plethoric land of which I have spoken to that more intellectual land whither I journeyed with such fond anticipations:

And onward through those dreary flats

They move, with scanty space to sit on,
Flanked by stout girls in steeple hats
And waists that paralyze a Briton.

By many a tidy little town,

Where tidy little Fraus are knitting. (The men's pursuits are lying down,

Smoking perennial pipes, and-spitting.)

The "stout girls in the steeple hats" did not so specially afflict me, nor did their waists, though undoubtedly thick, cause me any acute emotion; it was a detail, and though from an artistic point of view, not a specially pleasing one, yet, I should have scorned to confess that my British faculties were in any way "paralyzed" by this physical phenomenon. But at length I came to my "tidy little town," where the "tidy little Fraus were knitting," and little did I then dream that those three other ugly old maids were weaving my destiny in such a way that I should have ample opportunities of studying, not only the tidy little town and the tidy little Fraus, and the knitting of the same, but also to contemplate at my leisure the "men's pursuits," of "lying down, smoking perennial pipes, and "-O ye gods, that I should have to chronicle it here!" spitting!' But the truth must be spoken.

We had a Grand Duke and a Grand Duchess at K., and we had a diplomatic corps, and an army, and two or three generals, staggering under orders and decorations; we had a theatre, and a Kur-Garten, where people walked up and down, and drank poisonous waters in summer: the ladies in frilled (night-) caps, mushroom straw hats, and morning wrappers; the men in a miscellaneous costume, incapable of portrayal. We had coffee-gardens at K., where the Grand-Ducal band played on summer afternoons, and where the whole population appeared to be military, so close and regular was the attendance of all the young officers on these occasions. Of course we could not have an 66 upper ten thousand" at K., nor even an upper ten hundred; but we had an upper fifty or so, who all wrote Von before their names, sat on the adelige (or noble) side of the theatre, considered (and were even snobbish enough to call) themselves the "haute volée," and gave the tone, such as it was, to society.

A German girl comes into the world with two original sins: the vice of coffee-drinking, and an indisposition to take exercise. A German baby is a piteous object; it is pinioned and bound up like a mummy in yards of bandages, which are unfolded once (at the outside twice) a day; it is never bathed, but I suppose is sometimes washed in some occult manner. Its head is never touched with soap and water until it is eight or ten months old, when the fine skull-cap of encrusted dirt which it has by that time obtained is removed by the application of various unguents. Many German ladies have assured me that the fine heads of hair one so often sees in Germany are entirely owing to this skull-cap.