no harm. She likes interfering now and then; but you can bear that, I know. Remember, I will always uphold you in matters concerning Rosie or the household, or anything else that you think right."

"Thank you," replied Hannah warmly. She shook cordially the hand he gave, and ran up-stairs to " Auntie's darling" with a light heart.

PRESERVING WOOD FROM DECAY.- By the process of Mr. Archibald B. Tripler, of New Orleans, wood is said to be preserved from decay in the following manner: The wood is cut into two or more equal parts or slabs. These pieces are bored at equal distances to receive the trenails to unite them, and they are immersed in a solution of coal-tar and powdered charcoal, either hot or cold, in equal or unequal parts, which not only thoroughly impregnates the slabs with carbon, but coats the surface with an adhesive material, so that when put together their adjacent sides will adhere together, and form interior partitions or walls of antiseptic or preservative agents, extending from one end of each slab to the other. These slabs are then united with trenails, or double pius, in such a manner as to lock them as firmly and solidly as if they were one piece. The timber thus prepared is immersed in a solution consisting of asphaltum, or mineral pitch, 80 parts; sulphur, 5 parts; arsenic, 5 parts; coal-tar, 5 parts; powdered charcoal, 5 parts in all, 100 parts. This solution will cover the surface, and fill up the joints and crevices between the slabs, rendering them impervious to water, and effectually preventing atmospheric decomposition by insulating it from the decaying influences of the ele

ments.

WE have heard not a little, during the FrancoGerman war, of requisitioning and pillage on the part of the German armies. A reputation for contempt of the difference between meum and tuum in a hostile country seems to have been obtained by the soldiery of Germany little short of two centuries and a half ago, as appears from the following extract from Fuller's "Church History," Book XI. sec. 8, par. 33. "Contemporary with Malignant was the word, Plunder, which some make of Latine originall, from planum dare, to levell, or plane all to nothing. Others make it of Dutch extraction, as if it were to plume or pluck the feathers of a Bird to the bare skin. Sure I am, we first heard thereof in the Swedish wars, and if the name and thing be sent back from whence it came, few English eyes would weep thereat." The word was imported into England by soldiers who had been in the service of Gustavus Adolphus, who, it will be remembered, headed the German Protestants in their contest with the House of Austria. Lapse of time has not apparently weakened the taste then indulged in,

and still fewer eyes would now be found in France to weep at the indulgence of that taste being sent back to the place whence it came than in the case put by Fuller. Pall Mall Gazette.

WE have great pleasure in announcing that the Museum of Natural History at Strasburg has escaped the bombardment of the town. One shell entered one of the corridors and destroyed a small collection of chalk fossils, and a few fragments of a shell decapitated two or three birds. The concussion caused nearly all the glass in the cases to be broken. But the fine collections of mammals, of birds, and of fossils, the result of many years of labour of Prof. Schimper, are perfectly untouched. This has not been the case with some of the private collections in the town, and one, a collection of European Lepidoptera, belonging to the Taxidermist of the museum, was scattered into dust.

From Blackwood's Magazine. CASTLE ST. ANGELO.

BY W. W. STORY. PART II.*

CHAPTER III.

THE influence of the family of Alberic and Theodora still continued, and gave to the Papacy three successive popes - Benedict VIII., in 1012; John XIX., his brother, in 1024; and Benedict IX., the nephew of both, in 1033. Benedict is said to have been only ten years of age when, by force of sword and purse, he was elected. But though there is some doubt as to his age, there is none as to the crimes with which his life was stained. We have this judgment on no less authority than that of Pope Victor III., who, fifty years afterwards, occupied the Papal throne. "I have horror to write," says Victor, "what was the life of Benedict, and how shameful, corrupt, and execrable it was. After he had sufficiently long tormented the Romans by his rapine, murders, and abominations, the citizens, no longer able to tolerate his wickedness, rose and drove him from the Pontifical seat." In his stead Silvester III. was chosen, simoniacally; but he had only reigned three months when Benedict returned and drove him from his chair, "resuming the tiara he had lost, but without changing his ancient manners." He again sold the Papacy for a large sum to an archpriest named John, who took the name of Gregory VI., while Benedict retired into his castle. When Henry III. arrived in Italy there were three Popes: Benedict IX., at St. John Lateran; Gregory VI.. at Sta. Maria Maggiore; and Sylvester, at St. Peter's. All were declared illegitimate, and the Emperor added another, who was elected, and assumed the name of Clement II. The history of the Castle St. Angelo is connected with all the crimes and vices of this saddest period of ecclesiastical history, and there is little satisfaction in recounting them — “ non ragionam di lor.”

Alexander II. was elected Pope in 1061; but Henry IV. placed Cadaloo on the throne as anti-Pope, under the title of Honorius II. Honorius came to Rome the succeeding year, and endeavoured by force of arms to possess himself of this dignity of place, occupying by arms the Leonine City and the Vatican. But the Romans, under the command of Goffredo, Duke of Tuscany, attacked him and nearly succeeded in making him prisoner. He was,

Part I. Liv. Age. 1390.

|however, rescued by Cencius, the son of the Roman prefect, and conducted in safety to the Castle St. Angelo, then commanded by Cencius. There he was strictly besieged; and after two years of imprisonment, in constant fear of his life, he finally obtained his freedom by paying 300 pounds of silver.

The contest of the Church with the imperial party was not only not determined by the death of Alexander II., but greatly increased under his successor, the celebrated Hildebrand, who came to the Papal chair in 1073. He had scarcely been seated on the throne two years when a conspiracy was formed against him in Rome, the author and chief of which was the same Cencius who had already sustained the Pope Cadaloo against Alexander II. Cencius, who held the Castle St. Angelo, had built a high tower on the bridge before it, from which he imposed an exorbitant toll by force on all who passed. The Pontiff, after vainly remonstrating with him against this conduct, finally excommunicated him. Irritated by this, Cencius allied himself with the King, and agreed to make the Pope prisoner and bring him to Henry. It was on the night of Christmas 1075 that he undertook to carry out his project. While Gregory was celebrating high mass, according to custom, at Sta. Maria Maggiore, Cencius and his armed followers burst into the church with their swords drawn, and commenced cutting and wounding the people on all sides. The Pontiff, wounded in the head, was then dragged from the altar, despoiled of his ornaments, and hurried away to prison in his aube and stole. The populace, alarmed at this violence, rushed to arms, and gathering at the tower, where Gregory was imprisoned, fiercely assaulted it. Cencius seeing the dangerous position in which he had placed himself, and fearing the violence of the people, fell on his knees before the Pope begging for pardon. This the Pope granted, on condition that he should go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in expiation of his acts; and then, approaching the window, he made signs to the people raging beneath, with the object of pacifying them. But misinterpreting his design, and supposing he summoned their aid, they broke into the tower, where they found him bleeding and wounded. After conveying him to a place of safety, they then returned and destroyed the tower. Cencius, in the mean time, had made his escape and fled from the town, ravaging, as he went, the Campagna and the lands of the Church.

however, he withdrew, carrying with him the Pope, and both followed by the execrations of the people. Gregory never again entered Rome, but retired to Salerno, where he died saying, "I have loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore I die in exile."

On the death of Gregory VII., Victor III. was elected Pope. But conflicts still continued, the anti-Pope Clement III. still holding possession of the Pantheon and other strongholds, while Victor occupied the Castle St. Angelo and the Leonine City. On the festival of St. Peter the two factions came into collision, each being determined to celebrate it as high Pontiff in St. Peter's; but when the troops of the anti-Pope and his party came to the bridge, they were assailed by the troops of Victor, who, issuing from the Castle, drove them back by force, and thus enabled him to celebrate mass undisturbed at St. Peter's.

Victor and his troops were, however, soon driven out of the Castle by Ferruccio, who took possession of it for the anti-Pope Clement, by whom it was held for some seven years and defended against all attack; but in 1098 it was surrendered to the papal party under Urban II. for a large sum of money, being the last of the Roman fortresses which yielded to him and here were celebrated the Christmas festivals of this year.

The Crusaders again in 1096 assaulted it, but it withstood all their attacks, and they were forced to abandon it. In 1099 Paschal II. became Pope; and serious controversies having arisen between him and Henry V., hostages were given by the Pope, and solemn pledges of peace were made. Among the terms of agreement was one that no attack should be made from the bridge and Castle of St. Angelo. Nevertheless, during the Easter holidays, while the Pope and clergy, barefoot and in procession, were making the tour of the tombs of the martyrs, they were assaulted at the bridge with volleys of stones and darts, and dispersed in confu

sion.

was

slew a number of them, and drove the remainder out of the city. Not satisfied with this, the next morning they issued from the gates, renewed the attack, and again routed the Germans. In this engagement, the Emperor himself wounded in the face, and narrowly escaped with his life. He was only saved by the gallant self-sacrifice of Otto, Count of Milan, who, in the utmost need of the Emperor, set him upon his own horse, and lost in consequence his life. At last the Romans drew off, and, laden with booty, entered the city, bearing with them the corpse of Otto, which in their rage they cut into small pieces and scattered about the streets to be eaten by the dogs. After their retreat, the Germans rallied, pursued them into the city, and overtaking them near the Bridge St. Angelo, furiously attacked them. A fierce struggle then ensued. Thousands of persons were slain; and the Tiber, as Baronius tells us, ran red with blood, and was filled with corpses. As the Germans began to retire, a sally was made from the Castle with fresh troops, which again turned the fortunes of this bloody day. After this, Henry withdrew from Rome, carrying with him the Pope as his prisoner, and shut him up in the fortress of Tribucco, where, after an imprisonment of forty days, he made his submission, and was set at liberty.

His successor, Gelasius II., who came to the papal throne in 1118, suffered even greater violence. Immediately after his election he was seized by Cencio Frangipani, who with an armed force broke into the assembly of the Cardinals (“more draconis immanissimi sibilans," says Pandulphus), trampled them under foot, and seizing the Pope by the throat, threw him down and dragged him by his hair along the ground, buffeting him and wounding him with his spurs, and finally carrying him to his house, where he secured him with an iron chain; and all the while, as Pandulphus says, the good Jesus lay sleeping ("Jesu bono interim dormiente ") Finally, however, he was set free; but being again assaulted, he was forced to flee from Rome.