ridors, which form an Inner Court, four hundred feet square, and open into either end of the Portico of the Church, under the pathetic invitation, Come, and let us go up unto the Mountain of the Lord, to the House of the God of Jacob. An Egyptian Obelisk of a single piece of red granite-originally brought from Heliopolis, by the Emperor Caligula, occupies the centre of the Outer Court. It is eighty-five feet high, and nine feet square at the base; and on either hand of the stupendous cone, an ample Fountain spouts a column of water, which showers into a marble bason twenty feet diameter. Six hundred feet beyond this glittering screen-over a quarry of steps, rises the the gigantic Frontispiece. It is of free stone, four hundred feet long, and a hundred and fifty high, supported by twelve columns, of the Corinthian Order; whose broad Entablature is surmounted by an Attic Story, and crowned with a Balustrade. Upon the apex of the Pediment-embracing, in his right hand, the Symbol of Salvation-is a Colossal Statue of Jesus of Nazareth-accompanied, upon the piers of the Balustrade, by the twelve Disciples, that followed his footsteps in the Land of Judah. At a distance of four hundred feet within the massy Frontispiece, is seen to tower aloft the immense rotunda of the Dome, Dome, studded with three rows of globular eyelets, emulating the Coronets of the Tiara, and surmounted, at an elevation of four hundred and fifty feet, with a Lanthorn, Ball, and Cross. The great Dome is accompanied by two lesser ones, which, though fifty feet diameter, and a hundred high, are scarcely noticed in the stupendous outline: for such is the charm of proportion, that the greatness of the parts, is lost in the immensity of the whole. It is only by comparison with objects of known dimensions, that you can form an idea of the unparalleled magnitude of the columns, the entablature, or the statues of the Frontispiece. You must actually enter the doors of the Portico, which you reckon diminutive, to convince yourself C c yourself that they are forty feet high, and wide enough for entering and retiring Crowds to intermingle upon their thresholds. The Portico, an interior arcade, running the whole length of the front, and forming the foot of the prostrate cross, is fifty feet wide, and five hundred long, including the width of the two Corridors at the ends, in each of which appears an equestrian statue-on the right Constantine the Great, on the left Charlemagne—at distant periods the Champions of the Church. A STRANGER, at his first visit to St. Peter's, cursorily glances over the mar ble ble columns, the brazen gates, and the stuccoed arches of this magnificent Vestibule-impatient to open upon the Middle Aisle, six hundred feet long, ninety wide, and a hundred and fifty high.But at first sight of the Corinthian Arcade-glittering in white and gold, it does not strike the disappointed Visitor as very long, very wide, or very high (for neither length, breadth, nor height predominate in the proportions of this peerless Nave) and he doubts, for a moment, whether he at last beholds the largest, as well as the most beautiful Structure, that ever was erected by human hands. He compares St. Peter's to the rival Edifices of London, Milan, or Constantinople, and scarcely suspects his error till |