74 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 117. 



*• II s'eleve a Paris un temple auguste, immense, 

 Digne de Genevieve et des vceux de la France. 

 Tardive piete ! dans ce siecle pervers, 

 Tu prepares en vain des monumens divers. 

 Avant qu'il soit fini ce temple magnifique, 

 Les saints et Dieu seront proscrits, 

 Par la secte philosophique 

 Et des temples et de Paris." 



In the original pediment, since altered by the 

 sculptor David (of Angers), abas-relief represented 

 a cross in the midst of clouds ; and on the plinth 

 was the following inscription : — 



"D. CM. SUB INVOC. ST^. GENOVEF^ LUD, XV. DICAVIT," 



which, in 1791, when a decree of the National 

 Assembly appropriated this monument of religion 

 to the reception of the remains of illustrious 

 Frenchmen, was changed to — 



"aux grands hommes la patrie reconnaissante." 

 On the restoration of the Bourbons, and of the 

 edifice to its first purpose, the Latin inscription 

 resumed its place, with the addition of "lud. xnii. 

 BESTiTuiT," which, however, again gave way to the 

 French epigraph after the revolution of 1830, still 

 probably to be retained, while accompanied with a 

 due reference to the sanctified patroness of the 

 church. 



The French inscription was the happy thought 

 of M. Pastoret, one of the few Academicians that 

 embraced at its origin the principles of the Revo- 

 lution, which he followed through Its varying 

 phases, until he attained an advanced age. The 

 first mortuary deposit in the Pantheon was that of 

 MIrabeau, in August, 1791 ; and, on the 30th May 

 ensuing, the anniversary of the death of Voltaire, 

 " L'Assemblee Nationale dcclara cet ecrivain le 

 liberateur de la pensee, et digne de recevoir les 

 honneurs decernees aux grands hommes," &c. On 

 the 27th August following, a similar distinction 

 was decreed to J. J. Rousseau ; but In January, 

 1822, the tombs of these apostles of incredulity 

 were removed, until replaced in 1830. In July, 

 1793, the monster Marat was Inhumed there, 

 " amidst the deepest lamentations and mournful 

 expressions of regret for the loss sustained by the 

 country in the death of the most valued of her 

 citizens," whose corpse, however, on the 8th Feb- 

 ruary, 1795, was torn from Its cerements and 

 flung, with every mark of ignominy, into the filth 

 of the sewer of Montmartre. In the vicissitudes 

 of popular favour even Mirabeau's effigy was 

 burned in 1793. Such have been the alternations 

 and ever-recurring contests in the feelings and 

 principles of the ascendant parties — 



" Et velut aterno certamine praelia pugnasque 

 Edere, turmatim certantia ; nee dare pausam, 

 Conciliis et discidiis exercita crebris." 



Lucret. ii. 117. 

 The cost of this beautiful edifice may be esti- 

 mated at about a million sterling, or, taking into 



consideration the difference In the value of money 

 at the periods, one-third of what was expended on 

 our cathedral of St. Paul. The architect of this 

 and other noble monuments of art, Jean Germain 

 Soufflot, born in 1704, died in August, 1781, the 

 victim, it is said, of the jealousy of his rival artists, 

 whose malignant attacks on his works and fame 

 made too deep an Impression on his sensitive feel- 

 ings, though supported in this trial of his moral 

 fortitude by his most intimate friend and director, 

 that genuine philanthropist, the father and insti* 

 tutor of the Deaf and dumb, — the Abbe de I'Epee, 

 In whose arms he died. No one, it has been ob- 

 served, was more justly entitled to have the 

 achievement of his genius Invoked, as our Wren's 

 has been, and indicated to the inquirer, as the fit 

 repository of his mortal remains. He did not, how- 

 ver, live to contemplate the completed structure. 

 The sculptor David, who has embellished the 

 pediment with numerous statues. Is now a refugee 

 in Brussels, possibly the relative, but certainly 

 the political inheritor of his great namesake's ultra- 

 revolutionary sentiments, the eminent painter, I 

 mean, and dme damnee, as he was called, of Robes- 

 pierre, an exile, too, In Belgium for many years. 



The epitaph above referred to of Sir Christopher 

 Wren, under the choir of St. Paul, celebrated, as 

 it rightly Is, for its appropriate application (" Sub- 

 tus condltur hujus Ecclesiaj Conditor Lec- 

 tor, si monumentum qujeris, circumspice"), does 

 not appear, I may add, to have been a primary, or 

 original thought, for It was long preceded by one 

 of somewhat suggestive and similar tenor in the 

 old church of the Jesuits, now In ruins, at Lisbon 

 (St. Jose). " Hoc mausoteo condita est lUustris- 

 sima D.D. Phllippa D. Comes (Countess) de Lin- 

 hares — Cujus, si ... . pletatem et munificlentiam 

 quseris, hoc Templum asplce" — Oblit mdciii. This 

 date is long anterior to our great architect's birth 

 (1631), and above a century prior to his death in 

 1723, while, again, the epitaph was not Inscribed 

 for several subsequent years. J. R. (Cork.) 



CHURCHILL THE POET. 



Mr. Tooke, In the biographical notice prefixed 

 to the new edition, says that Churchill was edu- 

 cated at Westminster school, and at the age of 

 fifteen — 



" Became a candidate for admission [on the found- 

 ation], and went in head of the election At the 



age of eighteen he stood for a fellowship at Merton 

 College .... when being opposed by candidates of su- 

 perior age, he was not chosen. . . . He quitted Westmin- 

 ster school ; and there is a story current, that about 

 this period he incurred a repulse at Oxford on account 

 of alleged deficiency in the classics, which is obviously 

 incorrect, as there is no such examination or matricu- 

 lation in our Universities as could lead to his rejection. 

 In point of fact, long before he was nineteen, he was 



