ST. PETER'S, AT HOME. 199 



them. They are situate on a platform of rock, about one hundred and 

 fifty feet above the level of the surrounding desert; a circumstance at 

 once which contributes to their being well seen, and also to the discrepancy 

 that still prevails among the most intelligent travellers as to their actual 

 height. Of the several chambers in the pyramids both of Cheops and Ce- 

 phrenes, and the successful efforts made by Belzoni and others to penetrate 

 into them , we have not space enough to describe. The works of these travellers 

 should be consulted, to elucidate further these wonderful structures. 

 The base of the great pyramid is the exact size of Lincoln's Inn Fields. 



ST. PETER'S AT ROME. (2.) 



Instead of being cooped up like St. Paul's, there is a noble amphitheatre 

 formed by a splendid elliptical colonnade of a quadruple range of 300 

 pillars. The site of this wonderful pile is upon that of the ancient 

 church of Constantine; the first stone of the present edifice was laid by 

 Pope Julius the second, in 1506; the first architect was Brahmante 

 Lazzarri, but he dying soon after, the task devolved upon the great, the 

 unrivalled Michael Angelo Buonarotti, whose sublime genius is manifest 

 at every step. He kept strictly to the original design, which was that of 

 a Greek cross, but after his death the plan was departed from, and the 

 lengthy unequal Latin cross substituted ; this occasioned the great 

 architectural defects of the building. Although aided by the wealth and 

 power of the Roman church, yet it took 115 years and the reigns of 18 

 popes to finish the temple only ! A period of 150 years more was 

 occupied in building the colonnade and ornaments. Up to the year 1622 

 the church cost the see of Rome forty millions of crowns, and from that 

 time to 1784, ten millions more were expended : it is estimated that it costs 

 now thirty thousand crowns annually to keep the immense mass in repair. 



The clear inside length of the church is six hundred and fifteen feet, 

 and its breadth at the transeps four hundred and forty-eight feet ; the 

 extreme height from the piazza to the cross is four hundred and sixty- 

 four feet! from the portals of the church to the extreme line of the 

 ellipsis of the colonnade is nine hundred feet; so that the outside of St. 

 Peter's, including its thick walls, &c., is nearly one third of a mile ! 



The masonry of the church, its cupola (which is covered on the outside 

 with lead), is of Travertine stone. Vast as the structure is, it is said that 

 there is a still vaster quantity of stone which remains unseen; the depth 

 of the foundations, and the enormous thickness of the substructures, 



