-many of them martyrs--who were buried here for
about a century, from the year 200 to the year 296 of our era. The
gravestones of four of them have been found, with inscriptions in
Greek. A beautiful marble tablet by Pope Damasus, who died in 384,
stands where the altar of the chapel originally stood, and records the
praises of the martyrs whose remains lay in the neighbouring chambers;
ending with a wish that he himself might be buried beside them, only
he feared that he was unworthy of the honour. This good Pope, like an
older "Old Mortality," made it a labour of love, to which he
consecrated his life, to rediscover and adorn the tombs which had
been hidden under an accumulation of earth and rubbish during the
fearful persecution of Diocletian.

From this chapel of the Popes I came through a narrow passage to a
wider crypt, where the body of St. Caecilia was laid after her
martyrdom in her own house in Rome, in the year 224. There is a rude
painting of this saint on the wall, clothed with rich raiment, and
adorned with the jewels befitting a Roman lady of high station. And at
the back of a niche, where a lamp used to burn before the shrine of
the saint, is painted a large head of our Saviour, with rays of glory
around it shaped like a Greek cross. This is said to be the oldest
representation of our Lord in existence, and from it all our
conventional portraits have been taken. Doubts have, however, been
thrown upon this by others, who assert that all the paintings in this
chamber are not older than the seventh century. After this, I wandered
on after my guide through innumerable narrow galleries hewn out of the
soft reddish-brown rock, and opening in all directions; all lined with
horizontal cavities for corpses, tier above tier, in which once were
crowded together old and young,--soldiers, martyrs, rich and poor
mingling their dust together, as in life they had shared all things in
common. Here social distinctions were abolished; side by side with the
obscure and unknown slave were some of the most illustrious names of
ancient Rome. These shelves are now empty, for nearly all the bones
and relics of the dead have been removed to different churches
throughout Europe. Even the inscriptions that were placed above each
grave--on marble tablets--have been taken away, and now line the walls
of the museums of St. John Lateran and the Vatican. A few, however,
remain in their place; and I know nothing more affecting than the