lly
lose its vitality. Like the Delphic Pythia, old, but clothed as a
maiden, the ancient Sibyl appeared to them in the garments of
immortal youth, with the charm of her early prime.

The dim old church of Ara Coeli in Rome, which occupies the site of
the celebrated temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, and in which Gibbon
conceived the idea of his great work on the _Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire_, is said to have derived its name from an altar bearing
the inscription, "Ara Primogeniti Dei," erected in this place by
Augustus, to commemorate the Sibylline prophecy of the coming of our
Saviour. She was a favourite subject of Christian art in the middle
ages, and was introduced by almost every celebrated painter, along
with the prophets and apostles, into the cyclical decorations of the
Church. Every visitor to Rome knows the fine picture of the Sibyls by
Pinturicchio, on the tribune behind the high altar of the Church of
St. Onofrio, where Tasso was buried; and also the still grander head
of the Cumaean Sibyl, with its flowing turban by Domenichino, in the
great picture gallery of the Borghese Palace. But the highest honour
ever conferred upon the Sibyls was that which Michael Angelo bestowed
when he painted them on the spandrils of the wonderful roof of the
Sistine Chapel. These mysterious beings formed most congenial subjects
for the mystic pencil of the great Florentine, and therefore they are
more characteristic of his genius than almost any other of his works.
He has painted them along with the greater prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, Daniel, Jonah, in throne-like niches surrounding the
different incidents of the creation. They look like presiding deities,
remote from all human weaknesses, and wearing on their faces an air of
profound mystery. They are invested, not with the calm, superficial,
unconscious beauty of pagan art, but with the solemn earnestness and
travail of soul characteristic of the Christian creed, wrinkled and
saddened with thought and worn out with vigils; and are striking
examples of the truth, that while each human being can bear his own
burden, the burden of the world's mystery and pain crushes us to the
earth. The Persian Sibyl, the oldest of the weird sisterhood, to whom
the sunset of life had given mystical lore, holds a book close to her
eyes, as if from dimness of vision; the Libyan Sibyl lifts a massive
volume above her head on to her knees; the Cumaean Sibyl intently reads
her boo