The Sun.
London, England, 1851-08-05 00:00:00

GENTLEMA2V' S.

The story of " Nell Gwynne " is brought to a
conclusion, and we have, as an illustration, a view of
the old Church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, in
which pretty, witty Nelly was buried. To the honour
of the morose James 11., be it recorded, that he fully
carried out the last dying request of his brother—he
" did not let poor Nelly starve." A recent visitor to
Rome has started another difficulty with regard to
the supposed St. Peter's chair, the subject of the
pending controversy between Cardinal Wiseman and
Lady Morgan. He thus describes the bronze case
of the supposed chair, and the result of his observa-
tions thereon :
" The bronze cathedra closes the vista of the nave of
St. Peter's, and as every one knows the gigantic scale
of every component part of this vast edifice, it may be
supposed that this chair is of proportionate siz9; it is
held up, as I venture to think, rather grotesquely than
grandly, upon the tips of the fingers of four colossal
doctors of the Greek and Latin church, at an elevation
of seventy feet to the top; it is in the shape of a large
arm chair, and, as my recollection servos me, it is a
question more than puzzling in what part of it the
original chair of St. Peter can be supposed to be con-
tained?

"The Cardinal is very accurate, bat he nowhere asserts
that he writes as an eye-witness. His account has been
traced verbatim to a writer in the middle of the last cen-
tury, or one hundred years ago. Query, did that writer
speak as an eye-witness? Or did he too write from tra-
dition? Thus the question lies open—Who has seen
that to which so many are ready to give testimony?
"The Cardinal is very accurate; he describes the chair
as consisting of two parts, a body and a back; the body
he describes as a cube measuring in Roman palms, what
we should call three feet four inches broad, two feet one
inch deep, and about three feet high; the dimensions of
the back he does not give; but as he describes, and the
drawing shows, that the back consisted of ' a series of
pilasters supporting arches, with a triangular pediment,'
it seems impossible to suppose that the back can have
been less than two feet high, probably more; here then
upon the lowest supposition we have a body not less
than five feet high, by three deep, in the form of a chair,
supposed to be inclosed in another chair of totally dif-
ferent size, and proportions; andit is curious to speculate
in what part of the gigantic case are we to suppose it
inclosed; is it in the back? is it in the seat? is it in one
of the legs? for assuredly it cannot fit in its case leg for
leg, seat for seat, back for back. The solution for all
these difficulties would be, as you observe it is shortly
and sensibly put by Lady Morgan, to produce the
chair.' If this be not done, and if there be no otherwise
satisfactory answer to these queries, this other question
inevitably urges itself—ls there any chair inclosed at
all? or is not the bronze case a deception somewhat
similar to that which Mr. Carlyle pointedly deseribes of
a stuffed set of legs provided for an infirm pope which
enabled him to appear in the balcony of St. Peter's, as
if standing up to bless the multitude, while, in fact,
he was seated at his ease behind ' the sham.' "

Sylvanus Urban gives us divers excellent reviews of
recently published books, besides his usual amount of
antiquarian and topographical intelligence.

THE MONTH. No. 11. Edited by Albert Smith.
illustrated by John Leech.
There are some smart and clever things in this new
periodical ; but it is scarcely worthy the reputation of
Mr. Albert Smith.