away of the original rock on all sides. The unmerciful ridicule and contempt which has been cast upon those who have ventured to suppose such a process possible, in the case of the Holy Sepulchre, is at once disposed of, by thus shewing that examples of this process exist in the immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem; for the tomb of Zachariah is exactly formed in the same manner. And whatever may be the age of these works, they certainly are prior to the time of Constantine. But away from Jerusalem there are many examples, especially in Asia Minor1. Robinson also found “several isolated monuments, the counterparts of the monolithic tombs in the Valley of Jehoshaphat" at Petra2.

VI.

DESCRIPTION OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE.

THE Holy Sepulchre itself is in its present state, as I have already stated, a small chapel or edicula in the centre of the Rotunda, about twenty-six feet long and eighteen broad. As the diameter of the interior of the Rotunda is sixty-seven feet, the chapel stands quite free in the midst of it.

The Eastern end is square, and the Western polygonal. The external aspect of it has been completely altered by the repairs that followed the fire of 1808; for the original exterior casing of marble, greatly damaged by that fire, has been of necessity entirely removed, and a new one substituted of a totally dif

1 Vide especially Texier, Pls. 197, 198, for a monolithic tomb, detatched from the rock precisely in the same manner as that of Absalom, and

wrought into the form of a Doric temple. 2 Robinson, Vol. 1. p. 521. They are sketched in one of Roberts's views of the Necropolis of Petra.

ferent design. The comparison of its present plan with that of its former state proves also, that at least the Eastern half of it has been completely rebuilt, so as also to change the interior1.

But, in fact, the interior of the Chapel is divided into two apartments. The only entrance is at the East, where a small door admits to the first apartment, which is called the Chapel of the Angel; for here, as they say, the Angel sat upon the stone that was rolled from the door of the Sepulchre. And, accordingly, a stone about a foot high and two feet square is exhibited in this Chapel, as the identical stone in question, or rather as a piece of it.

At the Western extremity of the Angel's Chapel, a narrow low door opens to the second or inner apartment, which is the Sepulchre itself, a quadrangular room, about six feet by seven, and eight or nine feet in height.

This inner apartment is asserted to be the original

Figs. 6, 7, 8, Plate 2, shew the Chapel of the Sepulchre, as it has appeared at different periods; Fig. 6, the supposed original arrangement of Constantine; Fig. 7, is that of the Crusaders, as given by Bernardino and as it remained until 1808. Fig. 8 is its present plan; for which I am indebted to Mr Scoles.

In these three figures the same letters of reference are used: A, the altar of the Sepulchre, B the rockchamber, C the low door, D the Chapel of the Angel, having the stone in the midst, EE stone benches, FF candelabra introduced into the present structure, G a platform of approach to the Sepulchre, raised three steps above the VOL. II.

floor of the rotunda, H the Chapel of the Copts.

The probable rocky part of the structure is distinguished from the masonry and marble covering by dif ferent shading. In Fig. 6, the sepulchral chamber, not having been lined with marble, appears larger than in the others. In Fig. 8 a narrow staircase is shewn to the right and left of the entrance of the Angel Chapel, which serves to give access to the roof. For this information I am indebted to a Russian plan. It is probable that a similar staircase existed in the earlier building, although Bernardino has omitted it.

11

Rock-cave, which was shaped and pared down on the outside by Constantine's architect, and the surface of the rock levelled all round it, so as to leave it standing up in the midst, like an artificial construction. The outside was then also decorated with a marble casing and with columns, which casing has been destroyed and reconstructed in various forms, until it has assumed its present appearance. As for the Angel's Chapel in front of it, it is confessedly a building of stone, and has never been described as a rock-cavern, like the inner room, by any writer of authority, although some travellers have assumed this, and perhaps the inferior priests who shew the Sepulchre may say so. But in examining the traditional accounts of the whole of these buildings, and the pretences that are put forth by their guardians with respect to them, it is quite necessary to confine ourselves to the writings of educated men. The marvellous tales of the priests who shew the wonders of the spot to the pilgrims, are about as worthy of attention as the histories that are delivered by a Cathedral verger in our own country, some of which are nearly as preposterous as the legends of the Holy Land, although not so revolting, because the subjects of them are not so sacred.

The wood-cut at the beginning of this volume shews its present appearance, which is that of a Russo-Greek Chapel, in a very bad taste, surmounted by a swelled dome, of a form, happily, peculiar to the Russian Churches. In the drawings of Breydenbach, and others from his time down to the fire of 1808, the Western part of the Chapel has a simple arcade against its sides, the columns of which are seen in the Plan, Fig. 7, from which it appears that there were nine

arches. These arches are not only drawn as pointed arches by Bernardino (who very rarely represents pointed arches,) but he mentions one of them expressly (that over the Eastern door) as a pointed arch, "arco ottuso." (p. 44). But Breydenbach, Le Brun, and others, draw them as semicircular arches. Nevertheless I incline to think, that the fact of one observer drawing the arches in the pointed form, is conclusive against all the others, who might so probably have missed that peculiarity at a period when the pointed arch had not been made an object of attention. The columns, as Bernardino tells us, were different in diameter and in form; some were cylindrical, some octagonal, some spiral, and their plinths were of different heights, as if they had been taken from the remains of other structures. The arcade only extended from K to K Westward, and the height of this part of the Chapel was little more than fifteen feet', and was surmounted by a single cornice. The part to the Eastward of KK was a foot lower, and had a similar cornice. The Eastern face contained the only door, and this was square-headed, but had a pointed arch or pannel over it, sunk a few inches. A platform G nine feet wide, shewn in the plan, and raised about a foot above the general pavement of the Rotunda, led to this door, and there was a stone seat E on either side of the doorway. The Eastern half of the Chapel has been now wholly rebuilt, and the Western re-cased, so as to alter its appearance entirely, and to increase its height. But this arrangement of the platform and seats has been preserved, as the plan, Fig. 8, shews, although they have been constructed in a more com

Twenty-one palms, (Bernardino, p. 44.)

modious and handsome form, and the platform is now flanked by two large candlesticks at FF. to return to Fig. 7, or to the Chapel at the peri that plan. The Western half was surmounted light pavilion, erected over the sepulchral cha This consisted of a plinth of white marble, on were placed twelve small columns in pairs, of the porphyry, with white marble bases and capitals of of irregular design, (according to Bernardino, may be rendered as applying to medieval work). these stood six pointed arches of wood, and a c of multiplied mouldings, capped by a cupola of This little fabric, nineteen feet high in all, and in diameter, appears to have been of exceedingly design and disproportionately small dimensions, t perhaps scarcely deserving Dr Clarke's epithet "dusty pepper-box." The present dumpy dome replaces it, is not worth much more considerati

The original Angel Chapel was, as the plan ( shews, a small parallelogram, ten feet by five, semicircular apse to the West. The parallelogr vaulted with a groined vault, the apex of which w ten feet from the floor, and the apse was still The Eastern door was eight feet five inches crown of its pointed arch, but the Western door gave admission to the inner or sepulchral chamb only three feet four inches in height, and the was cut obliquely on account of the arrangem the Sepulchre within1. Its pavement and its wa covered and lined with marble, and there we small windows on either side, and an ambry in

The above measures are reduced from Bernardino's palms