To point out contrary instances would not be so easy――they are legion; but the typical idle apprentice of Hogarth is a fair specimen of those who wreck their lives through weakness of resolve and inordinate love of so-called enjoyment. These we have under our eyes every day, in every country. [3] Sleight or skill. [4] The members for the city have the right to wear scarlet gowns on the first or opening day of every Parliament, and sit all together on the right hand of the chair, next the speaker. No other members, except the speaker and the clerks, have the right of wearing robes. THE SAINTE CHAPELLE OF PARIS AND THE CROWN OF THORNS. In the very heart of Paris, to the northwest of _Notre Dame_, and as if a flower detached from her garland, or a graceful sapling from the majestic parent tree, sprang up, more than six centuries ago, the _Sainte Chapelle_. It almost seems as if Heaven had extended a special protection to the sanctuary raised to enshrine the precious relics of the Passion of our Lord; for although injured and despoiled by evil hands in the time of the First Revolution, it was subsequently restored to all the splendor of its pristine beauty; and again, when the conflagrations kindled by the _Commune_ were raging around it, the _Sainte Chapelle_, with its fearless _flêche_, its protecting angel, and its golden crown, stood unharmed in the very midst of the flames, and so remained when they had died out, amid the heaps of ashes and the crumbling ruins left around its unscathed walls. Since the time of St. Louis France has possessed the crown of thorns of our Lord Jesus Christ, and there is great interest in tracing the vicissitudes through which this priceless treasure has passed, and in learning the circumstances under which the saintly monarch obtained it. In the year 1204 the French and the Venetians, having captured Constantinople, established there as emperor Baldwin, Count of Flanders. On the division of the booty this prince requested for his share the sacred crown of our Saviour, which was found among the treasure of the emperors of the East, offering, if it were adjudged to him, to give to the Doge of Venice a large portion of the true cross in exchange.