faith--"the weak things of the world chosen to confound the strong." Their inscriptions speak of resignation, peace, and confidence; their emblems, the Good Shepherd, the Dove, the Anchor, the Ark of Noah, all breathe the same peaceful, humble, and yet hopeful spirit. * * * * * The literature of what the Germans call _Epigraphik_, that branch of archæology which treats of inscriptions, is uncommonly rich--so rich, indeed, as to be embarrassing. The scholars of Italy, with Muratori and Maffei at their head, have been pre-eminent in their labours, which alone would form a library. The inscriptions of Gaul and Helvetia, and of the Roman settlements on the Rhine and Danube, have been illustrated in special works. Those of our country may be found in Horsley's "Britannia Illustrata," in the later work of Lysons, in Dr. Bruce's "Roman Wall," and Stuart's "Caledonia Illustrata." The great repository, in which all that was known at the commencement of the eighteenth century has been collected, is the "Inscriptiones Antiquæ totius orbis Romani," four volumes, folio, begun by Joseph Scaliger, and enlarged by the successive labours of Gruter and Grævius. These, with the folios of Fabretti and Reinesius, are indispensable in the library of an archæologist, who devotes himself to the study of inscriptions. The general scholar will find an admirable selection in the work of Orelli, to which a supplemental volume has been lately added by Henzen.[131] The monuments are carefully classified; they are illustrated, without being overwhelmed with notes, and more care is taken than in any previous collection, to separate the spurious from the genuine inscriptions. Nowhere has mischievous ingenuity been more actively at work than in the forgery of Latin inscriptions, especially in the sixteenth century, when the revival of classical studies gave value to every relic of antiquity, and the infancy of archæological science rendered imposture easy. Among those who have deserved the reprobation of scholars by their forgeries, Pyrrhus Ligorius stands pre-eminent. Ligorio was a Neapolitan by birth, a skilful artist and architect, who, with considerable taste for antiquities, but little knowledge, employed himself in making collections of drawings of ancient buildings, and copies of inscriptions and medals, which, when bound in volumes, he sold at high prices to the munificent patrons of learning who then abounded in Italy. Thirty-five of these volumes, in imperial folio, are in the Royal Library of Turin, and others are, or were, in the Library of the Vatican, and of the princely families of Rome. The temptation of gain was too strong for his honesty, and finding invention easier than research and discovery, he began to forge inscriptions in order to make up his volumes. He is said to have been ignorant of the Latin language, but either this must be a mistake, or he was aided by some one of superior