“At the extremity of the great nave behind the altar, and mounted upon a tribune designed or ornamented by Michael Angelo, stands a sort of throne, composed of precious materials, and supported by four gigantic figures. A glory of seraphim, with groups of angels, sheds a brilliant light upon its splendours. This throne enshrines the real, plain, worm-eaten, wooden chair, on which St. Peter, the prince of the apostles, is said to have pontificated; more precious than all the bronze, gold, and gems, with which it is hidden, not only from impious, but from holy eyes, and which once only, in the flight of ages, was profaned by mortal inspection. “The sacrilegious curiosity of the French broke through all obstacles to their seeing the chair of St. Peter. They actually removed its superb casket, and discovered the relic. Upon its mouldering and dusty surface were traced carvings, which bore the appearance of letters. The chair was quickly brought into a better light, the dust and cobwebs removed, and the inscription (for an inscription it was) faithfully copied. The writing is in Arabic characters, and is the well-known confession of Mahometan faith,--‘_There is but one_ GOD, _and_ MAHOMET _is his prophet_!’ It is supposed that this chair had been, among the spoils of the crusaders, offered to the church at a time when a taste for antiquarian lore, and the deciphering of inscriptions, were not yet in fashion. This story has been since hushed up, the chair replaced, and none but the unhallowed remember the fact, and none but the audacious repeat it. Yet such there are, even at Rome!” _St. Prisca._ This saint’s festival stands in the calendar of the church of England this day, as well as in that of the Romish church. Nothing is certainly known of her except that she was a Roman, and martyred about 275. POWERFUL OPTICAL ILLUSION. In the London journals of January, 1824, the following anecdote from a Carlow paper bears the above title:--“A young lady, who died in this town, had been some time previous to her death attended by a gentleman of the medical profession. On the evening of her decease, as this gentleman was sitting in company with a friend of his, and in the act of taking a glass of punch, he imagined he saw the lady walking into the room where himself and his friend were sitting, and, having but a few hours before visited her, and found her in a dying state, the shock that his nerves experienced was so great, that the glass which held the punch fell from his hands, and he himself dropped on the floor in a fainting fit. After he had perfectly recovered himself, and made inquiry about the lady, it was ascertained that a few minutes before the time the medical gentleman imagined he had seen her in his friend’s apartment, she had departed this life.” Perhaps this vision may be illustrated by others. A SPECTRE. The Editor of the _Every-Day Book_ now relates an appearance to himself.