and luxurious East. The Mediterranean sent up its wealth by the Hellespont, and the Euxine sent hers down by the Bosphorus. The climate was the most bland and temperate to be found on the surface of the globe; the soil, the most fertile in every production of the earth; and the harbour, the most secure and capacious that ever opened its bosom to the navigation of mankind: winding round its promontories, and swelling to its base, it resembled the cornucopia of Amalthea, filled with fruits of different kinds, and was thence called “The Golden Horn.”

His first care was to mark out the boundaries. He advanced on foot with a lance in his hand, heading a solemn procession, ordering its line of march to be carefully noted down as the new limits. The circuit he took so far exceeded expectation, that his attendants ventured to remonstrate with him on the immensity of the circumference. He replied, he would go on till that Being who had ordered his enterprise, and whom he saw walking before him, should think proper to stop. In this perambulation he proceeded round six of the hills on which the modern city is built. Having marked out the area, his next care was to fill it with edifices. On one side of him rose the forests of Mount Hæmus, whose arms ramify to the Euxine and the mouth of the Bosphorus, covered with wood; these gave him an inexhaustible supply of timber, which the current of the strait floated in a few hours into his harbour, and which centuries of use have hardly yet thinned, or at all exhausted. On the other, at no great distance, was Perconessus, an island of marble rising out of the sea, affording that material ready to be conveyed by water also into his harbour, and in such abundance, that it affords at this day, to the present masters of the city, an inexhaustible store, and lends its name to the sea on whose shores it so abounds.

The great materials being thus at hand, artists were wanted to work them up. So much, however, had the arts declined, that none could be found to execute the emperor’s designs, and it was necessary to found schools every where, to instruct scholars for the purpose; and, as the pupils became improved and competent, they were despatched in haste to the new city. But though architects might be thus created for the ordinary civil purposes, it was impossible to renovate the genius of sculpture, or form anew a Phidias or a Praxiteles. Orders therefore were sent to collect whatever specimens could be found of the great artists of antiquity; and, like Napoleon in modern times, he stripped all other cities of their treasures, to adorn his own capital. Historians record the details of particular works of art deposited in this great and gorgeous city, as it rose under the plastic hand of its founder, scarcely a trace of which is to be seen at the present day, and the few that remain will be described more minutely hereafter. Suffice it to say, that the baths of Zeuxippus were adorned with various sculptured marble, and sixty bronze statues of the finest workmanship; that the Hippodrome, or race-course, four hundred paces long, was filled with pillars and obelisks; a public college, a circus, two theatres, eight public and one hundred and fifty private baths, five granaries, eight aqueducts and reservoirs for water, four halls for the meeting of the senate and courts of justice, fourteen temples, fourteen palaces, and four thousand three hundred and eighty-eight domes, resembling palaces, in which resided the nobility of the city, seemed to rise, as if by magic, under the hand of the active and energetic emperor.

But the erection that gives this city perhaps its greatest interest, and it is one of the few that has escaped the hand of time or accident, is that which commemorates his conversion to Christianity. He not only placed the Christian standard on the coins of his new city, but proclaimed that the new city itself was dedicated to Christ. Among his columns was one of red porphyry, resting on a base of marble; between both he deposited what was said to be one of the nails which had fastened our Saviour to the cross, and a part of one of the miraculous loaves with which he had fed the five thousand; and he inscribed on the base an epigram in Greek, importing that he had dedicated the city to Christ, and “placed it under his protection, as the Ruler and Governor of the world.” Whenever he passed the pillar, he descended from his horse, and caused his attendants to do the same; and in such reverence did he hold it, that he ordered it, and the place in which it stood, to be called “The Sacred.” The pillar still stands. The dedication of this first Christian city took place on the 11th of May, A. D. 330.

Constantine left three sons, who succeeded him; and numerous relatives, who all, with one exception, adopted the religious opinions he had embraced. This was Julian, his nephew. He had been early instructed in the doctrines and duties of the new faith, had taken orders, and read the Scriptures publicly to the people; but meeting with the sceptic philosophers of Asia, his faith was shaken, and, when the empire descended to him, he openly abandoned it. With some estimable qualities, was joined a superstitious weakness, which would not suffer him to rest in the philosophic rejection of Christianity. He revived, in its place, all the revolting absurdities of heathenism. In the language of the historian Socrates, “He was greatly afraid of dæmons, and was continually sacrificing to their idols.” He therefore not only erased the Christian emblems from his coins, but he replaced them with Serapis, Anubis, and other deities of Egyptian superstition. He was killed on the banks of the Euphrates, in an expedition against the Persians, having, happily for mankind, reigned but one year and eight months, and established for himself the never-to-be-forgotten name of “Julian the Apostate.”

The family of Constantine ended with Julian, and, as the first had endeavoured to establish Christianity as the religion of this new capital of the world, so the last had endeavoured to eradicate it. But his successor Jovian set himself to repair the injury. He was with Julian’s army at the time of his defeat and death, and with great courage and conduct extricated it from the difficulties with which it was surrounded. He immediately proclaimed the restoration of Christianity, and, as the most decided and speedy way of circulating his opinions, he had its emblems impressed on his first coinage. He is there represented following on horseback the standard of the Cross, as Constantine had done, and so was safely led out of similar danger. He caused new temples to be raised to Christian worship, with tablets or inscriptions importing the cause of their erection, some of which still continue in their primitive state. He reigned only eight months; but even that short period was sufficient to revive a faith so connected with human happiness, and so impressed on the human heart, that little encouragement was required to call it forth every where into action.

From the time of Jovian, Christianity remained the unobstructed religion of Constantinople; but an effort was made in the reign of Theodosius to revive paganism in the old city of Rome. The senate, who had a tendency to the ancient worship, requested that the altar of Victory, which was removed, might be restored; and an attempt was made to recall the Egyptian deities. On this occasion, the emperor issued the memorable decree, that “no one should presume to worship an idol by sacrifice.” The globe had been a favourite emblem of his predecessors, surmounted with symbols of their families, some with an eagle, some with a victory, and some with a phœnix; but Theodosius removed them, and placed a cross upon it, intimating the triumph of Christianity over the whole earth; and this seems to have been the origin of the globe and cross, which many Christian monarchs, as well as our own, use at their