interesting and beautiful of the palace. It represents the planets, and
the sun and moon, in those divisions of the zodiac known to astrologers
as their "houses;" and perhaps indicates, by the position in which they
are placed, the period of the year at which this great corner-stone was
laid. The inscriptions above have been in quaint Latin rhyme, but are
now decipherable only in fragments, and that with the more difficulty
because the rusty iron bar that binds the abacus has broken away, in its
expansion, nearly all the upper portions of the stone, and with them the
signs of contraction, which are of great importance. I shall give the
fragments of them that I could decipher; first as the letters actually
stand (putting those of which I am doubtful in brackets, with a note of
interrogation), and then as I would read them.