198. _Tapestry Story of Justinian._--There is a series of ancient
tapestries in Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland, representing certain
events in the life of the emperor Justinian. One of these exhibits him
in the act of making his celebrated Digest of Law, surrounded by his
lawyers; in a second, he is manumitting slaves before the temple of
Janus, at the time, I presume, when he proclaimed the _eternal peace_,
which lasted two years; in a third, he appears crowned, on his knees,
swearing, it should seem, to observe the _Lex Romana_, which is held up
to him in an open book by two lictors; in the fourth, he is seen in a
wild country, with a hunting spear in his hand, coming, as it were by
surprise, and in great alarm, upon two hounds in the agonies of death. A
dish, from which they may have taken poison, lies on the foreground; and
a stream, which may possibly have been poisoned, gushes from a
neighbouring rock. Figures in the background seem to be slinking away
from the scene here represented.
I shall be much obliged to any of your correspondents who can point out
to me the ancient author in whose writings the circumstance alluded to
in the last-mentioned picture is detailed.