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Iti!! EXCERPTA CYPRIA. out the island, but in Nicosia lived also the nobles. They established themselves there in the train of King Guy of Lusignan, as I shall presently explain, and at that same time came a throng of other strangers, Armenians, Copts, Maronites, Indians, Nestorians, Georgians, Jacobites, who all settled in Nicosia, each nation baring its own bishop: but all these bishops were suffragans to the Latin archbishop of Cyprus, a post lately filled by Monsignor Philip Mocem'go, a learned prelate. The nobles were very fond of foreigners: most of them lived after the fashion of Latin nations, the rest like Greeks. They were quick-tempered, lively and active, and lived in lavish splendour and refinement. Cyprus has been the nursing-mother of many illustrious men, of whom I will pick out a few: the rest will be found noticed in the authors whom I have quoted elsewhere. Venus, they saj', was ljorn in the Cypriot city Aphrodision : Cupid was her son, who (be the story false or true) might have personified the lascivious temper and habits uf the islanders, who allowed their virgin daughters to win their own dowel's, and to yield themselves on the seashore to the embraces of foreigners who landed there. Afterwards they were married. And before Venus weie others, whom the empty lying of the heathen deemed to be gods and goddesses, also born in Cyprus. Rut it is recorded that hence came Asclepiades the historian, Solon of Salamis, the philosopher, one of the seven sages of Greece, and the great law-giver of Athens; Evagoras, of whom Plutarch has much to say, and his son Cleoboulos; Zenon of Cition, a philosopher and founder of the Stuie Sect, and Apollonio», of the same town, an excellent physician and copious author. Xenophon, the historian and philosopher, is said tu have been a Cypriot, but uf what city is nut- known. I pass by for want of space the kings and tyrants recorded in history; but in the time when our Saviour became incarnate, ami redeemed ns with His Blood, there appeared godly men, whose holiness of life made them famous : of whom were S. Barnabas the Apostle, and Mark his sister's son, one of the seventy-two disciples, among whom also were numbered Mnasuu and Epaphroditos: Paulus Sergins and Titas, disciples uf S. Paul (not the Titus to whom be addressed an epistle), Nicanor, Triphyllos, Epiphanius, Spyridun, Theodoras, Hihiriou, Ion nues Eleemosynaries, Stadion, Tychonas, Nemesius, Potamos, Didymns, Neuphytus and others were saintly men, renowned for their learning and holy lives, all Cypriote. Cyprns too is credited with SS. Constantia, Catarina, and Eirene, daughter uf S. Spyridun. Nur nmst we forget that when Chiistenduin ruse to arms fur the conquest uf the Holy Land, three hundred barons and uobles of varions nations, seeing the enterprise likely to fail, retired to Cyprus, and, scattered among the villages, gave themselves tu lead a life of piety. Who, full of the fear of God, and of gratitude to His Divine Majesty, earned, iu spite of common prejudice, the reverence und devotion even of the Greeks. One of these was John uf Montfort, Count and Marshal of Cyprns, whose body lay intact in Nicosia, in the church dedicated tu his name. After the mil of the domination of the Assyrians, uf Amasie, King of Egypt, the Argives, the gods, and the nine kings, who successively followed the descendante of Noah iu the lordship of the island, Cyprus became subject to (J reek tyrants : now it was the Megaiians, now the Persians, the Athenians, Alexander the Great, Ptolemy the First and Demetrius, who ruled there, until the Romans made themselves masters uf it, and by the agency of Marcus Cato drew from it immense treasure in gold and silver. It remained a subject province until the division of the Empire, and fell tu Constantine the Great, when S. Helena had brought back its inhabitants. But the Byzantine Emperors, harassed by wars, allowed the island to be governed by the Dukes who went there in their name, their negligence giving these same Dukes opportunity to establish a tyranny of their own, and to usurp absolute power, as in fact they did. Bnt when Richard, King of England, drifted here with

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