commanded to be burned in the house of the Lord. The brilliancy and
fragrance which were often shed around a martyr's sepulchre, at the
celebration of his festival, by multitudes of lamps and tapers, fed with
aromatics, have been noticed by St. Paulinus:--

"With crowded lamps are these bright altars crowned,
And waxen tapers, shedding perfume round
From fragrant wicks, beam calm a scented ray,
To gladden night, and joy e'en radiant day."

DR. ROCK'S _Hierurgia_.

Constantine the Great provided fragrant oils, to be burned at the altars
of the greater churches in Rome; and St. Paulinus, of Nola, a writer of
the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth century, tells us how,
in his times, wax tapers were made for church use, so as to shed
fragrance as they burned:--

"Lumina cerates adolentur odora papyris."

A perfume in common use, even to this day, was the invention of one of
the earliest of the Roman nobles, named Frangipani, and still bears his
name; it is a powder, or sachet, composed of every known spice, in equal
proportions, to which is added ground iris or orris root, in weight
equal to the whole, with one per cent. of musk or civet. A liquid of the
same name, invented by his grandson Mercutio Frangipani, is also in
common use, prepared by digesting the Frangipane powder in rectified
spirits, which dissolves out the fragrant principles. This has the merit
of being the most lasting perfume made.