“The World to come, as described by Dante, and comprising, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, will be exhibited in a room adjoining the Western Museum on the 4th of July, and days following.  Admittance, twenty-five cents.  In the centre is seen a grand colossal figure of Minos, the Judge of Hell.  He is seated at the entrance of the INFERNAL REGIONS [enormous capitals].  His right hand is raised as in the act to pronounce sentence, his left holding a two-pronged sceptre.  Above his head is a scroll on which are written the concluding words of Dante’s celebrated inscription, ’Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!’ To the right of this figure the foreground presents a frozen lake, on the surface of which are seen the heads of those who have been doomed to this species of punishment.  Among these is the head of Ugolino, whom Dante describes as eternally gnawing the head of his enemy, who, after placing him and his three sons in the upper chamber of a strong tower near Florence, threw the key of it into the moat and left them to perish with hunger.  Grinning in mockery of these ice-bound sufferers, A BLACK IMP [biggest extra black capitals] is seated on a rock, dandling a young monster.  On the edge of the opposite side of the frozen lake stands a spirit, who is just about to endure the frozen torment; and his attitude and countenance express the agony of extreme cold.  Behind him opens the fiery gulf, the reflection of whose lurid glare is seen on his half-frozen body.  At his feet a female head, fixed in the ice, looks up to the flames, as longing for their warmth; while a little way within the lake of fire another head is seen gazing with longing eyes upon the ice.  A brilliant fountain of flame is in the midst of the lake, and around it crowds of condemned spirits in all varieties of suffering.  In one corner a fiend is proclaiming their infamy by the aid of a trumpet through all the depths of Hell.  Birds and animals of hideous form and evil omen are fluttering over the heads and tormenting the sufferers.  Large icicles hang from the rocks that form the Gate of Hell, and reflect on their bright surface the red glare of the fires within.  On the left of Minos is seen a Skeleton ascending a column of Icicles and holding a standard bearing these lines: 

        “’To this grim form our cherished limbs have come,
        And thus lie mouldering in their earthly home. 
        In turf-bound hillock or in sculptured shrine
        The worms alike their cold caresses twine. 
        So far we all are equal; but once left
        Our mortal weeds, of vital spark bereft,
        Asunder farther than the poles we’re driven—­
        Some sunk to deepest Hell, some raised to highest Heaven.’