to the frivolous whim of a wanton female, none of her frail sex are allowed to approach his shrine. We found here also the celebrated emerald vase, reputed to have been presented to Solomon by the Queen of Sheba, and which was taken from the infidels at Cesarea, by the battling hosts that went out for the rescue of the Holy Land. I cannot but regret that the recent tests of sceptical science have decided this splendid trophy to be only a composition of polished glass! Life itself is only an illusion, and why break the bubbles that float on its breath?
A monumental group in this church struck me as one of the most delicate and pleasing efforts of Canova's genius. Grief, in the likeness of a weeping angel, is looking down with tender resignation on the tomb; while Hope, in seraphic beauty, with the earnestness of an unfaltering faith, is looking up to that anchor which piety hath cast within the veil. Never before has death appeared to me so disarmed of its terrors. Say what we will against the visible representation of spiritual existences, they certainly affect us the most deeply in this tangible shape. In the one case, we have form, substance, sympathy; in the other, only a vague ideal conception, that addresses itself to no outward sense. Think you the multitude would linger so around that 'statue which enchants the heart,' if there were nothing there but the invisible creation of some poetic dream? I think not; hence the advantage which the Catholic faith derives from its striking palpable symbols, and which it must ever possess, so long as men are influenced more by their outward senses, than their mental abstractions.
The church of St. Stephen derives its leading interest from a representation of that first martyr, by Raphael, as he bows himself, in the forgiving spirit of his Master, to the violence of his murderers. His very look of innocence and meekness were enough, one would suppose, to disarm the most savage breast of its malice. But man, when he persecutes in the name of religion, seems only the more steeled against the kindlier impulses of his nature. He lights his profane brand at the altar of heaven, and then kindles up a conflagration at which hell might shudder.
The church of the Annunziata is splendid in its marbles, but frightful in the malefactor of Carloni, broken on the wheel; while the Ambrozia, of less ambition in design, and richness in ornament, has the milder and deeper attractions derived from the life-imparting pencil of Rubens and Guido. But of all the sanctuaries here, none charmed me more than the chapel of the Carmelite nuns. This is small, simple, chaste, and in harmony with the noiseless habits of those who here enshrine their timid hopes of immortality. Would that she were here, who weeps within the walls of Santa Clara, here to kneel, to hymn her vesper prayer, and then with the wings of a dove to flee away and be at rest! But into whatever quarter of the heavens she might pass, I should watch her flight as one that would pursue. But, Maria, that the wing of the turtle were lent thee, and a pinion granted me of equal fleetness, yet whither could we fly? Where escape from the all-shadowing upas that blights this earth? There is no isle in the most sunny clime, that sorrow hath not touched, no shore in the remotest sea, where death hath not his empire. The pall, the
