plume, and the sable hearse, move from every point of this globe to that shadowy realm, where the mourner soon becomes the mourned. We will then, sweet one! build our altar to hope, and earnestly look for that promised land where tears and farewells are unknown; where the countenance of the dweller is ever filled with perfect light; where the unwithered and uncrushed flowers still breathe their fragrant homage; and where the rich harp-string mingles its music with the voice of the streams, as they flow
'Fast by the oracle of God.'
Could any thing, reader, tempt our thoughts back to this earth, and the brilliant vanity of its cities, it might perhaps be the splendors of a saloon in the Serra palace of Genoa. Here walls and columns, covered with mirrors and gold, a floor of tesselated marble, and tables of richest Mosaic, fascinate the eye; and you at first half conceive yourself realizing the gorgeous fictions of some oriental dream; and you begin to forget the poverty, strife, and wretchedness, which disfigure the condition of man. But there is one painting among the many which adorn the costly galleries of this mansion, that brings you back to the painful reality; it is from the vivid pencil of Carlo Dolci, and represents that scene in the garden of Gethsemane, in which innocence, amid the sorrows and dismay of our shrinking natures, resigned itself to the agonies and ignominy of the cross! He that can gaze on this scene, and feel no emotions of grief and reverence, must have a heart that pity cannot touch, or heaven forgive!
I could take the reader to other princely edifices, to the unrivalled paintings which adorn them, the statues and marbles which heighten their claims to admiration—for no city in the world is so rich in palaces as Genoa—but I have not room to record my impressions, nor he time to peruse them. But there is one feature of this city which must not be passed unnoticed; it is the provision which has been made, by individual wealth, for the relief of the unfortunate and poor. Here the deaf and dumb are taught to communicate their feelings, and catch the meaning of others, without the aid of an articulate language; here the aged, whom the turning tide of fortune has left wrecked on the shore, find a simple but generous asylum; here the orphan boy is furnished the means of procuring a present subsistence, and of acquiring a knowledge that may subserve his after years; and here the little girl, who has no mother and no home, may find a cheerful refuge, where she may braid her flowers, receive the avails of her work, and at a becoming age, perhaps make another happy with her beauty and timid werth. These are the benefactions of the more wealthy citizens of Genoa, and bespeak virtues that will be revered when the usual forms in which wealth expresses itself shall be remembered only to be pitied and despised.
We were cautioned in coming here not to go in our purchases beyond the assurances of our own knowledge; and we at first hesitated distrustingly over the genuineness of a string of coral beads, those little gifts which one gets abroad for an infant sister, a lisping niece, or one deeper in the bond of years, but capable of receiving them without a surrender of the heart. But in all the purchases we made, and they were many, and some of no inconsiderable value, I heard
