tion, that the Stanzas on the subject were composed; for, it occurred to me, during that hour, how impossible would be the task to write from any source excepting that of immediate impressions.

More than once during the melodies of the Miserere, Milton's lines were recalled; being, surely, one of the finest illustrations of the effects of Music on the heart, ever attempted by Poetry ;—everywhere in his works, Milton shows how deep was his feeling for harmony.

a soft and solemn breathing sound

Rose like a steam of rich distilled perfumes,
And stole upon the air, that even Silence
Was took ere she was 'ware, and wished she might
Deny her nature, and be never more,

Still to be so displaced. I was all ear,

And took in strains that might create a soul

Under the ribs of Death.

LXIII.

COMUS.

66

See how yon pictured Prophets.

"It is here we behold," says Lanzi, "those august and

finely varied figures of the Prophets and Sibyls of Angelo, the best the world has ever seen;-their very atti"tudes, whether representing rest or motion, all announce

66

a race of mortals to whom the Deity reveals the future, "and whom he inspires."

The Last Judgment is too much injured by time, ill-usage, and neglect; it is too far gone-stat magni nominis umbra:

nothing but the sublime conception is tangible, and, to add to its misfortunes, an unsightly Canopy covers the best part of the fresco, under which the Pope may sit with the wellmerited attributes of Midas.

Speaking of the marvellous figures on the ceiling, Lanzi observes, "It was a received opinion that Angelo had no "taste for beauty or for grace; and yet the Eve, who, at "her creation, turns round to offer up her thanksgiving to "her Maker, is made to do it with an air so lovely and en"gaging, that it would be no discredit to Raffaelle him"self."

I think, I must confess, that this is hardly praise enough; for myself, oftentimes lying along the benches of the Sistine, I have looked at that single figure of Eve for an hour at a time: so flowing and so exquisitely graceful a conception did I feel it to be.

Among the other chief frescos, are seen the Almighty, casting the world floating from Him like a Ball, and Darkness receding into Chaos-the conception and execution, alike sublime. The Almighty, awakening Adam into form and life with his touch-the mortal and his Creator, confronted together. JOURNAL.

XLVI.

Turn, where apart yon darkly curtained tent :

In one of the angles of the Ceiling, I observed his Judith and Holofernes, it is indeed all his own. In the dark back

F F

ground rises the tent, on the couch of which is stretched the decollated corpse of the warrior; his arms and one of his legs are drawn upward, as if from the last wrenching agony. The Murderess has hastily passed over a plank which divides the tent from the foreground, and, while giving the head to her attendant, her face is half averted, with an expression of scorn, on hearing the motion which might have been caused by the last spasmodic convulsion; a Shakspearian conception of the same tone and character of genius which created "the listening fears" of Lady Macbeth. Of the character of the Prophets and Sibyls around the ceiling, it would be superfluous to speak; the whole attitude of Isaiah, for example, is perfect; and an anticipation of "the Moses" from the same hand. After finding fault with the Prophets in the Sistine as being at too great a height "to distinguish the faces as ac"curately as one could wish," (an effect the very reverse of which was designed,) Hazlitt observes-" Nothing can be "nobler or more characteristic than the figure of the Pro

66

phet Jeremiah, which droops and hangs down like a majestic "tree surcharged with showers.”—How just and fine the analogy-how beautiful its expression !—O si sic omnia !*

* This character of imposing majesty is most striking in the figure of Isaiah, who, reading the Book of Law, has placed his hand in it to mark the passage, and his head leaning on his other, he has delivered himself up to his high thoughts, when he is called by an Angel: far from being betrayed into any hasty movement by the voice of the Inhabitant of Heaven, the Prophet slowly turns his head, and seems to give attention, almost with regret.

Histoire de la Peinture en Italie. 2 vols.

LII.

What Temple frowns before me in my path?

Whether the Pantheon was designed for a Temple to all the gods, following Dion, or a calidarium, a single, or a double building, the Ancients spoke of it with rapture, as one of the wonders of Rome, "whose vault was like the "heavens, and whose compass was that of a whole re"gion."

:

"Twenty ages have now rolled over the Pantheon," (says Forsyth in his best manner,) "and if they have not crushed its "dome, they have, at least, left their traces in sullen grandeur on its walls they have left all its primeval proportions, but "have gradually stript it of its ornaments, its leaves of acan"thus, and its glossy colours. These venerable tints, that "time alone can shed, rather increase its majesty, by adding "the charms of recollection, and the united interest of age "and disaster."

Nor can the poetry of Goëthe on the Pantheon be resisted : "How glorious must have been the effect of this proudest "of all the temples of Pantheism, when the deities of the "heathen world filled every niche with pale and silent "beauty! when the lofty Caryatides relieved the attic, and "the majestic hemisphere above glittered with bronze and 'silver. The beauty of the existing edifice is of that digni"fied and serious character which succeeds the bloom and "the brilliancy of youth: but it is still beauty; and of that

66

high and genuine order which bids defiance to all criticism,

"and to all changes of architectural rule and fashion."

LVII.

I stand upon the Capitol.

"have entirely

"Ruin and restoration," says Hobhouse, "effaced every vestige of the domicile of all the gods. The "greatest uncertainty hangs over this hill. On which side "stood the Citadel, on which the great temple of the Capitol? "and did the temple stand in the Citadel? Read everything "that has been written on the topography of a spot four "hundred yards in length, and two hundred in breadth, and "you will know-nothing. Four temples, fifteen chapels, "three altars, the great rock, a fortress, a library, an athenæum, an area covered with statues, the enrolment office,"all these are to be arranged in the above space: and of "these, the last only can be with precision assigned to the "double row of vaults corroded with salt, where the inscription "of Catulus was discovered."

66

LIX.

The dungeons of the Mamertine beneath.

The executions took place in a prison beneath the Mamertine, called the Tullian prison; it was sunk twelve feet beneath the natural surface. Criminals were thrown into it through a hole, still visible in the centre of the vault. Those, therefore, imprisoned in the Mamertine, heard the cries,