thing I remembered was its white glittering Cathedral, and its college of fine old paintings, the College of Brera.

Then there is the dim shadowy spectre of Leonardo da Vicini's great painting of the Last Supper. No man would visit it, if it were not for what it had been; it is like visiting the house in which Shakspere lived, or the room in which Milton died; the occupant is gone. In looking at the picture you find yourself gazing not so much at what is there, but endeavouring to see what is not there. It is as if one led you to a dim room filled with apparitions, some ante-chamber to the land of shades, and you should vainly strain your sight for some known image, but you only see

"the shadowy forms

That seem things dead and dead again."

Sixteen years did the Artist labour upon this painting with slow and patient toil, the fruit of intense contemplation. He was one of the most universal and commanding geniuses of Italy, and doubtless the painting was in all respects the most perfect the world ever saw. It would have matched the Transfiguration by Raphael had it been painted on canvas, in undecaying colours. But one half century and a little more sufficed, by various accidents and exposure, for its almost complete destruction; and by so many hands has it been retouched, mended, and painted anew, that it would probably be impossible for the most consummate judge of art to find in it a trace of the pencil of the original author.

CHAPTER LXIX.

THE CATHEDRAL OF MILAN.-THE GOSPEL IN ITALY.

You have Nature in Switzerland and Art in Italy. The transition is great from cloud and snow-capped mountains and thundering waterfalls to the ribbed chapels and aisles of cathedrals, with saints and angels sculptured upon slender spires, and the organ solemnly pealing. The Duomo of Milan is the

first full introduction for the stranger from the North into the Ecclesiastical splendours of a past artistic world. From great mountains to some gigantic supernatural structure, like the colossal Temple of Karnak in Thebes, would be a change more fitting to the feelings; but coming from the cities or the plains of Lombardy, the sight of the architectural pile at Milan is truly imposing and majestic.

The Cathedral is claimed by the Milanese as the eighth wonder of the world. It rises in the very heart of the city, a magnificent broad pile of white marble, sculptured and entablatured on the face and sides with groups of statuary, and pinnacled at every angle and corner with lofty and delicate spires, which bear upon their summits each a majestic statue of white marble. One hundred and sixteen of these spires are visible at once, and the sculptured forms springing from their slender extremities look as if suspended in the air by magic. The great tower of the Cathedral is an almost interminable labyrinth of marble statuary and tracery at so great a height, and so light and delicate, that it seems as if the first strong wind would prostrate the whole, or scatter its rocky lace-work like leaves

in autumn.

If you can conceive of a river of liquid white marble shot into the air to the height of five hundred feet, and then suddenly petrified while falling, you will come to some approximation of the beauty and rareness of this magnificent vision. It seems like a petrified oriental dream, and if it had stood in Venice, opposite St. Mark's Church and the Doge's palace, it would have been more in keeping. There is a broad, ample, open space in front of it, so that you command a full satisfactory view from a sufficient distance, uninterrupted. The first time I saw it, I came upon it suddenly and unexpectedly, on turning a corner in the street, as if it had sprung from the earth before me like an exhalation, and it instantly reminded me, with its multitudinous white spires and images, of the very imaginative reference to it by Wordsworth in his poem on an eclipse of the sun. This is one of the most exquisitely beautiful compositions in all the volumes of this great poet, and the measure in which it is written is most melodious and perfect.

THE CATHEDRAL OF MILAN.

But Fancy, with the speed of fire,
Hath fled to Milan's loftiest spire,

And there alights, 'mid that aerial host
Of figures human and divine,

White as the snows of Appenine

Indurated by frost.

Awe-stricken she beholds the array

That guards the Temple night and day;

Angels she sees that might from heaven have flown;
And Virgin Saints, who not in vain

Have striven by purity to gain

The beatific crown.

Far-stretching files, concentric rings,

Each narrowing above each ;-the wings,

The uplifted palms, the silent marble lips,
The starry zone of sovereign height,

All steeped in this portentous light,
All suffering dim eclipse.

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Look now abroad at evening from this starry zone, over the horizon around you. The sun is sinking towards the Mediterranean, and the long snowy ranges of the Alps on one side and the Appenines on the other, are burning with almost crimson radiance. The city and the vast luxuriant plains lie beneath you. Can the human imagination conceive a sight more glorious than those distant flashing mountains, ascending pile after pile, chain behind chain, whiter and more brilliant into the heavens? How immense and magnificent the ranges commanded from this centre ! From this pinnacle of art in Italy could we fly "with the speed of fire" to that of nature on Mont Blanc, it seems as if the change from Time into Eternity would hardly be greater. Yet it is little more than three days since we were in the midst of those snows, that in this setting sun blaze like the walls of heaven. And now we long to be there again. The sight of such mountains makes the Cathedral dwindle, makes you feel as if, while Art can indeed be beautiful, there is nothing but Nature that can be truly sublime.

Now we turn again upon the marble tower, along its wilderness of spires and statues. How admirably the sculptures are finished! Half way up the grand spires you have the best view of them, more than four thousand in all, though not all at once visible. The immense size of the building, and its in

numerable recesses, admit of their distribution in such a way that you would not dream there were more than five hundred in all. The structure is indeed a master-piece of gorgeous art, and in speaking of it Wordsworth observes that "the selection and arrangements of the figures are exquisitely fitted to support the religion of the country in the imaginations and feelings of the spectator." But does the piety of the people, does the religion of the Cross, as well as the Religion of the country, increase and strengthen by the beauty of such gorgeous churches? It has been remarked that the age of great architectural splendour in churches is also an age of decline in spiritual worship. The beauty and glory of the form are far more considered than the indwelling spirit. Take Wordsworth's words as a definition, and call the Romish Cathedral a series of figures selected and arranged to support the religion of the country, and you have a most accurate description. Whether the satire were intended, or the writer was unconscious of it, makes but little difference. It is the religio loci, and not the preaching of the Gospel, for which these great edifices were destined; it is the half-paganized system of superstition, instead of the Gospel, for which they are best adapted.

This magnificent pile, when Lanfranc undertook to rebuild it, was styled a Church for the Mother of God, and on her account the people brought their offerings. Then afterwards did the fierce Galeazzo Visconti take up the work of rebuilding, in order to expiate his great crimes. Then another uneasy sinner, on his death-bed, paid, for the same purpose, the enormous expiatory gift of 280,000 crowns. After all this, Napoleon took up the work, as a matter of imperial taste, splendour, and ambition, and nearly finished it. So, though it has been centuries in building, no man can be said to have put a stone in it out of love; it is all the work not of Faith, but of Superstition; so that, instead of regarding these Gothic architectural piles as the consequence or proof of a sense of religion in the Middle Ages, or as the natural growth or expression of a devout spirit, they must rather be considered as the price paid by an age of superstition, for a vast insurance on the world to come. It is not the Gospel in a believing heart, but the Law acting on a guilty

CATHEDRAL OF MILAN.

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conscience, that has reared such structures. So, though some of them are a great material Epic, full of beauty and grandeur, yet they cannot be considered as a true product of the Gospel, or of a simple religious spirit, any more than the Iliad of Homer itself. If they were religious edifices, then ought the ceremonies of religion in them to be of such august simplicity and grandeur, so free from mere human artifice, so superior to all superstition, so shaped and imbued by the spirit of the Gospel, that every man on entering might feel irresistibly that it is the Gospel. But as Wordsworth says, it is the religion of the country. You are made to feel that while there is a great deal of worship in the Roman Catholic religion, there is very little religion in the Roman Catholic worship. You are compelled to make this distinction, by observing the round of superstitious ceremonies, and studying the crowds kneeling before the multitudinous altars, pictures, effigies and images.

As to the effect of the Gospel of Christ, preached simply, plainly, boldly, fervently, amidst all this power of superstition, I believe it would be irresistible. The hearts of the Italians are human hearts, as good naturally as any other hearts in the world, and perfectly accessible. Doubtless God will yet raise up native preachers of the Cross among them, who will be as successful as Paul ever was at Rome. He whose grace kindles the fire in such hearts can keep it burning, can make it spread like the summer lightning from cloud to cloud. No conclave of Inquisitors can stop it, no persecution can put it out. The word of God shall "yet have free course and be glorified" in Italy, and when it does, then will that Man of Sin, that Son of Perdition (and I leave it with my readers according to their own pleasure to say who or what he is) be consumed by the Spirit of the Lord's mouth, and destroyed by the brightness of his coming.

CHAPTER LXX.

SILVIO PELLICO, AND THE BIBLE IN ITALY.

MILAN was the city of one of Silvio Pellico's prisons. What a touching account he gives of the power of the Bible over