so eloquent withal, in both look and gesture, that you half expected to find yourself addressed by some one in this lifelike crowd of figures. I ascended to the different levels by steps on the flying buttresses. A winding staircase in a turret of open tracery next carried me to the Octagon, where I found myself surrounded by a new zone of statues. Here I again made a long halt, admiring the landscape as seen under this new elevation, and doing my best to scrape acquaintance with my new companions. I now prepared for my final ascent. Entering the spire, I ascended its winding staircase, and came out at the foot of the pyramid that crowns the edifice. Higher I could not go. Here I stood at a height of about three hundred and fifty feet, looking down upon the city and the plain. I had left the grosser forms of monks and bishops far beneath, and was surrounded-as became my aerial position-with winged cherubs, newly alighted, as it seemed, on the spires and turrets which shot up like a forest at my feet. Here I waited the coming of the Alps, with all the impatience with which an audience at the theatre waits the rising of the curtain. Meanwhile, till it should please Monte Rosa and her long train of white-robed companions to emerge, I had the city spectacles to amuse me. There was Milan at my feet. I could count its every house, and trace the windings of its every street and lane, as easily as though it had been laid down upon a map. I could see innumerable black dots moving about in the streets,-mingling, crossing, gathering in little knots, then dissolving, and the constituent atoms falling into the stream, and floating away. Then there came a long white line with nodding plumes; and I could faintly hear the tramp of horses; and then there followed a mustering of men and a flashing of bayonets in the square below. I sat watching the manoeuvres of the little army bene or so, while drum and clarionet did their best to with music, and send up their thousand echoe die amid the spires and statues of the Cathedra mimic war was ended, and I was left alone, with moveless, but ever acting statues around and bel a picture, thought I, of the pageantry of life, a higher point than this world! Instead of a thousand years, and how do the scenes shift spectacle of empire has moved westward from the Euphrates to those of the Tiber and the Tha trace its track by the ruins it has left. The fie luminated this hour by the gleam of arts an buried in the darkness of barbarism the next. There has been ever busy. He has builded cities, fought thrones, constructed systems. confusion, but, alas! little progress. Such wo which some superior being from some tranquil would heave over the ceaseless struggle and chan of the world. And yet, amid all its changes, ́have been taking root, and a noble edifice has But, lo! the mists are rising, and yonder Now that the curtain is rent, one flashing pea you after another. They come not in scores, b And now the whole chain, from the snowy Ortelles in the far-off Tyrol, to the beauteo Monte Viso in the south-western sky, is be noble sweep of many hundreds of miles, wit snowy peaks, amid which, pre-eminent in glo Rosa. Turning to the south, you have the pu the Apennines rising above the plain. Betwee in the south and that magnificent rampart peaks in the north, what a vast and dazzling picture of meadows, woods, rivers, cities, with the sun of Italy shining over all! Ye glorious piles! well are ye termed everlasting. Kings and kingdoms pass away, but on you there passes not the shadow of change. Ye saw the foundations of Rome laid; -now ye look down upon its ruins. In comparison with yours, man's life dwindles to a moment. Like the flower at your foot, he blooms for an instant, and sinks into the tomb. Nay, what is a nation's duration, when weighed against thine? Even the forests that wave on your slopes will outlast empires. Proud piles, how do ye stamp with insignificance man's greatest labours! This glorious edifice on which I stand, ages was it in building; myriads of hands helped to rear it; and yet, in comparison with your gigantic masses, what is it?—a mere speck. Already it is growing old;-ye are still young. The tempests of six thousand winters have not bowed you down. Your glory lightened the cradle of nations, your shadows cover their tomb. But to me the great charm of the Alps lay in the sacred character which they wore. They seemed to rise before me, a vast temple, crowned, as temple never was, with sapphire domes and pinnacles, in which a holy nation had worshipped when Europe lay prostrate before the Dagon of the Seven Hills. I could go back to a time when that plain, now covered, alas! with the putridities of superstition, was the scene of churches in which the gospel was preached, of homes in which the Bible was read, of happy death-beds, and blessed graves,-graves in which, in the sublime words of our catechism, “the bodies of the saints being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the Resurrection." Sleep on, ye blessed dead! This pile shall crumble into ruin; the Alps dissolve, Rome herself sink; but not a dust shall be lost. The reflection recalled vi of years gone by. I had sauntered at the ev retired country churchyard in Scotland. The of heavy rain, was setting in glory, and his r the long wet grass above the graves, and ruins of a cathedral that rose in the midst my eye accidentally fell upon the following quote from memory, carved in plain charact the tomb-stones : The wise, the just, the pious, and the bra There are no such epitaphs in the grave-yard nor could there be any such in that of Dunb. Reformation. le of you incident our into a fter a day e gilding the hoar m, when which I none of CHAPTER XI. MILAN TO BRESCIA. bardy: for the Biblioteca Ambrosiana-A Lamp in a Sepulchre-The Palimpsests— Labours of the Monks in the Cause of Knowledge-Cardinal Mai-He recovers many valuable Manuscripts of the Ancients which the Monks had Mutilated-Ulfila's Bible-The War against Knowledge—The Brazent Serpent at Sant' Ambrogio-Passport Office-Last Visit to the Duomo and the Arco Della Pace-The Alps apostrophized-Dinner at a Restaurant-Leave Milan-Procession of the Alps-Treviglio-The River Adda―The Postilion-Evening, with dreamy, decaying Borgos— Caravaggio-Supper at Chiari-Brescia-Arnold of Brescia. THE morning of my last day in Milan was passed in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana. This justly renowned library was founded in 1609 by Cardinal Borromeo, the cousin of that Borromeo whose mummy lies so gorgeously enshrined in the subterranean chapel of the Duomo. This prelate was at vast care and expense to bring together in this library the most precious manuscripts extant. For this purpose he sent learned men into every part of Europe, with instructions to buy whatever of value they might be fortunate enough to discover, and to copy such writings as their owners might be unwilling to part with. The Biblioteca Ambrosiana is worth a visit, were it only to see the first public library established in Europe. |