as carelessly, as he would through the streets of a village, occasionally leaning over the balustrades to look at the Piazza, or the gardens of the Vatican. Amidst pinnacles and minor copulas, forming the roofs of the chapels below, the great dome swells with inconceivable grandeur, surrounded by magnificent columns joined in pairs; surmounted by the lantern, which sits like a Grecian temple upon the apex; and overtopped by the ball and cross. This stupendous work is as indescribable as it is inimitable.

Pursuing our journey upward, we entered the dome and walked round both of the galleries, which are at such a height from the pavement, as to make the head swim and the feet to fall lightly, notwithstanding the defence of a balustrade. Whispers are distinctly heard from side to side. From this point to the lantern, the narrow stairs lead through the concentric walls of the cupola, both of stone, and substantially constructed. Thence we continued the arduous ascent by an iron ladder to the ball, which is eight feet in diameter, and about four hundred and fifty feet from the ground. The wind roared like a furnace round the brazen walls, though the day was comparatively calm. Persons have ascended by a ladder of ropes, on the outside of the ball to the cross. A French lady is said to have performed the achievement, and to have leaned, like a graceful statue, with the utmost coolness, against the burnished crucifix. But the useless undertaking is attended with so much danger, that the Pope has prohibited the ascent by a special bull.

From the lantern, which contains an album for recording the names of visitants, and also a card of the dimensions of the church, we had a splendid view of Rome and its environs, the Tiber rolling beneath us, the Seven Hills strewed with ruins, the Campagna, the distant mountains, and the sea. But these objects are already too familiar to my readers, to bear a repetition. Although the dome of St. Peter's is twice the height of the tower to the Senator's House on the Capitoline Hill, the prospect from the latter is preferable, as it commands nearly the same horizon, and is more central, especially as it regards objects in the city. On this account, it is generally selected as the observatory of travellers and

artists.

The history of St. Peter's may be told in few words-at least all that the generality of readers will care to know. It was founded in the 4th century, and acquired great venera

tion, from being the rallying-point of the primitive christians, as well as from the reputation of containing the relics of the Apostle. The old church erected by Constantine, became ruinous in the lapse of a thousand years, and the foundations of the present structure, the proudest temple of religion that the world ever saw, were laid at the commencement of the 16th century. From that period onward for many ages, the richest materials were collected, and through the successive reigns of thirty-five Pontiffs, the services of the first architects were put in requisition-Bramante, Michael Angelo, Raphael, Vignola, Giotto, and Bernini; names to which the present age can furnish no parallels. It may be doubted, whether the united skill of all the countries upon the globe, notwithstanding the modern improvements in science, could now erect an edifice equally splendid. Certain it is, the experiment is not worth trying; for St. Peter's has exhausted the resources of a nation, and entailed poverty and wretchedness upon millions of people.

A sufficient sum has been wasted, emphatically wasted, upon the Vatican Mount, to render the inhabitants of the papal dominions free, great, and happy, instead of sinking them into miserable and abject slaves. The original cost of St. Peter's was something like sixty millions of dollars; and the gorgeous, tasteless Sacristy added by Pius VI. with other embellishments which every new Pope is ambitious of introducing has increased, the total expenditure to an amount not less than a hundred millions! And what is the intrinsic value of this gewgaw, with all its dazzling glories?. For any purposes of religious worship, the humble temple of Goldsmith's Curate,

The decent church that topp'd the neighbouring hill,"

is worth more than all the pomp and glare of St. Peter's, leading the thoughts astray, and fixing the eye, not on heaven, but on the monuments of human pride.

LETTER LXXII.

ROME CONTINUED-VATICAN-SALA REGIA-SISTINE CHAPEL LAST JUDGMENT OF MICHAEL ANGELO-PAOLINE CHAPEL GALLERIES AND CHAMBERS OF RAPHAEL-COLLECTION OF PICTURES.

June, 1826.-Adjoining St. Peter's on the north is the Vatican or the Palace of the Pope, an irregular, enormous pile, covering an area twelve hundred feet in length by one thousand in breadth, and forming a congeries of buildings, which have been added one after another, from the days of Constantine to the present period. As no systematic plans or orders of architecture have been followed, and the various sections have sprung up in ages widely differing in charater, the exterior is without form and void, presenting nothing striking except its magnitude. Some of the twentyfive courts enclosed by these vast ranges of palaces are rather splendid, adorned with fountains, and the other usual embellishments. One peculiar feature prevails in the construction of these buildings. They conform to the original contour of the hill, rising one above another on the acclivity; and the extensive galleries, which have been opened in the interior, are in the forms of inclined planes, which may be considered an ornament rather than a defect.

The whole of the Vatican, except the suite of apartments appropriated to the Pope, is occupied as an immense repository of the fine arts-by far the most extensive and splendid in the world, not excepting the Gallery at Florence, or the Louvre at Paris. Several days were industriously employed in examining its various compartments; and as many months might be passed without exhausting their interesting contents. But I am neither an artist nor an amateur, and a cursory notice of a few of the more prominent objects will alone be attempted. A mere specification of the articles in the Vatican would fill a volume, which nobody of course would read.

The entrance is by the Sala Regia or Regal Stair-way, a magnificent flight of steps, springing from the Porch of St. Peter's, near the equestrian statue of Constantine, and lead

ing to the second story of the palace. First in the labyrinth of apartments,* which soon bewilder the visitant, and render either a pocket compass or a cicerone indispensable, is the Sala Regia or Royal Hall. It is filled with froscos; and lest the subjects might be mistaken, the artists have adopted the precaution of giving long explanatory inscriptions in Latin. These ornaments are in no other respect interesting, than as illustrating the prevailing spirit of the Popes. The scenes delineated are all of a temporal, proud, imperious, character. One represents the triumphal entry of Gregory XI. into Rome, after the restoration of the papal see from Avignon ; another, Gregory VII. receiving acts of humiliation from Henry IV.; a third, the reconquest of Tunis; and a fourth, a victory over the Turks at Lepanto.

Expectation was on tiptoe, as the guide ushered us into the Sistine Chapel, the Sanctum Sanctorum of papal rites, and rendered still more sacred in the eye of ordinary visiters, by the genius of Michael Angelo. This may be denominated the chamber of his peculiar presence, although in my estimation, it is very far from being the throne of his glory. Here the boldest, the most daring of artists attempted to portray the sublimest of subjects-subject to which the powers of even his imagination and his pencil were wholly inadequate. On the ceiling he endeavoured to give form to the Most High, surrounded by the hosts of heaven; and the western wall is entirely covered with his fresco of the Last Judgment, to which he devoted three of the best years of his life. I am free to confess, that it appeared to me a chaos of wild, incoherent, and ill-assorted images, where the spirits of the bles sed and the cursed are scarcely distinguishable; and that I left the apartment with a full conviction, that if this fresco had been the production of an ordinary artist, nine out of ten would pass it over unobserved, or treat it with contempt.

The Paoline Chapel, near the Sistine, is a dusky, gloomy, and cheerless shrine, exhibiting its proud decorations to very little effect. On the sides of the altar stand two beautiful porphyry columns which were taken from the temple of Romulus at the Forum, almost literary exemplifying the maxim of "robbing Peter to pay Paul." Among the ornaments is a rich and fantastic tabernacle, wrought of pure crystal; but

*The number of rooms in the Vatican is said to be thirteen thousand, and the palace to cover as much ground as the city of Turin. I did not take the trouble to count the one, or to measure the area of the other.

such is its position in an obscure corner, that a beam of light seldom' reaches and pierces the translucent gem. Here also are two pictures by Michael Angelo-the Conversion of St. Paul and the Crucifixion of St. Peter. Owing to a bad light and other circumstances, they do not attract much attention. We visited the celebrated galleries of Raphael several times. They open on three sides from the second story of the Palace of the Pope, into one of the principal courts of the Vatican, and command a most enchanting view of Rome and its environs. I often turned from the mimic creation of Raphael, to the sublimer works of nature herself, presented in the blue summits of the Alban hills, and the long line of mountains beyond, brightened by the pure azure of Italian skies. The ceiling of these extensive galleries, stretching to the distance of perhaps three hundred feet, is divided into numerous compartments, and covered with frescos by Raphael and his scholars. The subjects are all scriptural, furnishing a series of illustrations of sacred history, from the creation of the world to the crucifixion of the Saviour, arranged in chronogogical order. This Herculean labour was undertaken at the request or perhaps more properly by the injunction of Leo X.; and any defects in the designs are ascribable to the Pope rather than to the artist. The latter has done all that mortal could do with such subjects; but even his inimitable skill has failed to impart a very high degree of interest to the work, any farther than as associated with his imperishable

name.

The Chambers of Raphael constitute a more interesting portion of the Vatican. They are four in number, opening into one another; and the walls are occupied by sixteen separate paintings in fresco, all of his design, and a large proportion of them executed by himself. The dimensions of

the rooms are perhaps twenty feet by thirty, presenting an immense area, to be filled as the tablets of his exhaustless fancy. These taken collectively form a great study for artists, affording an almost endless variety of invention, composition, and colouring; while each picture delights the mere visitant by some peculiar points of excellence. I visited the chambers repeatedly, and always with increased pleasure. At first sight, the reality did not equal my high anticipations. The apartments do not enjoy intrinsically a very favourable light; and as the frescos have been defaccd and obscured by the hords of northern barbarions, who converted the halls