ng 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 he 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 llustrating the prevailing spirit of the Popes. The scenes lelineated 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 ; mother, Gregory VII receiving acts of humiliation from Henry IV.; a third, the reconquest of Tunis; and a fourth, 1 victory over the Turks at Lepanto.

Expectation was on tiptoe, as the guide ushered us into he 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 be chamber of his peculiar presence, although in my estimaion, it is very far from being the throne of his glory. Here he 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 blessed 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 chro nogogical 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

nto barracks, a cursory view often produces disappointment, and close attention is required to discover all their merits. Another Department of the Vatican, comprising a suite of half a dozen chambers, contains a small but choice colection of pictures by the first masters. The most celerated of these is the Transfiguration, by Raphael, the meits of which have in my opinion been greatly overrated. fruth compels me to confess, that it afforded me very little leasure-far less than many of the minor pieces of the same rtist. My disappointment was perhaps in part owing as sual to exaggerated expectations. Yet it appeared to me ere are intrinsic and obvious defects in the design, the comosition, and expression.

Of the other rare pictures in this gallery, the most remarkble are the Medonna di Foligno, and the Coronation of the Madonna, by Raphael; the Crucifixion of St. Peter, by Guio; the Incredulity of St. Thomas, and a Magdalen, by fuercino; a Holy Family, by Caravaggio ; a Madonna and aints, ascribed to Titian; the Communion of St. Jerome, y Domenichino. These are all gems. The two first nd the last are inimitable productions. Most of them have rossed the Alps and attracted crowds of admirers to the ouvre, where they remained till the restoration of the Bourons. The apartments in which they are at present depositd, are open to the public twice a week, and at all times acessible to artists, to whom every facility is afforded for takg copies and prosecuting their professional pursuits.

LETTER LXXIII.

COME CONTINUED-VATICAN MUSEUM-LIBRARY-GARDENSKETCH OF THE PRESENT POPE.

Juue, 1826.-The Chiaramonti and Pio-Clementino Mueums at the Vatican are so extensive, and contain such an afinite variety of articles, that I almost recoil from the task f retracing the labyrinth of sumptuous saloons, and of atempting to give even so much as a desultory notice of their plendid treasures. In comparison with this display of papal nagnificence, the halls of the Louvre, the galleries of Floence, and the Studii at Naples are but toy-shops. Here

are not less than fifty apartments, or more properly superb temples of the arts, of different sizes and the most beautiful forms; sometimes opening immediately into another, and at others, connected by long corridors, presenting the finest vistas imaginable; with pavements of the richest mosaic, walls lined with pillars of porphyry, alabaster, and Parian marble, and roofs bright with azure and gold; all filied with the choicest collections of antiquities, sculptures, busts, and statues. Several visits are required, to catch even a hasty glance at the innumerable objects, which challenge attention and bewilder the mind of the spectator.

The entrance to the Museum is from the quarter of the Vatican denominated the Belvidere, through a gallery something like a thousand feet in length, and fifteen or twenty feet in width, the walls of which are lined from the floor to the ceiling with ancient inscriptions. Those on the right are taken from the tombs, tablets, and sarcophagi of the old Romans; while those upon the left were chiefly found in the catacombs, and relate to the early christians. The original fragments of marble are arranged with care, and firmly fixed, so as to form the permanent facing of the wall.

Having traversed this Campo Santo of the Vatican, the traveller who has set out on the interesting journey of the rounds of the Museum, arrives at an iron railing, extending across the hall, with a gate under lock and key, which is opened only twice a week to the public. On both sides of the hall extend long ranges of antique statues, busts, hermes, bas-reliefs, urns, and sarcophagi, of the richest materials and the most finished workmanship. Apartment opens after apartment, where under the auspices of munificent Pontiffs, the divinities of antiquity repose in more sumptuous alcoves, than they enjoyed in the day of their glory, and imperial heads are mounted upon prouder pedestals, than they ever found in the palaces of the Cæsars.

The Belvidere Torso, so much admired and studied by Michael Angelo, can afford little pleasure to any one, except a connoiseur or an artist. In the vestibule which contains it are to be seen the sarcophagus and bust of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, taken from the tomb of that illustrious family, alluded to in one of my previous letters. There is a character of rude unostentatious grandeur and republican simplicity about these memorials of the dead, which exalts them above the tawdry decorations of later times. The

material is of peperino, a common kind of stone used for building, and the sole object of these stern monuments seems to have been, to designate the ashes and perpetuate the name of a great man. There could indeed have been no other motive; for it will be remembered, that the tomb of the Scipios was a plain subterranean vault, like that of our own immortal Washington at Mount Vernon, with no imperial mausoleum towering to the skies, to court the admiration of the passenger.

From the corridor which looks into one of the twenty spacious courts of the Vatican, I saw a beautiful model of a ship in bronze, floating on the undulations of the fountain below.

Here also is deposited a sun-dial of the old Romans, on which time is measured according to the ancient mode of computation.

The elegant little temple denominated the first cabinet, contains the Perseus and the Boxers of Canova, which are almost the only modern statues to be found in this immense collection; a signal honour, though conferred perhaps less from an acknowledgment of his pre-eminent claims as an artist, than on account of his invaluable services in the arrangement of the Museum. The works of any modern artist, whatever may be his merits, must suffer by a comparison with the master-pieces of antiquity; and the Perseus and Boxers of Canova are severely put to the test, by being placed in contiguity with the group of Laocoon and the Belvidere Apollo.

Much as I had heard of the former of these immortal works, the half had not been told me and the reality far exceeded my expectations. It is utterly impossible to convey either by words or copies an adequte idea of the original, which in my opinion is the ne plus ultra of human art, and the next step to creative power. Never was greater force of expression imparted to inanimate matter, which is here. invested with all the attributes of feeling and suffering, except the vital principle itself. Every school-boy, who has read Virgil or heard of the Trojan horse, is familiar with the story of Laocoon. It is indeed highly probable, that the poet drew his animated description of the ill-fated son of Priam from this very statue, which is satisfactorily proved to have existed long before the Eneid was written. Pliny states it to be the joint production of three artists of Rhodes, who lived four hundred years before the christian era. was considered in his time as the greatest work of the kind,

It