emanations; and you may count its colours or pursue its flight, without ever perceiving the transcendent appendages.

The Cupola over the entrance to the Chapel of the Sacrament, which is the last on the right hand, less exceptionably exhibits a Celestial Choir of Saints and Angels, perfuming an aerial Altar, with clouds of incense-wafted—from golden censers-waving in the wind.

Within the iron Gates of the Chapel, interleaved with glass, to reflect the illumination of the Altar, is seen a circular Ciborio, or Tabernacle for the Host; on either side of which, a golden Angel extends his protecting wings-in imitation of the Cherubims of glory-shadowing the Mercy Seat.

Directly

Directly opposite is the Chapel of the Choir, a noble apartment, forty feet by fifty, with a splendid mosaic, over the Altar, representing the Virgin Motherunder the mistaken emblems of the Spouse of Christ-the Wonder that was seen in Heaven, a Woman clothed with the sun, having the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of

twelve stars.

THE most pompous exhibition of ceremony, or parade, rather diminishes, than increases, the effect of this wonderful Edifice. It is never more impressive than when silence reigns over its vast vacuities-unbroken by distant, and solitary, footsteps, retiring for the night—

the

the unnoticed windows, at the approach of evening, shedding a mystic twilight -undazzled by the glimmering lamps that twinkle around the sanctuary.

Beneath the vast circumference of this aerial Canopy, there reigns-day and night-summer and winter, that even temperature so favourable to Meditation. Since the double doors never admit enough external air to alter the medium of thirty-five millions of cubic feet, and the thickness of the walls renders them impervious to heat or moisture.

You ascend to the summit of this prodigious Edifice, by the innumerable evo

lutions

lutions of a spiral ascent, of no greater inclination than will admit of the use of Mules, for the purposes of the Building, Near the top of it, are inscribed the names of all the Foreign Potentates, who in the course of two centuries, have done homage to the Imperial Pile.

This winding stairway terminates, at the flat surface of the roof, in a room for the Custodi, from which you look out upon a village of belfrys and cupolas, concealed from below by the massy ballustrade; excepting the great Dome, which has been boldly denominated the Sun of the Vatican, with its attendant Satellites, and a Galaxy of Statues, whose gigantic proportion must be measured by a standard of twenty feet.

Here

Here you may ramble about, till

you

are weary, upon a pavement of brick or stone, the interstices of which are filled up with an impenetrable cement.

Two external walks, or galleries, surround the basis of the Dome, one of which is upon the mouldings of the basement, and the other, ten feet higher, is continued through the projecting abutments which support the drum of the vault.

These galleries are three hundred paces in circumference-little less than the eighth part of a mile.

From the former you pass by a long entry into the inner gallery, at a height of two hundred feet from the floor. This is four hundred feet round, and from its iron railing you may look down with safety