foot of the altar, and standing in the centre of the church con template the four superb vistas that open around you; and then raise your eyes to the dome, at the prodigious elevation of four hundred feet, extended like a firmament over your head, and presenting, in glowing mosaic, the companies of the just, the choirs of celestial spirits, and the whole hierarchy of eaven arrayed in the presence of the Eternal, whose “throne, igh raised above all height," crowns the awful scene.

10. When you have feasted your eye with the grandeur of this unparalleled exhibition in the whole, you will turn to the parts, the ornaments, and the furniture, which you will find perfectly corresponding with the magnificent form of the temple itself. Around the dome rise four other cupolas, small indeed when compared to its stupendous magnitude, but of great boldness when considered separately; six more, three on either side, cover the different divisions of the aisles, and six more of greater dimensions canopy as many chapels, or, to speak more properly, as many churches.

11. All these inferior cupolas are like the grand dome itself, lined with mosaics; many, indeed, of the master-pieces of painting which formerly graced this edifice, have been removed and replaced by mosaics which retain all the tints and beauties of the originals, impressed on a more solid and dura ble substance. The aisles and altars are adorned with numberless antique pillars, that border the church all around, and form a secondary and subservient order.

12. The variegated walls are, in many places, ornamented with festoons, wreaths, angels, tiaras, crosses, and medallions representing the effigies of different pontiffs. These decorations are of the most beautiful and rarest species of marble, and often of excellent workmanship. Various monuments rise in different parts of the church; but, in their size and accompaniments, so much attention has been paid to general as well as local effect, that they appear rather as parts of the original plan, than posterior additions. Some of these are much admired for their groups and exquisite sculpture, and form

very conspicuous features in the ornamental part of this noble temble.

13. The high altar stands under the dome, and thus as it is the most important, so it becomes the most striking object. In order to bring it out in strong relief and full effect, according to the ancient custom still retained in the patriarchal churches at Rome, and in most of the cathedrals in Italy, a lofty canopy rises above it, and forms an intermediate break or repose for the eye between it and the immensity of the dome above.

14. The form, materials, and magnitude of this decoration are equally astonishing. Below the steps of the altar, and of course some distance from it, at the corners, on four massive pedestals, rise four twisted pillars fifty feet in height, and support an entablature which bears the canopy itself topped with a cross. The whole soars to the elevation of one hundred and thirty-two feet from the pavement, and, excepting the pedestals, is of Corinthian brass; the most lofty massive work of that, or of any other metal, now known.

15. But this brazen edifice, for so it may be called, notwithstanding its magnitude, is so disposed as not to obstruct the view by concealing the chancel and veiling the Cathedra or Chair of St. Peter. This ornament is also of bronze, and consists of a group of four gigantic figures, representing the four principal Doctors of the Greek and Latin churches, supporting the patriarchal chair of St. Peter. The chair is a lofty throne elevated to the height of seventy feet from the pavement; a circular window tinged with yellow throws from above a mild splendor around it, so that the whole not unfitly represents the pre-eminence of the Apostolic See, and is ac knowledged to form a most becoming and majestic termina tion to the first of Christian temples.

EUSTACE.

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6. SONG OF THE STARS..

HEN the radiant morn of creation broke,

WH

And the world in the smile of God awoke,

And the empty realms of darkness and death

Were moved through their depths by His mighty breath; And orbs of beauty, and spheres of flame,

From the void abyss by myriads came,

In the joy of youth, as they darted away,
Through the widening wastes of space to play,
Their silver voices in chorus rung,

And this was the song that the bright ones sung:

Away, away, through the wide, wide sky,
The fair blue fields that before us lie:

Each sun with the worlds that round us roll,
Each planet poised on her turning pole,

With her isles of green, and her clouds of white,
And her waters that lie like fluid light.

For the Source of Glory uncovers his face,
And the brightness o'erflows unbounded space;
And we drink, as we go, the luminous tides,
In our ruddy air and our blooming sides;
Lo! yonder the living splendors play ;—
Away, on your joyous path away!

Look, look, through our glittering ranks afar,

In the infinite azure, star after star,

How they brighten and bloom as they swiftly pass!

How the verdure runs o'er each rolling mass:

And the path of the gentle winds are seen,

When the small waves dance, and the young woods lean.

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And see, where the brighter day-beams pour,
How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower!
And the morn and the eve, with their pomp of hues,
Shift o'er the bright planets and shed their dews!
And, 'twixt them both, o'er the teeming ground,
With her shadowy cone, the night goes round.

Away, away!-in our blossoming bowers,
In the soft air wrapping these spheres of ours,
In the seas and fountains that shine with morn,
See, love is brooding, and life is born,
And breathing myriads are breaking from night,
To rejoice, like us, in motion and light.

Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres !
To weave the dance that measures the years;
Glide on in the glory and gladness sent
To the farthest wall of the firmament;
The boundless, visible smile of Him,

To the veil of whose brow our lamps are dim.

BRYANT.

HA

7. THE SEA.

A! exclaimed I, as I sprang upon the broad beach of the Mediterranean, and my spirit drank the splendid spectacle of light and life that spread before me-what a relief it is to escape from the straining littleness and wearisome affeotation of men, to the free, majestic, and inspiring sea-to listen to his stern, exalted voice-to watch the untrammeled swell of these pure waters, till the pulse of our own heart beats in sympathetic nobleness-to behold it heave in untiring energy-changing momently in form, changing never in im pression !

2. What joy is it to be sure that here there is nothing coun

terfeit nothing feigned-nothing artificial! Feeling, here, grapples with what will never falter; imagination here may spread its best-plumed wings, but will never outstrip the real There is here none of that fear which never leaves the handicraft of art-the fear of penetrating beneath the surface of beauty. Here man feels his majesty by feeling his nothingness; for the majesty of man lies in his conceptions, and the conception of self-nothingness is the grandest we can have. That small and noxious passion-mist, which we call our soul, is driven without; and our TRUE soul—the soul of the universe, which we are-enters into us.

3. The spirit which rests like a vapor visibly upon the bosom of the waters, is a presence and a pervading power; and the breath which it exhales is life, and love, and splendid strength. Nothing in nature renders back to man the full and instant sympathy which is accorded by the Mighty Being who thus reposes mildly in the generous grandeur of His glorious power. We may love the forms of the trees, the colors of the sky, and the impressive vastness of the hills but we can never animate them with a soul of life, and persuade ourselves that they experience the feeling which they

cause.

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4. But the sea, as its countenance shows its myriad mutations with the variety and rapidity of the passions which sport through the breast of man, seems truly to return the emotion which is breathed towards him; and fellowship and friendship-yea, and personal affection-are the sentiments which his gambols rouse in the spectator's heart. The flashing smiles that sparkle in his eye-are they not his happy thoughts? and the ripples that flit their scouring dance over his breast-are they not feelings of delight that agitate his frame?

5. Whether I am amid mountains or on plains, there is not an hour in which my existence is not haunted by the remembrance of the ocean. It abides beside me 'like a thought of my mind;-it occupies my total fancy;-I ever seem to stand