The dead at Palermo are never buried; but their bodies are carried to the Capuchin Convent, where, after the funeral service is performed, they are dried in a stove, heated by a composition of lime, which makes the skin adhere to the bones. They are then placed erect in niches, and fastened to the wall by the back or neck. A piece of coarse drab is thrown over the shoulders, and round the waist; and their hands are tied together, holding a piece of paper with their epitaph, which is simply their names, age, and when they died. We of course visited this famous repository, and it is natural to suppose, that so many corpses would impress one with reverence and awe. It was near dusk when we arrived at the Convent. We passed the chapel where one of the order had just finished saying vespers, by the gloomy glimmering of a dying lamp. We were then conducted through a garden, where the yew, the cypress, and the barren orange obscured the remaining light, and where melancholy silence is only disturbed by the hollow murmuring of a feeble waterfall. All these circumstances tuned our minds for the dismal scene we were going to behold, but we had still to descend a flight of steps impervious to the sun. And these, at last, conveyed us to the dreary mansion of the dead. But (will you believe me?) notwithstanding the chilling scene we had gone through; notwithstanding our being in the midst of more than a thousand lifeless bodies, neither our respect for the dead, or for the holy fathers who conducted us, could prevent our smiling. For the physiognomies of the deceased are so ludicrously mutilated, and their muscles so contracted and distorted in the drying, that no French mimick could equal their grimaces. Most of the corpses have lost the lower part of the nose--their necks are generally a little twisted--their mouths drawn awry in one direction--their noses in another--their eyes sunk and pointed different ways--one ear perhaps turned up--the other drawn down. The friars soon observed the mirth these unexpected visages occasioned, and one of them as a kind of _memento_, pointed out to me a Captain of Cavalry, who had just been cut off in the pride of his youth. But three months ago he was the minion of a King--the favorite of a Princess--Alas! how changed! Even on earth there is no distinction between him and the meanest beggar. This in a moment returned me to myself, and I felt, with full force, the folly of human vanity. I turned to the holy father, who gave me this lesson. His eyes were fixed on what was once a Captain of horse--I saw in them "Read this, titled pomp, and shrink to thy original nothingness." "Hie thee to my lady's chamber, tell her, though she paint an inch thick, to this must she come at last--make her laugh at that."