Good Friday restored all the religious emotions of Lord Nevil; he was about to regain Corinne--the sweet hopes of love blended with that piety, from which nothing save the factitious career of the world can entirely wean us. He sought the Sixtine Chapel, to hear the far-famed _Miserére_. It was yet light enough for him to see the pictures of Michael Angelo--the Day of Judgment, treated by a genius worthy so terrible a subject. Dante had infected this painter with the bad taste of representing mythological beings in the presence of Christ; but it is chiefly as demons that he has characterized these Pagan creations. Beneath the arches of the roof are seen the prophets and heathen priestesses, called as witnesses by the Christians (_teste David cum Sibylla_); a host of angels surround them. The roof is painted as if to bring heaven nearer to us; but that heaven is gloomy and repulsive. Day scarcely penetrates the windows, which throw on the pictures more shadows than beams. This dimness, too, enlarges the already commanding figures of Michael Angelo. The funereal perfume of incense fills the aisles, and every sensation prepares us for that deeper one which awaits the touch of music. While Oswald was lost in these reflections, he beheld Corinne, whom he had not expected yet to see, enter that part of the chapel devoted to females, and separated by a grating from the rest. She was in black; pale with abstinence, and so tremulous, as she perceived him, that she was obliged to support herself by the balustrade. At this moment the _Miserére_ commenced. Voices well practised in this pure and antique chant rose from an unseen gallery; every instant rendered the chapel darker. The music seemed to float in the air; no longer in the voluptuously impassioned strains which the lovers had heard together a week since, but such as seemed bidding them renounce all earthly things. Corinne knelt before the grate. Oswald himself was forgotten. At such a moment she would have loved to die. If the separation of soul and body were but pangless; if an angel would bear away thought and feeling on his wings--divine sparks, that shall return to their source--death would be then the heart's spontaneous act, an ardent prayer most mercifully granted. The verses of this psalm are sung alternately, and in very contrasted styles. The heavenly harmony of one is answered by murmured recitative, heavy and even harsh, like the reply of worldings to the appeal of sensibility, or the realities of life defeating the vows of generous souls: when the soft choir reply, hope springs again, again to be frozen by that dreary sound which inspires not terror, but utter discouragement; yet the last burst, most reassuring of all, leaves just the stainless and exquisite sensation in the soul which we would pray to be accorded when we die. The lights are extinguished; night advances; the pictures gleam like prophetic phantoms through the dusk; the deepest silence reigns: