This great man was the only comparatively modern sculptor who neither gave the human figure the beauty of the antique nor the affected air of our own day. You see the grave energy of the Middle Ages--its perseverance, its passions, but no ideal beauty. He was the genius of his own school; and imitated no one, not even the ancients. This tomb is in the church of Santa Croce. At his desire, it faces a window whence may be seen the dome built by Filippo Brunelleschi: as if his ashes would stir, even beneath the marble, at the sight of a cupola copied from that of St. Peter's. Santa Croce contains some of the most illustrious dead in Europe. Galileo, persecuted by man, for having discovered the secrets of the sky--Machiavel, who revealed the arts of crime rather as an observer than an actor; yet whose lessons are more available to the oppressors than, the oppressed--Aretino, who consecrated his days to mirth, and found nothing serious in life except its end--Boccaccio, whose laughing fancy resisted the united scourges of civil war and plague--a picture in honor of Dante, showing that the Florentines, who permitted him to perish in exile, were not the less vain of his glory,[1] with many other worthy names, and some celebrated in their own day, but echoing less forcibly from age to age, so that their sound is now almost unheard.[2] This church, adorned with noble recollections, rekindled the enthusiasm of Corinne, which the living had repressed. The silent presence of the great revived, for a moment, that emulation which once she felt for fame. She stepped more steadfastly, and the high thoughts of other days arose within her breast. Some young priests came slowly down the aisle, chanting in subdued tones: she asked the meaning of this ceremony. "We are praying for our dead," said one of them. "Right," thought Corinne; "your dead! well may you boast them; they are the only noble relics left ye. Ah! why then, Oswald, have you stifled all the gifts Heaven granted me, with which I ought to excite the sympathy of kindred minds? O God!" she added, sinking on her knees, "it is not in vanity I dare entreat thee to give me back my talents: doubtless the lowly saints who lived and died for thee alone are greatest in thy sight; but there are different careers for mortals: genius, which illustrates our noblest virtues, devotes itself to generous humanity and truth, may trust to be received in some outer heaven." She cast her eyes to earth, and, on the stone where she had knelt, read this inscription:---- "Alone I rose, alone I sank, I am alone e'en here." "Ah!" cried Corinne, "that is mine answer. What should embolden me to toil? what pride can I ever feel? who would participate in my success, or interest himself in my defeats? Oh, I should need _his_ look for my reward." Another epitaph fixed her attention, that of a youth, who says:-- "Pity me not, if you can guess how many pangs the grave hath spared me."