terrible rule, had yielded up their lives in the darkness of a gloomy passage, more fearful at least to the thought than the gaze of a furious multitude, or the rack itself, I could not agree with the old man, though I was surprised at such a flash of old Venetian spirit. That same ducal palace, which is among palaces what the great mediæval cathedrals dedicated to Notre Dame are among churches, has these dungeons below; the state reception apartments of the Doge above; and over them again those other prisons of the piombi, or leads--a somewhat strange position for the drawing-rooms of the head of a state. Italian churches are as unlike ours as two things called by the same name can well be. They are full of marbles on floor and walls, paintings, gildings, shrines, images, tapers, perpetual services, and seldom wanting at least in some worshippers. St. Mark much exceeds my expectation. It has five domes covered with mosaic and figures in rich gilding, columns of finest marble, bronzes, multitudes of precious objects, but with a solemnity far beyond all these, which makes one feel that one is in a temple, a place of worship, of bowing down to the Infinite, not of addressing man himself through a part of him which has shared in his general fall--the understanding. This, I think, is the main difference between Catholic and Uncatholic churches. Then, again, that vision of the Blessed Virgin and Child, so often repeated, and under so many different phases, is inexpressibly consoling. It really seems to me that the more men dwell upon the Incarnation, the more they will associate the Blessed Virgin with our Lord, and the saints with Him and with her; they will not analyse and divide, but rather always seem to be touching the skirts of His robe of glory, in every one of those who have suffered and conquered in His name; and most of all in the Mother, who was and is so unspeakably near to Him. Thus the Protestant sees in her "a dead woman worshipped;" the Catholic, the mother of all Christians; the Protestant sees in the saints "deified sinners;" the Catholic, living members of His body, in whom His virtue now dwells without let of human corruption. In short, I think Keble is no less true than beautiful when he says, "What is this silent might, making our darkness light, New wine our waters, heavenly Blood our wine? Christ, with His Mother dear, and all His saints, is here, And where they dwell is heaven, and what they touch divine." Now this is just the idea which an Italian church conveys.