On the right as you go out is the remarkable church of Santa Maria del Popolo. It is built in the usual Romanesque style; but its external appearance is very unpretending, and owing to its situation in a corner overshadowed by the wall it is apt to be overlooked. It is an old fabric, eight hundred years having passed away since Pope Paschal II. founded it on the spot where Nero was said to have been buried. From the tomb of the infamous tyrant grew a gigantic walnut-tree, the roosting-place of innumerable crows, supposed to be demons that haunted the evil place. The erection of the church completely exorcised these foul spirits, consecrated the locality, and dispelled the superstitious fears of the people. Reconstructed in the reign of Sixtus IV., about the year 1480, this church has not the picturesque antiquity in this dry climate and clear atmosphere which our Gothic churches in moist England present. Not more widely did the external aspect of the tabernacle in the wilderness, with its dark goat-skin coverings, differ from the interior of the Holy of holies, with its golden furniture, than does the commonplace look of the outside of the church of Santa Maria del Popolo differ from its magnificent interior. It is a perfect museum of sculpture and painting. Splendid tombs of eminent cardinals of the best period of the Renaissance, rare marbles and precious stones in lavish profusion adorn the altars and walls of the chapels; while they are further enriched by beautiful frescoes of sacred subjects from the pencils of Penturicchio and Annibale Caracci. Above the high altar is an ancient picture of the Madonna, with an exceedingly swarthy eastern complexion, which is one among several others in Rome attributed to the pencil of St. Luke the Evangelist, and which is supposed to possess the power of working miracles. One especially magnificent chapel arrests the attention, and leaves a lasting impression--that of the Chigi family, built by Fabio Chigi, better known as Pope Alexander VII. The architecture was planned by Raphael. The design of the strange fresco on the ceiling of the dome, representing the creation of the heavenly bodies, was sketched by him; and he modelled the beautiful statue of Jonah, sitting upon a whale--said to have been carved from a block that fell from one of the temples in the Forum--and sculptured the figure of Elijah, which are among the most conspicuous ornaments of the chapel. This is the only place in which Raphael appears in the character of an architect and sculptor. Like Michael Angelo, the genius of this wonderfully-gifted artist was capable of varied expression; and it seemed a mere accident whether his ideals were represented in stone, or colour, or words. On his single head God seemed to have poured all His gifts; beauty of person, and beauty of soul, and the power to perceive and embody the beauty and the wonder of the world; the eye of light and the heart of