most awful death is but a trivial accident to the mind of the Christian! Many, who came only to wonder at the marvellous skill of Signorelli, for they have been told he was a master from whom Michael Angelo did not disdain to learn; who came merely to wonder, supposing they should smile over these mediæval fancies, have groaned audibly before the frescoes on the walls of San Brizio, and have cried out in the anguish of a contrite mind: "Save us, oh Lord, in the terrible day of judgment!" The awful fascination of these pictures makes one for a time oblivious to anything else, at least to anything below them. Only the majestic calm of the groups above can distract the mind. But after awhile we find a link between these scenes of terrible agony and the regions of absolute bliss. Angels, tall, and clothed like deacons, only without dalmatics, and with faces of grave happiness, play on lutes, and thus charm the senses of those who have passed the dread ordeal of judgment, and are on their way to heaven. We follow them, and almost see them finding places among the groups on the ceiling. But fatigue, at length, compels the eye and the mind to turn earthward, to meet with a consolation wholly unlooked for. Again we seem to tread the accustomed ways of men, and feel the breezes of this world on our cheeks, and are charmed with glimpses of a paradise of color, of song, of poesy! All the iridescence of birds of fair plumage, all the delights of tropical blossoms, trailing vines, and summer life are hinted at in the arabesques which cover the lower half of the wall. These arabesques are divided into square compartments, and in the centre of each is a portrait of one of the great writers of Italy, Cicero, Ovid, Horace, Seneca, Dante, and Virgil. ed in the flower of his age, and turning over his books with the air of a happy student; in truth, the most pleasing picture of Dante we have ever seen. Besides the portrait, each compartment contains four small medallion pictures of scenes taken from the works of the author they surround. As if nothing should be lacking to the grandeur of this chapel, we find on the right hand a Pietà, in marble, by the same Ippolito Scalza to whom we owe the St. John, St. Thomas, and St. Roch, near the entrance. In this group are given not only the Madonna with the dead Christ on her lap, but St. Mary Magdalene pressing one wounded hand to her cheek, and holding one foot in the excess of her grief; while St. Joseph of Arimathea stands, looking down upon the dead face of Israel's Redeemer with a sorrow as profound as it is tender, one hand holding the pincers, the other the ladder. It is the nearest approach we have seen to the Pietà by Michael Angelo in St. Peter's. Över the altar of the chapel of San Brizio hangs the miraculous Madonna di San Brizio, still an object of veneration. Unlike other Madonnas of that period the Blessed Virgin is standing, with the Infant in her arms. The artist evidently intended to represent a raised dais, with a throne in the background. Four angels are seen in the air, one on each side with folded palms, and above these two angels bringing crowns. In spite of the modern look of those which have been placed later on the heads of the figures, quite contrary to the idea of the artist, there is a singular sweetness and majesty in this crowned Virgin Mother and her crowned child, under whose feet she has placed her open palm, which might well win Of the heart, even if no traditions hallowed the picture to the pilgrim; and it never fails of some tribute of praise from the most rigorous critic. all these the picture of Dante is the best preserved, and has a peculiar charm. The great poet is represent If the morning light is favorable for the cathedral, the late afternoon is equally so for exploring the small town crowded on this mountain summit. The whole city can be traversed in a day, and yet one can linger many days in Orvieto, and only begin an acquaintance with its beauties. The strongest attraction next to the cathedral was the old church of San Dominico, where we had expected to find such treasures of ancient art. But in vain did we look on the whitewashed walls for that Madonna, painted by Simone di Martino for the Dominicans of Orvieto, and so renowned for the charm of its color and the elegance of its forms. Every trace of the grand old Dominicans, who had nourished sacred sciences and sacred art in this favored retreat, had disappeared. Not the fading vestige even of St. Thomas, the angelical doctor, who composed within its walls the office of the Blessed Sacrament, and taught philosophy to students, who well might believe they were listening to the voice of an angel; nor of that other angelical, the Fra Angelico of the chapel of San Brizio, who, while painting that celestial ceiling, must have lived with his brothers, the monks of San Dominico, was to be found. The only relic of the noble period to which all these memories belong, is the Gothic monument by Arnolfo, in honor of Cardinal di Braye, who died in 1282. The whole monument is conceived according to the spirit of the thirteenth century, and the old cardinal lies in a sublime sleep worthy of a Christian sculptor like Arnolfo, who gives an equal proof of his merit as an architect and mosaic worker in the accessories of the monument. With a sad heart we roamed through the desolate cloister, after visiting the secular school established here by the Princess Marguerite. The glory of San Dominico had fled, with the expulsion of the noble order which had thrown such a halo of sacred tradition around its VOL. XII.-18 walls. There were no rose-bushes, even from which to take a bud; and we were obliged to content ourselves with a sprig of the low purple mallows in the grass-plot. We had passed a crumbling palace, which must have been one of rare beauty in its day; and a bell-tower, square, with little turrets on each corner, and the cross rising from the midst of them, too picturesque to be ever forgotten. But leaving San Dominico by another way, we strolled to the farther end of the town, overlooking the old walls of the city, the newly opened Etruscan tombs, and the glories of mountain and valley which surround. Orvieto. We clambered down the steep path inside the walls, looked through the ancient port-holes, and thus framed in many a bit of distant mountain and vale, with castles and villas crowning their summits or hidden among olive groves. Suddenly the square tower of San Giovenale rose before us on the very point of a triangle overlooking this panorama, to all appearances as solid as if hewn out of granite. The side-door was open, and we entered, not to be awed by the Eucharistic presence, for no lamp burned before the altar; but awed still, for on every wall and on every column were the crumbling remains of saints and angels, depicted according to the types of those Umbrian artists which take such a hold upon the imagination and the heart. A few more years, and even these remains will have disappeared, notwithstanding the care taken of every scrap of color clinging to the surface of wall or column; and the traveller, still more the pilgrim, to San Giovenale, will leave it with the same disappointment with which we had already left San Dominico. Behind the altar, however, was still to be seen a mosaic on a gold ground; and if lacking the religious. grace so peculiar to Umbrian art, was still devout in its motive, and consoling by its durability. In this same part of the town we came, just at sunset, upon another charming spot, like a perfect surprise; for San Bernardino gets only a passing notice from the guidebooks. The side-door was open; but so, too, was the grand portal, the beauty of which had struck us at first glance. There was a light before the altar, and the cheerfulness of the nave contrasted with the solemn gloom of San Giovenale. As we made our genuflexion and walked up the nave, what a distance of range upon range of blue mountains suddenly opened upon us from the side-door on the left! Both sidedoors were open to let the cool airs of the coming evening breathe through. On the right hand lay the paved piazza and the old stone houses of the street; but on the left hand lay that same world of marvellous beauty, which every now and then is seen from these heights of Orvieto. Transported by this contrast of distant mountains with the subdued tints of this interior of an ancient church, we stepped to the open door and into the green court, to pause before one of the most touching pictures of what was once a cloister. An aged priest was drawing up a bucket of water from a well in the corner near us, to water a bed of pinks, asters, and lilies, close by the old convent wall. He did not see us at first, and we had time to note the grave placidity of the aged face, the refinement of every gesture. When he did see us, however, it was to give us a smile of welcome. He invited us to look at his bed of flowers, and then led us to the walled rampart, on the very edge of the height, to see the wonderful view spreading out before us under the lingering twilight. Against the blue of the sky, and the hardly deeper blue of the far-away mountains, rose the crumbling cells of this monastic home of other centuries; and as the silent, desolated cloister stood there before us, the aged priest seemed the only living link between us and the ages when these walls echoed the sweet matin and vesper songs of men who lived only for God. There was a pensive beauty, a melancholy charm, about the spot, which we shall recall to our dying hour with delight, and when, with a smile as pensive as the hour and the spot, the aged priest picked a few of his pale purple asters for us, we took them as precious mementoes of San Bernadino, its aged pastor, and the charm of its ruined cloisters overlooking a mortal paradise. The next morning was our last in Orvieto, and we must take one more look at that facade. The Duomo stands in the midst of a piazza which allows all its beauties to be seen. No one has ever dreamed of intruding upon its spacious surroundings. On one side is the long row of picturesque cottages. On another are solemn-looking houses, with seats in front of them of black and white marble, on which the merest passerby can sit and rest himself, and look all the while at the most glorious facade in the world. On the third is the long palace, with square windows in Gothic arches, in which, at different times and by reason of divers necessities, thirty-four popes have had their residence, and built by the same Urban IV who projected the cathedral. Between the palace and the solemn old houses there is a square tower, on which stands a gigantic warrior, who strikes the hours on the great bell with the stroke of his sword. We did not content ourselves with sitting on the marble seats, however. In the stories above are the museums, in which are to be seen hundreds of vessels taken from the Etruscan tombs below the town; designs on parchment for the facade of the cathedral, and for a pulpit which was never completed; a beautifully carved reading-desk, a precious reliquary, by Ugolino of Siena, the same artist who wrought the silver shrine with its paintings in enamel for the Capella del Cor porale; a Magdalen, by Signorelli; a Madonna, by John of Pisa; and, more beautiful than all, the original painting, by Ansano of Siena, for the mosaic in the very apex of the facade. From the windows of these museums we had sat for hours looking at the facade, before the afternoon sun threw over its golden surface a radiance too dazzling for the eye. Here we would take our last look, and gather all its precious forms and colors and designs into our memories. Again the eye followed the sculptures of the lower story; the twisted columns holding their brilliant thread of mosaic, with alternating sculptured acanthus knobs, and broad bands of the costliest pietre dure; the enthroned Madonna, by Maitani, with its canopy sustained by angels, all in bronze, over the middle portal; in the Gothic arch over the southern door, the Birth of the Blessed Virgin; in the spaces between this foliated pointed arch and the perpendicular towers, the vision granted to Saint Joachim and Saint Anna; above these, under another pointed arch with its foliations and aerial angel, the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin in the Temple; corresponding to this, on the northern side of the great rose-window, the Marriage of the Blessed Virgin; below this, over the northern door, the Baptism of Our Lord, and between the arch and the towers, the Annunciation; above the round arch of twisted columns and pietre dure of the middle door, under a pointed foliated Gothic arch, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin; while above all these, above the rose-window, and above the open arcade running along the front, above the great rosewindow of alabaster, set in mosaics and relievos and jasper-work, above the noble statues in their fretted niches which frame it in, above all these, under another pointed and foliated arch, with pietre dure running up to its very point, is the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, by that Ansano of Siena who is said to have "lived wholly in God;" and all these in mosaic with ground of gold, and the mosaics themselves edged and set in choicest sculptures; the whole like an opal in the dark setting of the streets below, and lighted from the dome of heaven above, with a background of loveliest mountains melting into the sky itself. Or let us say, rather, remembering the miracle in which the Cathedral had its beginning, like a most precious remonstrance, which from age to age presents Jesus in the consecrated Host to the adoration of the faithful! JOSEPH BENNETT'S LENTEN DISCIPLINE. He had done him a great wrong, there was no doubt of that. They had been dear friends always, Joe Bennett and Roderick Halstead; had lived within a stone's throw of each other, had gone to the same school, and studied the same lessons, and they went to sea together as cabinboys in the same ship. But Joe's was the stronger, more faithful char acter, and it showed itself in one marked way. While fickle Rod fell lightly and harmlessly in love with every pretty face he saw, Joe had loved Charlotte Drowne from her childhood, and he never was to love any other woman, though this woman never became his wife. Yet he asked her to marry him, when he came to bid her farewell the first time that he left Boothbay, and she accepted him, smiling through her tears, and bringing to his honest lips some silly tender words about the dew on the roses. She wore his ring, and wrote to him whenever an opportunity came to send a letter, and she welcomed him home gladly, and watched him go again through tears till he had made two voyages, and was gone upon the third. And they promised each other that if he was as successful this time as he had always been, and came home with as snug a sum to help form his home, they would be married. Yet all the while you would have felt that Charlotte had won a far greater prize in her future husband than he-though he would have scoffed at the idea-had gained in her. It was true, though. And if she had married him, and had had always his forbearing thoughtful love about her, shielding her from a breath of trouble, and bearing the brunt of every storm for her in his glad freewill, I doubt if she ever would have been worthy of him. It was a nature that needed many a blow and bitter trial to make it what it finally became. In her girlhood she was only a confiding, weak-hearted, loving thing, who, if one support was taken from her, sought at once another; more eager to be comforted, no matter from whom the comfort came, than she was faithful to mourn over the true heart that had loved her well. Rod Halstead did not go on that third voyage with Joe. He had tired of the sea, and a fair chance for business offered just then in Boothbay, he seized the chance, and became a postmaster instead of sailor. "You've been a brother to me, old fellow," Bennett said, with a warm grip of his hand, as they stood on the pier, waiting for the ship to weigh anchor. "I've no brother to have my lass in charge of while I'm gone, but I trust her to you as surely." "I'll guard her well," quoth Rod, and he meant it too. "You shall have her as you leave her when you come home again, Joe, only a trifle merrier," and his own eyes grew moist as he looked at poor, trembling, weeping Charlotte as she clung to Joe's arm. "You shall have her as you leave her." Joseph Bennett, as the bark Alcestis sped out to sea, looked back, with all his heart in his face, to the pier where the two whom he loved best on earth stood, watching him. She was clinging to Rod's arm now, he had said something which had brought a watery smile to her eyes. Joe's heavy heart grew lighter. "God bless him!" he said. "He's cheered her already. No doubt he's telling her of the good day when I'll be home once more." And he had guessed the truth; it was exactly what Rod was telling her; it was exactly what he did tell her over and over again for many a day. She came to count his words, his cheery face, his very step upon the walk, as her daily comfort, and he alas! he came to think upon her as the woman who must be his wife. Light and fickle his loves had been before, the flame easily lighted, and blown by a breath away. This love, waking slowly and imperceptibly, grew very strong within him, and he let it have its will. At first, it is true, he called it friendship, but as the time drew near for Joe's return, he learned to his cost that it was more than that, and it seemed to him that he could not live without her. Joe would only die," he said wistfully to himself. "If The Alcestis was due in June; the May foreign mail brought Halstead a letter, postmarked Hong Kong. He knew the handwriting, so like his own, copied from the same copies under the same master, but evidently the hand had trembled. "Dear Rod," it said, "I'm down sick, and my money is gone. You must break it to my little girl ten |