opened; and you gladly mount ten feet higher, to the outer gallery of the lanthorn, from which you behold Rome at your feet, and stretch your eye over the deserted plains of the Campagna, to the Appenines, on one side, and the Mediterranean, on the other.

Here you ascend, fifty feet higher, by another flight of narrow steps, turned within one of the pillared butments which support the lanthorn, barely wide enough to admit a single person at a time.

This winding passage lands you on the floor of a conical chamber, directly over the centre of the Dome, from which you pass into the upper gallery of the Cupola, or ascend, by a perpendicular

dicular ladder, into the hollow of the

Ball.

Within this brazen globe, a Man of six feet high, may stretch out his arms, or stand on tiptoe, while through accidental crevices in the beaten copper, he perceives the tremendous height, at which he is soaring in the air.

It takes ten minutes to descend from this stupendous elevation; and when you emerge from its dark passages, and winding stairways, you are glad to find yourself, once more, upon the surface of the earth.

SUCH is this unrivalled Monument of Modern art, which bears no marks of

age,

age, or incongruity, although it was three hundred years in building, by the hands of twenty different Architects.

Begun under Nicholas V. in 1450, it was carried on by Bramante, under Julius II. by Sangallo, and Peruzzi, under Leo X. and by Michael Angelo, who moulded the immense concavity of the Dome, under Paul III. though he died, before it was finished, by Fontana, in the pontificate of Sixtus V.

Succeeding Popes, and succeeding Architects, successively added the lesser Domes, the Portico, the Piazzas, and the Vestry; intermediately ornamenting the Interior, with brass and marble; and gradually securing the Paintings from the corrosive touch of Time, by incorporating

porating them with the walls in everlasting mosaic.

EXCLUSIVE of the Dome, and Piazzas, the Body of St. Peter's Church is twice as long, twice as broad, and twice as high, as the temple of Jupiter Olympius -one of the Seven Wonders of Antiquity, that still exhibits to the wondering Traveller, silent, and solitary, Porticoes, stretching over the prostrate plains of Greece.

St. Paul's at London, the only Edifice of Modern times with which it can be worthily compared, does not inclose its within its vast vacuities-including Porticoes, its Turrets, and its Dome,

one

one fourth part of the cubic square of St. Peter's-the Corridors of which would encompass Ludgate Hill; and the Crowd of Fleet Street-roaring with cars and coaches, might rush on, under cover of the circling Piazzas, as far as Temple-Bar.*

It requires a quarter of an hour to walk round this magic circle. Its circumference cannot therefore be estimated at less than a mile. Seven times as much would now encircle the growing Metropolis of the United States; and the

materials

Travellers have frequently remarked, as a fault, the monotonous simplicity of the Front of St. Peter's; and they have compared it, with derogation, to the variegated Façade of St. Paul's-overlooking the sublime idea of Paul V. and Charles Maderne, to render the Cathedral of Christendom a Monument of Christ and his Apostles. This obliged them to divide the Frontispiece by a regular intercolumniation, upon the twelve Piers of which should stand the twelve Apostles-thus emphatically indicated as the Pillars of the Church.