reckoned above two hundred and fifty on the outside of the church, though I only told three sides of it; and these are not half so thick set as they intend them. The statues are all of marble, and generally well cut; but the most valuable one they have is a St. Bartholomew, new-flead, with his skin hanging over his shoulders: it is esteemed worth its weight in gold: they have inscribed this verse on the pedestal, to show the value they have for the workman: Non me Praxiteles sed Marcus finxit Agrati. Lest at the sculptor doubtfully you guess, There is just before the entrance of the choir, a little subterraneous chapel, dedicated to St. Charles Borromée, where I saw his body in episcopal robes, lying upon the altar in a shrine of rock-crystal. His chapel is adorned with abundance of silver-work: he was but two-and-twenty years old when he was chosen archbishop of Milan, and forty-six at his death; but made so good use of so short a time, by his works of charity and munificence, that his countrymen bless his memory, which is still fresh among them. He was canonized about a hundred years ago: and, indeed, if this honour were due to any man, I think such public-spirited virtues may lay a juster claim to it, than a sour retreat from mankind, a fiery zeal against heterodoxies, a set of chimerical visions, or of whimsical penances, which are generally the qualifications of Roman saints. Miracles, indeed, are required of all who aspire to this dignity, because they say an hypocrite may imitate a saint in all other particulars, and these they attribute in a great number to him I am speaking of. His merit, and the importunity of his countrymen, procured his canonization before the ordinary time; for it is the policy of the Roman church not to allow this honour ordinarily, till fifty years after the death of the person who is candidate for it; in which time it may be supposed that all his contemporaries will be worn out, who could contradict a pretended miracle, or remember any infirmity of the saint. One would wonder that Roman catholics who are for this kind of worship, do not generally address themselves to the holy apostles, who have a more unquestionable right to the title of saints than those of a modern date; but these are at present quite out of fashion in Italy, where there is scarce a great town which does not pay its devotions in a more particular manner to some one of their own making. This renders it very suspicious, that the interests of particular families, religious orders, convents, or churches, have too great a sway in their canonizations. When I was at Milan I saw a book newly published, that was dedicated to the present head of the Borromean family, and entitled, A Discourse on the Humility of Jesus Christ, and of St. Charles Borromée. The great church of Milan has two noble pulpits of brass, each of them running round a large pillar like a gallery, and supported by huge figures of the same metal. The history of our Saviour, or rather of the blessed virgin (for it begins with her birthı, and ends with her coronation in heaven, that of our Saviour coming in by way of episode), is finely cut in marble by Andrew Biffy. This church is very rich in relics, which run up as high as Daniel, Jonas, and Abraham. Among the rest they show a fragment of our countryman Becket, as, indeed, there are very few treasuries of relics in Italy that have not a tooth or a bone of this saint. It would be endless to count up the riches of silver, gold, and precious stones that are amassed together in this and several other churches of Milan. I was told, that in Milan there are sixty convents of women, eighty of men, and two hundred churches. At the Celestines is a picture in fresco of the marriage of Cana, very much esteemed; but the painter, whether designedly or not, has put six fingers to the hand of one of the figures: they show the gates of a church that St. Ambrose shut against the emperor Theodosius, as thinking him unfit to assist at divine service, till he had done some extraordinary penance for his barbarous massacreing the inhabitants of Thessalonica. That emperor was, however, so far from being displeased with the behaviour of the saint, that at his death he committed to him the education of his children. Several have picked splinters of wood out of the gates for relics. There is a little chapel lately re-edified, where the same saint baptized St. Austin. An inscription upon the wall of it says, that it was in this chapel, and on this occasion, that he first sung his Te Deum, and that his great convert answered him verse by verse.. In one of the churches I saw a pulpit and confessional, very finely inlaid with lapis lazuli, and several kinds of marble, by a father of the convent. It is very lucky for a religious, who has so much time on his hands, to be able to amuse himself with works of this nature; and one often finds particular members of convents, who have excellent mechanical geniuses, and divert themselves, at leisure hours, with painting, sculpture, architecture, gardening, and several kinds of handicrafts. Since I have mentioned con fessionals, I shall set down here some inscriptions that I have seen over them in Roman catholic countries, which are all texts of scripture, and regard either the penitent or the father. Abi, Ostende Te ad Sacerdotem-Ne taceat pupilla oculi tui-Ibo ad patrem meum et dicam, Pater peccavi-Soluta erunt in Cœlis-Redi Anima mea in Requiem tuam -Vade, et ne deinceps pecca-Qui vos audit, me audit- Venite ad me omnes qui fatigati estis et onerati-Corripiet me justus in misericordiâ-Vide si via iniquitatis in me est, et deduc me in via æterna-Ut audiret gemitus compeditorum. I saw the Ambrosian library, where, to show the Italian genius, they have spent more money on pictures than on books. Among the heads of several learned men I met with no Englishman, except bishop Fisher, whom Henry the eighth put to death for not owning his supremacy. Books are, indeed, the least part of the furniture that one ordinarily goes to see in an Italian library, which they generally set off with pictures, statues, and other ornaments, where they can afford them, after the example of the old Greeks and Romans. Plena omnia gypso Juv. Sat. 2. Chrysippus' statue deeks thy library— TATE. In an apartment behind the library are several rarities often described by travellers, as Brugeal's Elements, a head of Titian by his own hand, a manuscript in Latin of Josephus, which the bishop of Salisbury says was written about the age of Theodosius, and another of Leonardus Vincius, which king James the first could not procure, though he proffered for it three thousand Spanish pistoles. It consists of designings in mechanism and engineering: I was shown in it a sketch of bombs and mortars, as they are now used. Canon Settala's cabinet is always shown to a stranger among the curiosities of Milan, which I shall not be particular upon, the printed account of it being common enough. Among its natural curiosities I took particular notice of a piece of crystal that enclosed a couple of drops, which looked like water when they were shaken, though, perhaps, they are nothing but bubbles of air. It is such a rarity as this that I saw at Vendome in France, which they there pretend is a tear that our Saviour shed over Lazarus, and was gathered up by an angel, who put it in a little crystal vial, and made a present of it to Mary Magdalene. The famous père Mabillon is now engaged in the vindication of this tear, which a learned ecclesiastic, in the neighbourhood of Vendome, would have suppressed, as a false and ridiculous relic, in a book that he has dedicated to his diocesan, the bishop of Blois. It is in the possession of a Benedictine convent, which raises a considerable revenue out of the devotion that is paid to it, and has now retained the most learned father of their order to write in its defence. It was such a curiosity as this I have mentioned, that Claudian has celebrated in about half a score epigrams: |