a little
distance from the gate. Those lions have a remarkable expression of
strength and repose; there is something in their physiognomy belonging
neither to the animal nor the man: they seem one of the forces of nature
and enable us to form a conception how the gods of the Pagan theology
might be represented under this emblem.

The Carthusian monastery is built upon the ruins of the Thermae of
Diocletian; and the church by the side of the monastery, is decorated
with such of its granite columns as remained standing. The monks who
inhabit this retreat are very eager to show them, and the interest they
take in these ruins seems to be the only one they feel in this world.
The mode of life observed by the Carthusians, supposes in them either a
very limited mind, or the most noble and continued elevation of
religious sentiments; this succession of days without any variety of
event, reminds us of that celebrated line:

Sur les mondes detruits le Temple dort immobile.

_The Temple sleeps motionless on the ruins of worlds_.

The whole employment of their life serves but to contemplate death.
Activity of mind, with such an uniformity of existence, would be a most
cruel torment. In the midst of the cloister grow four cypresses. This
dark and silent tree, which is with difficulty agitated by the wind,
introduces no appearance of motion into this abode. Near the cypresses
is a fountain, scarcely heard, whose fall is so feeble and slow, that
one would be led to call it the clepsydra of this solitude, where time
makes so little noise. Sometimes the moon penetrates it with her pale
lustre, and her absence and return may be considered as an event in this
monotonous scene.

Those men who exist thus, are nevertheless the same to whom war and all
its bustle would scarcely suffice if they had been brought up to it.

The different combinations of human destiny upon earth afford an
inexhaustible source of reflection. A thousand accidents pass, and a
thousand habits are formed in the interior of the soul, which make every
individual a world and the subject of a history. To know another
perfectly, would be the task of a whole life; what is it then that we
understand by knowing men? To govern them is practicable by human
wisdom, but to comprehend them belongs to God alone.

From the Carthusian monastery Oswald repaired to that of St Bonaventure,
built upon the ruins of the palace of Nero; there, where so many crimes
have be