e
seemingly careless and too rugged rhymes of his. There is a curious
instance, by the way, in a short poem referring to this very subject of
tomb and image sculpture; and illustrating just one of those phases of
local human character which, though belonging to Shakespere's own age,
he never noticed, because it was specially Italian and un-English;
connected also closely with the influence of mountains on the heart, and
therefore with our immediate inquiries. I mean the kind of admiration
with which a southern artist regarded the _stone_ he worked in; and the
pride which populace or priest took in the possession of precious
mountain substance, worked into the pavements of their cathedrals, and
the shafts of their tombs.

Sec. 33. Observe, Shakespere, in the midst of architecture and tombs of
wood, or freestone, or brass, naturally thinks of _gold_ as the best
enriching and ennobling substance for them;--in the midst also of the
fever of the Renaissance he writes, as every one else did, in praise of
precisely the most vicious master of that school--Giulio Romano; but the
modern poet, living much in Italy, and quit of the Renaissance
influence, is able fully to enter into the Italian feeling, and to see
the evil of the Renaissance tendency, not because he is greater than
Shakespere, but because he is in another element, and has _seen_ other
things. I miss fragments here and there not needed for my purpose in the
passage quoted, without putting asterisks, for I weaken the poem enough
by the omissions, without spoiling it also by breaks.

"_The Bishop orders his tomb in St. Praxed's Church._

"As here I lie
In this state chamber, dying by degrees,
Hours, and long hours, in the dead night, I ask,
Do I live--am I dead? Peace, peace, seems all;
St. Praxed's ever was the church for peace.
And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought
With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know;
Old Gandolf[113] cozened me, despite my care.
Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner south
He graced his carrion with.
Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence
One sees the pulpit o' the epistle side,
And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats;
And up into the aery dome where live
The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk.
And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,
And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest,
With those nine columns round me, two and two,
The odd one at my feet,