curial in Spain is laid out in the
shape of a gridiron, because the convent was built in consequence of a
vow to St. Laurence, who was broiled like a barbecued pig. What pity it
is, that the labours of painting should have been so much employed on
the shocking subjects of the martyrology. Besides numberless pictures
of the flagellation, crucifixion, and descent from the cross, we have
Judith with the head of Holofernes, Herodias with the head of John the
Baptist, Jael assassinating Sisera in his sleep, Peter writhing on the
cross, Stephen battered with stones, Sebastian stuck full of arrows,
Laurence frying upon the coals, Bartholomew flaed alive, and a hundred
other pictures equally frightful, which can only serve to fill the mind
with gloomy ideas, and encourage a spirit of religious fanaticism,
which has always been attended with mischievous consequences to the
community where it reigned.

The tribune of the great altar, consisting of four wreathed brass
pillars, gilt, supporting a canopy, is doubtless very magnificent, if
not over-charged with sculpture, fluting, foliage, festoons, and
figures of boys and angels, which, with the hundred and twenty-two
lamps of silver, continually burning below, serve rather to dazzle the
eyes, and kindle the devotion of the ignorant vulgar, than to excite
the admiration of a judicious observer.

There is nothing, I believe, in this famous structure, so worthy of
applause, as the admirable symmetry and proportion of its parts.
Notwithstanding all the carving, gilding, basso relievos, medallions,
urns, statues, columns, and pictures with which it abounds, it does
not, on the whole, appear over-crouded with ornaments. When you first
enter, your eye is filled so equally and regularly, that nothing
appears stupendous; and the church seems considerably smaller than it
really is. The statues of children, that support the founts of holy
water when observed from the door, seem to be of the natural size; but
as you draw near, you perceive they are gigantic. In the same manner,
the figures of the doves, with olive branches in their beaks, which are
represented on the wall, appear to be within your reach; but as you
approach them, they recede to a considerable height, as if they had
flown upwards to avoid being taken.

I was much disappointed at sight of the Pantheon, which, after all that
has been said of it, looks like a huge cockpit, open at top. The
portico which Agrippa added to the bui