from the
right-hand transept, and, mounting numerous steps, at length reached the
roof. Here a wonderful and magnificent sight met my admiring gaze. All
around me nothing was to be seen but the most exquisitely chiselled
figures in white marble. It was like a snow scene in a forest, for there
were thousands of beautiful little sculptured columns, representing
every known flower; in fact, it is called the "Flower-Garden," and the
more I gazed the more I realized the truth of Goethe's beautiful
simile--"Architecture is frozen music." Crossing the roof, I ascended by
a spiral staircase to the central tower, getting occasional glimpses of
spires and statues, alternating with peeps of the blue sky. At last I
reached the topmost pinnacle of the temple, and a truly glorious scene
it was that lay on every side. A sea of dazzling white marble beneath,
and the fair city stretching far and wide beyond; this, again,
surrounded by silvery rivers, green fields, cultivated plains, and
distant towns and villages. On one side, breaking the horizon, the view
is bounded by a great towering mountain barrier--the majestic snow-clad
Alps, some of the peaks lost in the misty clouds above. First, on the
extreme south-west, Monte Viso, then Mont Cenis, between them the less
lofty Superja; near Turin, Mont Blanc, the great St. Bernard, Monte Rosa
most conspicuous of all; to the left of these last, the Matterhorn, then
the Cima de Jazi, Streckhorn near the Mischabel, Monte Leone near the
Simplon; away to the north the summits of the St. Gothard and Spluegen,
and in the distant east the peak of the Ortler. In the south the Certosa
of Pavia is visible, and sometimes the towers and domes of the city
itself, with the Apennines in the background. This, perhaps the grandest
view in Europe, can only be seen to perfection on favourable days. I
myself only saw a part of the great Alpine range, the rest was
enshrouded in mist. On the day I made this ascent, the wind was very
strong, as it was on my visit to the Capitol in Rome. On descending, I
took one more view of this mighty Cathedral, of which an American
writer, Nathaniel Willis, gives the following true and beautiful
description:--

"It is a sort of Aladdin creation, quite too delicate and beautiful for
the open air. The filmy traceries of Gothic fretwork; the needle-like
minarets; the hundreds of beautiful statues with which it is studded;
the intricate and graceful architecture of every window and