straight appeared,--
Mistaking earth for heaven!"

Ten years later he wrote his noble ode, "Alexander's Feast," in honour
of St. Cecilia's festival, at the close of which he again refers to the
saint's wondrous powers:

"Thus long ago,
Ere heaving bellows learn'd to blow,
While organs yet were mute,
Timotheus to his breathing flute
And sounding lyre,
Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
At last divine Cecilia came,
Inventress of the vocal frame;
The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarged the former narrow bounds,
And added length to solemn sounds,
With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.
Let old Timotheus yield the prize,
Or both divide the crown;
He raised a mortal to the skies,
She drew an angel down."

Handel, in 1736, produced his oratorio of "Alexander's Feast." Pope's
"Ode on St. Cecilia's Day," was written in 1708, and performed at
Cambridge, in 1730, with music by Maurice Greene. In this composition
the poet uses a similar image to Dryden. He sings:

"Music the fiercest grief can charm,
And fate's severest rage disarm;
Music can soften pain to ease,
And make despair and madness please;
Our joys below it can improve,
And antedate the bliss above.
This the divine Cecilia found,
And to her Maker's praise confin'd the sound.
When the full organ joins the tuneful quire,
Th' immortal pow'rs incline their ear;
Borne on the swelling notes our souls aspire,
While solemn airs improve the sacred fire;
And angels lean from Heav'n to hear.
Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell,
To bright Cecilia greater pow'r is given;
His numbers rais'd a shade from Hell,
Hers lift the soul to Heav'n."

PALESTRINA.

Some twenty miles from Rome, the insignificant but picturesquely
situated town of Palestrina, lies on the hillside. The Praeneste of
antiquity, it was once an important colony of Rome, many of whose
wealthy ones resorted thither in summer, for the sake of its bracing
atmosphere, which Horace extolled. Excavations here have yielded a
rich harvest, and the Eternal City holds among its ancient treasures
few of more interest or value than those recovered from the soil of
Palestrina.

[Illustration: Palestrina. From painting by Ferdinand Heilbruth.]

Here, probably in 1524, was born Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, who
received his l