he imperial library a day or two ago. The hall is two
hundred and forty-five feet long, with a magnificent dome in the center,
under which stands the statue of Charles V., of Carrara marble,
surrounded by twelve other monarchs of the house of Hapsburg. The walls
are of variegated marble richly ornamented with gold, and the ceiling
and dome are covered with brilliant fresco-paintings. The library
numbers three hundred thousand volumes and sixteen thousand manuscripts,
which are kept in walnut cases gilded and adorned with medallions. The
rich and harmonious effect of the whole can not easily be imagined. It
is exceedingly appropriate that a hall of such splendor should be used
to hold a library. The pomp of a palace may seem hollow and vain, for
it is but the dwelling of a man; but no building can be too magnificent
for the hundreds of great and immortal spirits to dwell in who have
visited earth during thirty centuries.

Among other curiosities preserved in the collection, we were shown a
brass plate containing one of the records of the Roman Senate made one
hundred and eighty years before Christ, Greek manuscripts of the fifth
and sixth centuries, and a volume of Psalms printed on parchment in the
year 1457 by Faust and Schoeffer, the inventors of printing. There were
also Mexican manuscripts presented by Cortez, the prayer-book of
Hildegard, wife of Charlemagne, in letters of gold, the signature of San
Carlo Borromeo, and a Greek Testament of the thirteenth century which
had been used by Erasmus in making his, translation and contains notes
in his own hand. The most interesting article was the "Jerusalem
Delivered" of Tasso, in the poet's own hand, with his erasures and
corrections.

The chapel of St. Augustine contains one of the best works of
Canova--the monument of the Grand Duchess Maria Christina of
Sachsen-Teschen. It is a pyramid of gray marble, twenty-eight feet high,
with an opening in the side representing the entrance to a sepulcher. A
female figure personating Virtue bears in an urn to the grave the ashes
of the departed, attended by two children with torches. The figure of
Compassion follows, leading an aged beggar to the tomb of his
benefactor, and a little child with its hands folded. On the lower step
rests a mourning genius beside a sleeping lion, and a bas-relief on the
pyramid above represents an angel carrying Christina's image, surrounded
with the emblem of eternity, to heaven. A spirit of deep s