he midst of the horror of this,
let us turn aside under the portico which looks towards the sea, and
passing round within the two massive pillars brought from St. Jean
d'Acre, we shall find the gate of the Baptistery; let us enter there.
The heavy door closes behind us instantly, and the light, and the
turbulence of the Piazzetta, are together shut out by it.

Sec. XVI. We are in a low vaulted room; vaulted, not with arches, but
with small cupolas starred with gold, and chequered with gloomy figures:
in the centre is a bronze font charged with rich bas-reliefs, a small
figure of the Baptist standing above it in a single ray of light that
glances across the narrow room, dying as it falls from a window high in
the wall, and the first thing that it strikes, and the only thing that
it strikes brightly, is a tomb. We hardly know if it be a tomb indeed;
for it is like a narrow couch set beside the window, low-roofed and
curtained, so that it might seem, but that it has some height above the
pavement, to have been drawn towards the window, that the sleeper might
be wakened early;--only there are two angels who have drawn the curtain
back, and are looking down upon him. Let us look also, and thank that
gentle light that rests upon his forehead for ever, and dies away upon
his breast.

The face is of a man in middle life, but there are two deep furrows
right across the forehead, dividing it like the foundations of a tower:
the height of it above is bound by the fillet of the ducal cap. The
rest of the features are singularly small and delicate, the lips sharp,
perhaps the sharpness of death being added to that of the natural lines;
but there is a sweet smile upon them, and a deep serenity upon the whole
countenance. The roof of the canopy above has been blue, filled with
stars; beneath, in the centre of the tomb on which the figure rests, is
a seated figure of the Virgin, and the border of it all around is of
flowers and soft leaves, growing rich and deep, as if in a field in
summer.

It is the Doge Andrea Dandolo, a man early great among the great of
Venice; and early lost. She chose him for her king in his 36th year; he
died ten years later, leaving behind him that history to which we owe
half of what we know of her former fortunes.

Sec. XVII. Look round at the room in which he lies. The floor of it is of
rich mosaic, encompassed by a low seat of red marble, and its walls are
of alabaster, but worn and shattered, and dark