ercia's to Ilaria di Caretto, the
wife of Paolo Guinigi. I name it not as more beautiful or perfect than
other examples of the same period, but as furnishing an instance of the
exact and right mean between the rigidity and rudeness of the earlier
monumental effigies, and the morbid imitation of life, sleep, or death,
of which the fashion has taken place in modern times.[25] She is lying
on a simple couch, with a hound at her feet, not on the side, but with
the head laid straight and simply on the hard pillow, in which, let it
be observed, there is no effort at deceptive imitation of pressure. It
is understood as a pillow, but not mistaken for one. The hair is bound
in a flat braid over the fair brow, the sweet and arched eyes are
closed, the tenderness of the loving lips is set and quiet, there is
that about them which forbids breath, something which is not death nor
sleep, but the pure image of both. The hands are not lifted in prayer,
neither folded, but the arms are laid at length upon the body, and the
hands cross as they fall. The feet are hidden by the drapery, and the
forms of the limbs concealed, but not their tenderness.

If any of us, after staying for a time beside this tomb, could see
through his tears, one of the vain and unkind encumbrances of the grave,
which, in these hollow and heartless days, feigned sorrow builds to
foolish pride, he would, I believe, receive such a lesson of love as no
coldness could refuse, no fatuity forget, and no insolence disobey.

FOOTNOTES

[22] Matt. xi. 28.

[23] "The universal instinct of repose,
The longing for confirmed tranquillity
Inward and outward, humble, yet sublime.
The life where hope and memory are as one.
Earth quiet and unchanged; the human soul
Consistent in self-rule; and heaven revealed
To meditation, in that quietness."

WORDSWORTH. Excursion, Book iii.

But compare carefully (for this is put into the mouth of one
diseased in thought and erring in seeking) the opening of the ninth
book; and observe the difference between the mildew of
inaction,--the slumber of Death; and the Patience of the Saints--the
Rest of the Sabbath Eternal. (Rev. xiv. 13.)

Compare also, Chap. I. Sec. 6.

[24] I would also have the reader compare with the meagre lines and
contemptible tortures of the Laoc