say that I used, two mornings out of three, to enter it—­on purpose to renew my acquaintance with the monument in question.  My admiration increased upon every such renewal.  Take it, all in all, I can conceive nothing in art to go beyond it.  It is alone worth a pilgrimage to Vienna:  nor will I from henceforth pine about what has perished from the hand of Phidias or Praxiteles—­it is sufficient that this monument remains... from the chisel of CANOVA.

I will describe it briefly, and criticise it with the same freedom which I used towards the Madonna of the same sculptor, in the collection of the Marquis de Sommariva at Paris.[142] At the time of my viewing it, a little after ten o’clock, the organ was generally playing—­and a very fine chant was usually being performed:  rather soft, tender, and impressive—­than loud and overwhelming.  I own that, by a thousand associations of ideas, (which it were difficult to describe) this coincidence helped to give a more solemn effect to the object before me.  You enter a door, immediately opposite to it—­and no man of taste can view it, unexpectedly, for the first time, without standing still ... the very moment it meets his eyes!  This monument, which is raised about four feet above the pavement, and is encircled by small iron palisades—­at a distance just sufficient to afford every opportunity of looking correctly at each part of it—­consists of several figures, in procession, which are about to enter an opened door, at the base of a pyramid of gray marble.  Over the door is a medallion, in profile, of the deceased... supported by an angel.  To the right of the door is a huge lion couchant, asleep.  You look into the entrance ... and see nothing ... but darkness:  neither boundary nor termination being visible.  To the right, a young man—­resting his arm upon the lion’s mane, is looking upwards, with an intensity of sorrowful expression.  This figure is naked; and represents the protecting genius of the afflicted husband.  To the left of the door, is the moving procession.  One tall majestic female figure, with dishevelled hair, and a fillet of gold round her brow, is walking with a slow, measured step, embracing the urn which contains the ashes of the deceased.  Her head is bending down, as if her tears were mingling with the contents of the urn.  The drapery of this figure is most elaborate and profuse, and decorated with wreaths of flowers.  Two children—­symbolical, I suppose, of innocence and purity—­walk by her side ... looking upwards, and scattering flowers.  In the rear, appear three figures, which are intended to represent the charitable character of the deceased.  Of these, two are eminently conspicuous ... namely, an old man leaning upon the arm of a young woman ... illustrative of the bounty and benevolence of the Duchess:—­and intended to represent her liberality and kind-heartedness, equally in the protection of the old and feeble, as in that of the orphan and helpless young.  The figures are united, as it were, by a youthful female, with a wreath of flowers; with which, indeed the ground is somewhat profusely strewn:  so as, to an eye uninitiated in ancient costume, to give the subject rather a festive character.  The whole is of the size of life.[143]