Andrea del Sarto glorified his princes in pictures that must save them for ever from the oblivion they merited, and they let him starve.  Served him right.  Raphael pictured such infernal villains as Catherine and Marie de Medicis seated in heaven and conversing familiarly with the Virgin Mary and the angels, (to say nothing of higher personages,) and yet my friends abuse me because I am a little prejudiced against the old masters—­because I fail sometimes to see the beauty that is in their productions.  I can not help but see it, now and then, but I keep on protesting against the groveling spirit that could persuade those masters to prostitute their noble talents to the adulation of such monsters as the French, Venetian and Florentine Princes of two and three hundred years ago, all the same.

I am told that the old masters had to do these shameful things for bread, the princes and potentates being the only patrons of art.  If a grandly gifted man may drag his pride and his manhood in the dirt for bread rather than starve with the nobility that is in him untainted, the excuse is a valid one.  It would excuse theft in Washingtons and Wellingtons, and unchastity in women as well.

But somehow, I can not keep that Medici mausoleum out of my memory.  It is as large as a church; its pavement is rich enough for the pavement of a King’s palace; its great dome is gorgeous with frescoes; its walls are made of—­what?  Marble?—­plaster?—­wood?—­paper?  No.  Red porphyry —­verde antique—­jasper—­oriental agate—­alabaster—­mother-of-pearl —­chalcedony—­red coral—­lapis lazuli!  All the vast walls are made wholly of these precious stones, worked in, and in and in together in elaborate pattern s and figures, and polished till they glow like great mirrors with the pictured splendors reflected from the dome overhead.  And before a statue of one of those dead Medicis reposes a crown that blazes with diamonds and emeralds enough to buy a ship-of-the-line, almost.  These are the things the Government has its evil eye upon, and a happy thing it will be for Italy when they melt away in the public treasury.

And now——.  However, another beggar approaches.  I will go out and destroy him, and then come back and write another chapter of vituperation.

Having eaten the friendless orphan—­having driven away his comrades —­having grown calm and reflective at length—­I now feel in a kindlier mood.  I feel that after talking so freely about the priests and the churches, justice demands that if I know any thing good about either I ought to say it.  I have heard of many things that redound to the credit of the priesthood, but the most notable matter that occurs to me now is the devotion one of the mendicant orders showed during the prevalence of the cholera last year.  I speak of the Dominican friars—­men who wear a coarse, heavy brown robe and a cowl, in this hot climate, and go barefoot.  They live on alms altogether,