be, in a manner that is certainly very proper and edifying, albeit not in exact keeping with the retrospect of a few short years, now past for ever.

The artistic execution of the picture is worthy of the celebrated pupil of Gerhard Dow, Francis Mieris, a native of Leyden, born in 1635. In the opinion of some critics, he rivalled his great master. The favourite subjects in which these two famous painters delighted, were similar; scenes in civil, but not low life, in which a certain neatness and elegance prevails, and silk curtains, or velvet carpets with their rich tints gave them an opportunity of displaying their wonderful management of light and colour. The pictures of Mieris are distinguished by high finish and attention to minutiæ, although not at the expense of breadth and truth. These qualities, added to the comparative rarity of his works, have always caused them to be highly appreciated. For one of them, representing a lady fainting, attended by a physician, the Grand Duke of Tuscany offered three thousand florins, but in vain. There is a pleasing anecdote on record, which displays his character in an amiable light. Returning on a dark night, late from his friend Jan Steen's, who was fond of the bottle, Mieris, seduced by the wine and jovial company, did not find his way home with the same precision as usual, but unluckily fell into an open sewer, from which he was rescued by a cobbler and his wife, to whom he sent a picture painted in his best style, telling them to take it to his friend Cornelius Plaats. Great was the joy of the good woman on receiving the sum of eight hundred florins. He died in the year 1681.

PALERMO CATHEDRAL.

THE Cathedral of Palermo, one of the most interesting specimens of ecclesiastical architecture in all Italy, is dedicated to Saint Rosalia, the beautiful niece of King William the Good, who was afterwards canonized for her virtues. The present edifice is erected on the place where stood a cathedral, which, during the period of the dominion of the Saracens, had been converted into a mosque. The exterior (which, notwithstanding several incongruities, produces a very imposing effect) bears the character of the Norman-Arabic style of architecture, as does the crypt; the principal entrance and a porch on the west-side belong to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; the latter still retains several inscriptions in the Arabic language. The interior has at different periods undergone considerable modifications, and the principal changes are of very recent date, the cupola having been added between

the years 1781 and 1801. The church is adorned with eighty columns of granite, and a great number of precious stones glitter in different parts. The statue of Jesus Christ is from the hand of Antonio Gagini. The Chapel of Saint Rosalia is fitted up with extraordinary magnificence, the altar is of solid silver, as is likewise the sarcophagus, which weighs one thousand two hundred and ninety-eight Sicilian pounds. Both are only opened to public view on the feast of the saint, the great holiday of the inhabitants of Palermo and the adjacent country. This famous festival takes place in the month of July, and continues six days. The celebration is conducted with extraordinary pomp, and the city, on ordinary occasions sufficiently populous, can hardly contain the vast multitudes that crowd hither at this period to gratify their vanity, curiosity, or devotion. The people and the clergy in grand procession accompany a triumphal car of immense size, built in the form of a dome or cathedral. The dimensions of this machine, which is ornamented with trees and flowers, and contains a full orchestra, are seventy feet in length, thirty feet in breadth, and eighty feet in height. Forty oxen groan beneath is weight, as it slowly rolls along, to the applauses of the admiring Palermotans. Every evening during the continuance of the festival the city is splendidly illuminated, and fireworks and the discharge of fire-arms, the indispensable accompaniment of a religious festival, lend their brilliant and noisy aid to complete the animated scene. The subjects of the reliefs refer to the lives of the saints of the Roman Catholic church. In this cathedral lie the remains of several sovereigns, viz. King Roger II., who died 1154; Constance of Normandy, his daughter, 1198; Henry VI., her consort, emperor of Germany, 1197; the Emperor Frederic II., their son, 1250; Constance of Arragon, his wife, 1222. On opening the sarcophagi of the two latter, in 1781, inscriptions in modern Arabic were found on their garments, and Frederic lay in his imperial robes and arms. In the belfry, which is united to the church by two wide-pointed arches, the Chancellor Stephen, in 1169, found an asylum from the rebellion which had been fomented against his meritorious rule.

TAORMINA.

THERE is a proverb, the justice of which will be admitted by all travellers, that he, who has not visited Sicily, has seen but the half of Italy. The North part of this beautiful island abounds in scenery of the most magnificent description. It was on an excursion by sea from Syracuse to Catania, that we first beheld the stupendous