light upon the successive stagioni of our Saviour's sufferings, by
which each is distinguished; and we saw a solitary peasant, in the
dark costume of his country, evidently faint and toil-worn, rise
from his oraisons at _one_ shrine, only to sink upon his knees
before _another_.

"Ah! it was at once a simple and sagacious stroke of that priestly
sovereign, who, in these prophaned ruins, planted the Cross, and,
by a mightier spell than the magician's wand, arrested the rapacity
of its patrician plunderers!"

Do not sketches such as these revive for us all those feelings which
Rome awakened in ourselves, bringing back the clime, the sky, the
loneliness, the mingled feeling of grandeur and situation--the gentle
melancholy with which the eternal city impresses even the least
imaginative mind? To us they appear to embody more of the poetry of
travel than many a work which figures under the mask of poesy.

How much has been written on Venice, from Schiller and Radcliffe to
Madame de Stael and Madame Dudevant! and yet we hardly know if any one,
with the exception of the last, has more completely imbued his mind with
the peculiar spirit of Venice, or reflected its impressions with more
truth than Mr Whyte. Schiller, indeed, and Mrs Radcliffe, had never
witnessed the scenes they described; their portraiture is the result
merely of reading and description, warmed and vivified by the glow of
their own imagination. Hence the glimpses of Venice conveyed in
Schiller's beautiful fragment of the _Armenian_, are mere general
outlines--true enough so far as they go, but faintly drawn, and
destitute, as we might say, of local colour. Mrs Radcliffe's moonlight
landscapes--masques and music--exhibit with great beauty one aspect of
the city, but only one.

Very different are the Venetian _Sketches_ of Madame Dudevant. She has
drunk in the inspiration of Venice on the spot, has penetrated the very
heart of its mystery, and reproduces the impressions which an intimacy
with its peculiarities produces, with a degree of truth, force, and
poetical feeling, that impart the most captivating charm to her Venetian
_Letters_. Mr Whyte's _Fragments_ exhibit much of the same sensibility,
the same just perception of the spirit of Venice; and though they have
not that brilliancy of style which the pictures of the French authoress
possess, there is often even in this respect great beauty both of
thought and ex