ortico we could see the priests moving to and fro, and
the voice of their chanting came out to us like the sound of hymns to
some of the deities long disowned; and I remembered how Padre L----
had said to me in Venice, "Our blessed saints are only the old gods
baptized and christened anew." Within as without, the temple resembled
the Pantheon, but it had little to show us. The niches designed by
Canova for statues of the saints are empty yet; but there are busts by
his own hand of himself and his brother, the Bishop Canova. Among the
people was the sculptor's niece, whom our guide pointed out to us, and
who was evidently used to being looked at. She seemed not to dislike
it, and stared back at us amiably enough, being a good-natured, plump,
comely dark-faced lady of perhaps fifty years.

Possagno is nothing if not Canova, and our guide, a boy, knew
all about him,--how, more especially, he had first manifested his
wonderful genius by modeling a group of sheep out of the dust of the
highway, and how an Inglese happening along in his carriage, saw the
boy's work and gave him a plateful of gold napoleons. I dare say
this is as near the truth as most facts. And is it not better for the
historic Canova to have begun in this way than to have poorly picked
up the rudiments of his art in the workshop of his father, a maker of
altar-pieces and the like for country churches? The Canova family was
intermarried with the Venetian nobility, and will not credit those
stories of Canova's beginnings which his townsmen so fondly cherish.
I believe they would even distrust the butter-lion with which the
boy-sculptor is said to have adorned the table of the noble Falier,
and first won his notice.

Besides the temple at Possagno, there is a very pretty gallery
containing casts of all Canova's works. It is an interesting place,
where Psyches and Cupids flutter, where Venuses present themselves
in every variety of attitude, where Sorrows sit upon hard,
straight-backed classic chairs, and mourn in the society of faithful
Storks; where the Bereft of this century surround death-beds in Greek
costume appropriate to the scene; where Muses and Graces sweetly pose
themselves and insipidly smile, and where the Dancers and Passions,
though nakeder, are no wickeder than the Saints and Virtues. In all,
there are a hundred and ninety-five pieces in the gallery, and among
the rest the statue named George Washington, which was sent to America
in 1820, and