itecture, and you will see, Willis, what he means. A church is a
church all the world over, it is visibly one and the same, and yet how
different is church from church! Our churches are Gothic, the southern
churches are Palladian. How different is a basilica from York Cathedral!
yet they visibly agree together. No one would mistake either for a
mosque or a Jewish temple. We may quarrel which is the better style;
one likes the basilica, another calls it pagan."

"That _I_ do," said Bateman.

"A little extreme," said Campbell, "a little extreme, as usual. The
basilica is beautiful in its place. There are two things which Gothic
cannot show--the line or forest of round polished columns, and the
graceful dome, circling above one's head like the blue heaven itself."

All parties were glad of this diversion from the religious dispute; so
they continued the lighter conversation which had succeeded it with
considerable earnestness.

"I fear I must confess," said Willis, "that the churches at Rome do not
affect me like the Gothic; I reverence them, I feel awe in them, but I
love, I feel a sensible pleasure at the sight of the Gothic arch."

"There are other reasons for that in Rome," said Campbell; "the churches
are so unfinished, so untidy. Rome is a city of ruins! the Christian
temples are built on ruins, and they themselves are generally
dilapidated or decayed; thus they are ruins of ruins." Campbell was on
an easier subject than that of Anglo-Catholicism, and, no one
interrupting him, he proceeded flowingly: "In Rome you have huge high
buttresses in the place of columns, and these not cased with marble, but
of cold white plaster or paint. They impart an indescribable forlorn
look to the churches."

Willis said he often wondered what took so many foreigners, that is,
Protestants, to Rome; it was so dreary, so melancholy a place; a number
of old, crumbling, shapeless brick masses, the ground unlevelled, the
straight causeways fenced by high monotonous walls, the points of
attraction straggling over broad solitudes, faded palaces, trees
universally pollarded, streets ankle deep in filth or eyes-and-mouth
deep in a cloud of whirling dust and straws, the climate most
capricious, the evening air most perilous. Naples was an earthly
paradise; but Rome was a city of faith. To seek the shrines that it
contained was a veritable penance, as was fitting. He understood
Catholics going there; he was perplexed at Protestants.

"The