had deserved well of their country; and it bears the
inscription, above its entrance, _Aux grands Hommes La Patrie
reconnoissante_. The character of its architecture is well adapted to
the impression it is intended to convey, and suits the simplicity of the
inscription which its portico presents. Its situation has been selected
with singular taste, to aid the effect which was thus intended. It is
placed at the top of an eminence, which shelves in a declivity on every
side; and the immediate approach is by an immense flight of steps, which
form the base of the building, and increase the effect which its
magnitude produces. Over the entrance is placed a portico of lofty
pillars, finely proportioned, supporting a magnificent entablature of
the simplest order; and the whole terminates in a dome of vast
dimensions, forming the highest object in the whole city. The impression
which every one must feel in crossing its threshold, is that of
religious awe; the individual is lost in the greatness of the objects
with which he is surrounded, and he dreads to enter what seems the abode
of a greater Power, and to have been framed for the purposes of more
elevated worship. The Louvre might have been fitted for the gay scenes
of ancient sacrifice; it suits the brilliant conceptions of heathen
mythology; and seems the fit abode of those ideal forms, in which the
imagination of ancient times embodied their conception of divine
perfection; but the Pantheon is adapted for a holier worship, and
accords with the character of a purer belief; and the vastness and
solitude of its untrodden chambers awaken those feelings of human
weakness, and that sentiment of human immortality, which befit the
temple of a spiritual faith.

We were involuntarily led, by the sight of this great monument of sacred
architecture in the Grecian style, to compare it with the Gothic
churches which we had seen, and in particular with the Cathedral of
Beauvais, the interior of which is finished with greater delicacy, and
in finer proportions, than any other edifice of a similar kind in
France. The impression which the inimitable choir of Beauvais produced,
was widely different from that which we felt on entering the lofty dome
of the Pantheon at Paris. The light pinnacles, the fretted roof, the
aspiring form of the Gothic edifice, seemed to have been framed by the
hands of aerial beings, and produced, even from a distance, that
impression of grace and airiness which it