ef. Baldovini, however, true to his sacred calling, even in the depth
of his human affliction, instantly despatched the young Agosto to the
neighboring Convent della Trinita, for the holy Viaticum. While life was
still fluttering at the heart of Salvator, the officiating priest of
the day arrived, bearing with him the holy apparatus of the last
mysterious ceremony of the church. The shoulders of Salvator were laid
bare, and anointed with the consecrated oil; some prayed fervently,
others wept, and all even still hoped; but the taper which the Doctor
Catanni held to the lips of Salvator while the Viaticum was
administered, burned brightly and steadily! Life's last sigh had
transpired, as religion performed her last rite.

Between that luminous and soul-breathing form of genius, and the clod of
the valley, there was now no difference; and the "end and object" of a
man's brief existence was now accomplished in him who, while yet all
young and ardent, had viewed the bitter perspective of humanity with a
philosophic eye and pronounced even on the bosom of pleasure,

"Nasci poena--Vita labor--Necesse mori."

On the evening of the fifteenth of March, 1673, all that remained of the
author of Regulus, of Catiline, and the Satires--the gay Formica, the
witty Coviello--of the elegant composer, and greatest painter of his
time and country--of Salvator Rosa! was conveyed to the tomb, in the
church of Santa Maria degli Angioli alle Terme--that magnificent temple,
unrivalled even at Rome in interest and grandeur, which now stands as it
stood when it formed the Pinacotheca of the Thermae of Dioclesian. There,
accompanied by much funeral pomp, the body of Salvator lay in state;
the head and face, according to the Italian custom, being exposed to
view. All Rome poured into the vast circumference of the church, to take
a last view of the painter of the Roman people--the "Nostro Signor
Salvatore" of the Pantheon; and the popular feelings of regret and
admiration were expressed with the usual bursts of audible emotions in
which Italian sensibility on such occasions loves to indulge. Some few
there were, who gathered closely and in silence round the bier of the
great master of the Neapolitan school; and who, weeping the loss of the
man, forgot for a moment even that genius which had already secured its
own meed of immortality. These were Carlo Rossi, Francesco Baldovini,
and Paolo Oliva, each of whom returned from the grave of the friend