take her place. "Ohe!" if only she had been
spared, but death comes to all.

The composition is florid and emotional, with frequent exclamations of
grief, and the intimations of mortality are so thorough and convincing
that one has a feeling that many a death-bed would be alleviated if the
dying man could hear what was to be printed about him.

After reading several one comes to the conclusion that a single author
is responsible for many; and it may be a Venetian profession to write
them. A good profession too, for they carry much comfort on their wings.
Every one stops to read them, and I saw no cynical smile on any face.

CHAPTER XXVII

CHURCHES HERE AND THERE

S. Maria dei Miracoli--An exquisite casket--S. Maria Formosa--Pictures
of old Venice--The Misericordia--Tintoretto's house--The Madonna
dell'Orto--Tintoretto's "Presentation"--"The Last Judgment"--A
Bellini--Titian's "Tobias"--S. Giobbe--Il Moro--Venetian by-ways--A few
minor beauties.

Among the smaller beauties of Venice--its cabinet architectural gems, so
to speak--S. Maria dei Miracoli comes first. This little church, so
small as to be almost a casket, is tucked away among old houses on a
canal off the Rio di S. Marina, and it might be visited after SS.
Giovanni e Paolo as a contrast to the vastness of that "Patheon de
Venise," as the sacristan likes to call it. S. Maria dei Miracoli, so
named from a picture of the Madonna over the altar which has performed
many miracles, is a monument to the genius of the Lombardo family:
Pietro and his sons having made it, in the fifteenth century, for the
Amadi. To call the little church perfect is a natural impulse, although
no doubt fault could be found with it: Ruskin, for example, finds some,
but try as he will to be cross he cannot avoid conveying an impression
of pleasure in it. For you and me, however, it is a joy unalloyed: a
jewel of Byzantine Renaissance architecture, made more beautiful by gay
and thoughtful detail. It is all of marble, white and coloured, with a
massive wooden ceiling enriched and lightened by paint. Venice has
nothing else at all like it. Fancy, in this city of aisles and columns
and side chapels and wall tombs, a church with no interruptions or
impediments whatever. The floor has its chairs (such poor cane-bottomed
things too, just waiting for a rich patron to put in something good of
rare wood, well carved and possibly a little gilded), and nothing else.
The walls are unvexe