it surmounts.  This obelisk was erected about the middle of the last century, contrary to the opinion of the best architects.  Though misplaced, its form is not in itself inelegant, while its architecture and mechanism are extremely ingenious, and deserve minute examination.  In ascending the traveller will observe, that the roof of the church is covered with blocks of marble, connected together by a cement, that has not only its hardness and durability, but its colour, so that the eye scarcely perceives the juncture, and the whole roof appears one immense piece of white shining marble.  The view from the summit is extensive and even novel, as it includes not only the city and the rich plain of Milan, intersected with rivers and canals, covered with gardens, orchards, vineyards, and groves, and thickly studded with villages and towns; but it extends to the grand frame of this picture, and takes in the neighbouring Alps, forming a magnificent semicircle and uniting their bleak ridges with the milder and more distant Apennines.

The traveller, says Eustace, will regret as he descends, that instead of heaping this useless and cumbersome quarry upon the dome, the trustees of the edifice did not employ the money expended upon it in erecting a front, (for that essential part is still wanting,) corresponding with the style and stateliness of this superb temple.  A front has indeed been begun, but in a taste so dissimilar to that of the main building, and made up of such a medley of Roman orders and Gothic decorations, that the total suspension of such a work might be considered as an advantage, if a more appropriate portal were to be erected in its place.  But unfortunately the funds destined for the completion and repair of this cathedral are now swallowed up in the general confiscation.  Had it been finished, and the western front built in a style corresponding with the other parts, the admirers of the Gothic style would have possessed one specimen perfect in its kind, and accompanied with all the advantages of the best materials, set off by a fine climate.

In materials, the cathedral of Milan surpasses all the churches of the universe, the noblest of which are only lined and coated with marble, while this is entirely built, paved, vaulted, and roofed with the same substance, and that of the whitest and most resplendent kind.  The most remarkable object in the interior of this church is the subterranean chapel, in which the body of St. Charles Borromeo reposes.  It is immediately under the dome, in form octangular, and lined with silver, divided into panels representing the different actions of the life of the saint.  The body is in a shrine of rock crystal, on, or rather behind the altar; it is stretched at full length, drest in pontifical robes, with the crosier and mitre.  The face is exposed, very improperly, because much disfigured by decay, a deformity increased and rendered more hideous by its contrast with the splendour of the vestments which cover the body, and by the pale ghastly light that gleams from the aperture above.  The inscription over this chapel or mausoleum, was dictated by St. Charles himself, and breathes that modesty and piety which so peculiarly marked his character.  It is as follows: