yet alive, and to surpass the magnificence of his predecessors.  The monument is as magnificent as the contracted space allows.  Six columns support the floor of marble on which it stands covered with figures.  Six other columns support the top, on that is the Scaliger’s statues....  The monument is surrounded by an enclosure of red marble, with six pillars, on which are square capitols with armed Saints.  The rails of iron with the Arms of the Scala, are worked with a beauty wonderful for that age,” or, I may add, for any age.  These “rails” are an exquisite net-work of iron wrought by hand, with an art emulous of that of Nicolo Caparra at Florence.  The chief device employed is a ladder (scala) constantly repeated in the centres of quatre-foils; and the whole fabric is still so flexible and perfect, after the lapse of centuries, that the net may be shaken throughout by a touch.  Four other tombs of the Scaligeri are here, among which the “Notices” particularly mention that of Alboin della Scala:  “He was one of the Ghibelline party, as the arms on his urn schew, that is a staircase risen by an eagle—­wherefore Dante said, In sulla Scala porta il santo Uccello.”

I should have been glad to meet the author of these delightful histories, but in his absence we fared well enough with the sacristan.  When, a few hours before we left Verona, we came for a last look it the beautiful sepulchres, he recognized us, and seeing a sketch-book in the party, he invited us within the inclosure again, and then ran and fetched chairs for us to sit upon—­nay, even placed chairs for us to rest our feet on.  Winning and exuberant courtesy of the Italian race!  If I had never acknowledged it before, I must do homage to it now, remembering the sweetness of the sacristans and custodians of Verona.  They were all men of the most sympathetic natures.  He at San Zenone seemed never to have met with real friends till we expressed pleasure in the magnificent Mantegna, which is the pride of his church.  “What coloring!” he cried, and then triumphantly took us into the crypt:  “What a magnificent crypt!  What works they executed in those days, there!” At San Giorgio Maggiore, where there are a Tintoretto and a Veronese, and four horrible swindling big pictures by Romanino, I discovered to my great dismay that I had in my pocket but five soldi, which I offered with much abasement and many apologies to the sacristan; but he received them as if they had been so many napoleons, prayed me not to speak of embarrassment, and declared that his labors in our behalf had been nothing but pleasure.  At Santa Maria in Organo, where are the wonderful intagli of Fra Giovanni da Verona, the sacristan fully shared our sorrow that the best pictures could not be unveiled as it was Holy Week.  He was also moved with us at the gradual decay of the intagli, and led us to believe that, to a man of so much sensibility, the general ruinous state of the church was an inexpressible