is to say, on the north side of the church, remarkable for its rich
Arabian archivolt, and through which access is gained immediately to the
northern transept. The reason is, that in that transept is the chapel of
the Madonna, which has a greater attraction for the Venetians than all
the rest of the church besides. The old builders kept their images of
the Virgin subordinate to those of Christ; but modern Romanism has
retrograded from theirs, and the most glittering portions of the whole
church are the two recesses behind this lateral altar, covered with
silver hearts dedicated to the Virgin.]

SECTION XXI. Indeed, these inferior means of exciting religious emotion
were employed in the ancient Church as they are at this day, but not
employed alone. Torchlight there was, as there is now; but the
torchlight illumined Scripture histories on the walls, which every eye
traced and every heart comprehended, but which, during my whole
residence in Venice, I never saw one Venetian regard for an instant. I
never heard from any one the most languid expression of interest in any
feature of the church, or perceived the slightest evidence of their
understanding the meaning of its architecture; and while, therefore, the
English cathedral, though no longer dedicated to the kind of services
for which it was intended by its builders, and much at variance in many
of its characters with the temper of the people by whom it is now
surrounded, retains yet so much of its religious influence that no
prominent feature of its architecture can be said to exist altogether in
vain, we have in St. Mark's a building apparently still employed in the
ceremonies for which it was designed, and yet of which the impressive
attributes have altogether ceased to be comprehended by its votaries.
The beauty which it possesses is unfelt, the language it uses is
forgotten; and in the midst of the city to whose service it has so long
been consecrated, and still filled by crowds of the descendants of those