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