French, Italian, and broken English, which beat pitilessly about our
ears; for really it seemed as if all the dictionaries in the world had
been torn to pieces, and blown around us by a hurricane. Such a pother!
We took a commissionaire, a respectable-looking man, in a cloak, who said
his name was Salvator Rosa; and he engaged to show us whatever was
interesting in Genoa.

In the first place, he took us through narrow streets to an old church,
the name of which I have forgotten, and, indeed, its peculiar features;
but I know that I found it pre-eminently magnificent,--its whole interior
being incased in polished marble, of various kinds and colors, its
ceiling painted, and its chapels adorned with pictures. However, this
church was dazzled out of sight by the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, to which
we were afterwards conducted, whose exterior front is covered with
alternate slabs of black and white marble, which were brought, either in
whole or in part, from Jerusalem. Within, there was a prodigious
richness of precious marbles, and a pillar, if I mistake not, from
Solomon's Temple; and a picture of the Virgin by St. Luke; and others
(rather more intrinsically valuable, I imagine), by old masters, set in
superb marble frames, within the arches of the chapels. I used to try to
imagine how the English cathedrals must have looked in their primeval
glory, before the Reformation, and before the whitewash of Cromwell's
time had overlaid their marble pillars; but I never imagined anything at
all approaching what my eyes now beheld: this sheen of polished and
variegated marble covering every inch of its walls; this glow of
brilliant frescos all over the roof, and up within the domes; these
beautiful pictures by great masters, painted for the places which they
now occupied, and making an actual portion of the edifice; this wealth of
silver, gold, and gems, that adorned the shrines of the saints, before
which wax candles burned, and were kept burning, I suppose, from year's