But, when the night came on, without a cloud to dim the full moon,
what a sight it was to see the Great Square full once more, and the
whole church, from the cross to the ground, lighted with
innumerable lanterns, tracing out the architecture, and winking and
shining all round the colonnade of the piazza! And what a sense of
exultation, joy, delight, it was, when the great bell struck half-
past seven--on the instant--to behold one bright red mass of fire,
soar gallantly from the top of the cupola to the extremest summit
of the cross, and the moment it leaped into its place, become the
signal of a bursting out of countless lights, as great, and red,
and blazing as itself, from every part of the gigantic church; so
that every cornice, capital, and smallest ornament of stone,
expressed itself in fire: and the black, solid groundwork of the
enormous dome seemed to grow transparent as an egg-shell!
A train of gunpowder, an electric chain--nothing could be fired,
more suddenly and swiftly, than this second illumination; and when
we had got away, and gone upon a distant height, and looked towards
it two hours afterwards, there it still stood, shining and
glittering in the calm night like a jewel! Not a line of its
proportions wanting; not an angle blunted; not an atom of its
radiance lost.
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