A resolution of the discord was needed; a soft chorale should follow the din and lead to a mellow _adagio_ close.

And this he does with supreme skill.

With ill-suppressed disgust, he turns from New to Old Home.
"Constantinople no longer appertains to the Roman historian--nor shall I enumerate the civil and religious edifices that were profaned or erected by its Turkish masters." Amid the decayed temples and mutilated beauty of the Eternal City, he moves down to a melodious and pathetic conclusion--piously visits the remaining fragments of ancient splendour and art, deplores and describes the ravages wrought by time, and still more by man, and recurring once again to the scene of his first inspiration, bids farewell to the Roman empire among the ruins of the Capitol.
We have hitherto spoken in terms of warm, though perhaps not excessive eulogy of this great work.

But praise would lack the force of moderation and equipoise, if allusion were not made to some of its defects.

The pervading defect of it all has been already referred to in a preceding chapter--an inadequate conception of society as an organism, living and growing, like other organisms, according to special laws of its own.