progress through time, having never been interrupted by any of those chasms, in which history is swallowed up. The language of the vulgar in Venice is marked with phrases that intimate a sense of the great exploits of the republic, and provide for the perpetuity of their fame. If one of the lower classes talks of quarrelling with another, he says, I will make a war of Candia upon him!" and their oaths bear the character of the middle ages: they are asseverations that transport us to the ranks of the crusaders; we seem to be listening to the violent expressions of the soldiery of "blind old Dandolo." Much more of the original Venetian character, indeed, is now preserved amongst these classes, than with those who call themselves their betters. The fazziol fazzioletto, or graceful Venetian veil, is only to be seen now on the heads of the girls of humble condition. A more beautiful style of dress cannot be imagined. The fazziol is white, and is drawn down by the side of each cheek, as we see in some of the statues of Roman ladies. The black eyes, and long languishing features of the young wearers, divide the folds in a way which it is safer to describe than regard.

"

With the higher orders, the Venetian peculiarities do not so much seem extinct as repressed: they are like actors retired from the stage, but with "the strong_propensity still in their breasts. The way of living in Venice had formerly all the interest of a dramatic entertainment. Women of respectable condition never appeared out of doors but in masks. A noble Venetian's wardrobe was that of a performer in a solemn pageant. He was obliged to possess eight different cloaks; three of which, under the classifying name of Bauta, were for his appearance in masquerade. The first was for wear in the spring and summer, and the principal occasion of its display was the feast of Ascension, when the Doge married the Adriatic: -the second, for Autumn, appertained more particularly to the theatre, and the ridotto, or masked ball: the third, for winter, sported throughout the gay carnival. His five other cloaks consisted of two for summer, both of white taffeta; one for winter, of blue cloth; one of white cloth, for great state occa

sions; and one of scarlet, for the grand church ceremonies. The black veil, worn by the ladies, was called zendal, or zendaletto, and under its protection they threaded the throng of the carnival; faced the crowd of the square of Saint Mark, at noon-day; and took their places, amongst the promiscuous company of a coffee-room in the evening,known, perhaps, to some, but not refusing the proffered small-talk of any.-The latter custom, divested of the disguise which rendered it so piquant, still exists :-it is true, that females of the very best society are not now to be seen in the public coffeerooms; but women, belonging to families of wealth and high respectability, are still to be found spending their evenings in these places of resort: not going in and out, as casual visitants, which is common in France, but frequenting a particular house, and even occupying a particular seat, duly as the evening comes. Their presence there is regularly expected by their friends, and they are understood to receive visits at their selected coffee-room. Grace and propriety are wonderfully preserved on the Con tinent, under circumstances, and in the practice of customs, where they would be infallibly lost, and coarseness and disgusting licence take their places, in England. From the habit just mentioned, public intercourse gains a vivacity and interest which it cannot possess amongst colder and more cautious manners; and nothing is seen to offend decency, or even alarm decorum. Even in the free season of the carnival, when women in masks, without male companions, rush in and out, and through the rooms of the coffee houses, at all hours of the night, they may safely calculate on passing through the whole ordeal unmolested by insult. The reason, perhaps, is, that intrigue is universal. Beyond an exclamation of "ah, la bella mascheretta," the Venetian never goes, unless he finds his flirtation acceptable. The secret of Continental manners, in this respect, seems to be, that the sexes are less separated in imagination there than in England: our ideas of women partake of a mystical undefinable nature, which cannot be referred to matter of fact, but springs" altogether from the workings of the

deny to the Italian the benefit of the most flattering of these alternatives.

Such are the people whom the stranger now finds at Venice; but, whatever melancholy signs of the fluctuations of prosperity he may discover amongst them, the scenery of the city-its external features, seem to have suffered nothing of change, and they certainly come nearer the grandeur of an Arabian tale than any thing I had fancied to be in actual existence. The square of Saint Mark; the mosque-like cathedral, covered with grotesque figures in prodigious mosaic work; its arches shining with gilding, and its whole exterior presenting a union of the fantastic with the grand, oriental taste with western wealth and power; the opening on the water between the two Eastern Pillars- the spoils of the crusades, on one of which stands "the winged lion;"-the severe front of the Dogal palace, conveying a look of aristocratical authority, and bearing testimony by its architecture to the triumphs of the republic in the east; the quay of the Schiavi,-with its bridges, its prison, and the gaily coloured barks, from the islands and the Dalmatian coast, run up on its slope, these present a picture, altogether more oriental than Italian, but of most captivating and surprising effect. Greeks, Turks, Armenians, mingle their costume with the white veils of the Venetian girls. The various wild states that border the eastern side of the Adriatic, send here their mariners and traders: merchants come here too from Syria and Egypt: they are all to be seen on the quay, and in the square of Saint Mark, some smoking, some drinking coffee, some bargaining-while in front stretches a magnificent sheet of smooth water, in the middle of which stands the island of the Giudecca, confronting the eye of the spectator with the marble porticoes of Palladio! The square of Saint Mark, as a foreign traveller observes, is distinguished by a picturesque majesty of appearance, which probably cannot be equalled in the world. It is the place of rendezvous for the advocates, merchants, ambulatory comedians, musicians, improvisatori, and Aspasias. Eustace has done gross injustice to Venice: he could not feel its beauty and sublimity because neither

is classical, for which reason he would probably have denied magnificence to Babylon of old ;-but he applies the epithet "luminous" to the style of Palladio, and it is precisely the word to characterise it. There are three churches by this celebrated man on the small island just mentioned. Eustace seems to prefer of his buildings the San Georgio, in the island of that name; but I quite agree with Addison who was most struck by the Redemptore, in the Giudecca. Nothing can be more exquisite than its light elegance. This beautiful building was erected as a monument of the thankfulness of Venice for the cessation of a fierce pestilence; and the Doge and great officers of state used to go to it annually in procession, on the third Sunday of July. The French, with their natural barbarity, let out this church to an exhibitor of balloons, and intended to sell it for the purpose of being pulled down for its materials. The merchants of the city of Venice redeemed it from their hands, and they continue to pay clergyman to officiate within its walls.

Saint Mark appears to me to be the greatest curiosity, and one of the most impressive objects in the class of edifices, that it is possible for a traveller to see. It is florid and grotesque without; gloomy and strange within. It is decorated with pillars brought over from Jerusalem and from Constantinople, the dissimilarity of which suggests them to be trophies, and makes them appeal more forcibly to the imagination. It is covered with representations in mosaic, one or two of them designs by Titian, but most of them in the style of the meagre artists of the low Greek empire, the subjects of which are all religious, though the manner of handling them is often offensive to decency. Our Saviour, in one, is represented suffering the operation of circumcision. This building stands a strange monument of the wild superstitions of the age when it was built, of the fierce heroism of that day, its barbarous taste, sublime fancy, and ambition of grandeur. It is a mass of consecrated robbery ; a pile of plunder applied to the purposes of devotion. It represents the young and ardent republic, active and hardy to seize, eager to possess, yet too in

experienced in art, and too occupied with arms, to create the decorations of a powerful and enterprising state. We see in it the first fruits of an avidity, which, though its effects were barbarous, manifestly pointed towards civilization. Here, too, is reflected the pride of these stern citizen rulers, whose feeling of power was strengthened and sharpened as an appetite in their breasts, by the contiguity of its possessors to the mass of the people. It is made up of the wrecks of the old eastern empire, ravished by the early valour of the west-of the results of taste in its dotage, of pedantry, profusion, vanity, and ignorance, succeeding learning, magnificence, and dignity, and transported, on the final extinction of that ancient branch of power, to form the splendour of a new state. This Dogal church, the principal one of Venice, was first built in 828, for the purpose of receiving the remains of Saint Mark, brought over from Alexandria. The original edifice, however, was burnt, in consequence of a public insurrection, when the contiguous palace was set on fire by the people. This happened in the year 976. The pile we now see was commenced immediately after this accident, and finished about the year 1071. Dedicated to Saint Mark, the lion became his and the republic's representative, it is said, because of the lofty opening of that Saint's gospel, where John the Baptist is heard crying, like a lion in the desart, "prepare ye the way of the Lord! make his paths straight!"-Above the gates of this cathedral, the horses of bronze still stand. They were too far off their native antiquity at Paris: here, at Venice, the state of things, and the cast of character, seem more in harmony with their history. It was too late a day when they were taken by Buonaparte, to give them a new place of settlement. They wanted the pillars from the temple of Jerusalem to support them from below; they stood but awkwardly on the ugly useless arch before the Thuilleries. It would have been a pity if they had remained degraded to be the spoils of a war chronicled in our daily and weekly newspapers, from

their rank as spoils of the crusades. Whatever Napoleon may be to the tenth generation of our posterity, to us he is not so romantic as Godfrey or Tancred, nor so capable of interesting the imagination in his conquests.

The sea-birds may now be seen roosting on the fretwork of the Dogal palace, and on the heads of the old figures by which it is ornamented. Yet it still bears ample evidence of the severity of the republican government. Its dark passages to the prisons are still to be seen; also its close inner rooms for inquisitorial consultation; and the vaulted corri dors leading to the recesses for secret examination. The spaces which the Lions of Accusation occupied are yet visible; and the orifices through which the charges dropped, have not been filled up. Seen by moon-light from the great square of Saint Mark, with the tower of the clock in front, and the two pillars brought from Constantinople a little below, it looks as if it would render up a line of doges, counsellors, and senators. Between these columns, just mentioned, close to the water's edge, the public executions took place. The Doge, on his election, landed here from the state procession on the water; but carefully avoided passing between the ominous elevations. Faliero, whose decapitation is recorded on a black tablet, which appears amongst the portraits of the chief magistrates of Venice, accidentally broke this rule: instead of going on one side, he went between the columns :-the circumstance was remarked at the time, but it was more remarked at his death.

The view of Venice from the Canale Giudecca is astonishingly fine: the grandest buildings are on each side, the magnificent opening of the great canal is behind, and the convent of the Armenians, standing on its solitary sand bank, the Lido, and the Adriatic are in front. A stranger ought to traverse the whole of this expanse of water, and stop his gondola in various spots to observe the city under different points of view. All its aspects are grand: you see the globular minaret turrets of Saint Mark; the Arabesque cornices, and

short pillars of the Dogal palace; the winged lion" on his column; the vast extent of the mass of houses and bridges; Italian and oriental architecture; masts and spires; the passing gondolas with their graceful rowers-such are the particulars of the lively and striking picture here presented of Venice, once, like Tyre, the queen of the waves, and still "rising like water-columns from the sea!"

The bridge of the Rialto, thrown over the Great Canal, is still, and no doubt was formerly in a greater degree than now, a place where merchants congregate." It is lined with the shops of those who work that beautiful fine gold chain, for the manufacture of which Venice is famous; and, at a little distance, is the ancient place of assemblage for the traders of this great commercial city. The latter spot is not now so employed; but, when it was, the Rialto, being in the immediate neighbourhood, must have been much frequented by merchants. Shakspeare has been accused of ignorance in his notice of the Rialto, but this is superficial criticism. His selection of the name is good evidence of his having had authority for his description of the place, for no man was ever better acquainted with the current information of his time, or had a more happy memory and feeling directing him to the appropriate employment of his knowledge. The bridge of the Rialto is so connected with the pursuits and residence of the merchants of Venice, particularly in former times, that it is impossible to consider Shakspeare's notice of it as a mere blunder; there is no reasonable ground, then, for doubting that his allusion to it had been suggested to his fancy by the writings of Italians, or the accounts of travellers. The passage in the Merchant of Venice leads people in general to think of the Rialto as an Exchange, or spacious mart: they are disappointed when they find it a bridge ;-but one of the most interesting results of travelling, in the estimation of those who ought to travel, is the new and unexpected way in which things, with which our imagination had been familiar, present themselves to actual observation; offering a very different appearance from what we had

anticipated, yet reconciling themselves perfectly to the facts on which our suppositions about them had been formed. One might moralize, or philosophize, on this circumstancebut it is scarcely worth while. The Rialto is the pride of the Venetians rather than the admiration of strangers. A Frenchman, indeed (so my servant informed me) never fails to express disappointment and contempt when he first sees it. It is not made of cast iron, like that of Austerlitz, at Paris ;-nor is it flat for the convenience of carriages, like that of Jena. "What is there, then to admire about it?" It must be regarded in something of the spirit and character of a Venetian to be properly felt,-and this no Frenchman, and but few Englishmen, can do. In the first place it is the largest bridge of Venice, and this to a Venetian is all one with being the largest in the world. In the next place, it was a miracle of art at the time it was built, and since then the Venetians have been working no miracles to eclipse it,-but on the contrary have seen their achievements become less and less every day. The Rialto, then, is still their pride, because it was the pride of their proudest days. Thirdly: whatever the bridge itself may be (and it is a piece of massy and picturesque architecture, in pure marble)-it opens on a view of magnificence which Venice may justly regard as peculiar to herself. single arch is sprung across the great canal, the banks of which may be described as one continued line of marble palaces!

Its

The material of the buildings here is noble; their proportions are noble; they bear witness to a noble and powerful state. Here we find external magnificence, not introduced occasionally, as an exertion, or as an extraordinary celebration of some rare and extraordinary occurrence; but constituting a natural and common element of the social condition. It belongs to the Venetians in the same way that steam-engines, hospitals, and a navy, belong to the English. It is not to be found in monuments of royal ostentation, as in France; but as the result of a diffused prosperity, a high-minded competition, and a wide and zealous ambition of greatness. It is the offspring of commercial wealth, united