Time the destroyer would have scathed them; and this premature ruin has in it something much more mournful than that gradually effected by the lapse of years. Windows whose architraves are supported by caryatides of exquisite sculpture, are blocked up in the rudest manner; and out of them protrude the iron pipes of German stoves, sending forth their murky vapours to the blue and cloudless sky whose purity they profane. Over balustrades of marble, where once beauty loved to lean, float the unseemly nether garments suspended to be dried, of the Teutonic inhabitants who now fill those sculptured dwellings with the mingled odours of cigars and garlick; and mutter the guttural sounds of their language, where once the dulcet ones of the softest of all the Italian dialects, were wont to be heard.

The canal, too, over which our boat glided, bore evidence of the fallen state of the once proud Venice, for a green opaque slimy substance half-choaked its water, sending out a most unsavory smell, as the oars disturbed its unhealthy deposits. Alas! like anticipated happiness which looks so bright in the distance and loses its charms when approached, Venice, when entered disappoints, and inspires only gloomy reflections; its very beauty rendering its decay more painful to be witnessed.

The gondolas with their funereal trappings, dashing by us, over the opaque water, looked as if freighted with the dead owners of the half-dismantled palaces we passed, so lugubrious are their appear

ance: yet this very sombreness is in harmony with all around, for aught of gay, or brilliant, would offer too violent a contrast to the scene. The very

brightness of the azure sky above this fast decaying, yet still magnificent city, renders its aspect more touching; and one feels disposed to turn from it with much of the same emotion with which we would shut out the garish sun, when its beams fall on the coffin of one beloved, while it is journeying to the grave.

Venice more than realizes my expectations, though they were highly excited by all that I had read, and by the pictures of Canaletti. But even these last, though accurate representations of the spots pourtrayed, fall short in conveying a just notion of their beauty; so much does the reality gain by the clearness of the atmosphere, and by the strong and beautiful contrasts of the surrounding light and shade.

I remember, many years ago, when a fine Canaletti hung in one of the rooms I occupied, that I used to long when my eyes dwelt on it, to see Venice, and compare the original with the copy. The moment then hardly hoped, has now arrived, but instead of the pleasure anticipated, a sadness has stolen over my spirit, at beholding the rapid encroachment of decay; just such a sadness as that with which I have marked the ravages of consumption in some lovely being, whose still remaining charms showed what

she must have been previously to its baneful approach.

Venice appeals even more powerfully to the imagination than Rome itself. Is it because the days of its splendour are so much less remote? It may be so, for we are so egotistical in our nature, that our sympathies are more strongly excited for all which comes nearer to our own times, than for that which is separated from us by a lapse of centuries. I remember my dear and witty friend Jekyll telling me that he never could read a romance in which the mention of corselets, shields, spears, or other warlike implements of the olden time occurred. "I can take no interest in the scenes of such books," said he, "my attention droops, and I care not which of the knights is vanquished, or which of the dames is rendered wretched; nevertheless, I can feel a lively sympathy in a good novel, in which a story of my own time is related, and have experienced not a little inquietude about the fate of some hero, such as one might meet with in the world; or some heroine, between whom and some beauty of my own day I could institute a comparison."

Our hotel, the Leone Biancho, is an excellent one; the apartments spacious and well furnished, and the cuisine remarkably good. By the Austrian rules, no innkeeper can furnish his guests with French wine at their dinners, a privation much complained of by many of them.

A cake peculiar to Venice, and called focachio, is in deserved repute here, and is, when served hot, a most palatable addition to the breakfast table.

One of our sitting rooms has a bay window to it, which protrudes over the canal, affording extensive views up and down this watery street. This bay window forms a little room, as it were, being separated by glass doors from the salon, which has other windows to light it, and here I have intrenched myself, and am now noting down my thoughts.

But our gondola waits, and I must throw down my pen, to go forth and see the marvels of this marvellous city, ere I have yet been able to write even a small portion of the impressions that crowd on my mind-impressions so vivid, yet multiplied, that it seems as if those of years had been compressed into a few hours, and that the head ached from the bright chaotic mass that had been presented to its tenant, the brain.

The Piazza of St. Mark has no parallel; how beautiful, how gorgeous it is! I can well understand the feelings of the English child, who on beholding it for the first time, asked her mother if people were permitted to see it every day, or only on Sundays. The eye is dazzled by the splendour that meets its gaze, and turns from the palace of the Doges, with its dentellated architecture, sculptured balconies, and arabesque galleries, to the church of its tutelar saint, with its mosque-like domes glittering in the sun, and round which count

less pigeons are seen flying, their gay and varied plumage, as they shoot through the air, looking as if died with prismatic hues.

I stood contemplating this grand picture in speechless wonder and admiration, until my eye fell on the tall masts that formerly bore the standard of St. Mark, that standard rendered glorious by having so often been borne triumphant over the sea, now replaced by the Austrian spread eagle. This sight jarred painfully on my feelings, and recalled me from dreams of the brilliant past of Venice, to the humiliating present.

The origin of Venice assuming the standard of St. Mark, offers one of the most remarkable of the various examples of superstition that characterised that age. In the year 827, a church in Alexandria, which contained the remains of the saint, was to be demolished, that its rare marbles might be used in the decoration of a palace then erecting. Some Venetian ships being then at Alexandria, the captain of one of them, after much persuasion, prevailed on the priests to whom the care of these precious relics was confided, to resign them to him. So great, however, was the sanctity attached to them, and so many were the miracles attributed to their influence, that the people held the memory of the saint in the highest reverence, and it was known that they would warmly resent the loss of his remains. The utmost secrecy was consequently necessary in removing the body; the priests opened