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XXXIV.

VENICE – VERONA —— MILAN.

THERE are few cities so dreamlike and enchanting as Venice. We arrived one morning in the summer, when all nature seemed alive with beauty and redolent with praise. We entered in the cars, riding over a long bridge of stone, and landed at the railway station. This bridge connects Venice with the main land, and chains this daughter of Italia to her ambitious parent. We found at the railway, instead of cabs and carriages, such as we see in France and England, a long line of neat gondolas, each manned, and ready to put off into the city.

Venice was built long ago by refugees from the main land, who fled to the reeds and marshes of the Rialto, and amid the little islands built their houses and prepared their homes. From the bosom of the wave rose up the great city, with its palaces, churches, and towers. For a long time, the city was governed by a doge, assisted by the tribunes. The city continued to increase; the glory of Venetian arms was sounded from Constantinople to Jerusalem; and the richness of her commerce was the wonder of the Archipelago. From a little city of huts and rushes arose a great and magnificent republic, and in the sea appeared fine edifices, which outbeautified those upon the solid land. Unlike any other city on earth, the seat of vast wealth, filled with a joyous and pleasure-loving people, it became, and continued for a while, the most gay and delightful city in the world,

mocking even the splendors of Rome, Florence, and Ferrara. Artists and poets here gathered to kindle the sacred flame of art; and men of commerce here convened to amass princely fortunes. The lovers of the beautiful and the sublime, the priests of religion, the slaves of sensualism, all found in Venice congenial pursuits and associates; while on the bosom of the deep, the "Queen of the Adriatic" herself reposed, » sparkling gem in nature's ephod.

"Underneath day's azure eyes,
Ocean's nursling, Venice, lies-
A peopled labyrinth of walls,
Amphitrite's destined halls,
Which her hoary sire now paves
With his blue and beaming waves.
Lo, the sun upsprings behind,
Broad, red, radiant, half reclined
On the level, quivering line
Of the waters crystalline;

And before that chasm of light,
As within a furnace bright,

Column, tower, and dome, and spire

Shine like obelisks of fire,

Pointing, with inconstant motion,
From the altar of dark ocean,
To the sapphire-tinted skies,
As the flames of sacrifice
From the marble shrines did rise,
As to pierce the dome of gold
Where Apollo spoke of old.”

On leaving the depot, we entered a boat, and sailed by palaces, churches, halls, and gardens, to a hotel situated near the centre of the city. The gondolas, which are used instead of cabs, are long, black, narrow boats, with a black awning to protect the traveler from the rays of the sun. The boats are all of one

color, a law being in force to this effect, to prevent any extravagance on the part of the boatmen. They are not so pretty as those on the waters of the Mediterranean, in the harbor of Marseilles and Genoa. They are propelled by one or two men, who, as they pull along, warble some soft Venetian lay, which, echoing over the waters, steals gently to the senses with the most pleasing sadness.

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As we rowed on, other gondolas passed us and hurried by, some filled with gay, laughing girls, on some pleasing errand; others crowded with men ; and others, still, loaded with baggage. The fares, the number of passengers, and the amount of baggage to be carried, are all regulated by government, and each gondolier carries his tariff of fares in his pocket, or in the saloon of his little vessel. We went about two miles, and drew up to the door of a hotel, the steps of which were washed by the blue waves. While my companions were negotiating for apartments, I amused myself in catching a large shell fish on the steps of the house, and pulling the bunches of moss and seaweed from the front of the building. Having made arrangements for a day's stop, we went out to see the city, and enjoy a sail up and down the streets, whose pavements are liquid waves, and whose carriages are black and sombre gondolas.

Venice is built upon seventy-two islands, and is connected by three hundred and six bridges, scarcely any of which can be crossed by a carriage. We went to several academies of art, to the churches, in one of which is the tomb of Titian and the monument of Canova; to the Cathedral of San Marco, up into the high tower, from which a view of the city is obtained; through St. Mark's Square, up and down, down and

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up; by the doge's palace and giant's stairs; now gazing on the arch of the Rialto, and then upon the Bridge of Sighs, over which no prisoner passed but once. All the time I was in Venice, I seemed to be in a dream; and to this day I cannot make that fairy city appear to me as a reality. At night, as I sat down at my window in the hotel, below me, in the long canal, was heard the splash of the oars, and the earnest conversation of the boatmen, as their gondolas glided along. The first object I saw in the morning, as I gazed out, was a load of vegetables and flowers bound for the market of the city, rowed by a woman, who cheerily sang as she dipped her oar in the yielding wave.

The government of Venice has always been notoriously cruel. The halls of justice and the dungeons of torture have ever been near each other, and an accusation has always been equivalent to conviction. The priest and the tyrant have ruled the "Queen of the Sea;" and deeds of night have been perpetrated here, such as would make humanity shudder. The instruments of torture yet remain to tell the story of deep and horrid cruelty, and all the waters of the Adriatic are not sufficient to wash out the stains. An instance of the intolerance of the irresponsible government has been made, by Byron, the theme of one of his most beautiful works, the particulars of which are given by a recent traveler.1

"Wearied with the cares of state, and foreseeing troubles ahead, the old doge had once and again asked permission to retire from his office; but so far from granting his request, the council exacted of him an oath to retain it for life. Three of his four sons were

1 Rev. Robert Turnbull.

already dead, "hunted down" by the fell adversaries of his house. Giacomo, young, beautiful, and brave, was his only pride and hope. He had formed a splendid alliance with the noble family of the Contarini, and was one of the greatest favorites among the Venetians. But four years from his marriage he was accused of having received presents from foreign potentates - a high crime in Venice; and in the presence of his own father, he was subjected to the rack, and when a confession was extorted from him in his agony, that father was compelled to pronounce his sentence of banishment for life.

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"Some years after, an assassination occurred in the streets of Venice. The chief of the Ten, Donato, was murdered on his return from a sitting of the council, at his own door, by unknown hands. A victim was demanded for this monstrous offence; and the coadjutors of the slain magistrate eagerly caught at the slightest clew which might lead to the detection of the offender. A servant of Giacomo Foscari had been seen in Venice on the evening of the murder; and it was said that, on being met by the chief of the Ten in a boat off Mestre, the next morning, he had, in answer to the question, "What news?' reported the assassination some hours before it was generally known. The servant was arrested, examined, and barbarously tortured; but even the eightieth application of the strappado failed to elicit a word which might justify their suspicion. And yet the young Foscari was recalled, placed on the rack vacated by his servant, tortured in his father's presence, and condemned, although he persisted to the last in asserting his innocence. On this he was banished to a more distant and painful exile. In the mean while, Niccolo Erizzo, a noble infamous

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