blue, as it was out in the open sea, or close upon the coast of Naples it was of a dirty green. We passed by an island where the houses seemed to grow up out of the water, or to have clung to a wreck aloft upon the walls stood the Madonna and the child, and looked out over this desert. In some places, the surface of the water was like a moving, green plain a sort of duck-pool, between the deep sea and the black islands of soft mud. The sun shone upon Venice: all the bells were ringing; but it looked nevertheless dead and solitary. Only one ship lay in the docks; and not a single man could I see.

I stepped down into the black gondola, and sailed up into. the dead street, where everything was water, not a foot-breadth upon which to walk. Large buildings stood with open doors, and with steps down to the water; the water ran into the great door-ways, like a canal; and the palace-court itself seemed only a four-cornered well, into which people could sail, but scarcely turn the gondola. The water had left its greenish slime upon the walls: the great marble palace seemed as if sinking together in the broad windows, rough boards were nailed up to the gilded, half-decayed beams. The proud giant-body seemed to be falling away piecemeal; the whole had an air of depression about it. The ringing of the bells ceased; not a sound, excepting the splash of the oars in the water, was to be heard, and I still saw not a human being. The magnificent Venice lay like a dead swan upon the waves. We crossed about into the other streets; small narrow bridges of masonry hung over the canals; and I now saw people who skipped over me, in among the houses, and in among the walls even; for I saw no other streets than those in which the gondolas glided.

"But where do the people walk?" inquired I of my gondolier; and he pointed to small passages by the bridges, between the lofty houses. Neighbor could reach his hand to neighbor, from the sixth story across the street; three people could hardly pass each other below, where not a sunbeam found its way. Our gondola had passed on, and all was still as death.

"Is this Venice?—the rich bride of the sea? the mistress of the world?"

"Here is life!"

I saw the magnificent square of St. Mark. people said. But how very different is it in Naples, nay, even in Rome, upon the animated Corso! And yet the square of St. Mark is the heart of Venice, where life does exist. Shops of books, pearls, and pictures, adorned the long colonnades, where, however, it was not yet animated enough. A crowd of Greeks and Turks, in bright dresses, and with long pipes in their mouths, sat quietly outside of the coffee-houses. The sun shone upon the golden cupola of St. Mark's Church, and upon the glorious bronze horses over the portal. From the red masts of the ships of Cyprus, Candia, and Morea, depended the motionless flags. A flock of pigeons filled the square by thousands, and went daintily upon the broad pavement.

I visited the Ponte Rialto, the pulse-vein which spoke of life; and I soon comprehended the great picture of Venice — the picture of mourning — the impression of my own soul. I seemed yet to be at sea, only removed from a smaller to a greater ship, a floating ark.

-per

The evening came; and when the moonbeams cast their uncertain light, and diffused broader shadows, I felt myself more at home; in the hour of the spirit-world, I could first become familiar with the dead bride. I stood at the open window: the black gondolas glided quickly over the dark, moonlit waters. I thought upon the seaman's song of kissing and of love; felt a bitterness towards Annunciata, who had preferred the inconstant Bernardo to me; and why? haps precisely because of the piquancy which this inconstancy gave him such are women! I felt bitterness, even towards the innocent, pious Flaminia: the tranquillity of the convent was more to her than my strong, brotherly love. No, no, I would love neither of them more; there was an emptiness in my heart of all, even of those which had once been dear to it. I would think of neither of them, I resolved; and, like an uneasy ghost, my thoughts floated between Lara, the image of beauty, and Santa, the daughter of sin.

I entered a gondola, and allowed myself to be taken through the streets in the silent evening. The rowers sung their alternating song, but it was not from the "Gerusalemme Liberata;" the Venetians had forgotten even the old melodies of

the heart, for their doges were dead, and foreign hands had bound the wings of the lion, which was harnessed to their triumphal car.

"I will seize upon life - will enjoy it to the last drop! said I, as the gondola lay still. We were at the hotel where I lodged. I went to my own room, and lay down to sleep.

- a

a dark and evil day
But God, like a loving

Such was my first day in Venice day which left no peace behind it. parent in his treatment of a wayward child, left me at times to my own course, that I might find how far I had gone from light and peace. Blessed be His great name!

CHAPTER XXV.

THE STORM. ·SOIRÉE AT MY BANKER'S.

THE

THE PODESTA.

HE letters which I had brought with me obtained for me acquaintances, friends, as they called themselves; and I was the Signor Abbé. Nobody instructed me, but they discovered that everything which I said was good, excellent, and that I was possessed of talents. From Excellenza and Francesca I had often heard such things said as were very painful to me; I was often told that which was very unpleasant for me to hear; it seemed to me almost as if they sought out for everything bad against me, that they might tell me that there were a great many people who did not at all mean so kindly by me. But this failed of its object. Of a certainty I had, however, no honest friends, since it was those only who told me disagreeable things. But I, however, felt no longer my subordinate condition, the sense of which not even Flaminia's goodness could remove.

I had now visited the rich palace of the doges, had wandered in the empty, magnificent halls; seen the chamber of the Inquisition, with the frightful picture of the torments of hell. I went through a narrow gallery, over a covered bridge, high upon the roof, above the canals on which the gondolas glided. This is the way from the doge's palace to the prisons of Venice. The bridge is called the Bridge of Sighs. Close beside it lie the wells. The light of the lamp alone from the passage can force its way between the close iron bars into the uppermost dungeon; and yet this was a cheerful, airy hall, in comparison with those which lie lower down, below the swampy cellars, deeper even than the water outside in the canals; and yet in these unhappy captives had sighed, and inscribed their names on the damp walls.

66

Air, air!" demanded my heart, rent with the horrors of this place; and, entering the gondola, I flew with the speed of an arrow from the pale-red old palace, and from the columns of St. Theodoret and the Venetian lion, forth over the living, green water, to the Lagunes and Lido, that I might breathe the fresh air of the sea- and I found a church-yard.

Here is the stranger, the Protestant, buried, far from his native country — buried upon a little strip of land among the waves, which day by day seem to rend away more and more of its small remains. White human bones stuck out from the sand; the billows alone wept over them. Here often had sat the fisherman's bride or wife, waiting for the lover or the husband, who had gone out fishing upon the uncertain sea. The storm arose, and rested again upon its strong pinions; and the woman sung her songs out of "Gerusalemme Liberata," and listened to hear whether the man replied. But Love gave no return in song; alone she sat there, and looked out over the silent sea. Then, also, her lips became silent; her eye saw only the white bones of the dead in the sand; she heard only the hollow booming of the billows, whilst night ascended over the dead, silent Venice.

The dark picture filled my thoughts; my whole state of mind gave it a strong coloring. Solemn as a church reminding of graves, and the invisible saints, stood before me the entire scene. Flaminia's words resounded in my ear, that the poet, who was a prophet of God, should endeavor only to express the glorification of God, and that subjects which tended to this were of the highest character. The immortal soul ought to sing of the immortal; the glitter of the moment changed its play of color, and vanished with the instant that gave it birth. Kindling strength and inspiration fired my soul, but quickly died away again. I silently entered the gondola, which bore me towards Lido. The great open sea lay before me, and rolled onward to the shore in long billows. I thought of the bay of Amalfi.

Just beside me, among sea-grass and stones, sat a young man sketching, certainly a foreign painter; it seemed to me that I recognized him; I stepped nearer, he raised his head, and we knew each other. It was Poggio, a young Venetian