NIGHT AT VENICE. NIGHT! and in the clear pale sky To the bright clime that gave us birth. Where mortal hand is scarcely seen! Has thrown her veil o'er sea and sky; And, but for that long line of bright And moveless mimic stars that lie Close to the dark wave, we might deem Life and the living world, a dream; For, all is silent, save the low Deep plashing murmur of the wave below. Sweet, when the day's long toil is over, Fly far away to another land, To feel the soft night-wind pass on, With breath as pure and touch as glowing, As the day-breeze that smiles upon The daisies in our own land growing. Ah, me! comes, never scene more fair, Thus, too, in this delicious clime, When Eden breezes fan the air, We dream upon the coming time, Oh! what were Paradise itself?- But not home,-looked we not to meet Our lov'd and lost ones there again! Fondly, regretfully, as we part from a long-loved friend, did we say farewell to Venice. We embarked as soon as it was light, being desirous of seeing the vegetable market, which comes in fresh and beautiful with the dawn. Innumerable boats rested on the surface of the waters, divided into compartments, as regularly as though they had been stalls on land.Here was a regular dairy; butter, milk, eggs, all neatly and nicely arranged: a little farther on, you might fancy yourself in a garden,-fruits and vegetables of every sort, fresh from the fertile plains of Lombardy, were equally inviting to the eye and to the palate. Flowers, be sure, in this land of poetry, were not forgotten; they, too, the pretty aristocrats, had separate squares to themselves, and awnings were carefully spread over them, so that the dew might not be dried on their fair petals too soon. It was a pretty and animated scene. The gondolier stood upright at the far end of the gondola, leaning idly on his oar, while his mistress bargained and chaffered with the salesmen. The bargain was settled, and away shot the boat, threading delicately the intricate paths, and presently rested before another floating shop. The seller, meanwhile, if of the masculine gender, sat bolt upright in the midst of his goods; if feminine, the chances were that with graceful gesticulation and a merry smile, she stood inviting customers to inspect her treasures. There was as much amusing diversity among the purchasers as among the peasants;-some stately dames moved straight to the purchase of the particular article they wanted, and away again;others again, reclining languidly, moved from one to the other, chaffering now for a bouquet, now for a cauliflower,--more intent on whiling away the time, than on providing for the family at home; and some few there were who came neither for business nor amusement. She was so closely veiled, that we could discern no feature excepting the large lustrous black eyes, that looked out anxiously, as their owner, every now and then, drew aside the little curtain of her gondola. In vain her attention was called to cabbages, gathered but half an hour ago at Dola,-to grapes fit for a banquet. On, on the young lady went; but her gondolier, as if by instinct, stopped at last-for a second only; but in that second her hand was hastily caught: a bouquet was thrown into her gondola, and we saw the dark eyes no more peeping through the curtains ;-they were, doubtless, better employed. We landed at Fusina, and engaged a vetturino, with a wreath of roses in his hair, to take us back to Padua; and we moved on by the shores of the lazy Brenta, past the old wall built by Antenor, I know not how many years before the birth of Christ; and talked for five long hours, unwearied, of the fair city we had just left. At Padua we saw more relics than have ever yet greeted our eyes. What think you of the bones of the murdered Innocents, the body of St. Luke, and a painting of the Madonna, by the same Evangelist? "That, the Madonna!" said Mùsica, starting and turning away, "the Madonna was not a negress: that could not be the work of St. Luke!" : Violet explained the effects of time on colouring: she said, too, that the Holy Virgin, if not black, must, at all events, have been a dark beauty;-she even hinted that, although handed down, from age to age, as the work of the holy physician, it might, indeed, have been painted by meaner hands. But this last idea Música could not admit:-of systematic deception she has little idea; and, like all the inhabitants of her rocky home, can with difficulty conceive why men should say the thing which is not. "It may be very like what she was," she concluded; "but I like my own fair Madonna better." Then the sacristan begged us to look down a sort of well in the choir, covered with an iron grating; there were some bones of martyrs at the bottom of it, covered with denari for their especial use, to which we were entreated to contribute. Harry asked, whether the money was serviceable to the bones, or to the souls which had once animated them; at which the man looked most devoutly shocked. In the Gran Sala' is the tomb of Livy, guarded, strangely enough, by some Theban figures, brought hither by Belzoni, who was a native of this town. :-we It was dark long before we reached Ferrara : could scarcely even distinguish the outline of the fortified hill of Monselice, and were very nearly overturned into the river Po; as we crossed it, without leaving the carriages, on a raft fixed on two boats.— Once having crossed the river, we were in the Papal dominions, which abound more especially with robbers, beggars, priests, and all sorts of vagabonds.What a pity that good old Saint Robert, of beggarloving memory, cannot come to life again, and reign here!—how he would revel in happiness, surrounded from morning till night with the blind, the lame, and the-no, not the dumb; Italian beggars are never dumb.-Elia, I think, should have journeyed hitherwards; he would have known, then, what became |