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is subject to the most violent and tumultuous agitations. The character of this people exhibits a strange mixture of libertinism and superstition, of energy and imbecility. Although their mode of life affords a complete exemplification of the doctrines of epicurism, the apprehension of death overpowers them with an insupportable horror. They are terrified at the slightest indisposition, which they are apt to interpret as a summons to the grave.'

From what you see of the Venetians in their favourite rendezvous of pleasure, you would suppose them the happiest people in the world; but follow them to their homes and the scene is entirely reversed. A wretched half furnished apartment, the windows of which look upon the sullen waters of a lonely canal, whose solitude is interrupted only by the occasional appearance of a black gondola, is often the abode of some ruined family, once high in the ranks of nobility.'

In contemplating the fall of a city once so illustrious, we are naturally filled with compassion, and we eagerly inquire if there are no means left, by which she may yet be rescued from complete destruction? To hear the Venetians talk, you would suppose their desires had no object, but the salvation of their country. Their imaginations are kept in a state of continuai inflammation by the vision of the past, of which they are perpetually reminded, by what remains, or by what has vanished of their former glory. But that elevation of soul, which despises pleasure, which unites labour with zeal, and which reaches its object by the dint of regular and patient efforts, is a quality of mind to be found I fear at Venice only among a very few. The Venetians, however, are a lively and passionate people, and the occasional flashes of eloquence and enthusiasm which irradiate their conversation, encourage a hope that under the auspices of a liberal and active government, they might recover those energies which have for so long a time lain dormant, and which are not likely to be awakened in the stagnant gloom of Austrian despotism.'

In a city so rich in genuine specimens of the arts, we might expect to find a proportionable degree of zeal and industry evinced in their cultivation. Yet notwithstanding the multitude of objects which Venice contains, to stimulate the genius and to cultivate the taste of the artist, painting and sculpture maintain here only a feeble and languid existence.'

Music appears still to be the delight and solace of the Venetians. If we except the opera of St. Carlo at Naples, and that of La Scala at Milan, there is no part of Italy where this public amusement is more brilliant than at Venice.'

'As there exists at Venice no Hyde Park, no Champs Elisées, even no streets, there can of course be no room for the display of brilliant equipages, no field for the adventurous exploits of the charioteer and the equestrian. But the elegantes of fashion, dressed like gondoliere, with rose-coloured sashes, display their skill in managing the gondola before a numerous concourse of all ranks of people on the quay. The grace and address with which they propel the gondola through the water, and the suddenness with which they stop it in its full career, are regarded with admiration by crowds of spectators.'

'In sailing down the canal, which is bestrid by the celebrated Rialto, the traveller beholds on each hand those sumptuous palaces, where the Venetian nobles sunk in the lap of pleasure, forgot their

country and themselves. On entering these scenes of patrician grandeur, halls hung round with faded tapestry,-defaced pictures,hangings of splendid damask-gilded chairs and sophas, mutilated and enveloped in dust and cobwebs, attest the former splendour and opulence of a family now perhaps extinct, or forced to perform the inglorious office of parasites at the board of some plebeian lord. Their superb vestibules and staircases polluted with filth, and exhaling the most offensive odours, are the more remarkable, as the visitor contrasts them in imagination with the voluptuous and delicate race of beings who formerly inhabited them; who once reposed here in all the langours of luxury.'

'Wretches, with famine in their look, are now seen soliciting charity among the gay circles of St. Mark. Its carnival, which formerly drew crowds from different parts of Europe, has lost its attractive brilliancy. and the Bucentaur,* despoiled of its decorations, lies rotting in the arsenal.'

The number of indigent persons in Venice, calling themselves noble, is noticed by almost every traveller. I have been repeatedly stopped by genteel looking persons in the place of St. Mark, calling themselves poveri nobili, who received with thankfulness the most trifling gratuity. In passing through the streets and public squares, my attention has been frequently arrested by decent females, their faces concealed by a veil, and kneeling for hours together. All these, as my guide informed me, were povere-nobile veneziane.'

The picture of mendicity contained in the two last paragraphs, is not, we are sure, in any degree overcharged. Rome is even more cursed in this respect, as the following striking passages from Forsyth will show Every beggar is distinguished by his own attitude, tone and variety of the pathetic, while altogether they present a strange climax of wretchedness.

"In the morning comes a Marchesa to your lodgings, recounts the misfortunes of her noble house, its rank, its loyalty, its disasters, its fall, and then relieves "your most illustrious excellency" from embarrassment by begging one or two pauls. An old Abate steals on your evening walk, and twitching you with affected secrecy, whispers that he is starving. On the dirty pavement you see Poveri Vergognosi kneeling silently in masks. In the coffee houses stand a more unfortunate class who watch the waiters' motions to dart on your change. In the courts of palaces you meet wretches gnawing the raw roots gleaned from the dunghill, and at night you will sometimes find a poor boy sleeping close to his dog for mutual warmth.'

The Austrian government extends, according to our countryman, no encouragement to the trade of Venice, and has wholly neglected the labours necessary for her harbour and famous mole. This once mighty emporium of commerce and manufactures does not now, he adds, reckon more than three or four respectable mercantile houses. Forsyth furnishes some analogous particulars as to Florence.

*The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord,
The Bucentaur les rotting unrestored.

4th Canto, Childe Harold.

'You discover here, on the very surface of things, how greatly commerce has degenerated in a country which gave it birth, and language and laws. The counting houses are in general dirty, dark, mean vaults; the legers stitched rather than bound, and covered with packing paper. All commodities are weighed by the old steelyard: the only balance that I observed here was held by the statue of Justice. In trades no regular apprenticeships are requisite; nor are the usual appropriations of sex observed. In the same street, I have seen men sewing curtains, and women employed at the loom and the awl.

'The Italian shopkeeper only calculates downwards: His sole object is to cheat his customers. He does not remount to the first sources that supply his shop; he abandons the general state of his own line to his merchant.'

In consequence of the closeness with which Venice is built, its narrow lanes and canals are rarely visited by sunshine. A moisture which is never exhaled renders the streets continually filthy, and creates along the surface of its canals a sensation of dampness. In stating these circumstances, our traveller admits, that fatigued by the dreary and lonely vistas of the canals, the stranger at length becomes impatient to enjoy a prospect more expanded, and breathe a purer atmosphere. Milford, who was there in 1815, declares, that such was the sombre, melancholy air of the exterior of the city, that he was glad to quit it after a few weeks. I acknowledge, says Forsyth, its aquatic advantages, and the cheap convenience of its gondolas; yet with eight theatres and a proportionate quantity of private amusement, with large libraries and well stocked markets, Venice is the last residence I should choose in Italy.

The most startling memento of the departed greatness of Venice is her Arsenal. Its vast extent, its massive structures, its magazines, founderies, armouries, rope-walks, work-shops, bespeak what she was as a naval power. All is there now, a dead silence and undisturbed decay. It is, indeed, a full century since this republic, falsely so called, withdrew into a merely negative existence. History scarcely deigns to notice her* after her peace of 1718 with the Turks, although in her naval combats with them, of the year preceding, she vindicated her ancient renown. How proudly she bore the trident, and challenged the fears and the admiration of Europe before the sixteenth century! With what a grand array of resources and resolution she withstood the famous league of that * Laugier's History of Venice terminates at 1750.

Sismondi speaking of her as she was at the close of the fifteenth, calls her le plus puissant et le plus sage, des Etats Italiens:-elle seule gardoit contre l'empire ottoman l'Italie et tout l'occident, &c. (Histoire des Repub: It: Vol. 13.)

And Lord Byron

In youth she was all glory,—a new Tyre,—

Her very by-word sprung from victory,

The "Planter of the Lion," which through fire,

century, and, notwithstanding all her disasters, re-appeared in the seventeeth to assert alone Italian independence! Her war of twenty-five years, begun in 1634, with the Sublime Porte, then the terror of Christendom, though unfortunate, is highly glorious. The second of fifteen years with the same enemy, begun in 1684,-in which she retrieved her losses, is of a most brilliant and imposing character. By the degenerate policy into which she afterwards fell, of submitting to every wrong and outrage rather than resort to the sword, she had nearly forfeited all title to commiseration when Bonaparte liberated' her in 1794, to throw her into the mass of equivalents at the treaty of Campo Formio.

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From Venice our traveller proceeded to Padua, and describes the country visible on his route as having the appearance of being decorated for a fete champetre. All who have surveyed it must sympathize in the admiration which he expresses for the beauty and animation of the scene. The desolate and ruinous condition of many of the noble mansions erected in the days of Venetian grandeur, throws, as he justly remarks, a shade of melancholy over the brilliant landscape. Padua, we are told by him, is in a state of depopulation and decay, notwithstanding the prosperity of the neighbourhood. Her inhabitants do not exceed thirty thousand in number; her streets are narrow and lonely, her whole aspect is sombre and languid. But this city contains several magnificent structures, bearing testimony to the genius of Palladio; and her renowned university, though possessing no longer the sixteen thousand students of which it could once boast, is by no means reduced to insignificance. Our countryman states, that its halls of dissection, its anatomical exhibition, its philosophical apparatus, its botanical garden, all correspond with the universal fame of the institution; and Forsyth represents it as having, when he inspected it in 1802, professors highly eminent in science, and being well supplied with chairs, libraries, museums, and all the implements of learning.

Petrarch's Villa lies at the distance of a few leagues only from Padua, and was eagerly visited by our traveller. We shall copy his account of the excursion, though another devout pilgrim, Eustace, has described the hallowed spot in greater detail.*

And blood she bore o'er subject earth and sea;
Though making many slaves, herself still free,
And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite;
Witness Troy's rival, Candia! Vouch it, ye
Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's fight!
For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight.

And Lord Byron has now strewed it with flowers from his " pictured urn."
There is a tomb in Arqua;-rear'd in air
Pillar'd in their Sarcophagus, repose,
The bones of Laura's lover: here repair
Many familiar with his well-sung woes,
The pilgrims of his genius. &c. &c.

Canto iv. Childe Harold.

Our landlord

* At Albano we inquired the road to Petrarch's villa. informed us that the intermediate country, afforded no road for a carriage, and that unless we travelled with a guide it would be impossible to find our way to the village of Arqua, where exist the tomb and last residence of the poet.

We

'He then chose for our guide, a respectable looking old man. left Albano before sunrise. The scene was not one of those glowing landscapes of Claude Lorraine, where a sultry morning is bursting in dazzling effulgence upon the extensive Campagna, and exhaling rapidly the dews. The appearance of the sun was preceded by refreshing breezes. The only luminous objects visible, were the eminences of the Vicentian Alps, while a deep shade still involved the Euganean hills. As we passed along, we were exhilirated by the notes of the lark, towering above our heads, and refreshed by the breath of wild flowers that grew upon the sides of the road, which winded among hills and vallies where even the genius of Petrarch might have gathered happy materials for poetry. Sometimes it lay along the confines of a lordly palace, and gardens peopled with statues and murmuring with fountains. At another time, it passed through a miserable village, where a half-clothed servile population instantly gathered round us, and in their eagerness to kiss our hands and to obtain some boon of charity, nearly threw themselves beneath our horses' feet.

At length we arrived at the little town of Arqua, romantically situated upon a hill, on one side of which stands the mansion of the poet. We found it in a state of lamentable decay, and it was not without concern, we viewed the ruinous condition of the hallowed residence of Petrarch. Yet objects consecrated by worth and genius, have an inspiring influence, and a place so often visited by poetick inspiration, can hardly fail to excite in a mind of the least taste and sensibility, many tender and pleasing associations. Adjoining the house were a few acres of grain, interspersed with fruit trees and skirted by a wood.'

The house consists of an antichamber which is used as a kitchen, a hall, a smaller apartment and a study. In the hall remain some faded frescoes, in which the visitor recognises the figure of Petrarch, in his canonical habit. The subjects of these old paintings relate to incidents in the history of that passion which consumed his life, and gave birth to those pure and exquisite effusions of poetry, which place the name of Petrarch above that of any of the ancient or modern amatory bards. The smaller apartment is connected with the study, and a tower from a balcony, in which there is a prospect of the neighbouring vallies. Over the sides of this ruin, the honeysuckle mixed with the ivy, wantoned in gay luxuriance. The interior walls are covered with Italian and Latin inscriptions, left here as a tribute to the memory of the poet. In the study remain his ink-standish and the arm-chair in which he expired. The old woman who inhabited the house handed us a large album containing the names of all the persons, who, from an early period, have visited this sanctuary of genius, each name accompanied with some tributary effusion in verse or prose.'

In the approach to the Roman territories, the country wears a much less flourishing appearance in point both of population and culture. Our traveller found Ferrara still more forlorn and stag

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