canals; that gondolas were its hackney-coaches; that it had St. Mark's, and the Rialto, and the Doge's palace; and I know no more now. It was always a dream, and will continue a dream for ever. A man must be born, or live long enough to become endeared to it, before he will either understand or feel at home at Venice. It is a glorious place for cripples, for I know of no use that a gentleman has for his limbs; they are crutches to the bed-ridden, spectacles to the blind. You step out of your gondola into your hotel, and out of your hotel into a gondola; and this is all the exertion that is becoming. The Piazza di S. Marco, and the adjoining quay, are the only places where you can stretch a limb; and if you desire to do so, they carry you there, and bring you home again. To walk requires predetermination, and you order your gondola, and go on purpose. To come to Venice, is to come on board; and it only differs from ship-board, that there is no danger of sea sickness. The Canal Grande is nearly three hundred feet wide. Other canals are wide enough, but the widest street in the city is not more than ten or twelve feet from house to house, and the majority do not exceed six or eight. To wind and jostle through these irregularities is intolerable, and all but impossible; no one thinks of doing so; and who would that had a gondola at command? The gondola is all that is delightful; its black, funereal look in high imaginative contrast with its internal luxury. You float on without sensible motion; its cushions were stolen from Maimon's chambers" blown up, not stuffed;" you seat yourself upon one of them, and sink, sink, sink, as if it were all air; you throw your leg upon another, and if you have occasion for it, which is rare at Venice, must hunt after it—lost, sunk.

"Travellers, and Canaletti's views, which are truth itself, give you a correct idea of Venice, but no idea of the strangeness of a first visit. It is not merely that there are canals and gondolas, but it is all canal and gondola. I know nothing to liken it to, but a large fleet wind-bound: you order your boat, and row round; and all that are at leisure do the same. St. Mark's, of an evening, that attracts all in the same direction, is but a ball on board the commodore. If you laugh at this as extravagant, you will be right; but it is only extravagant because there is nothing real to compare with it. The fleet wind-bound is truth itself, and you have only to change the Redentore into the Spitfire, and the Saluté into the Thunderer bomb, and it is real in feeling. If the common people want a peach or a pomegranate they hail a boat; for the very barrowwomen (if you will keep me to the reality, and drive me to the absurdity of such phrases) go floating about, and their cry is that half song, with the long dwelling on the final syllable, with which sailors call Boat a-hoy!' With all this, there is no place you would so much like to spend a winter at; and because of all this, it is so strange, new, and perplexing. The Venetians are said to be the most delightful people, and at Venice is said to be the pleasantest society in Europe. It is impossible to doubt it. Society is the sole purpose for which they come here. They live on the continent, and Venice is but a huge pleasure-house.

"A stranger may soon feel delight in Venice; but I doubt if he would ever feel at home. Every hour would be a contradiction to his whole passed existence. There must be thousands here who never saw a hill, or a weed, or an car of corn growing, or a vineyard, or a green field; or heard a bird sing, except in a cage; or slaked a thirst, even in this thirsty climate, at a spring-head, or saw its waters bubbling forth out of the earth spring water, like other luxuries, is an importation.

"Everything at Venice is dream-like; for what is more so than to walk on the Rialto, where Antonio spat on the Jew's gaberdine?-to stand where Othello addressed the assembled senate?-to lose yourself in search of old Priuli's palace? And, for realities, go to St. Mark's on an evening; see its fine square in all its marble beautythe domes and minarets of its old church; the barbaric gloom of the Doge's palace; its proud towering Campanile; look upon the famous Corinthian horses, and think of their

emigration, on the winged lion of the Piraeus; walk in the illumination of its long line of cafés; observe the variety of costume-the thin veil covering the pale Venetian beauty-the Turks with their beards and caftans, and long pipes, and chess-playing— the Greeks with their skull-caps and richly-laced jackets: look on this, and believe it real; and ever after put faith in the Thousand and One Tales.

"But Venice is everything delightful. It is the most picturesque city in Europe, and full of character and variety. In all its palaces and public buildings you may read 'sermons in stones.' The history of Venice is written upon her front, from the rude, massy, frowning architecture of barbarism and power, to modern elegance and imbecility!"

Of the state of society in Venice, our earlier travellers gave but a very unfavourable picture. Addison represents it to have been "the refined parts of the Venetian wisdom, to encourage idleness and luxury in the nobility, to cherish ignorance and licentiousness in the clergy, to keep alive a continual faction in the common people, to connive at the viciousness and debauchery of convents." The Venetian nuns were "famous for the liberties they allowed themselves." Bishop Burnet gives a similar picture of the state of morals. "The Venetians," he says, " are generally ignorant of the matters of religion; to a scandal; and they are as unconcerned in them as they are strangers to them: so that all that vast pomp in their ceremonies and wealth in their churches, is affected rather as a point of magnificence, or a matter of emulation among families, than that superstition hath here such a power over the spirits of the people, as it hath elsewhere; for the atheism that is received by many here is the dullest and coarsest thing that can be imagined. The young nobility are so generally corrupted in their morals, and so given up to a most supine ignorance of all sorts of knowledge, that a man cannot easily imagine to what a height this is grown."

The Venetian ladies, the worthy prelate stigmatises as bred to ignorance and indolence, gross in their intrigues, and the insipidest creatures imaginable. The impartial Daru, speaking of the Venetian women, remarks that "the corruption of morals had deprived them of all their power (empire): on reviewing the whole history of Venice, we do not find them to have exerted, on a single occasion, the least influence."

The Venetian women are styled by a recent traveller "superb;" there is something peculiarly bewitching in their air and gait; "but I believe," significantly adds Mr. Matthews, "they are but little changed since the time of Iago.”

The intense love of pleasure, the corruption which springs from unbridled luxury, and the recklessness of privileged profligacy, must, however, have undergone a very considerable abatement by the disastrous reverses of later years; and in the substratum of the national character there would seem to be much that is estimable. "Of the gentiluomo veneto," says Lord Byron, "the name is still known, and that is all. He is but the shadow of his former self, but he is polite and kind. It surely may be pardoned to him if he is querulous." "The Venetians are certainly," says Mr. Galiffe, "an affectionate, kind-hearted set of beings, very cheerful, lively, active, fond of pleasure, of music, dancing, dress, and everything that is gay. Almost all the young men of eighteen or twenty years of age play on the guitar, and give serenades every evening to the young females of their acquaintance. . . . The Venetians are the most agreeable companions in the world."

"As to literary society," writes Mr. Rose, "though clever men are to be found in Venice, I do not believe that it exists. General society has, probably, gained from the change of government and the influx of foreigners. . . . The favourite society of Venice, that of the coffee-houses, where both sexes assemble, is, generally speaking, to be enjoyed at all hours. To a certain degree this is even applicable to private society. There are several ladies here who open their houses, where, from nine at night till three in the

morning, there is a constant flux and reflux of company, of different ages, sexes, and conditions; not to speak of many smaller circles. Here all foreigners are well received; but to be an Englishman is to bring with you a sure letter of recommendation. Ile who is once asked, is always welcome. Moreover, he may go in boots, in a great coat, and, to small parties, even in a tabarro, the cloak of the country; and when there, without being squeezed or stewed, may find people right and left who are anxious and qualified to converse with him. The society of Venice may indeed be compared to the fire in the glass-houses of London, which is said to be never out; for there is also a continual morning assemblage at the house of one lady or other, who, in the phrase of the country, tiene appartamento, or, in that of London, is at home. This appears to be a sort of substitute for the casinos, now nearly extinguished. Society at Venice is on so very easy and rational a footing, that if it is to be enjoyed anywhere, it is here."

Formerly, a noble Venetian must have eight cloaks; three for the masks; one for the spring-fête of Ascension, when the doge married the sea; one for autumn, for the

theatre and ridotto; one for winter, for carnival-these three were called Bauta; two for summer, both of white taffeta; one of blue cloth, for winter, common; one of white cloth, for great occasions; and one of scarlet cloth, for the grand church ceremonial days of the republic. The Venetians have now but little taste for balls; and masques have gone out of fashion. The wild buffooneries and joyous extravagancies of other days would not withstand the atmosphere of later times. The love of play has survived; and Mr. Simond, who will not allow that the Venetians have any energy but for sensuality, adds, that they have "no passion but for cards." These sweeping stigmas are seldom just. For national character, we must look to the manners and amusements of the lower orders. "Florence and Venice," Mr. Rose says, "are the two places in Italy where you find popular drollery in its greatest perfection, and of that gay and natural cast which characterises the humour of the Irish." This is more or less diffused all over Italy; but the Venetian wit has its peculiar character; it is lighter than the Florentine, and shows itself, according to Mr. Rose's definition, "in practical jokes

brought to bear intellectually," or, in other words, acted repartees. The Neapolitan humour, again, is more broad and coarse, and more closely allied to mere farce and ribaldry. The Venetians are naturally grave and sober. Some of their characteristics may be traced to their ancient intercourse with the Ottomans. As to their diet, rice is an article to which scarcely less importance is attached by all classes in Venice than in Constantinople, whence they appear to have borrowed their mode of cooking it. The custom of presenting coffee at visits is also Turkish. Their cafés are more oriental than Italian; and in their distaste for the extravagance of dancing, and their love of repose, they seem to resemble the more saturnine Ottomans.

Of the old Venetian character, however, the traces are, generally speaking, nearly worn out. "The most remarkable, as contrasted with the rest of Italy," says Mr. Rose, "certainly is so. The probity of Pantaloon was proverbial, and the honour and punctuality of a Venetian merchant were recognised throughout the various provinces of Italy. That it is not now the case, I attribute to the Austrians. Public honesty is scarcely compatible with their law. In the scale of honesty the highest rank, we arc told, must now be given to the Jews, the second to the Venetians, and the lowest to the German settlers, who are among the principal money-agents of the city. Every office, indeed, from the clerk and corporal to the judge and general, is now filled with Germans, all unacquainted alike with the habits and language of the country. Nothing can be more execrable throughout than the fiscal and judicial administration of the Austrian government, and no one who visits Italy can be at a loss to account for the preference given by the Italians to their French masters over 'the Chinese of Europe.''

• Molière's best buffoonery, Mr. Rose asserts, is borrowed from the Venetian drama.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

LOMBARDY-VERONA—PADUA—MANTUA—CREMONA.

A GREAT variety of tribes formed the most ancient people that inhabited the country from the sides of the Alps to the banks of the Po; and their descendants possessed that part of Italy until the fall of the Roman empire in the west, about the end of the fifth century, when the Heruli, under the conduct of Odoacer, quitted the banks of the Danube, settled on those of the Po, and made Ravenna the capital of their country. Six years after their conquest they were subdued by the Ostrogoths, whose power was shaken by the energy of Belisarius, and overthrown by the eunuch Narses in the year 553.

Italy, restored to the emperors of the East, was not long secure against foreign invasions. The Longobardi quitted the forests of Germany, and founded, in 567, a powerful kingdom in the great valley of the Po, which, in the course of time, was styled Lombardy. But the bishops of Rome, anticipating their power, observed, not without fear and jealousy, the aggrandisement that threatened to destroy or possess the ancient capital of the world.

from the Longobardi the The kingdom was after

Stephen II. implored the assistance of France; Pepin took exarchate of Ravenna, and made the Pope sovereign over it. wards destroyed by Charlemagne, who confined Didier, their last king, in a convent. Although Lombardy continued without a sovereign, its laws were retained, and the country was divided into several principalities, subject to the western empire. But the spirit of independence was diffused over that part of Italy; and the emperors of Germany granted to some towns the right of choosing their magistrates. A custom that the cities had preserved the right of electing their bishops-led men to conclude that all power emanated from the people.

The inhabitants of large towns now proceeded to demand charters and more important privileges. All the cities of Lombardy, during the twelfth century, not only elected their magistrates, but deliberated on their local interests, and on the advantages of making peace and declaring war. Frederick Barbarossa was the first emperor who, violating the charters and treaties of his predecessors, attempted to establish absolute power in Italy. Milan was the most important town in Lombardy; and being besieged by that prince, the inhabitants, reduced to a small number by famine, consented at last to capitulate, but on conditions which the conqueror disdained. A few days afterwards Milan was changed into a heap of ruins. If the emperor protected the rivals of that large city, he destroyed their freedom, and the magistrates elected by the citizens were succeeded by the podestas that Frederick appointed. The peace which succeeded the noise and tumult of war was, however, only like the calm before the earthquake; for the people, unaccustomed to oppression, bore it reluctantly, and formed a secret league to restore their privileges.

The towns formed for that purpose a confederation; while Frederick, emboldened by success, marched against Rome, designing to humble the pope, and to unite his possessions