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ISOTTA GRIMANI;

A VENETIAN STORY.

"Venice, proud city, based upon the sea,
A marvel of man's enterprise and power;
Glorious even in thy ruin, who can gaze
On thee, and not bethink them of the past
When thou didst rise as by magician's wand,
On the blue waters like a mirror spread,
Reflecting temples, palaces, and domes,
In many lengthened shadows o'er the deep?
They who first reared thee, little deemed, I ween,
That thou, their refuge, won from out the sea,
(When despotism drove them from the land)
Should bend and fall by that same cold stern thrall,

That exiled them, here to erect a home,

Where freedom might their children's birthright be.
Wealth, and its offspring Luxury, combined,
To work thy ruin by Corruption's means.

How art thou fallen from thine high estate,

The Rome of ocean, visited like her,

By pilgrims journeying from their distant lands,

To view what yet remains to vouch the past,

When thou wert glorious as the seven crowned hills,

Ere yet barbarian hordes had wrought their doom.

Here Commerce flourished, pouring riches in
With floating Argosies from distant ports;

And paying with a lavish hand for Art,

That still lends glory, Venice, to thy walls!

Here came the trophies of thy prowess, too,
The steeds, Lysippus, that thy chisel wrought.
Along thy waters, lined by palaces

(Rich, and fantastic, as a poet's dream),

Are mingled minarets, fretted domes, and spires,
Of rarest sculpture, that appear to float

Gently away upon their liquid base.

Nor doth this seem more wondrous than all else

That meets my gaze where all things seem untrue;

As if Romance a fitting home had found,

To people with creations of the brain."

"THIS, signor, is the Palazzo Grimani," said the cicerone, as we stepped from our gondola on a marble staircase, nearly covered with a green and glutinous substance, the sediment of

the impure water of the canal, which was not only offensive to our olfactory nerves, but dangerously slippery.

A loud ring of the bell summoned the custode, whose eyes twinkled with pleasure in anticipation of the buonamano, for which his accustomed palm already felt impatient. Having opened the ponderous doors which creaked on their rusted hinges, and unclosed the massive shutters that excluded the light and air, he donned a faded livery-coat, that looked as if coeval with the palazzo itself, and after many respectful salutations to me, and familiar ones to my guide, conducted us from the large and gloomy entrance-hall, where he armed himself with a huge bunch of keys, to the grand suite of apartments. The interiors of Venetian palaces bear a striking resemblance to each other. Each contains nearly the same number of saloons, hung with leather stamped with faded gold or silver, tapestry, velvets, and silks, crowned by ceilings, whose gorgeousness makes the eyes ache. Each apartment has the usual number of exquisitely-painted and gilded doors, with architraves of the rarest alabasters and marbles, and most of them have small chambers, peculiar to Venetian houses, projecting from a large one, over the canal, offering some

thing between an ancient oratory, and modern boudoir, and affording a delicious retreat for a siesta, a book, or the enjoyment of that not less-admired Italian luxury, the dolce far niente, which none but Creoles and Italians know how to enjoy. It is not the fine carvings, the massive and splendid furniture, the rare hangings, nor the gorgeous ceilings, on which the eye loves to dwell in those once magnificent, and now, alas! fast-decaying edifices. No! though they claim the tribute of a passing gaze, we fix on the glorious pictures, the triumphs of Genius and Art, in which the great and the beautiful still live on canvas, to immortalize the master hands that gave them to posterity.

Having stopped more than the usual time allotted to travellers, in silent wonder and admiration, before the golden-tinted chef-d'œuvres of Giorgione, whose pencil seems to have been dipped in sunbeams, so glowing are the hues it has infused; and having loitered, unwilling to depart, before the ripe and mellow treasures of Titian, in whose portraits, the pure and eloquent blood seems still to speak, I was at last preparing to quit the palace, intending to reserve for another day the pictures of Tintoretto, Bassano, and Paulo Veronese, whose velvets

and satins attracted my admiration more than the finest specimens of those materials ever produced by Lyonese, Genoese, or English loom, when my eyes and steps were arrested by a picture from the pencil of the Veronese, more beautiful than any that I had that I had yet seen. It pourtrayed a young and lovely lady, in a rich Venetian dress, with a countenance of such exceeding expression, that it fascinated my attention.

"That portrait, signor, attracts the admiration of your countrymen, more than any other in this fine collection," said the custode, observing the interest it had excited. "It represents the only child of the great Grimani, and was painted by Paolo, soon after he returned from Rome, where he went in the suite of her noble father, who was ambassador at the papal court. Yes, signor," continued the custode, drawing himself up proudly, "it was in this very palazzo that Paolo Cagiari, then lately arrived, poor and unfriended, from Verona, was taken under the protection of Grimani, and beheld those cenas, whose gorgeousness he has immortalized, rendering the suppers of Paolo Veronese more celebrated than the famed ones of the luxurious Lucullus."

The custode betrayed not a little self-com