We thought ourselves in all things fortunate, when the morrow dawned bright and sunny. We had a heavenly voyage, which repaid us for yesterday’s ennui, and satisfied us that we had done the wisest thing in the world in entering Italy by the Lago di Garda. We left the abrupt, gloomy, sublime north, and gently dropped down to truly Italian scenes. The waters of the lake are celebrated for their azure tint; no waves could be so brightly blue, so clear, so that we saw the bottom of the lake, fathoms below. The mountains sank to hills, with banks cut into terraces, and covered with olives and vines, decorated by orange and lemon-trees; the country-houses sparkled in the sun. One of my friends quoted the lines that celebrate Benacus. Strangely enough, though weather-bound at Riva by one of those storms for which this lake is famous, we saw not a wave upon its surface; not even a curled ripplet, reminded us that it was

We landed at Lasise, a town distant fifteen miles from Verona, and while I employed myself in engaging a veturino for that place, and wandered about the town, my companions went to bathe in the clear waters of the azure lake. The promontory of Sirmio was in sight; an Italian landscape all around, an Italian sky, bright above: it was an hour of delicious joy—set, like a priceless diamond in the lead of common life—never to be forgotten.

I am again in Italy. The earth is teeming with the wealth of September, the richest month of the year. The harvest of the Indian corn has begun; the grapes are hanging in rich ripening clusters from the vines, festooned from tree to tree: a genial atmosphere mantles the earth, and quickens a sense of delight in our hearts. The road lies through a richly cultivated country: the immense plain around us is bounded to the north by the mountains of the Tyrol, amongst which we seemed to have lost ourselves for an age, so refreshing, so new, so enchanting, is the wide expanse of fertile Lombardy, opening before our eyes.

A sad disaster happened on our arrival at Verona. We had each our passport, and the whole was consigned to the pocket-book of one of the party; and when they were asked for at the gates of Verona, the pocket-book was not to be found. Except our passports, and Coutts’ lettre d’indication, it contained no papers of importance; but still, after all the annoyance the Austrians give about passports, it was rather appalling. Nothing could be done. It was remembered that when bathing, the pocket-book was safe; it must have been lost since. We were allowed to go on to the inn, and time would shew the result.

The Gran Parigi is one of the most comfortable hotels I was ever at; it has the air of a palace, as doubtless it once was. The same evening, by the light of the clear full moon, my companions rambled about the town and entered the amphitheatre, which is used as a circus, and horsemanship was going on, and music filled the air. There was something startling in finding the building of ancient days used for its original purpose—the seats occupied by numerous spectators; the partial moonlight veiled with some mystery what the garish sun had disclosed as below Roman dignity in the assemblage.

You know the charm of these Lombard cities. Built by a prosperous people, they have a princely and magnificent appearance: their grandeur is what grandeur ought to be—not gloomy and menacing, but cheerful and inspiriting. The cities look built by a happy people in which to be happy—by a noble and rich people, whose tastes were dignified, and whose habits of life were generous.

We were promised a paper that would give us free course to Venice—for our Consul was at that city—and we were to be transferred to him, and meanwhile, our loss was made known in the country about. But, though the paper was promised, one or another of my friends was employed the whole morning in getting it properly signed. These delays were vexatious, more from the uncertainty that hung about the whole transaction, which kept us in attendance and perplexity. There was no help. We rambled to the garden, or walled podere, in which there is an open fosse, and an old sort of sarcophagus, which they show as Juliet’s tomb. That Juliet lived and died, as Baldelli recounts, there can be little doubt; but it is not likely that this was “the tomb of the Capulets.” Still such a scene—a garden, with its high antique walls, its Italian vegetation, and the blue sky, cloudless above—was a scene familiar to Juliet; and her spirit might hover here, even if her fair form was sepulchred elsewhere. It was a long walk thence to the tombs of the Scaligers. The most fairy architecture—not dark and Gothic, nor immured within the walls of a church;—a small open court encloses these elegant sepulchres.

At length we obtained the paper, and set out. We had engaged a veturino for Venice. Some hope had we that the railroad might be open from Padua to Mestri; if not, we were to be taken to Fusina, sleeping at Vicenza in our way. The charm of autumnal vegetation, in a rich vine country, adorned the road, and a distant view of the Alps bounded the scene. We arrived at Vicenza at eleven o’clock, by a bright moonlight. I was sorry to see no more of these Palladian palaces than the glimpses we caught from our carriage-windows. Architecture shows to peculiar advantage by the silver radiance of a full moon: its partial white light throws portions into strong relief, and the polished marble reflects its, so to speak, icy radiance.

We found, on our arrival at Padua, that the railroad was not open; so we proceeded along the banks of the Brenta to Venice. Many a scene, which I have since visited and admired, has faded in my mind, as a painting in the Diorama melts away, and another struggles into the changing canvass; but this road was as distinct in my mind as if traversed yesterday. I will not here dwell on the sad circumstances that clouded my first visit to Venice. Death hovered over the scene. Gathered into myself, with my “mind’s eye” I saw those before me long departed; and I was agitated again by emotions—by passions—and those the deepest a woman’s heart can harbour—a dread to see her child even at that instant expire—which then occupied me. It is a strange, but to any person who has suffered, a familiar circumstance, that those who are enduring mental or corporeal agony are strangely alive to immediate external objects, and their imagination even exercises its wild power over them. Shakspeare knew this, and the passionate grief of Queen Constance thence is endued with fearful reality. Wordsworth, as many years ago I remember hearing Coleridge remark, illustrates the same fact, when he makes an insane and afflicted mother exclaim,—

Holcroft, who was a martyr to intense physical suffering, alludes to the notice the soul takes of the objects presented to the eye in its hour of agony, as a relief afforded by nature to permit the nerves to endure pain. In both states I have experienced it; and the particular shape of a room—the progress of shadows on a wall—the peculiar flickering of trees—the exact succession of objects on a journey—have been indelibly engraved in my memory, as marked in, and associated with, hours and minutes when the nerves were strung to their utmost tension by the endurance of pain, or the far severer infliction of mental anguish. Thus the banks of the Brenta presented to me a moving scene; not a palace, not a tree of which I did not recognise, as marked and recorded, at a moment when life and death hung upon our speedy arrival at Venice.

And at Fusina, as then, I now beheld the domes and towers of the queen of Ocean arise from the waves with a majesty unrivalled upon earth. We were hailed by a storm of gondolieri; their vociferations were something indescribable, so loud, so vehement, so reiterated; till we had chosen our boat, and then all subsided into instant calm.

I confess that on this, my second entrance into Venice, the dilapidated appearance of the palaces, their weather-worn and neglected appearance, struck me forcibly, and diminished the beauty of the city in my eyes. We proceeded at once to the Leone Bianco, on the Canale Grande; they asked a very high price for their rooms, which rendered us eager, as we intended to remain here a month, to make immediate arrangements for removing elsewhere.

Our first act was to send our letters of introduction; the second, for two of us to go out to look for lodgings. The account brought back by our second dove from the ark was rather discouraging; but our first brought better things. Count —— and Signor —— loved and respected too sincerely the writer of our letters not to hasten on the instant to acknowledge them. Signor —— at once perceived and entered into our difficulty. I never saw such friendly zeal; nor was Count —— behind in kindness, though, as a younger man, and not so conversant with the perplexities of travellers, he could not be so efficient in his help. The thing was soon settled. Signor —— remarked that if we took lodgings we should want a cook, and that housekeeping in an unknown town, for a short space of time, was fraught with annoyance. There was a new hotel just established, which desired to be made known to the English, and which therefore would be moderate in its charges. We went to see the rooms. The Hotel d’Italia is situated in a canal, three oar-strokes from the Canale Grande; so far we lost what is most to be coveted at Venice—the view from our window of this ocean stream, with its bordering palaces,—but we were within three minutes’ walk of the Place of Saint Mark. Our rooms were on the second floor, a bed-room apiece, and a salon, spacious, turned to the sun, and being but just furnished, clean in the excess of newness. Many a palace had been spoiled of its marble architraves and ornaments to decorate this new hotel. We made our bargain; we calculated that, everything included, each of our party would pay nine pounds a month for lodging and board.

This done, we returned with our kind friends to the Leone Bianco, as we are not to remove till tomorrow. Evening has come, and the moon, so often friendly to me, now at its full, rises over the city. Often, when here before, I looked on this scene, at this hour, or later, for often I expected S.’s return from Palazzo Mocenigo, till two or three in the morning; I watched the glancing of the oars of the gondolas, and heard the far song, and saw the palaces sleeping in the light of the moon, which veils by its deep shadows all that grieved the eye and heart in the decaying palaces of Venice. Then I saw, as now I see, the bridge of the Rialto spanning the canal. All, all is the same; but as the Poet says—

I miss greatly the view of the Canale Grande from my window; however, the result, probably, of our being in a narrow canal will be, that I shall see much more of Venice: for were we among its most noble palaces, it would suffice and amply fill the hours, merely to loiter away the day gazing on the scene before us. As it is, though singularly Venetian—the wave-paved streets beneath, the bridge close at hand—the peep we get at wider waters at the opening,—it is but a promise of what we may find beyond, and tempts us to wander.

There is something so different in Venice from any other place in the world, that you leave at once all accustomed habits and everyday sights to enter enchanted ground. We live in a palace; though an inn, such it is: and other palaces have been robbed of delicately-carved mouldings and elegant marbles, to decorate the staircase and doorways. You know the composition with which they floor the rooms here, resembling marble, and called everywhere in Italy Terrazi Veneziani: this polished uniform surface, whose colouring is agreeable to the eye, gives an air of elegance to the rooms; then, when we go out, we descend a marble staircase to a circular hall of splendid dimensions; and at the steps, laved by the sea, the most luxurious carriage—a boat, invented by the goddess of ease and mystery, receives us. Our gondolier, never mind his worn-out jacket and ragged locks, has the gentleness and courtesy of an attendant spirit, and his very dialect is a shred of romance; or, if you like it better, of classic history: bringing home to us the language and accents, they tell us, of old Rome. For Venice

With the world of Venice before us, whither shall we go? I would not make my letter a catalogue of sights; yet I must speak of the objects that occupy and delight me.

First, then, to the Ducal palace. A few strokes of the oar took us to the noble quay, from whose pavement rises the Lion-crowned column, and the tower of St. Mark. The piazzetta is, as it were, the vestibule to the larger piazza.

But I spare description of a spot, of which there are so many thousand—besides numerous pictures by Cannaletti and his imitators, which tell all that can be told—show all that can be shown: to know Venice, to feel the influence of its beauty and strangeness, is quite another thing; perhaps the vignettes to Mr. Rogers’s Italy, by Turner, better than any other description or representation, can impart this.

From the piazzetta we entered a grass-grown court, once the focus of Venetian magnificence—for, at the top of that majestic flight of steps which rises from it, the Doges were crowned. The cortile is surrounded by arcades, decorated by two magnificent bronze reservoirs, and adorned by statues. The effect is light and elegant, even now that neglect has drawn a veil over its splendour. Yet Nature here is not neglectful; her ministrations may be said even to aid the work of the chisel and the brush, so beautiful are they in their effects.

The Scala de’ Giganti was before us, guarded by two almost colossal figures of Mars and Neptune, the size of whose statues gives the name to the steps: ascending them, we found ourselves in the open gallery that runs round three sides of the court, supported by the arcades. Yawning before us was the fatal lion’s mouth, receiver of those anonymous accusations, the terror of all, and destroyer of many of the citizens. Ringing a bell, we were admitted into the palace.

We do not visit it once only; day after day we wander about these magnificent, empty halls—sometimes going in by the hall of audience, sometimes ascending the Scala d’Oro, we enter in by the library. Sometimes we give ourselves up to minute view of the many frescoes, which record the history, the glories, and even the legends of Venice. At the dawn of the art, the more than royal government caused the walls to be thus adorned by Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, and subsequently by Titian: a fire unfortunately destroyed their work in 1577; and the present paintings are by Tintoretto, Paul Veronese, and others. On an easel in the library, is a picture in oil by Paul Veronese,—the Queen of Cyprus, Catherine Cornaro, a daughter of Venice, resigning her crown to the Doge—an iniquitous act enough on the part of the republic; as others, heirs of Cyprus, with claims more legitimate than Catherine’s, existed. There is the grace and dignity, characteristic of this painter, in the various personages of the group. It is to be raffled for, and the proceeds of the lottery are to be given to the infant schools; but the tickets are sold slowly, and the time when they are to be drawn is yet unfixed. There are marbles also, in this room, that deserve attention,—some among them are relics of antiquity; for the Rape of Ganymede is attributed to Phidias, and worthy of him. Sometimes we wander about, content only with the recollections called up by the spot; and we step out on the balconies which now command a view of the piazzetta, now of the inner courts, with a liberty and leisure quite delightful: and then again we pass on, from the more public rooms to the chambers, sacred to a tyranny the most awful, the most silent of which there is record in the world. The mystery and terror that once reigned, seems still to linger on the walls; the chamber of the Council of Ten, paved with black and white marble, is peculiarly impressive in its aspect and decorations: near at hand was the chamber of torture, and a door led to a dark staircase and the state dungeons.

The man who showed us the prisons was a character—he wanted at once to prove that they were not so cruel as they were represented, and yet he was proud of the sombre region over whose now stingless horrors he reigned. A narrow corridor, with small double-grated windows that barely admit light, but which the sound of the plashing waters beneath penetrates, encloses a series of dungeons, whose only respiratories come from this corridor, and in which the glimmering dubious day dies away in “darkness visible.” Here the prisoners were confined who had still to be examined by the Council. A door leads to the Ponte de’ Sospiri—now walled up—for the prisons on the other side are in full use for criminals: years ago I had traversed the narrow arch, through the open work of whose stone covering the prisoners caught one last hasty glimpse of the wide lagunes, crowded with busy life. Many, however, never passed that bridge—never emerged again to light. One of the doors in the corridor I have mentioned leads to a dark cell, in which is a small door that opens on narrow winding stairs; below is the lagune; here the prisoners were embarked on board the gondola, which took them to the Canal Orfano, the drowning-place, where, summer or winter, it was forbidden to the fishermen, on pain of death, to cast their nets. Our guide, whom one might easily have mistaken for a gaoler, so did he enter into the spirit of the place, and take pleasure in pointing out the various power it once possessed of inspiring despair; this guide insisted that the Pozzi and Piombi were fictions, and that these were the only prisons. Of course, this ignorant assertion has no foundation whatever in truth. From the court, as we left the palace, he pointed to a large window at the top of the building, giving token that the room within was airy and lightsome, and said with an air of triumph, Ecco la Prigione di Silvio Pellico!—Was he to be pitied when he was promoted to such a very enviable apartment, with such a very fine view? Turn to the pages of Pellico, and you will find that, complaining of the cold of his first dark cell, he was at midsummer transferred to this airy height, where multitudinous gnats and dazzling unmitigated sunshine nearly drove him mad. Truly he might regret even these annoyances when immured in the dungeons of Spielburg, and placed under the immediate and paternal care of the Emperor—whose endeavour was to break the spirit of his rebel children by destroying the flesh; whose sedulous study how to discover means to torment and attenuate—to blight with disease and subdue to despair—puts to shame the fly-killing pastime of Dioclesian. Thanks to the noble hearts of the men who were his victims, he did not succeed. Silvio Pellico bowed with resignation to the will of God—but he still kept his foot upon the power of the tyrant.

Having visited every corner of the palace, and heard the name given for every apartment, we asked for the private rooms in which the Doge slept and ate, which his family occupied. There were none. A private covered way led from these rooms to an adjoining palace, assigned for the private residence of the Doge. The council were too jealous to allow him to occupy the palace of the republic, except for the purposes of the state.

At other times, turning to the right, when we leave our canal, we are rowed up the Canale Grande to the Accademia delle Belle Arti, to feast our eyes on the finest works of Titian. The picture usually considered the chef-d’œuvre of this artist, the Martyrdom of St. Peter the Hermit, has, for the purpose of being copied, been removed from the dark niche in which it is almost lost in the church of the Saints Giovanni and Paolo, and is here. The subject is painful, but conceived with great power. A deep forest, in which the holy man is overtaken by his pursuers, sheds its gloom over the picture; his attendant flies, the most living horror depicted on his face; the saint has fallen, cut down by the sword of the soldier; an angel is descending from above, and, opening heaven, sheds the only light that irradiates the scene. It is very fine; but in spite of the celestial messenger, there is wanting that connecting link with Heaven,—the rapture of faith in the sufferer’s countenance, which alone makes pictures of martyrdom tolerable.

I was struck by the last picture painted by the venerable artist—Mary visiting the Tomb of Jesus. I was told that I ought not to admire it; yet I could not help doing so: there was something impressive in the mingled awe and terror in Mary’s face, when she found the body of Jesus gone.

The Marriage at Cana, by Paul Veronese, adorns these walls, removed from the refectory of the suppressed Convent of San Giorgio Maggiore. It is the finest specimen of the feasts which this artist delighted to paint; bringing together, on a large scale, groups of high-born personages, accompanied by attendants, and surrounded by a prodigality of objects of architecture, dress, ornaments, and all the apparatus of Patrician luxury. It is filled, Lanzi tells us, with portraits of princes and illustrious men then living.

We turned from the splendour of the feast to the more noble beauty of Titian’s Presentation of the Virgin—a picture I look at much oftener, and with far greater pleasure, than at the more celebrated Martyrdom. The Virgin, in her simplicity and youth; in the mingled dignity and meekness of her mien, as she is about to ascend the steps towards the High Priest, is quite lovely; the group of women looking at her, are inimitably graceful: there is an old woman sitting at the foot of the steps, marvellous from the vivacity and truth of her look and attitude. In another large apartment is the Assumption of Titian. The upper part is indeed glorious. The Virgin is rapt in a paradisiacal ecstacy as she ascends, surrounded by a galaxy of radiant beings, whose faces are beaming with love and joy, to live among whom were in itself Elysium. Such a picture, and the “Paradiso” of Dante as a commentary, is the sublimest achievement of Catholicism. Not, indeed, as a commentary did Dante write, but as the originator of much we see. The Italian painters drank deep at the inspiration of his verses when they sought to give a visible image of Heaven and the beatitude of the saints, on their canvass.

There are other and other rooms, all filled with paintings of merit. One hall contains the earlier productions of Gentile and Giovanni Bellini. The genius and the elevated piety of these painters give expression to the countenances; but the dry colouring, the want of foreshortening, the absence of grace everywhere except in the faces—which are often touchingly beautiful—all exhibit the infancy of the art.

The Academy contains also a hall for statues; in which the glossy marble of Canova’s Hebe looks, I am sorry to say, shrunk and artificial, beside the mere plaster casts of the nobler works of the Ancients.

There are three churches here in particular, which we have visited several times, with interest; the most venerable, the Westminster Abbey of Venice, is the church of Santa Maria de’ Frari, built in the middle of the thirteenth century. Every portion of this vast and noble edifice is filled with tombs and pictures, exciting respect and admiration. Many a Doge is here buried; and many monuments, some mausoleums in size and magnificence, some equestrian, some mere urns, Gothic or of the middle ages, crowd the walls. With more veneration we looked on the unadorned stone, inscribed with the honoured name of Titian. He died on the 9th September, 1575, at the age of ninety-nine, of the plague, and the visitation of this calamity caused the citizens to consign him hastily to the grave, without thought of marking it by any monument or inscription, so that the spot was almost forgotten. The mortuary registers of the church of S. Tommaso prove that he then died, and was here buried, and his name with a few words conjoined have been chiselled in the pavement. The republic of Venice projected a monument, which the troubled times and invasion of Napoleon prevented their accomplishing. Canova made a model subsequently; but, dying before he could execute it, the marble was entrusted to various sculptors, and is erected in his own honour in this church on the side opposite to the spot where Titian lies. There is something very impressive in the idea of this monument—a procession of figures entering the half-opened door of a dark tomb.

There are several pleasing pictures in the church, chiefly by Salviati; but its pride in painting is an altar-piece of Giovanni Bellini. He had lived long and painted much in fresco, when, at more than sixty years of age, he was initiated in oil painting by Antonello of Messina, and executed his chefs-d’œuvre,—a picture in the church of San Pietro, on the island of Murano, and that which we have looked at with interest and delight in the sacristy of this church. “It presents,” says Mr. Rio, “the imposing seriousness of a religious composition, in the figure of the Virgin, and in that of the saints which surround the throne on which she sits; in the faces of the angels it equals the most charming miniatures for freshness of colour and ingenuousness of expression. A foretaste of beatitude seems to have warmed the old man’s soul as he worked—he has removed the cloud of melancholy with which he formerly loved to cover the Virgin’s countenance; he no longer paints the Mother of the seven sorrows, but rather the cause of our joy.”^[14]

Exactly opposite our canal, at the entrance from the Quay to the Canale Grande, is the church of San Giorgio Maggiore; it is built chiefly from a model of Palladio, and is the noblest in Venice. Our gondola landed us at the spacious marble platform before the church. Its situation is most happy. Looked at from the Piazzetta, it is the most stately ornament of Venice. Looking from it, a view is commanded of the towers, and domes, and palaces, that illustrate the opposite shore. The church is immense, and adorned by several pictures of Titian. A convent adjoined, now destroyed; but as we rambled about, we found that they had kindly retained, and left open for the visits of strangers, the celebrated cloister, surrounded by an elegant colonnade of Ionic pillars, and the staircase, which is one of the boasts of Venice.

Somewhat above, within the Canale Grande, is the church of Santa Maria della Salute; this was built in 1631, a time when architecture had degenerated, and a multiplicity of ornaments was preferred to that simple harmonious style, whose perfection has to my eye the effect of one of Handel’s airs on the ear—filling it with a sense of exalted pleasure. Here was beauty, but it existed even in spite of the defects of the building; it sprang from its situation, its steps laved by the sea, its marble walls reflecting the prismatic colour of the waves, its commanding a view of great architectural beauty; within also it contains pictures of eminent merit.

The roof of the Sacristy possesses three Titians, which overpaid you for twisting your neck to look at them. Methinks they ought to convert the exclusive admirer of the mystic school, who would confine painting to the expression of one, it is true, of the most exalted among the passions—adoration, love, and contemplation of Divine perfection. These paintings are, what surely pictures ought to be allowed to be, dramatic in the highest sense; they tell a story; they represent scenes with unsurpassed truth and vigour. The killing of Goliath by David, is admirable. The countenance of the youthful hero, as he stands unarmed, “with native honour clad,” is instinct with the glow of victory, purified by his artless reliance on the God of his fathers. The Sacrifice of Isaac, is the only representation of that tremendous act that ever pleased me: generally it inspires pain—often disgust; a father, unimpassioned and pitiless, about to cut the throat of his innocent and frightened child. But Titian’s imagination allowed him to conceive the feelings that must have actuated and supported both father and son—that of unquestioning certainty that what God ordered was to be obeyed, not only without a murmur, but with alacrity and a serene conviction that good alone could be the result. In particular, the countenance of Isaac is the most touching commentary on this story; it displays awe of approaching death, without terror; it is solemn, and yet lit up by that glance into eternity, and unquestioned resignation to a will higher and better than his own, which alone could sanctify the horror of the moment.

But, perhaps, surpassing these in power, is the Death of Abel. Usually, you see a man striking his brother the death-blow, as it seems, with cold-blooded brutality: here, you behold the wild frenzy that transported the fratricide out of himself. I have seen the passion of violent and terrible anger well expressed in two pictures only—this one, and that at Berlin, where the Duke of Gueldres clenches his fist at his father.

One day, in one of our many rambles, we tried to get into a church, but it was at the worst hour for such a visit—between one and four—when the churches are closed. We tried to find the sacristan, when a workman came to us—“You cannot get in there,” he said; “but I will show you something.” He took us to the building at which he was at work—a convent for Dominicans. The French, during their rule, suppressed all the convents; they are being revived, even in Lombardy, where, till lately, there were none. There was nothing attractive in a modern house divided off into narrow cells, two of which were windowless, and pointed out as luoghi di castigo, by our guide; but it was curious (whether satisfactory or not, I leave to others to decide,) to see this building, narrow of dimensions, mean in its proportions, altogether insignificant in size and aspect, replace the stately edifices in which monks of olden time passed their fives.

The church of the Jesuits is in the ornate style dear to this order, and is even in worse taste than usual. Before the high altar is spread the imitation of a carpet, formed of party-coloured marbles. Even the pictures—many of which are by Palma—that hang around, are robbed of their beauty by their juxtaposition to heavy, inelegant ornaments.

We were glad to leave it, and to turn our steps to the church of the Saints Giovanni and Paolo, a very large and majestic edifice; it is more venerable than any other in Venice, and belongs to the middle ages; the name of the architect is lost: an inscription under the organ only tells us, that it was begun in 1246, and consecrated in 1430. It is filled with magnificent tombs of the old Doges, and rich in pictures by Bonifazio, Bassano, Bellini—the famous Martyrdom of Titian is taken hence. We often wander about its vast and stately nave, reading, with pleasure, the historical names on the tombs—taking delight in the many remains of the middle ages—and filled more and more with veneration for the energy, magnificence, and taste of the Venetians.

I cannot tell you of all we see, or it would take you as long to read my letter as we shall be at Venice. As we remain a month, we do not crowd our day with sights; our gondoliers come in the morning, and we pass our time variously. Sometimes, after visiting a single church, we are rowed over to Lido; and, crossing a narrow strip of sand, scattered with Hebrew tombstones, find ourselves on the borders of the ocean; we look out over the sea on vessels bound to the East, or watch the fishing-boats return with a favourable wind, and glide, one after the other, into port, their graceful lateen sails filled by the breeze. We thus loiter hours away, especially on cold days, when we have been chilled at home; but Lido has a heat of its own—its sands receiving and retaining the sun’s rays—which we do not enjoy among the marbles and pavements of Venice.

As the sun sinks behind the Euganean hills, we recross the lagune. Every Monday of this month is a holiday for the Venetian shopkeepers and common people; they repair in a multitude of gondolas to Lido, to refresh themselves at the little inn—to meet in holiday trim, and make merry on the sea-sands. We pass them in crowds as we return on that day. Our way is, sometimes (according as the tide serves,) under the walls of the madhouse, celebrated in Shelley’s poem of Julian and Maddalo—

Yet not quite windowless; for there are grated, unglazed apertures—against which the madmen cling—and gaze sullenly, or shout, or laugh, or sing, as their wild mood dictates.

We often allow our gondolier to take us where he will; and we see a church, and we say, what is that? and make him seek the sacristan, and get out to look at something strange and unexpected. Thus we viewed the church of St. Sebastian, which contains the chef-d’œuvre of Paul Veronese, the Martyrdom of St. Mark. There is something in the works of this artist, which, without being ideal or sublime, is graceful and dignified—according to the dignity of this world;—his groups are formed of the high-born and high-bred, and all the concomitants of his pictures are conceived in the same style of mundane but elegant magnificence. Sometimes we walk: passing through the busy Merceria, we get entangled, and lose ourselves in the calle of Venice;—we see an open door and peep in, and ask where we are from a passer by; and hear a name of historic renown, and find ourselves viewing, by chance, one of the wonders of the place. A favourite walk is straight across towards the north, till we reach the Fondamenti Nuovi, a handsome quay, from which we command a view of many of the smaller islands; and far distant, the Julian Alps and the mountains of Friuli. It is to me a most exalted pleasure to look on these heaven-climbing shapes.

Sometimes, if the morning be “kerchiefed in a comely cloud,” and it feels chilly, we cross merely to the Canale della Giudecca, which is almost a lagune, and being very much wider than the Canal Grande, is not so convenient for common traffic; a handsome street or quay, turned to the south, borders the water—which, receiving the noonday sun, forms a pleasant and warm promenade.

Madame de Genlis exclaims, “Quelle triste ville que Venise!” For those who love the confusion and clatter of carriages, the garish look of smart shops, and a constant flux and reflux of passers-by, it is indeed dull. There is no noise (except the church bells, of which there is too much)—no dust; the waters sparkle silently at your feet; the marble palaces catch their radiance and are dressed in prismatic colours, reflected from the waves. It is a place where you may dream away your life, quite forgetful of the rubs, thorns, and hard knocks of more bustling cities.

But if Venice be tranquil, come with me beyond Venice, and tell me what name to give to the superlative stillness that reigns when we cross the lagunes to the islands—Murano, Mazzorbo, Burano Torcello. Little remains on them, except the churches, built in the younger days of Venice; several of these are magnificent in marbles, and interesting from their pictures, painted in the infancy of the art. We rambled about, and our very footsteps seemed unnaturally to invade the stillness that dwells on these desert shores, beside the waveless lagune. For a time we might fancy ourselves—

We were pleased; but quiet became lethargy; and the dank grass and marshy ground looked unhealthy. We were glad to be rowed back to Venice.

It was much pleasanter to visit the Armenian convent. This is the beau idéal of gentlemanly and clerical seclusion. Its peaceful library; its cultivated and shady garden; the travelled tastes of its inmates, who all come from the East, and are not imprisoned by their vows, but travel on various missions, even as far as that Ultima Thule which we consider the centre of all busy life—the view of the domes and towers of Venice; and further still, of the Euganean hills to the west, and of the Alps to the north; the sight you caught of some white sails on the far ocean;—all this gave promise of peace without ennui—a retreat—but not a tomb.

Thus I dwell on the beauty, the majesty, the dreamy enjoyments of Venice. I will now endeavour, though the time I stay is too short to enable me to observe much, to tell you something of the Venetians.

When I was here last, the duties on all imports to Venice were high, living became expensive, and the city languished;—it is now a free port; everything enters without paying the slightest toll, with the exception of tobacco. The Emperor of Austria grows a wretched plant, to which he gives this name, on his paternal acres, and will not allow his subjects to smoke anything else. If that were the only misdeed of his government, I should not quarrel with him, but only with the people, who do not thereon forego the idle habit of cigars altogether.

The free port gives a far greater appearance of life and activity to the city than it formerly had; and some luxuries—such as Turkish coffee, and, indeed, all things from the East, are much better and cheaper than with us. To the Venetians, coffee stands in lieu of wine, beer, spirits, every exciting drink, and they obtain it in perfection at a very low price. The Austrian is doing what he can to revive trade, so to increase his store; for two thirds of the taxes of the Regno Lombardo-Veneto go to Vienna. He desires that railroads should be made, and one is being constructed from Milan to Venice. Nay, they are in the act of building a bridge for the railroad carriages from Mestre to the centre of the city; however convenient, it is impossible not to repine at this innovation; the power, the commerce, the arts of Venice are gone, the bridge will rob it of its romance.

With scarcely any exception, all the Venetians of the higher ranks are at Villeggiatura at this season, so we have seen but very few of them. The manner in which the upper class live is, I fancy, monotonous enough. In the winter, the Viceroy comes from Milan to inhabit his palace, and gives a few balls. Some ladies open their houses for conversazioni in the evening; but the usual style is for each lady to have her circle, and the general drawing-room is the Opera-house; or they assemble in the Piazza of San Marco. There is a plentiful supply of chairs before the doors of the principal caffès, and they sit and converse. It is not etiquette for a lady to enter a caffè, and they are shocked at the English women, who do not perceive the difference between eating their ice, or sipping their coffee, in the open Piazza, and entering the shop itself. To sit or to walk, listening to the band, and exchanging visits in this glorious drawing-room, lighted up by the mighty lamps of heaven, is, especially to an unhacknied stranger, a very pleasant way of passing a summer evening. The caffè to which the noble Venetians resort, is that of Suttil. Foreigners go next door to Florian, where Galignani is taken in, which is an attraction to the English.

That reading does not flourish here, may be gathered from the fact that there is no circulating library, nor any literary society, such as are frequent in country towns in France and England, where people subscribe among one another for the supply of books. The French Consul tried to establish one, but did not succeed. I think it is Doctor Gregory who says, reading novels is better than a total incapacity to take an interest in books, since it enlarges the mind more than no reading at all. It is sometimes alleged, that in a state of society where there is no thought nor desire for the acquisition of knowledge, it is better not to read, than to imbibe the opium or exciting cordials of the usual run of novels. The question is, whether these works are not a step towards awakening a desire for nobler and more useful mental culture. Meanwhile, to live among a people who do not read—do not desire to learn—presents to us a singular phasis of society. What can they do? Many things, it may be said, remain for women in the discharge of their duties, without becoming blue; but the fact is, that a desire for improvement is the salt of the human intellect; that a wish to acquire knowledge is natural to a well-conditioned mind, and ought especially to exist among individuals of that class of society which enjoys uninterrupted leisure. The Italians are delicately organised, and have intuitive taste in music and most of the fine arts; but accomplishments, as they are called, cannot be cultivated to any extent, nor can even a love of duty subsist among the idle, which the Italians proverbially are.

Still, among the Venetians, as all over Italy, you must not suppose because they are ignorant—because they live in a confined routine—because to make love in their youth, and take care of their money in later years, be the occupation of the greater number, that you find the provincial tone of a French or English country town. Graceful manners—accents modulated by the kindest courtesy—suavity that is all gentleness, and a desire to do more than please, to be useful, is innate among them—it reigns in every class of society, and wins irresistibly.

When I was last at Venice, many many years ago, I knew no Venetians, and it so happened that the English whom I saw chose to erect themselves into censors of this people, and to speak of them in unmeasured terms of censure. New to Italy, we believed those who had lived there long. Shelley, in his letters and poems, echoes these impressions. I cannot pretend to say with what justice such opinions were formed: I do not know whether the Venetians are improved. If a foreigner came to England, and chose to associate with the most vicious of our country people, both nobles and that worst race who live by the vices of the rich, he might find as much to abhor as Lord B— represented as detestable at Venice. But then there is another class among us,—and he declared there was no other here. We know, indeed, generally speaking, that Italian morality is not ours; but if it falls short in some things, perhaps in others, if we knew them well, we should be obliged to confess its superiority.

The duties of husband and wife are in England observed with even more sanctity than they obtain credit for. But in how many instances do our affections and duties begin and end there—with the exception of those exercised by the parents towards their very young children. We all know that when a son or daughter marries, they literally fulfil the dictum of Adam, “therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave unto his wife.” Our family affections centre in the small focus of the married pair, and few and ineffectual are the radii that escape and go beyond.

Now, it must be acknowledged that, however endearing at the outset, however necessary and proper, to a certain extent, such a state of things may be, it often degenerates after a little time into the most sordid selfishness. The Italians are deficient in this self-dedication to one, but they have wider extended family attachments, of a very warm and faithful description. We who consider it a necessity of life to have a menage to ourselves—each couple in its nest—cannot understand the harmony and affection nourished in a little republic, often consisting of grandfather and grandmother, who may be said to have abdicated power, and live in revered retirement—their days not counted and grudged, as with us is too frequently the case: then comes father and mother, respected and loved—and then brothers and sisters. If a sister marries, she becomes a part of another family, and goes away. The son brings his wife under his father’s roof; but the size of their houses renders them independent in their daily life. The younger sons are not apt to marry, because, in addition to their want of fortune, too many women, essentially strangers, would thus be brought under one roof, and would be the occasion of discord. We know how readily the human heart yields to a law which it looks on as irrefragable; submitting to single life, uncles learn to love their nephews and nieces as if they were their own offspring, and a strong family chain is thus formed. A question may arise as to how much of family tyranny turns these links into heavy fetters. In the first place, their families are seldom as numerous as with us. The necessities of their position fall lightly on the males. All over the world younger sons seldom marry; or only do so to exchange luxury for straitened circumstances; and younger sons who continue to grow old under the paternal roof, sharing by right the luxuries to which they were born, and in which they were educated, are better off than our younger sons, who are often thrust forth from the luxurious home of their youth, to live on a bare pittance in a wretched lodging.

Unmarried women all over the Continent have so much the worst of it, that few remain single. How they contrive to dispose of their girls, now convents are in disuse, I cannot tell; but, as I have said, there are not so many as with us, and they usually contrive to marry. At times you may find a maiden aunt, given up to devotion, who sheds a gentle and kindly influence over the house. It does not strike me that, as regards daughters who survive their parents, things are much better managed with us.

This family affection nurtures many virtues, and renders the manners more malleable, more courteous, and deferential. For the rest, though I cannot pretend to be behind the scenes—and though, as I have said, their morality is confessedly not ours—I am sure there is much both to respect as well as love among the Italians.

The great misfortune which the nobles labour under is, in the first place, a bad education, and afterwards the want of a career. The schools for children are as bad as they can be;—at their universities there is a perpetual check at work, to prevent the students imbibing liberal opinions; for as the governments of Italy consider that those who dedicate themselves to study and reflection are sure to be inimical to them, so do they look on such with jealousy and distrust, while sharp watch is kept on the professors, to prevent their ranging beyond the bounds of science, into the demesnes of philosophy.^[15] Young men at college, however, are all liberal, all ardent for the freedom of their country, all full of the noblest, though too often the most impracticable views for her regeneration. They leave college,—and what is to become of them? If they have already distinguished themselves for boldness of opinions, or even for great capacity and love of knowledge, they are marked men; they are not permitted to travel;—in any case they have no career, unless they give in at once their adherence to Austria; and, certainly, however hopelessness or misfortune may tame and induce them to do this in after times, at their first outset in life, an Italian would feel as if, in so doing, he were a traitor to his country. Some few there are—as many perhaps as with us—chosen spirits, who can pursue their course, devoted to study, or the service of their fellow creatures—abstracted from the frivolity or vices of society. But the majority have either never felt the true touch of patriotism and a desire for improvement, or find such incompatible with worldly pleasure. There is little or no public employment; the marine is but a name; the army, no true Italian would enter; if they did, they would be quartered far away from their native country, in Hungary or Bohemia; they have nothing to occupy their minds, and of course plunge into dissipation. Play is the whirlpool that engulphs most of them. As with us during the middle of the last century—as among a certain set of our present aristocracy—play is their amusement, their occupation, their ruin;—many of the noblest Italian families are passing away, never more to be heard of, the heirs of their wealth having lost all in play.—New men, mostly of Jewish extraction, who have gained by banking, stock jobbing, and money lending, what the others have lost by their extravagance, are rising on their downfall.

A curious anomaly exists among the nobility of the north of Italy. It is well known that titles in England are on a different footing from those on the Continent, and hence are far more respected. In England, a peer is an hereditary legislator, he is certain to possess a comparatively large fortune; so that, to be a noble with us, is to be in the possession of power and influence. His sons, except the eldest, enjoy little of all this, and in the next generation they sink into untitled gentry. In Italy, indeed every where abroad, the descendants of a noble are also noble to the end of time. The individuals of this order, in consequence, intermarry only among one another, and flourish as a numerous class, wholly apart; but of course the respect in which titles are held is greatly diminished, as power and fortune by no means constantly attend them.

At present many of the most illustrious families of Venice and Lombardy have lost their titles. Thus it happened. On Napoleon’s downfall, when Venice and her territories and other parts of Northern Italy were ceded to Austria, the kingdom Lombardo-Veneto was formed, and all those persons who wished to become nobles of the new state, were ordered to prove their titles by producing the diplomas and documents establishing the same. The Venetians could easily have complied, since the names of the nobility were, under the republic, inscribed in the libro d’oro; for, although the original of this book was burnt by the republicans in 1797, several copies existed; and the Venetian nobles were informed, that on presenting a petition to request leave, and paying the tax or fees, they might retain the titles of their forefathers. Many who were descended from families which had given doges to the state, refused to petition.—“What is the house of Hapsberg,” they said, “that it should pretend to ennoble the offspring of old Rome?” Nor would they deign to request honours from the invaders of their country, who carried their insolence so far as to demand proof of noble origin from those who, for centuries, had illustrated the pages of history with their names.^[16]

The nobility of Lombardy were also called upon to ask for the confirmation of the titles which they already possessed, by producing the documents that proved them. Very few were able to comply, as the Jacobins had destroyed their papers when they seized on all public and private archives, and burned them. Thus many of the most ancient and illustrious families are deprived of the titles which, for centuries, they enjoyed. These regulations concern that portion of Lombardy lately incorporated in the Austrian kingdom. With regard to the Milanese nobility, and that belonging to the states which Austria possessed before the French Revolution, the edicts touched only the new nobility, for which the Austrian government entertained an antipathy, and was desirous of finding a pretence for depriving of rank; it was often enabled to succeed by taking advantage of some flaw in their diplomas, or in the manner in which they had fulfilled the conditions contained in the article of the constitution which treats of feudal tenures. It also forced the nobles of Lombardy, who had received additional rank, to choose whether they would belong to the ancient nobility by their old titles, or to the modern by their new. Litta and Visconti, who had been made dukes, as well as others who had been advanced in rank, chose the former, and thus, though of ancient race, belong to the new nobility.

But to return to the more important topic of the state of knowledge in Italy—for this matter of titles is held by themselves in great contempt, and only thought of as marking the desire of Austria to arrogate power and to annoy. The Italians care very little for titles; and I have often heard them say, that until they visited France or England, they scarcely knew or cared whether they possessed any.

You must not suppose, from what I say, that Italy in no way shares in the enlightenment of the present times. Moreover, the Emperor of Austria admits the diffusion of science in his dominions. Happy Italians, to whom is conceded one path, on which their minds may proceed in the journey onwards for which God created man. The Austrian government is aware that their own native subjects can go pottering on with theories and science, without one aspiration to become men, in the free and noble sense of self-government, stirring in their hearts: it supposes that it will be the same in Italy; but the people of this country are made of different clay; and it seems to me, that as Jehovah hardened the heart of Pharaoh for his own destruction, so does he soften the heart of Prince Metternich, thus to admit a system of improvement into Lombardy, which will hereafter prove the instrument of the overthrow of his power. Science is generally pursued by clever Italians as a mode of employing their understandings, which does not excite the suspicion of government; and scientific meetings, such as assemble with us at stated times in the great provincial towns, take place yearly in Italy. This season the learned met in Padua; and at the inn where we refreshed ourselves in that city, we found tables spread for three hundred Dotti, as they are called. A ridiculous story came to us the other day from across the lagune. A student of the university looking over the bridge, and seeing come up the river a barge full of pumpkins, cried out, “Vengono i dotti—see, they have sent their heads before them!” Testa di zucca, or pumpkin-head, answers to our phrase of blockhead. This, however, was regarded as a serious insult, and the offender has been put under arrest, and is to be imprisoned till the great men leave Padua.

There is another point for which the government shews toleration, on condition that its own political catechism is taught—infant schools. I visited one, and was much interested. It belongs to our district of Venice, and is one among many. It was for both boys and girls under the age of nine. I saw the girls’ room first. They learn according to the system now prevalent everywhere for teaching the poor—Bell’s and Lancaster’s, as it used to be called. There were some thirty or forty girls; and I am sorry to say they did not shew so well as the boys; the cause, I trust, being that the head-teacher, a priest, attended only to the latter. I do not mean to detract from the governesses who presided over both schools: they seemed sensible and zealous, and in every way the whole thing was respectable. But the priest, a young man, has a passion for arithmetic; he teaches it with ardour to his pupils, who have a happy knack for the same; and the sums we witnessed brought to a happy conclusion by these little fellows, all under nine years of age, and one between seven and eight being the cleverest, were to me quite prodigious. Once the master disputed a point; the boys insisted they were right, and so it proved. We gave the stuns. As to the correctness of the computation, we trusted a good deal to the honour of the governesses and master; but in truth, to see the eager and intelligent way in which the boys answered, was quite sufficient, for no one could be so ready and glad unless he felt himself in the right. These children were not pretty. I have often remarked, that handsome as the Italian common people are, their children (probably from bad food) are seldom good-looking.

Unfortunately, when the children leave the infant schools, their education ends; they fall back on the habits of indolence and ignorance indigenous here. How far their arithmetical studies may conduce to their honesty, I cannot guess. I am not one of those who say,