appears to think there can be any rational reason for preferring your own drawing-room to Florien's wide-spreading awning; and every body tells me, that if I would but remain there, like the natives, till two or three o'clock in the morning, I should only find the air become more and more delicious, and the enjoyment of the company more animated.

We brought but six letters of introduction with us to Venice, and even these have not been available, as the families have not yet returned from their summer residences, except in two cases. . . . both of these being English families, and the only ones, I believe, who are permanently resident at Venice.... From both of these we have received great kindness, and having wonderfully little time to spare, feel disposed to be fully satisfied by the obliging attentions we receive from them, and the very sufficient local information they give us . . . . which really leaves no room for regret that we have not a larger acquaintance. To say the truth, by the time we re-enter our gondola after the nightly promenade at St. Mark's, we most of us seem to think that it is time the day should end for us. Far different may very naturally be the feelings of the gay Venetians, who, instead of passing the whole of a long morning, as we do, in floating and flitting from church to church, from palace to palace, and from gallery to gallery, usually remain in bed, as I am told, till about two o'clock in the afternoon. . . . And even then, if report says true,

The ladies, at least, being rather celebrated for avoiding all out-of-door intercourse with the sun, and rarely making their appearance en plein air till he has taken his departure to the west. This mode of existence most surely would not suit me long, but its very strangeness is for the moment agreeable; and while I am here, I would have nothing changed from what it is, though quite aware the while that I should not like it long. Excessively as I enjoy, and infinitely as I admire Venice, I never feel for a moment beguiled into the belief that I could wish to live here. Not, however, that any thing in the very slightest degree approaching to privation of any kind would appear to threaten those who reside here. . . . The fruit is among the finest we have seen and had I not been so long in Florence, I should say that flowers, too, were abundant. . . . the vegetable market is very

...

well supplied for the season. . . . The opera, I believe, fully as good as most in Italy at the present moment. . . . the shops of all kinds most abundantly supplied, and no symptom in any direction that the few miles of water which divide the magnificent city from her supplies are ever likely to occasion the slightest inconvenience.. Nevertheless, I should not like to think that Venice was to be my home. . . . Were I younger, perhaps, and less closely wedded, by long use, to all from which she so widely differs. . . . it might be otherwise,

96

GENERAL REMARKS ON VENICE.

and my zealous admiration and delighted wonder might lead me to wish for long years that should be passed in gazing at her unequalled splendour, and luxuriating in the sweet repose of her gondolas. . . . But as it is, I feel, as I remember in my youthful days to have felt at some great fête or festival. delighted, charmed, amused, and happy, almost to excess; yet never dreaming that any thing so strangely beautiful could endure

or even if it could, that I should always wish to stay and look at it. Even in the midst of all my admiration and delight, I have a constant feeling that nothing which I see is natural. The production of Venice was a prodigious tour de force, worthy to be seen, and wondered at, by all men, but in no way connected with our ordinary mode of living, and having no more to do with it than the tournament of Lord Egleton or the coronation of Queen Victoria.

LETTER V.

The Academia delle Belle Arti. The Assumption. Christ on the Steps of the Temple.- Peter Martyr.-Canova.- The Barbarigo Palace. Convent of the Armenians. - Lord Byron. The Madhouse.- Mr. Milne.-The Campanile.-The Protestant Burying Ground. - The Confraternity of San Rocca. - TintoMemorial of the Plague.

retto.

Venice, October, 1841.

THE senses are so dazzled and almost bewildered, I think, on arriving here, that we are tempted at first to run (or rather swim) up and down, staring at one thing, peeping at another, and endeavouring to find our way about the strange new world, much as a cat does on arriving at a new abode. Several days were thus employed, I will not say wasted, before we felt at leisure to devote a morning to the Academy "delle Belle Arti,”.... but at length, nous voilà on the step of the quay that leads to it. As usual we told our gondoliers to wait, but they knew what we were about better than we did ourselves, and sagaciously asked if they had not better go to dinner.

Is there any thing that so bewilders the pen as the attempt to lead a friend with one into a gal

lery of first-rate pictures? It is wisest, per

VOL. II.

H

98

66

THE ASSUMPTION.

haps, to part at the door, and to say, on returning, go in " .... or "do not go in," according to our notions of what we have found there. . . . More than this comes, I am sadly afraid, from the mere love of talking. It will not, therefore, be so much for your sake, as for that of indulging myself a little, if I say any thing about the pictures here, for I am perfectly aware that I might go on for ever, without making you understand an understand an atom more

about them than you do at present.

You have heard, you know, of the Assumption the d capo of Titian, which had been opere hanged, rather than hung, at the very top of the Frari, and, like its author, buried beneath the roof of that dark old church. . . . This marvel of marvels, when it was discovered some score of years ago by that blessed man called Cicognara, was absolutely covered by a coat of damp black dust, which rendered even its subject undiscernible. . . . The curious and learned Cicognara however, being happily seized with a fit of artistique research, caused himself to be hoisted to a level with the canvass, and having applied to it, by the aid of his pockethandkerchief, that well-known test with which artists and amateurs are happily provided by nature, he speedily discovered enough of the handling of what was beneath the black veil, to induce his taking immediate measures for having it brought down and cleaned. It is only after you have seen it, that you will be able to understand the extent