The silence of Venice constitutes in my opinion, one of its greatest charms. This absence of noise is peculiarly soothing to the mind, and disposes it to contemplation. I looked out from my balcony last night, when the grand canal reflected a thousand brilliant stars on its water, turbid though it be; and the lights streaming from the windows on each side, showed like golden columns on its bosom. Gondola after gondola glided along, from some of which soft music stole on the ear, and sometimes their open windows revealed some youthful couple with their guitars, or some more matured ones, partaking their light repast of fruit and cakes; while not unfrequently a solitary male figure was seen reclined on the seat absorbed in the perusal of some book. The scene realized some of the descriptions of Venice read years ago; and except that the gondolas were small in number, and the lights from the houses few and far between, I could have fancied that no change had occurred since the descriptions I referred to were written. The morning light reveals the melancholy alteration; and as I stood on the same balcony to-day, and saw the muddy canal with a few straggling gondolas gliding over it, the defaced and mutilated palaces, and the reduced population, all brought out into distinctness

by the bright beams of the sun, I could hardly believe it was the same scene that looked so well last night. Moonlight is a great beautifier, and especially of all that has been touched by the finger of decay, from a palace to—a woman. It softens what is harsh, renders fairer what is fair, and disposes the mind to a tender melancholy in harmony with all around.

The endless variety in the architecture of Venice pleases me. It looks as if the natives of many lands, and as many ages, had congregated to build dwellings and churches according to the different tastes of each; for here may be traced the massive piles and round arches of remote times, the fantastic and grotesque style of the middle ages, the richly decorated Saracenic, and the stately buildings whose fronts are encrusted with fine sculpture, that even still retain their pristine beauty.

Where but at Venice could be found crowded together specimens of the Greek, Roman, Gothic, and Saracenic styles, blending into rich masses, rendering this city a place where every traveller may find some remembrances of his home?

The arcades of the Piazza of St. Mark present an amusing picture, being appropriated to cafés, and shops principally jewellers', the windows of

which glitter with trinkets, tempting many a brighteyed Venetian maid and matron to loiter before them in longing admiration, while groups of people, dressed in the garbs of their different countries, from the turbaned Turk and quick-eyed Greek down to the staid and soberly-attired Englishman, are seen moving along, giving the scene, life and

animation.

This moving mass of the natives of so many countries, accords well with the equally heterogeneous masses of architecture beneath which they are seated; and though this extraordinary mixture of style in the buildings cannot be defended as examples of pure taste, nevertheless the effect is, at least to me, very delightful; and while gazing on it, I find myself no more disposed to censure it than I should be to decry a bed of rare tulips of various hues, because their variety was more rich than chaste.

This strange mixture of architecture seems to tell the history of its origin. Might not the victorious Venetians, returning from distant lands, have wished to perpetuate the memory of their achievements, by imitating the buildings beheld there? and this jumble, so censured by connoisseurs, may have had a peculiar charm for them, by reminding them of past glory. But though, without this prestige, I

confess (though by so doing I give reason to have my taste called in question) I greatly admire the general effect of the Piazza of St. Mark; and that this very mélange is perhaps one of the causes of my admiration, so novel, yet so gorgeous is its

appearance.

The interior of the church of St. Mark is more curious than beautiful. It reminds one of the painter, who not being able to render his Venus lovely, made her fine; for a profuse expenditure of the most costly materials have failed to produce a good effect. Nevertheless, the want of light, the multiplicity of ornament, and, above all, the grim yet gaudy figures in mosaic, starting forth in meretricious relief from the gilt-covered walls, have a mystical appearance that takes one back to the dark ages, when the grotesque was invested with an almost solemn character by the superstitious artists of the olden time.

Here is collected the spoils of many countries, as well as the chefs-d'œuvre of Venetian art: productions demonstrative of the chaste elegance of the Greek chisel are contrasted by some gaudy specimen of Byzantine taste. The thirty years' labour of Sansovino, the gate on which is perpetuated, in bronze, the likeness of that Aretino, to write whose

licentious satires required that his nature should have partaken largely of the qualities of the metal on which his features are here stamped, finds no pendant in the door of the baptistry, studded over with saints and legends, and said to have been brought from Constantinople. The innumerable columns and pillars of the rarest marbles, the gilded arched roofs, the pavement of porphyry and jasper, in some parts incrusted with turquoises, the glowing ultra-marine mingled with gold and the Mosaic, called the Pala d'oro, the effect of which is wonderfully rich, together with the numberless statues scattered around, gives St. Mark's the appearance of the palace of some necromancer; who, forbidden the light of Heaven, had enriched his subterranean dwelling, for such its darkness makes it look, with all of rich and rare that could console him for this privation.

Nor does the fierce lion rampant, placed over the second arch of the entrance, as if to guard the approach, decrease the appearances just alluded to; for instead of recognizing in it the symbol of the saint, as pourtrayed in the vision of Ezekiel, it might be taken for the picture of some familiar of the wizard, menacing all intruders on his privacy.

The statue that most pleased me in St. Mark's is

VOL. III.

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