that we have eaten ices in the Pedrocchi coffeehouse? They tell me that it is the largest coffeehouse in the world, and I do not feel the slightest difficulty in believing this; for it exceeds in extent the very largest stretch to which coffee-house imagination can reach.... as far at least as my faculties enable me to judge. And now farewell!... I must pack up my writing-desk, which is not to be opened again till I reach Venice.

LETTER III.

Arrival at Venice. Byron and Milnes.-Enough left in Venice to admire. The startling Novelty of every Scene. - Luxury of a Gondola. Sunset on the Grand Canal.- The Beauty of its Serpentine Line.-St. Mark's Church.

Venice, October, 1841.

"HAVE you swam in a gondola?"... If you have not, there is a wide difference between us; ....so great a difference indeed, that I really scarcely know how to talk to you in a way that shall be perfectly intelligible. I have entered upon a new state of existence, which, while it lasts, places me at a prodigious distance in advance of all those who have still for the first time to traverse "the still lagune.”

...

I am very often, when greatly struck by some new spectacle, fearful of expressing what it makes me feel; . . . . affectation, hyperbole, exaggeration, are accusations that seem perpetually staring me in the face; . .... but if I speak of Venice at all, I must arm myself in proof, and care not for the scoffers who either have not seen, or seeing, did not feel, the marvellously un-dull realities of this most wonderful city. I have heard of places ex-paro

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chial, which have peculiar privileges and peculiar penalties annexed to them, and Venice may, I think, be called ex-earthly, and, in like manner, both boast of and deplore her singularity. The intense pleasure, the immoderate admiration, the almost intoxicating excitement produced by the splendid novelty and the novel splendour of every object that meets the eye, is often checked by the reflection that not only in beauty and in splendour is she alone, but in dependance also; for morsel she eats, and every drop of pure water that she drinks, must come from that same prosaic terra firma which she seems to have started from in pettish pride.

every

I might, I think, defy you to conceive any thing much more unlike the world you live in than is that which I inhabit now. . . . There are particular points of view that Canaletto has represented with admirable accuracy and effect; nevertheless, the most watery amongst them carries no startling assurance with it that all is water; nothing that can be either said or painted can possibly convey any full, true, and adequate idea of what all must feel on approaching Venice. The manner of the approach, too, is so entirely new, so unlike any movement to which we have ever submitted ourselves before, that, as I have told you already, I seem to have entered upon a new state of existence. Considering how much charming poetry has been poured out in descriptions of

BYRON AND MILNES.

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Venice, I am surprised to find that so few of the graphic passages have left true portraits on my mind. I think that Byron's verses have gone nearest to preparing me for its visible aspect; while Milnes' light morsels . . . . which, for power of penetrating as they go, and leaving marks of having touched you, are like winged arrows tipped with steel.... these have more forestalled the feelings it inspires. The first thirteen lines of the fourth canto of Childe Harold are excellent, not only from being exquisitely poetical, but from painting the scene with extraordinary truth, as well as brightness. But, as an echo to the emotions inspired by the view of Venice, the following lines by Milnes are, to my feelings, worth a thousand of those in which Childe Harold groans in lamentation over her decline:

"Who talks of vanished glory, and dead power,

Of things that were, and are not? Is he here?
Can he take in the glory of this hour,

And call it all the decking of a bier?"

This quotation is from "Lines written by Moonlight;" but it is not only to that hour they are applicable; the still existing splendour of Venice, as seen by sun or moon, or even by the glorious stars, which shine here as brightly as they do in the tropics, deserves them now as fully as in the days of her greatest political power.

If, indeed, instead of looking about you, and permitting your spirit to revel in the brightness of

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the blue cloudless heaven, reflected in the watery highways on which you float. . . . or rejoice itself in the enchantment of endless architectural forms of beauty .... or in the rich colouring that seems to blend together every object into one harmonious whole. . . . or in that luxurious noiselessness, which lulls all the business and the movement of life into what has the repose of silence, without its sadness. if, instead of all this, you will insist upon seeing the report of the number of vessels that have entered, or left the city, et cætera, et cætera, et cætera, you may certainly, in the place of being entranced with delight, find yourself pathetically mourning with Byron, in company with

"The long array

Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond
Above the dogeless city's vanished sway."

But is this wisdom?

.... or is it in truth good

taste or healthy sentiment? Byron indeed says

"but beauty still is here.

States fall, arts fade — but Nature doth not die."

This, if I may venture to say so, is not happy. for if there be a spot upon God's lovely earth which does not owe its charms to Nature, it is Venice. The sky is bright, and the air is clear, but beyond this Nature has wondrously little to do with the enchantment that seizes on the senses the moment you enter the dominion of this "Sea Cybele."