Harlequin, on the present occasion, presented his friend with a dozen, but he rejected them all with disdain, and persisted in his unsuccessful attempts on that which had first come in his way. At length, making a desperate effort, when all the spectators were gaping in expectation of his safe delivery, the eruel word came up with its broad-side foremost, and stuck directly across the unhappy man's wind-pipe. He gaped, and panted, and croaked; his face flushed, and his eyes seemed ready to start from his head. Harlequin unbuttoned the stutterer's waistcoat, and the neck of his shirt; he fanned his face with his cap, and held a bottle of hartshorn to his nose. At length, fearing his patient would expire before he could give the desired intelligence, in a fit of despair he pitched his head full in the dying man's stomach, and the word bolted out of his mouth to the most distaut part of the house.

This was performed in a manner so perfectly droll, and the humorous absurdity of the expedient came so unexpectedly upon me, that I immediately burst into a most excessive fit of laughter in which I was accompanied by my friends; and our laughter continued in such loud, violent, and repeated fits, that the attention of the audience being turned from the stage to our box, occasioned a renewal of the mirth all over the playhouse with greater vociferation than at first. When we returned to the inn, I was asked, if I were as much convinced as ever, that a man must be perfectly devoid of taste who could condescend to laugh at an Italian comedy? DR. MOORE.

SECT. LVII.

OF THE SITUATION OF VENICE, ITS CANALS AND BRIDGES.

THE view of Venice, at some little distance from the town, is mentioned by many travellers in terms of the highest admiration. I had been so often forewarned of the amazement with which I should be

struck at the first sight of this city, that when I actually did see it, I felt little or no amazement at all. You will behold, said those anticipators, a magnifi cent town; or more frequently, to make the deeper impression, they gave it in detail:-You will behold, said they, magnificent palaces, churches, towers, and steeples, all standing in the middle of the sea. Well, this unquestionably is an uncommon scene; and there is no manner of doubt that a town, surrounded by water, is a very fine sight; but all the travellers that have existed since the days of Cain, will not convince me, that a town, surrounded by land, is not a much finer. Can there be any comparison, in point of beauty, between the dull monotony of a watry surface, and the delightful variety of gardens, meadows, hills and woods?

If the situation of Venice renders it less agreeable than another city, to behold at a distanee, it must render it, in a much stronger degree, less agreeable to inhabit. For you will please to recollect, that, instead of walking or riding in the fields, and enjoying the fragrance of herbs, aud the melody of birds, when you wish to take the air here, you must submit to be paddled about from morning to night, in a narrow boat, along dirty canals; or, if you don't like this, you have one resource more, which is that of walking in St. Mark's Place.

These are the disadvantages which Venice labours under, with regard to situation; but it has other peculiarities, which, in the opinion of many, overballance them, and render it, on the whole, an agreeable

town.

Venice is said to be built in the sea; that is, it is built in the midst of shallows which stretch some miles from the shore, at the bottom of the Adriatic gulph. Though those shallows, being now all covered with water, have the appearance of one great lake, yet they are called Laguna, or lakes, because formerly, as it is imagined, they were several. On sailing on the Laguna, and looking to the bottom,

many large hollows are to be seen, which at some former period have, very possibly, been distinct lakes, though now, being all covered with a common surface of water, they form one large lake, of unequal depth. The intervals between those hollows, it is supposed were little islands, and are now shallows, which, at ebb, are all within reach of a pole.

When you approach the city, you come along a liquid road, marked by rows of stakes on each side, which direct vessels, of a certain burthen, to avoid the shallows, and keep in deeper water. These shallows are a better defence to the city than the strongest fortifications. On the approach of an enemy's fleet, the Venitians have only to pull up their stakes, and the enemy can advance no farther. They are equally beyond the insult of a land army, even in the midst of winter; for the flux and reflux of the sea, and the mildness of the climate, prevent such a strength of ice as could admit the approach of an army that way.

The lake in which Venice stands, is a kind of small inner gulph, separated from the large one by some islands, at a few miles distance. These islands, in a great measure, break the force of the Adriatic storms, before they reach the Laguna; yet, in very high winds, the navigation of the lake is dangerous to gondolas, and sometimes the gondoleers do not trust themselves, even on the canals within the city. This is not so great an inconveniency to the inhabitants, as you may imagine; because most of the houses have one door opening upon a canal, and another communicating with the street; by means of which, and of the bridges, you can go to almost any part of the town by land, as well as by water.

The number of inhabitants are computed at 150, 000; the streets in general are narrow; so are the canals, except the grand canal, which is very broad, and has a serpentine course through the middle of the city. They tell you, there are several hundred bridges in Venice. What pass under this name,

however, are single arches thrown over the canals; most of them paltry enough.

The Rialto consists also of a single arch, but a very noble one, and of marble. It is built across the grand canal, near the middle, where it is narrowest. This celebrated arch is ninety feet wide on the level of the canal, and twenty-four feet high. Its beauty is impaired by two rows of booths, or shops, which are erected upon it, and divide its upper surface into three narrow streets. The view from the Rialto is equally lively and magnificent. The objects under your eye are the grand canal, covered with boats and gondolas, and flanked on each side with magnifieent palaces, churches, and spires; but this fine prospect is almost the only one in Venice; for except the grand canal, and the canal Regio, all the others are narrow and mean; some of them have no quays; the water literally washes the walls of the houses. When you sail along those wretched canals, you have no one agreeable object to cheer the sight; and the smell is overwhelmed with the stench which, at certain seasons, exhales from the water.

SECT. LVIII.

DR. MOORE.

OF VARIOUS NATURAL BEAUTIES IN WALES.

ON our journey we passed through Ludlow, a fine, handsome town, which has an old castle, now in a neglected and ruinous state; but which, by its remains, appears to have been once a very strong fortress, and an habitation very suitable to the power and dignity of the lord president of Wales, who resided there. Not far from this town is Okely park, belonging to lord Powis, and part of that forest which Milton, in his masque, supposed to have been inhabited by Comus and his rout. The god is now vanished; but, at the revolution of every seven years, his rout does not fail to keep up orgies there, and in the neighbouring town, as lord Powis knows to his cost,

for he has spent twenty or thirty thousand pounds in entertaining them at these seasons, which is the reason that he has no house at this place fit for him to live in. He talks of building one in the park, and the situation deserves it; for there are many scenes, which not only Comus, but the lady of Milton's masque, would have taken delight in, if they had received the improvements they are capable from a man of good taste; but they are as yet very rude and neglected. In our way from hence to Montgomery, we passed through a country very romantic and pleasant in many spots; in which we saw farms so well situated, that they appeared to us more delightful situations than Clermont or Burleigh. At last we came by a gentleman's house, on the side of a hill opening to a sweet valley; which seemed to be built in a taste much superior to that of a mere country esquire. We therefore stopt and desired to see it, which curiosity was well paid for. We found it the reatest and best house, of a moderate size, that we ever saw. The master, it seems, was bred to the law, but quitted the profession about fifteen years ago, and retired into the country upon an estate of five hundred pounds per annum, with a wife and four children; notwithstanding which incumbrances, he found means to fit up the house in the manner we saw it, with remarkable elegance, and to plant all the hill about him with groves and clumps of trees, that, together with an admirable prospect seen from it, render it a place which a monarch might envy. But, to let you see how vulgar minds value such improvement, I must tell you an answer made by our guide, who was servant to lord Powis's steward, and spoke, I presume, the sense of his master, upon our expressing some wonder that this gentleman had been able to do so much with so small a fortune. "I do not said he, know how it is, but he is always doing some nonsense or other." I apprehend most of my neighbours will give the same account of my improvements at Hagley.