Notes and Queries

It is a great compliment to an editor who has
abdicated his functions to be invited, long after
that event has taken place, to resume his vacated
chair and, if not to "give his little senate laws," to
say a few words of thanks and acknowledgments
to the friends and contributors of the journal
which it was his good fortune to call into existence
some thirty years ago. But the pride and grati-
fication which I feel at this unexpected compli-
ment are not without alloy,

"Still from the fount of joy's delicious springs

Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings."

And the cheerful spirit in which I would point to

the success of NOTES AND QUERIES, and thank

those who have contributed to such success, is

naturally toned down when I look round and see

how many of those who originally did so have

been taken away.

Many of these were dear per-

sonal friends, “not of the roll of common men."
Peace to their honoured memories!

Happily for the cause of good earnest inquiry
after literary and historical truth, their places have

Long may my offspring occupy the position
which it so worthily fills; and long may the con-
tributors to dear old "N. & Q." greet each new
series as I do this, Floreat! Floreat! Floreat!
WILLIAM J. THOMS.

THE MOROSINI PALACE AT VENICE.

It may be interesting, before the last echoes of

the discussion on the church of St. Mark have

died away, to give a brief account of another

monument at Venice, concerning which we trust

that nothing that we can say will irritate the

nerves even of the most susceptible Italian.

Amongst the many palaces of Venice perhaps the

most interesting of all is one which is the least

known. In ordinary handbooks and descriptions

of Venice hardly a word is given to the palace of

Francesco Morosini. It is this which, owing to

the kindness of friends staying in Venice during

the memorable week in last autumn when so many

famous personages by an accidental coincidence

were congregated in that famous city, we were per-

mitted to visit.

The interest of it consists in this. It belonged

to Francesco Morosini, first General and then Doge

of the Venetian republic, who, in consequence of

his having conquered the Peloponnesus from the

Turks, was called "The Peloponnesian" or "Pelo-

ponesiaco."

All that travellers have ordinarily seen of this

illustrious champion of Venice have been, first, the

triumphal arch erected to him in the gallery of the

Ducal Palace, and, secondly, the two colossal lions

which he brought from the entrance of the Piræus,

and which may well be ranked amongst the fore-

most historical relics of the world, not only because

of their association with that renowned harbour to

which in later times they gave the name of

Porto Leoni, but because on the shoulders of one

of them are engraved Etruscan characters of a

date earlier, probably, than the Piræus itself, and

Runic inscriptions which describe the conquest of

the Piraeus by the Norse seamen of the eleventh

century.

The impressions conveyed by these memorials,

even to a passing traveller, are greatly intensified
when we enter the palace which was the actual
habitation of this great warrior. Rarely, either in
Italy or in any other country, do we see the resi-
dence of a famous personage continuing in its in-
tegrity through such a lapse of time. His portraits
abound in every part of the house, giving us a life-

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Notes and Queries, Volume 61