Venice, more than any other city, or place, I have ever seen, realized the image of itself, which had gradually grown up in my fancy, in the course of years, under the influence of all that travellers, novelists, historians, and poets have said and written concerning this sovereign spouse of the Adriatic. In Petrarch's work, "De Gestis Imperatorum," there is a magnificent account of the pomp, and ceremony, and concourse of strangers, which accompanied the famous marriage,-when the Doge went in the Bucentaur, followed by the state barges of his Council of Ten, the gay peoti of the Senate, and the sombre gondolas, with their fair and gallant freight, and wedded the chafing sea to the mastery of his stern Republic. Then was the time to see Venice,-when the Doge Ziani discharged this symbolic rite; a type which, in his hands, was not empty pretension. It was he who conquered Barbarossa for the Pope Alexander the Third, when, driven from the holy city, the Pontiff came to him as a mendicant friar. The military events that followed are still to be seen in the pictures that hang on the walls of the Chamber of the Great Council, done by the son of Paul Veronese, and Bassano. Ziani died, after completing this great restoration, full of years, and heaped with glory; and his monument now stands in the church of Saint George, in the Giudecca, built by Palladio. To this monument his successors were accustomed to pay a solemn visit of respect, each Christmas-day, after

dinner: but the pageant of triumph gradually became one of mortification, and finally of indifference :-it was then time it should cease, and in the fullness of things it has ceased. Yet the memorials of the past still enrich the present, which, without them, would be poor indeed. Three lofty masts were erected in front of the church of Saint Mark, commemora tive of the sovereignty of Venice over the three kingdoms of Candia, Cyprus, and the Morea: they are still to be seen, erect as ever:-" We have lost the kingdoms," said a Venetian of the lower order to me;"but the masts remain to us!" In these few words is comprised the present state of Venice.

And yet she is still, to appearance, what the mind had pictured her.You leave the main land to find her in the midst of the water, where she stands, with her spires, and towers, and the sails and vanes of her shipping, mingled and coping together.The sea-gulls, and sometimes an eagle from the distant Alps, or the mountains of Dalmatia, are the only birds whose wings pass over the heads of the inhabitants of Venice.Huge fronts of white marble edifices rise against the eye, like the rocks of Staffa;-palaces and churches are congregated and pressed as on a vast raft; while the population, pent up in narrow alleys and sinuous passages on terra firma, seems to emerge from constraint and awkwardness, like water-fowl, when it issues forth on the surface of the Venetian element. More of the

hue of romance settles over daily existence in Venice than elsewhere; and this is chiefly occasioned by the peculiarity of its situation as a city. An intense consciousness of life, a fermentation of the passions, and a quick and tingling sympathy with those of others, result from the closeness of the neighbourhood:-the feelings and sensations are also fed and heated by that voluptuous indolence, which change of place every where else disturbs and dispels, but which it here generates and pampers. What Lady Mary Wortley Montague said of the Turkish dance, which she saw performed to the fair recluses of a seraglio, may be said of an excursion in a gondola: it inevitably suggests voluptuous ideas. The lounger going to pay his visits, and the merchant to look after his affairs, glides along, reclining on cushions soft as eider-down, and buried in a curtained twilight. The effect of this mode of common communication on the disposition, is very different from that of a walk along the Strand, through Temple-bar, to Fleet-street, and the Royal Exchange!

An excitement of temperament, and inactivity of habit, we thus see, are the natural effects of the remarkable position of Venice, and they form the most striking features in the Venetian character. The same circumstances, too, by concentrating the interest of life within narrow bounds, render it more busy and deep. They also give to the manners of society a certain reserved, mysterious air, which, whether in politics, business, or pleasure, has the look of intrigue, and of more being meant than meets either the eye or ear. The old government of this celebrated republic was quite in unison with such manners: it was prompt, and violent, but secret and calm. It did by spies the business of soldiers, and fostered the pride, and gratified the passions of a haughty intolerant aristocracy, while it ordained that no colour should be shown in public but black, that the equality of citizens might not be insulted by the gaudy pretensions of wealthy vanity. In this, as in every thing else here, there was evinced a depth of sentiment, leading to a contempt for affecting to feel what was

in reality powerfully felt. Contrast this Venetian ordinance with the decrees of the French Consular and Imperial Governments, regulating the lace and embroidery on the dresses of Princes, Chamberlains, Senators, and Members of the Legislative Body! The difference is such as we ought to find distinguishing what is French from what is Italian.

The Venetian character is in every respect a concentrated one: the inhabitant of Venice knows the peculiarities of his condition, and regards them as his proud distinctions and privileges: he feels as a triton or a sea-god, in comparison with the common mortals of the continent: to walk half a mile he considers an act of slavery and degradation: he seems to himself to live in a more elegant and easy element than mankind in general; he regards the water as an Arab, or a Parthian, regards his steed:-it is, at once, his creature, and a part of his being ;-he cannot conceive human life to be endurable where a man's limbs must transport him whither he wishes to go. His prerogative, in this respect, couples itself with the historical honours of his national name, and thus gives to the lowest Venetian a feeling of brotherhood with the highest,

and of immeasurable superiority over the inhabitants of terra firma.At the last ridotto of the carnival of 1818,-a curious scene took place : a gallant Englishman, profiting by the liberty which masks afforded to the ladies, had given his arm to a female of distinction, and was walking with her up and down the ball-room. His regular mistress, belonging to an inferior class of the people, maddened with jealousy, approached her rival, and attempted to tear off the visor, which, under the circumstances, was so necessary to its fair wear

er.

Horror pervaded the place; it was an attempt which alike shocked national feeling, and alarmed individual interests:-if masks were removable, what security could a woman of character possess? "Are you mad!" was exclaimed to the exasperated aggressor:-" she is a lady (una dama) whom you have insulted!"-" Io son' Veneziana," (I am a Venetian,) was the dignified reply; conveying, with Latin brevi ty, the force of Roman feeling. To

be a woman of Venice sets other distinctions at nought.

The history of Venice is peculiarly calculated to instil this conscious pride in the national name. It originated in popular resistance to oppression; and, from humble self-defence, the power of the state rose to the height of triumphant dominion. Though, in the course of this rise, the mass of the people lost that liberty which endeared to them the first piles that were driven to oppose the waves of the Adriatic, threatening to overwhelm them on their sandbanks, yet the language and titles of their institutions continued to suggest to them their favourite ideas; and nominally, at least, their rulers and themselves were united in a community of fellowship, which the forms of a monarchy are calculated to destroy. The power which, in the latter, is made personal, always remained national in the republic. The stern scrutiny and universal interference of the authority of the government, had the effect of connecting the people with it in feeling, as members of a family of which it was the supreme. The most formidable officers of the state went about in familiar society, dressed as common citizens, and chatting as common visitors: this, while it gave them a prodigious influence, and a terrible knowledge as rulers, took off that look of estrangement and separation which is often so offensive to popular feeling in a court,—at the same time, it gave them opportunities of qualifying the rigour of the law, in things that were trifles to the state, though of importance to the comfort of individuals; and it is chiefly when it is found galling in these that a government acquires the character of being tyrannical. A Venetian "Dama," experienced in the ways of Venice,-whom age has left fascinating, because nature has made her amiable, used to speak to me with fervour, at her conversazioni, of the days of the old government:"it had sadly dwindled down to us," (said she,) "but it was still something which we at once feared and venerated. We all considered ourselves the children of the State, and it kept us in order with a good deal of severity. The members of noble families durst not travel without per

mission of the Senate; and this was not willingly given to pretty women. I was at that time said to be pretty; so I did not find it easy to go about. as I wished. I did not scruple, however, to take an occasional trip to Milan without saying any thing. I ventured to do this, because the Inquisitors used to come to my parties; one indeed preferred coming to a têteà-tête; so I felt pretty sure they would do me no harm: they might, however, have imprisoned me in my own house for such a fault."

This was the way to keep the people of Venice strictly Venetians; and the natural effect of such a system of policy was, to create a consciousness of companionship (like that of school-fellows); a feeling of sympathy, and a necessary intimacy of communication throughout society, unfavourable to the regularity of morals, but calculated to beget a soft, and generous, and romantic spirit,under the influence of which, volup tuous indulgence lost almost all its coarseness, and became in a measure reconciled to many of the virtues.— This kindness and gentleness of disposition still mingle, in a remarkable degree, with the licence of private manners; they even give a sort of quiet enthusiasm to character, and contribute not a little to confer that: poetical embellishment on daily life, which it wears at Venice to an extent which I do not believe is elsewhere equalled.

The age of the State of Venice is also one of the circumstances in her situation, calculated to render the national feeling of her people intense and exclusive. She can trace her origin clearly back to the first pile of her empire; her history falls altogether within modern times, yet includes almost every romantic, chivalrous, and poetical feature, which a course backward into early oblivion could supply. The line of her magistrates, and the series of her great exploits, are capable of being retained in the memory of the vulgar, while they suggest to their imagination wonders as inspiring as those of fabulous narrative. The Venetian, therefore, feels himself in full pos session of all the honours of the Ve netian name; they come down to him by unbroken descent, and with a force still accumulating in their,