amid of the groe of the harpist, age of warriors, ment and bustle. place, rendered dom. separates westnt communicareater admixture of the numerous eculiarity is still of the place; but isles, though no even of the Adrinfluence was felt d her commerce, old the vast poshad become rich mong her islands arks the progress e be of a moral

parallelogram of asinos within the es, being already h the arches was h and lamp, the atories, the mas ancient christian ta, the triumphal tower of the cam

trophies, and one equally proclaiming the prowess and the piety of its founders, this remarkable structure presided over the other fixtures of the place, like a monument o the republic's antiquity and greatness. Its Saracenic ar chitecture, the rows of precious but useless little columns that load its front, the low Asiatic domes which rest upor its walls in the repose of a thousand years, the rude and gaudy mosaics, and above all the captured horses of Corinth, which start from out the sombre mass in the glory o Grecian art, received from the solemn and appropriate light, a character of melancholy and mystery, that wel comported with the thick recollections which crowd the mind as the eye gazes at this rare relick of the past.

As fit companions to this edifice the other peculiar orna ments of the place stood at hand. The base of the campa nile lay in shadow, but a hundred feet of its grey summi received the full rays of the moon along its eastern face The masts destined to bear the conquered ensigns of Can dia, Constantinople, and the Morea, cut the air by it side, in dark and fairy lines, while at the extremity of the smaller square, and near the margin of the sea, the forms o the winged lion and the patron saint of the city, each o his column of African granite, were distinctly traced agains the back ground of the azure sky.

It was near the base of the former of these massive block of stone, that one stood who seemed to gaze at the animate and striking scene, with the listlessness and indifference c satiety. A multitude, some in masques and others care less of being known, had poured along the quay into th piazetta, on their way to the principal square, while thi individual had scarce turned a glance aside, or changed

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goodhumoured eye, he appeared to attend some beck authority ere he quitted the spot. A silken jacket, whose tissue flowers of the gayest colours were interwove the falling collar of scarlet, the bright velvet cap wi armorial bearings embroidered on its front, proclaim him to be a gondolier in private service.

Wearied at length with the antics of a distant group tumblers, whose pile of human bodies had for a time arre ed his look, this individual turned away, and faced the lig air from the water. Recognition and pleasure shot in his countenance, and in a moment his arms were inte locked with those of a swarthy mariner, who wore th loose attire and Phrygian cap of men of his calling. T gondolier was the first to speak, the words flowing fro him in the soft accents of his native islands.

"Is it thou, Stefano ? They said thou hadst fallen in the gripe of the devils of Barbary, and that thou wast plan ing flowers for an infidel with thy hands, and watering the with thy tears!"

The answer was in the harsher dialect of Calabria, ar it was given with the rough familiarity of a seaman.

"La Bella Sorrentina is no housekeeper of a curato She is not a damsel to take a siesta with a Tunisian rove prowling about in her neighbourhood. Hadst ever bee beyond the Lido, thou wouldst have known the differend between chasing the felucca and catching her."

"Kneel down, and thank San Teodoro for his car There was much praying on thy decks that hour, caro St fano, though none is bolder among the mountains of Cal bria when thy felucca is once safely drawn upon the beach! The mariner cast a half-comic, half-serious glance up ward at the image of the patron saint, ere he replied.

of Calabria, and

a seaman.

er of a curato! Tunisian rov fadst ever been n the difference her."

ro for his care. at hour, caro Stee ountains of Cal pon the beach"

rious glance uphe replied.

shop is better at stopping the lava than at quieting th winds. But there was danger, then, of losing the felucc and her brave people among the Turks ?"

"There was, in truth, a Tunis-man prowling about between Stromboli and Sicily; but, Ali di San Michele he might better have chased the cloud above the volcano than run after the felucca in a sirocco !"

"Thou wast chicken-hearted, Stephano?"

"I!-I was more like thy lion, here, with some sma additions of chains and muzzles.”

"As was seen by thy felucca's speed?"

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Cospetto! I wished myself a knight of San Giovanni thousand times during the chase, and La Bella Sorrentin a brave Maltese galley, if it were only for the cause Christian honour! The miscreant hung upon my quarte for the better part of three glasses! so near, that I coul tell which of the knaves wore dirty cloth in his turban, an which clean. It was a sore sight to a Christian, Stefand to see the right thus borne upon by an infidel.”

"And thy feet warmed with the thought of the basti nado, caro mio ?"

"I have run too often barefoot over our Calabria mountains, to tingle at the sole with every fancy of the

sort.

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Every man has his weak spot, and I know thine to b dread of a Turk's arm. Thy native hills have their soft a well as their hard ground, but it is said the Tunisia chooses a board knotty as his own heart, when he amuse himself with the wailings of a Christian."

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'Well, the happiest of us all must take such as fortun brings. If my soles are to be shod with blows, the hone

how fares the world of Venice ?-and what dost th among the canals at this season, to keep the flowers of jacket from wilting?"

"To-day as yesterday, and to-morrow will be as to-d I row the gondola from the Rialto to the Guidecca; fr San Giorgio to San Marco; from San Marco to the Li and from the Lido home. There are no Tunis-men by way to chill the heart or warm the feet."

"Enough of friendship. And is there nothing stirri in the republic?—no young noble drowned, nor any J hanged?"

Nothing of that much interest-except the calam which befel Pietro. Thou rememberest Pietrillo? he w crossed into Dalmatia with thee once, as a supernumera the time he was suspected of having aided the young Frenc man in running away with a senator's daughter?"

"Do I remember the last famine? The rogue did n thing but eat maccaroni, and swallow the lachrymæ chris which the Dalmatian count had on freight.'

"Poverino! His gondola has been run down by an A cona-man, who passed over the boat, as if it were a s nator stepping on a fly."

"So much for little fish coming into deep water."

"The honest fellow was crossing the Giudecca, with stranger who had occasion to say his prayers at the Rede tore, when the brig hit him in the canopy, and broke the gondola as if it had been a bubble left by the Buce

taur.

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The padrone should have been too generous to con plain of Pietro's clumsiness, since it met with its own p nishment."

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Madre di Dio! He went to sea that hour, or he mig

"Well, a gondola is mortal, as well as a felucca, an both have their time; better die by the prow of a bri than fall into the gripe of a Turk.-How is thy young ma ter, Gino? and is he likely to obtain his claims of t senate ?"

He cools himself in the Giudecca in the morning; a if thou wouldst know what he does at evening, thou ha only to look among the nobles in the Broglio."

As the gondolier spoke, he glanced an eye aside, at group of patrician rank, who paced the gloomy arcad which supported the superior walls of the doge's palace, spot sacred, at times, to the uses of the privileged.

"I am no stranger to the habit thy Venetian nobles ba of coming to that low colonnade at this hour, but I nev before heard of their preferring the waters of the Giudec for their baths."

"Were even the doge to throw himself out of a gondol he must sink or swim, like a meaner christian."

"Acqua dell' Adriatico! Was the young duca goi to the Redentore, too, to say his prayers?"

"He was coming back after having-but what matte it in what canal a young noble sighs away the night! V happened to be near when the Ancona-man performed 1 feat while Giorgio and I were boiling with rage at t awkwardness of the stranger, my master, who never h much taste or knowledge in gondolas, went into the wa to save the young lady from sharing the fate of her uncle

"Diavolo! This is the first syllable thou hast utter concerning any young lady, or of the death of her uncle

"Thou wert thinking of thy Tunis-man, and hast f gotten. I must have told thee how near the beautiful s