Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

The absence of horses and carriages and the resonance of the canal make Venice the most delightful city for unceasing songs and serenading. One must be an enthusiast indeed to fancy that the gondolier choruses are better than those of the opera at Paris, as I have heard asserted by some individuals of a particularly happy temperament, but it is quite certain that one of those choruses, heard from afar under the arcades of these Moorish palaces, looking so white in the moon’s rays, gives more pleasure even than better music executed under a colonnade formed of painted canvas. These rough uncultivated dilettanti shout in tune and time; and the calm marble echoes prolong these rude and grave harmonies, like the winds over the sea. The magic of acoustic effect, and the desire to hear some sort of harmony in the silence of these enchanted nights, make one listen with indulgence, and almost I may say with gratitude, to the humblest melody which floats by, and is lost in the distance.... Fairy days of Venice.... No one has ever said enough of the beauty of the heavens, and the delights of the night at Venice. The lagoon is so calm, that in fine evenings, the stars do not even tremble on its surface. When you are in the midst, it is so blue, so quiet that the outline of the horizon cannot be distinguished, and the waves and the heavens form an azure veil, where reverie loses itself and sleeps. The atmosphere is so transparent, so pure that thousands more stars may be seen, than in our North of France. I have seen here, nights, when the silvery lustre of the stars occupied more space in the firmament than the blue of the atmosphere. It was a galaxy of diamonds giving almost as good a light as the moon at Paris.... Here Nature, more powerful in her influence, perhaps, imposes too much silence on the mind; she sends all thought to sleep, but agitates the heart, and dominates the senses. One must not even dream, unless one is a man of genius, of writing poems during these voluptuous nights: one must love or sleep.

As for sleeping, there is a most delicious spot: the platform of white marble which descends from the Viceroy’s gardens to the canal. When the ornamented gate is shut on the garden-side, one can go in a gondola to these steps, still warm from the rays of the setting sun, and remain without being interrupted by any inopportune stroller, unless he be endowed with the faith so much needed by St. Peter. Many hours have I passed there alone, thinking of nothing, whilst Catullo and his gondola slumbered in the midst of the waters, within call.

When the breath of midnight passes over the linden-trees, and scatters their blossoms over the waters, when the perfume of wallflowers and geraniums rises in gusts, as though the earth gave forth her sighs of fragrance to the moon; when the cupolas of St. Mary raise towards heaven their alabaster hemispheres and their turban-crowned minarets; when all is white, the water, the sky, the marble, the three elements of Venice, and when from the tower of St. Mark a giant sound hovers over my head, then I begin to feel life through every pore, and evil be to him who should then come to make an appeal to my soul! I vegetate, I repose, I forget. Who would not do the same in my place?... I defy anyone, no matter who, to prevent me from sleeping happily when I see Venice, so impoverished, so oppressed, so miserable, still so beautiful, so calm, in spite of men and of time. Behold her, round me, admiring herself in the lagoons with the air of a sultana; and this populace of fishermen, sleeping on the pavement, winter as well as summer, with no other pillow than one of granite, no other mattress than a tattered cloak; is not such a populace a great example of philosophy? When it has no longer wherewithal to purchase a pound of rice, it sings a chorus to drive away the pangs of hunger; thus braving masters and misery, as it used to brave cold, heat, and the sudden tempest. It would require many years of slavery to imbrute entirely this careless frivolous character, so accustomed for many years to be nourished with _fêtes_ and diversions. Existence is still so easy at Venice!

GEORGE SAND.

VENICE THE PROUD

Venice exult! and o’er thy moonlight seas,
Swell with gay strains each Adriatic breeze!
What though long fled those years of martial fame,
That shed romantic lustre o’er thy name:
Though to the winds thy streamers idly play,
And the wild waves another Queen obey;
Though quenched the spirit of thine ancient race,
And power and freedom scarce have left a trace;
Yet still shall Art her splendours round thee cast,
And gild the wreck of years for ever past.
Again thy fanes may boast a Titian’s dyes,
Whose clear soft brilliance emulates thy skies,
And scenes that glow in colouring’s richest bloom,
With life’s warm flush Palladian halls illume,
From thy rich dome again th’ unrivalled steed
Starts to existence, rushes into speed,
Still for Lysippus claims the wreath of fame,
Panting with ardour, vivified with flame.

Proud Racers of the Sun! to fancy’s thought,
Burning with spirit, from his essence caught,
No mortal birth ye seem--but formed to bear
Heaven’s car of triumph through the realms of air;
To range uncurbed the pathless fields of space,
The winds your rivals in the glorious race;
Traverse empyreal spheres with buoyant feet,
Free as the zephyr, as the shot-star fleet;
And waft through worlds unknown the vital ray,
The flame that wakes creations into day.
Creatures of fire and ether! winged with light,
To track the regions of the Infinite!
From purer elements whose light was drawn,
Sprung from the sunbeam, offspring of the dawn,
What years on years, in silence gliding by,
Have spared those forms of perfect symmetry!
Moulded by Art to dignify alone,
Her own bright deity’s resplendent throne,
Since first her skill their fiery grace bestowed,
Meet for such lofty fate, such high abode,
How many a race, whose tales of glory seem
An echo’s voice--the music of a dream,
Whose records feebly from oblivion save,
A few bright traces of the wise and brave:
How many a state, whose pillared strength sublime,
Defied the storms of war, the waves of time,
Towering o’er earth majestic and alone,
Fortress of power--has flourished and is gone!
And they, from clime to clime by conquest borne,
Each fleeting triumph destined to adorn,
They, that of powers and kingdoms lost and won,
Have seen the noontide and the setting sun,
Consummate still in every grace remain,
As o’er _their_ heads had ages rolled in vain!
Ages, victorious in their ceaseless flight,
O’er countless monuments of earthly might!
While she, from fair Byzantium’s lost domain,
Who bore those treasures to her ocean-reign,
’Midst the blue deep, who reared her island-throne,
And called th’ infinitude of waves her own;
Venice the proud, the Regent of the sea,
Welcomes in chains the trophies of the Free!
MRS. HEMANS.

THIS LOVELY VENICE!

St. Mark’s Place, after all I had read and all I had heard of it, exceeded expectation; such a cluster of excellence, such a constellation of artificial beauties, my mind had never ventured to excite the idea of within herself.... Whoever sees St. Mark’s Place lighted up of an evening, adorned with every excellence of human art and pleasure, expressed by intelligent countenances sparkling with every grace of nature; the sea washing its walls, the moonbeams dancing on its subjugated waves, sport and laughter resounding from the cafés, girls with guitars skipping about the square, masks and merry-makers singing as they pass you, unless a barge with a band of music is heard at some distance upon the water, and calls attention to sounds made sweeter by the element over which they are brought--whoever is led suddenly, I say, to this scene of seemingly perennial gaiety, will be apt to cry out of Venice, ...

‘With thee conversing, I forget all time,
All seasons and their change--all please alike.’

For it is sure there are in this town many astonishing privations of all that are used to make other places delightful; and as poor Omai, the savage, said, when about to return to Otaheite: ‘No horse there, no ass, no cow, no golden pippins, no dish of tea.... I am always so content there, though.’ It is really just so one lives at this lovely Venice. One has heard of a horse being exhibited there, and yesterday I watched the poor people paying a penny a-piece for the sight of a stuffed one.... The view of Venice from the Zuecca would invite one never more to stray from it, farther, at least, than to St. George’s Church, on another little opposite island, whence the prospect is surely wonderful.... On Saturday next I am to forsake--but I hope not for ever--this gay, this gallant city, so often described, so certainly admired--seen with rapture, quitted with regret. Seat of enchantment! head-quarters of pleasure, farewell!

MRS. PIOZZI (1785).

TO VENICE

‘Questi palazzi, e queste logge or colte.’

These marble domes, by wealth and genius graced,
With sculptured forms, bright hues, and Parian stone,
Were once rude cabins ’midst a lonely waste,
Wild shores of solitude, and isles unknown.
Pure from each vice, ’twas here a venturous train
Fearless in fragile barks explored the sea;
Not theirs a wish to conquer or to reign,
They sought these island-precincts--to be free.

Ne’er in their souls ambition’s flame arose,
No dream of avarice broke their calm repose;
Fraud, more than death, abhorred each artless breast;
Oh! now, since Fortune gilds their brightening day,
Let not those virtues languish and decay,
O’erwhelmed by luxury, and by wealth opprest!

MRS. HEMANS.
_From the Italian of ‘Della Casa.’_

VENICE: THAT RARE CITY

I have now a good while since taken footing in Venice, this admired maiden city, so called because she was never deflowered by any enemy since she had a being, nor since her Rialto was first erected, which is now above twelve ages ago.

I protest unto you at my first landing I was for some days ravished with the high beauty of this maid, with her lovely countenance. I admired her magnificent buildings, her marvellous situation, her dainty smooth neat streets, whereon you may walk most days in the year in a silk stocking and satin slippers, without soiling them, nor can the streets of Paris be so foul, as these are fair....

Give me leave to salute you first in these sapphics.

‘Insulam tendens iter ad Britannam
Charta, de paucis volo, siste gressum,
Verba Mansello, bene noscis illum,
Talia perfer.

‘Finibus longe patriis Hoellus
Dimorans, quantis Venetum superba
Civitas leucis Doroberniensi
Distat ab urbe;

‘Plurimum mentis tibi vult salutem,
Plurimum cordis tibi vult vigorem,
Plurimum sortis tibi vult favorem
Regis et Aulæ.’

These wishes come to you from Venice, a place where there is nothing wanting that heart can wish; renowned Venice, the admiredst city in the world, a city that all Europe is bound unto, for she is her greatest rampart against that huge eastern tyrant the Turk by sea, else I believe he had overrun all Christendom by this time. Against him this city hath performed notable exploits, and not only against him, but divers other. She hath restored emperors to their throne, and popes to their chairs, and with her galleys often preserved Saint Peter’s barque from sinking: for which, by way of reward, one of his successors espoused her to the sea, which marriage is solemnly renewed every year in solemn profession by the Doge and all the Clarissimos, and a gold ring cast into the sea out of the great galleasse, called the _Bucentoro_, wherein the first ceremony was performed by the Pope himself, above three hundred years since, and they say it is the self-same vessel still, though often put upon the careen and trimmed. This made me think on that famous ship at Athens; nay, I fell upon an abstracted notion in philosophy, and a speculation touching the body of man, which being in perpetual flux, and a kind of succession of decays, and consequently requiring ever and anon a restoration of what it loseth of the virtue of the former ailment, and what was converted after the third concoction into blood and fleshly substance, which, as in all other sublunary bodies that have internal principles of heart, uses to transpire, breathe out, and waste away through invisible pores by exercise, motion, and sleep to make room still for a supply of new nourriture. I fell, I say, to consider whether our bodies may be said to be of like condition with this _Bucentoro_, which, though it be reputed still the same vessel, yet I believe there’s not a foot of that timber remaining which it had upon the first dock, having been, as they tell me, so often planked and ribbed, caulked and pierced. In like manner our bodies may be said to be daily repaired by new sustenance, which begets new blood, and consequently new spirits, new humours, and I may say new flesh, the old by continual deperdition and insensible transpirations evaporating still out of us, and giving way to stress; so that I make a question, whether by reason of these perpetual preparations and accretions the body of man may be said to be the same numerical body in his old age that he had in his manhood, or the same in his manhood that he had in his youth, the same in his youth that he carried about him in his childhood, or the same in his childhood which he wore first in the womb. I make a doubt whether I had the same identical individually numerical body when I carried a calf-leather satchel to school in Hereford, as when I wore a lambskin hood in Oxford, or whether I have the same mass of blood in my veins, and the same flesh now in Venice which I carried about me three years since up and down London streets, having in lieu of beer and ale drunk wine all this while, and fed upon different viands; now the stomach is like a crucible, for it hath a chemical kind of virtue to transmute one body into another, to transubstantiate fish and fruits into flesh within, and about us; but though it be questionable whether I wear the same flesh which is fluxible, I am sure my hair is not the same, for you may remember I went flaxen-haired out of England, but you shall find me returned with a very dark brown, which I impute not only to the heat and air of those hot countries I have ate my bread in, but to the quality and difference of food; but you will say that hair is but an excrementitious thing, and makes not to this purpose; moreover, methinks I hear you say that this may be true, only in the blood and spirits, or such fluid parts, not in the solid and heterogeneal parts; but I will press no further at this time this philosophical notion which the sight of _Bucentoro_ infused into me, for it hath already made me exceed the bounds of a letter, and I fear me to trespass too much upon your patience. I leave the further disquisition of this point to your own contemplations, who are a far riper philosopher than I, and have waded deeper into, and drunk more of Aristotle’s Well; but ... though it be doubtful whether I carry about me the same body or no, in all points that I had in England, I am well assured I bear still the same mind, and therein I verify the old verse--

‘Cœlum non animam mutant qui trans mare currunt.’

‘The air but not the mind they change,
Who in outlandish countries range.’ ...

She [Venice] was built of the ruins of Aquileia and Padua, for when those swarms of tough northern people overran Italy under the conduct of that scourge of heaven Attila, with others, and that this soft voluptuous nation, after so long a desuetude from arms, could not repel their fury, many of the ancient nobility and gentry fled into these lakes and little islands, amongst the fishermen for their security, and finding the air good and commodious for habitation, they began to build upon those small islands, whereof there are in all three-score; and in tract of time, they conjoined and leagued them together by bridges, whereof there are now above eight hundred, and this makes up the city of Venice, who is now above twelve ages old, and was contemporary with the monarchy of France; but the signiory glorieth in one thing above the monarchy, that she was born a Christian, but the monarchy not. Though this city be thus hemmed in with the sea, yet she spreads her wings far wide upon the shore; she hath in Lombardy six considerable towns--Padua, Verona, Vicenza, Brescia, Crema, and Bergamo; she hath in the Marquisat, Bassan and Castlefranco; she hath all Friuli and Istria; she commands the shores of Dalmatia and Slavonia; she keeps under the power of Saint Mark, the islands of Corfu (anciently Corcyria), Cephalonia, Zant, Cerigo, Lucerigo, and Candy (Jove’s Cradle); she had a long time the kingdom of Cyprus, but it was quite rent from her by the Turk, which made that high-spirited Bassa, being taken prisoner at the Battle of Lepanto, where the grand signior lost above 200 galleys, to say, ‘That that defeat to his great master was but like the shaving of his beard or the paring of his nails; but the taking of Cyprus was like the cutting off of a limb, which will never grow again.’ This mighty potentate being so near a neighbour to her, she is forced to comply with him and give him an annual present in gold: she hath about thirty galleys most part of the year in course to scour and secure the gulf; she entertains by land in Lombardy and other parts 25,000 foot, besides some of the cantons of Suisses whom she gives pay unto; she hath also in constant pay 600 men of arms, and every one of these must keep two horses a-piece, for which they are allowed 120 ducats a year, and they are for the most part gentlemen of Lombardy. When they have any great expedition to make, they have always a stranger for their general, but he is supervised by two proveditors, without whom he cannot attempt anything.

Her great Council consists of above 2,000 gentlemen, and some of them meet every Sunday and holiday to choose officers and magistrates, and every gentleman being past twenty-five years of age is capable to sit in this Council. The Doge or Duke (their sovereign magistrate) is chosen by lots, which would be too tedious here to demonstrate, and commonly he is an aged man who is created, like that course they hold in the popedom. When he is dead there be inquisitors that examine his actions, and his misdemeanours are punishable in his heirs. There is a superintendent council of ten, and six of them may dispatch business without the Doge, but the Doge never without some of them, not as much as open a letter from any foreign state, though addressed to himself, which makes him to be called by other princes, _Testa di legno_, a head of wood.

The wealth of this republic hath been at a stand, or rather declining, since the Portugal found a road to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope; for this city was used to fetch all those spices and other Indian commodities from the grand Cairo down the Nile, being formerly carried to Cairo from the Red Sea upon camels’ and dromedaries’ backs, three score days’ journey; and so Venice used to dispense those commodities through all Christendom, which not only the Portugal, but the English and Hollander, now transport, and are masters of the trade. Yet there is no outward appearance at all of poverty, or any decay in this city, but she is still gay, flourishing, and fresh, and flowing with all kind of bravery and delight, which may be had at cheap rates....

I have now enough of the maiden city, and this week I am to go further into Italy; for though I have been a good while in Venice, yet I cannot say I have been hitherto upon the continent of Italy: for this city is nought else but a knot of islands in the Adriatic Sea, joined in one body by bridges, and a good way distant from the firm land. I have lighted upon very choice company, your cousin Brown and Master Web, and we all take the road of Lombardy, but we made an order amongst ourselves that our discourse be always in the language of the country, under penalty of a forfeiture, which is to be indispensably paid. Randal Symns made us a curious feast lately, where in a cup of the richest Greek we had your health, and I could not tell whether the wine or the remembrance of you was sweeter; for it was naturally a kind of aromatic wine, which left a fragrant perfuming kind of farewell behind it. I have sent you a runlet of it in the ship _Lion_, and if it come safe, and unpricked, I pray bestow some bottles upon the lady (you know) with my humble service.... Before I conclude I will acquaint you with a common saying that is used of this dainty city of Venice:

‘Venetia, Venetia, chi non te vede non te pregia,
Ma chi t’ha troppo veduto te dispreggia.’

Englished and rhymed thus (though I know you need no translation, you understand so much of Italian):

‘Venice, Venice, none thee unseen can prize,
Who hath seen too much will thee despise.’

I will conclude with that famous hexastic which Sannazaro made of this rare city, which pleaseth me much better:

‘Viderat Hadriacis Venetam Neptunus in undis
Stare urbem, et toti ponere jura Mari;
Nunc mihi Tarpeias quantum vis, Jupiter, Arces
Objice, et illa tui mænia Martis ait,
Sic Pelago Tibrim præfers, urbem aspice utramque,
Illam homines dices, hanc posuisse Deos.’

‘When Neptune saw in Adrian surges stand
Venice, and gave the sea laws of command:
Now Jove, said he, object thy Capitol,
And Mars’ proud walls: this were for to extol
Tyber beyond the main; both towns behold;
Rome, men thou’lt say, Venice the Gods did mould.’

Sannazaro had given him by Saint Mark a hundred zecchins, for every one of these verses, which amounts to about 300 pounds. It would be long before the city of London would do the like. Witness that cold reward, or rather those cold drops of water which were cast upon my countryman, Sir Hugh Middleton, for bringing Ware River through her streets, the most serviceable and wholesomest benefit that ever she received.

JAMES HOWELL (1621).

VENISE

Dans Venise la rouge,
Pas un bateau qui bouge,
Pas un pêcheur dans l’eau,
Pas un falot.

Seul, assis à la grève,
Le grand lion soulève,
Sur l’horizon serein,
Son pied d’airain.

Autour de lui, par groupes,
Navires et chaloupes,
Pareils à des hérons
Couchés en ronds,

Dorment sur l’eau qui fume,
Et croisent dans la brume,
En légers tourbillons
Leurs pavillons.

La lune qui s’efface
Couvre son front qui passe
D’un nuage étoilé
Demi-voilé.

Ainsi, la dame abbesse
De Sainte-Croix rabaisse
Sa cape aux vastes plis
Sur son surplis,

Et les palais antiques,
Et les graves portiques,
Et les blancs escaliers
Des chevaliers,

Et les ponts, et les rues,
Et les mornes statues,
Et le golfe mouvant
Qui tremble au vent,

Tout se tait, fors les gardes
Aux longues hallebardes,
Qui veillent aux créneaux
Des arsenaux.

--Ah! maintenant plus d’une
Attend, au clair de lune,
Quelque jeune muguet,
L’oreille au guet.

Pour le bal qu’ou prépare,
Plus d’une qui se pare,
Met devant son miroir
Le masque noir....

Et qui, dans l’Italie,
N’a son grain de folie?
Qui ne garde aux amours
Ses plus beaux jours?

Laissons la vieille horloge,
Au palais du vieux doge,
Lui compter de ses nuits
Les longs ennuis.

Comptons plutôt, ma belle,
Sur ta bouche rebelle,
Tant de baisers donnés.
Ou pardonnés.

Comptons plutôt tes charmes,
Comptons les douces larmes
Qu’à nos yeux a coûtè
La volupté!

ALFRED DE MUSSET.

A PEERLESS CITY

Safe at Venice. A place whose strange and passing beauty is well known to thee by report of our mariners. Dost mind too how Peter would oft fill our ears withal, we handed beneath the table, and he still discoursing of this sea-enthroned and peerless city, in shape a bow, and its great canal and palaces on piles, and its watery ways plied by scores of gilded boats; and that market-place of nations, orbis, non urbis, forum, St. Mark his place? And his statue with the peerless jewels in his eyes, and the lion at his gate? But I, lying at my window in pain, may see none of these beauties as yet, but only a street, fairly paved, which is dull, and houses with oiled paper and linen, in lieu of glass, which is rude; and the passers-by, their habits and their gestures, wherein they are superfluous. Therefore, not to miss my daily comfort of whispering to thee, I will e’en turn mine eyes inward, and bind my sheaves of wisdom reaped by travel. For I love thee so, that no treasure pleases me not shared with thee; and what treasure so good and enduring as knowledge? This then have I, Sir Footsore, learned, that each nation hath its proper wisdom, and its proper folly; and methinks, could a great king, or duke, tramp like me, and see with his own eyes, he might pick the flowers, and eschew the weeds of nations, and go home and set his own folk on Wisdom’s hill....

The Italians are a polished and subtle people. They judge a man, not by his habits, but his speech and gesture. Here Sir Chough may by no means pass for falcon gentle, as did I in Germany, pranked in my noble servant’s feathers. Wisest of all nations in their singular temperance of food and drink. Most foolish of all to search strangers coming into their borders, and stay them from bringing much money in. They should rather invite it, and like other nations, let the traveller from taking of it out. Also here in Venice the dames turn their black hair yellow by the sun and art, to be wiser than Him who made them. Ye enter no Italian town without a bill of health, though now is no plague in Europe. This peevishness is for extortion’s sake. The innkeepers cringe and fawn, and cheat, and in country places, murder you. Yet will they give you clean sheets by paying therefor. Delicate in eating, and abhor from putting their hand in the plate; sooner they will apply a crust or what not. They do even tell of a cardinal at Rome, which armeth his guest’s left hand with a little bifurcal dagger to hold the meat, while his knife cutteth it. But methinks this, too, is to be wiser than Him, who made the hand so supple and prehensile....

Their bread is lovely white. Their meats they spoil with sprinkling cheese over them; O, perversity! Their salt is black; without a lie. In commerce these Venetians are masters of the earth and sea; and govern their territories wisely.... Also, in religion, they hang their cloth according to the wind, siding now with the Pope, now with the Turk; but aye with the god of traders, mammon hight. Shall flower so cankered bloom to the world’s end? But since I speak of flowers, this none may deny them, that they are most cunning in making roses and gilliflowers to blow unseasonably. In summer they nip certain of the budding roses and water them not. Then in winter they dig round these discouraged plants, and put in cloves; and so with great art rear sweet-scented roses, and bring them to market in January....

Sweetheart, I must be brief, and tell thee but a part of that I have seen, for this day my journal ends. To-night it sails for thee, and I, unhappy, not with it, but to-morrow, in another ship, to Rome.

Dear Margaret, I took a hand litter, and was carried to St. Mark his church. Outside it, towards the market-place, is a noble gallery, and above it four famous horses, cut in brass by the ancient Romans, and seem all moving, and at the very next step must needs leap down on the beholder. About the church are six hundred pillars of marble, porphyry, and ophites. Inside is a treasure greater than either at St. Denys, or Loretto, or Toledo. Here a jewelled pitcher given the seigniory by a Persian king, also the ducal cap blazing with jewels, and on its crown a diamond and a chrysolite, each as big as an almond; two golden crowns and twelve golden stomachers studded with jewels, from Constantinople; item, a monstrous sapphire; item, a great diamond given by a French king; item, a prodigious carbuncle; item, three unicorns’ horns. But what are these compared with the sacred relics?

Dear Margaret, I stood and saw the brazen chest that holds the body of St. Mark the Evangelist. I saw with these eyes and handled his ring, and his gospel written with his own hand, and all my travels seemed light; for who am I that I should see such things? Dear Margaret, his sacred body was first brought from Alexandria by merchants in 810, and then not prized as now; for between 829, when this church was builded, and 1094, the very place where it lay was forgotten. Then holy priests fasted and prayed many days seeking for light, and lo! the Evangelist’s body brake at midnight through the marble and stood before them. They fell to the earth; but in the morning found the crevice the sacred body had burst through, and peering through it saw him lie. Then they took and laid him in his chest beneath the altar, and carefully put back the stone with its miraculous crevice, which crevice I saw, and shall gape for a monument while the world lasts. After that they showed me the Virgin’s chair, it is of stone; also her picture, painted by St. Luke, very dark, and the features now scarce visible. This picture, in time of drought, they carry in procession, and brings the rain. I wish I had not seen it. Item, two pieces of marble spotted with John the Baptist’s blood; item, a piece of the true cross, and of the pillar to which Christ was tied; item, the rock struck by Moses, and wet to this hour; also a stone Christ sat on, preaching at Tyre; but some say it is the one the patriarch Jacob laid his head on, and I hold with them, by reason our Lord never preached at Tyre. Going hence, they showed me the state nursery for the children of those aphrodisian dames, their favourites. Here in the outer wall was a broad niche, and if they bring them so little as they can squeeze them through it alive, the bairn falls into a net inside, and the state takes charge of it, but if too big, their mothers must even take them home again, with whom abiding ’tis like to be mali corvi mali ovum. Coming out of the church we met them carrying in a corpse, with the feet and face bare. This I then first learned is Venetian custom, and sure no other town will ever rob them of it.... But what I most admired was to see over against the Duke’s palace a fair gallows in alabaster, reared express to bring him, and no other, for the least treason to the state; and there it stands in his eye whispering him memento mori. I pondered, and owned these signors my masters, who will let no man, not even their sovereign, be above the common weal.

CHARLES READE.

‘VENICE, WHOSE NAME DID ONCE ADORN THE WORLD’

Venice, whose name did once adorn the world,
Thou mightst have been all that thou ever wert,
In form and feature and material strength,
Up from the sea, which is thy pedestal,
Unto thy Campanile’s golden top,
And yet have never won the precious crown,
To be the loved of human hearts, to be
The wise man’s treasure now and evermore.
The ingenious boldness, the creative will,
Which from some weak uncertain plots of sand,
Cast up among the waters, could erect
Foundations firm as on the central ground;
The art which changed thy huts to palaces,
And bade the God of Ocean’s temples rise
Conspicuous far above the crystal plain,
The ever-active nerve of industry,
That bound the Orient to the Occident
In fruitful commerce, till thy lap was filled
With wealth, the while thy head was girt with power,
Each have their separate palm from wondering men ...
Prime model of a Christian commonwealth!
Thou wise simplicity, which present men
Calumniate, not conceiving; joy is mine,
That I have read and learnt thee as I ought,
Not in the crude compiler’s painted shell,
But in thine own memorials of live stone,
And in the pictures of thy kneeling princes,
And in the lofty words on lofty tombs,
And in the breath of ancient chroniclers,
And in the music of the outer sea.

RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES.

THE BRIDE OF THE SEA

There are cities high over Orion
That jasper and sardonyx be;
Whose streets it were joy but to lie on,
Whose walls it were bliss but to see;
Many sumptuous cities fair Dian
Beholds over mountain and lea,
But the Bride, ’neath the wings of her Lion,--
Where is one such as she?

She is crowned with her triumphs and towers,
And blue run the veins in her arms;
Like the lotus, afloat with her flowers,
Her whiteness hath wonderous charms;
Delicious her lips are, with powers
Circean, yet void of alarms;
And the mortal that dreams of her bowers
Leaves his soul in her arms.

Yet should time, ever eager, though olden,
Her fairness despoil and depose;
Should her domes, which at evening are golden,
Dissolve as her Apennine snows;
Should the sceptre, which long she hath holden,
Depart, and the crown from her brows,
And the robes of her splendour be rolled in
The gray dust of her woes;

Should the glory grow dim of her Titians,
Her gondolas drift ’neath the moon;
Should her marbles, mosaics, Venetians,
Evanish and pass as a swoon;
Should her forehead, the fairest of visions,
Sink under the silent lagoon,
And the sea, tombing all her traditions,
Leave a waste for the loon;

Should she melt as a mist evanescent,
Or fade as a myth from a scroll,--
Yet her wraith would arise juvenescent,
Aglow with a great aureole;
Still her glamour eternally crescent,
Supreme o’er the spirit would roll;
And her Name, as a star iridescent,
Light the sky of the soul.

Though in regions celestial there are lands--
Bright lands it were bliss but to see,
Whose towers, built high over star lands,
Of beryl and sardonyx be:
Though cities in fabulous far lands
Loom fair over mountain and lea,--
Yet on earth, in her gloom, or her garlands,
Who so comely as she!

LLOYD MIFFLIN.

BROWNING’S VENICE

This is the loggia Browning loved,
High on the flank of the friendly town;
These are the hills that his keen eye roved,
The green like a cataract leaping down
To the plain that his pen gave new renown.

There to the West what a range of blue!--
The very background Titian drew
To his peerless Loves! O tranquil scene!
Who than thy poet fondlier knew
The peaks and the shore and the lore between!

See! yonder’s his Venice--the valiant Spire,
Highest one of the perfect three,
Guarding the others: the Palace choir
The Temple flashing with opal fire--
Bubble and foam of the sunlit sea.

ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON.

VENICE

If you would see Venice as she is,
Wander by night in silence and alone
Among her towers and sculptured palaces
And read the story she has writ in stone;
Then, as you read, she will upon you cast
The fascination of her wondrous past.

Muse on, and let the silent gondolier
Wind at his will ’mid tortuous, twisting ways
And broad lagoons, with waters wide and clear,
On whose unruffled breast the moonbeam plays;
And move not, speak not, for the mystery
Of Venice is with you on the sea.

Pass, if you will, beneath the five great domes
Of old Saint Mark’s; watch how the glittering height
Soars in quick curves; see how each sunbeam roams
And fills the nave with soft pure amber light;
This is the heart of Venice, and the tomb
Which folds her story in its sacred gloom.

So leave her sunlight, enter now her cells,
By frowning black-browed ports and massy bars,
Where pestilence in foul dank vapour dwells,
Far, far from sun and day, from moon and stars
The only sound when whispering waters glide
In on the bosom of a sluggish tide.

Then turn again into her solitudes,--
Things of to-day will faint and fade like smoke;--
Drift through the darkened nooks where silence broods,
Let memory fall upon you like a cloak:
Venice will rise around you as of old.
Decked out in marble, amethyst, and gold.

But that was years ago; to-day the notes
Of wild free song have left her silver streets;
Her blazoned banner now no longer floats
In aureate folds, no more the sunrise greets;
She lives but in a past so strong and brave
It serves alike for monument and grave.

ALAN SULLIVAN.

GEORGE ELIOT’S IMPRESSION OF VENICE

From Padua to Venice! It was about ten o’clock on a moonlight night--the 4th of June--that we found ourselves apparently on a railway in the midst of the sea: we were on the bridge across the lagoon. Soon we were in a gondola on the Grand Canal, looking out at the moonlit buildings and water. What stillness! What beauty! Looking out from the high window of our hotel on the Grand Canal, I felt that it was a pity to go to bed. Venice was more beautiful than romances had feigned.

And that was the impression that remained, and even deepened, during our stay of eight days. That quiet which seems the deeper because one hears the delicious dip of the oar (when not disturbed by clamorous church bells), leaves the eye in full liberty and strength to take in the exhaustless loveliness of colour and form.

We were in our gondola by nine o’clock the next morning, and of course the first point we sought was the Piazza di San Marco. I am glad to find Ruskin calling the Palace of the Doges one of the two most perfect buildings in the world.... This spot is a focus of architectural wonders: but the palace is the crown of them all. The double tier of columns and arches, with the rich sombreness of their finely outlined shadows, contrast satisfactorily with the warmth and light and more continuous surface of the upper part. Even landing on the Piazzetta, one has a sense, not only of being in an entirely novel scene, but one where the ideas of a foreign race have poured themselves in without yet mingling indistinguishably with the pre-existent Italian life. But this is felt yet more strongly when one has passed along the Piazzetta and arrived in front of San Marco, with its low arches and domes and minarets. But perhaps the most striking point to take one’s stand on is just in front of the white marble guard-house flanking the great tower--the guard-house with Sansovino’s iron gates before it. On the left is San Marco, with the two square pillars from St. Jean d’Acre, standing as isolated trophies; on the right the Piazzetta extends between the Doge’s palace and the Palazzo Reale to the tall columns from Constantinople; and in front is the elaborate gateway leading to the white marble Scala dei Giganti, in the courtyard of the Doge’s palace. Passing through this gateway and up the staircase, we entered the gallery which surrounds the court on three sides, and looked down at the fine sculptured vase-like wells below. Then into the great Sala, surrounded with the portraits of the Doges: the largest oil-painting here--or perhaps anywhere else--is the ‘Gloria del Paradiso’ by Tintoretto, now dark and unlovely. But on the ceiling is a great Paul Veronese--the ‘Apotheosis of Venice’--which looks as fresh as if it were painted yesterday, and is a miracle of colour and composition--a picture full of glory and joy of an earthly, fleshly kind, but without any touch of coarseness or vulgarity. Below the radiant Venice on her clouds is a balcony filled with upward-looking spectators; and below this gallery is a group of human figures with horses. Next to this Apotheosis, I admire another Coronation of Venice on the ceiling of another Sala, where Venice is sitting enthroned above the globe with her lovely face in half-shadow--a creature born with an imperial attitude. There are other Tintorettos, Veroneses, and Palmas in the great halls of this palace; but they left me quite indifferent, and have become vague in my memory. From the splendours of the palace we crossed the Bridge of Sighs to the prisons, and saw the horrible dark damp cells that would make the saddest life in the free light and air seem bright and desirable.

The interior of St. Mark’s is full of interest, but not of beauty: it is dark and heavy, and ill-suited to the Catholic worship, for the massive piers that obstruct the view everywhere shut out the sight of ceremony and procession, as we witnessed at our leisure on the day of the great procession of Corpus Christi. But everywhere there are relics of gone-by art to be studied, from mosaics of the Greeks to mosaics of later artists than the Zuccati; old marble statues, embrowned like a meerschaum pipe; amazing sculptures in wood; Sansovino doors, ambitious to rival Ghiberti’s; transparent alabaster columns; an ancient Madonna, hung with jewels, transported from St. Sophia, in Constantinople; and everywhere the venerable pavement, once beautiful with its starry patterns in rich marble, now deadened and sunk to unevenness like the mud floor of a cabin.

Then outside, on the archway of the principal door, there are sculptures of a variety that makes one renounce the study of them in despair at the shortness of one’s time--blended fruits and foliage, and human groups and animal forms of all kinds. On our first morning we ascended the great tower, and looked around on the island-city and the distant mountains and the distant Adriatic. And on the same day we went to see the Pisani Palace--one of the grand old palaces that are going to decay.... After this we saw the Church of San Sebastiano, where Paul Veronese is buried, with his own paintings around, mingling their colour with the light that falls on his tombstone. There is one remarkably fine painting of his here: it represents, I think, some Saints going to martyrdom, but apart from that explanation, is a composition full of vigorous, spirited figures....

Santa Maria della Salute, built as an _ex voto_ by the Republic on the cessation of the plague, is one of the most conspicuous churches in Venice, lifting its white cupolas close on the Grand Canal, where it widens out towards the Giudecca. Here there are various Tintorettos, but the only one which is not blackened so as to be unintelligible is the _Cena_, which is represented as a bustling supper-party, with attendants and sideboard accessories, in thoroughly Dutch fashion!... But of all Tintoretto’s paintings, the best preserved, and perhaps the most complete in execution, is the Miracle of St. Mark at the Accademia. We saw it the oftener because we were attracted to the Accademia again and again by Titian’s Assumption, which we placed next to Peter the Martyr among the pictures at Venice. For a thoroughly rapt expression I never saw anything equal to the Virgin in this picture; and the expression is the more remarkable because it is not assisted by the usual devices to express spiritual ecstasy, such as delicacy of feature and temperament or pale meagreness. Then what cherubs and angelic heads bathed in light! The lower part of the picture has no interest; the attitudes are theatrical; and the Almighty above is as unbeseeming as painted Almighties usually are: but the middle group falls short only of the Sistine Madonna.

Among the Venetian painters Giovanni Bellini shines with a mild, serious light that gives one an affectionate respect towards him. In the Church of the Scalzi there is an exquisite Madonna by him--probably his _chef-d’œuvre_--comparable to Raphael’s for sweetness.

And Palma Vecchio, too, must be held in grateful reverence for his Santa Barbara, standing in calm, grand beauty above an altar in the Church of Santa Maria Formosa. It is an almost unique presentation of a hero-woman, standing in calm preparation for martyrdom, without the slightest air of pietism, yet with the expression of a mind filled with serious conviction.

We made the journey to Chioggia.... Of all dreamy delights, that of floating in a gondola along the canals and out on the lagoon is surely the greatest. We were out one night on the lagoon when the sun was setting, and the wide waters were flushed with the reddened light. I should have liked it to last for hours: it is the sort of scene in which I could most readily forget my own existence, and feel melted into the general life.

Another charm of evening time was to walk up and down the Piazza of San Marco as the stars were brightening and look at the grand dim buildings, and the flock of pigeons flitting about them; or to walk on to the Bridge of La Paglia and look along the dark canal that runs under the Bridge of Sighs--its blackness lit up by a gaslight here and there, and the plash of the oar of blackest gondola slowly advancing....

Farewell, lovely Venice! and away to Verona, across the green plains of Lombardy, which can hardly look tempting to an eye still filled with the dreamy beauty it has left behind.

_GEORGE ELIOT’S LIFE AS RELATED IN HER
LETTERS AND JOURNALS._

BEFORE ‘A SURVEY OF THE CITY OF VENICE’

THAT EXQUISITE LARGE PEECE

Could any state on earth immortal be,
_Venice_ by her rare Government is she....
Though, Syren-like, on shore and sea, her face
Enchants all those whom once she doth embrace.
Nor is there any can her beauty prize
But he who hath beheld her with his eyes....
_Venus_ and _Venice_ are, Great Queens in their degree;
_Venus_ is Queen of love, _Venice_ of policy.

JAMES HOWELL.

VENICE: THE GEM OF THE WORLD

AN EPITOME

Having now so amply declared unto you most of the principall things of this thrise-renowned and illustrious citie, I will briefly by way of epitome mention most of the other particulars thereof, and so finally shut up this narration: There are reported to be in Venice and the circumjacent islands two hundred Churches in which are one hundred forty three paire organs, fifty foure Monasteries, twenty sixe Nunneries, fifty sixe Tribunals or places of judgment, seventeene Hospitals, sixe Companies or Fraternities; one hundred sixty five marble statues of worthy personages, partly equestriall, partly pedestriall, which are erected in sundry places of the citie, to the honour of those that eyther at home have prudently administered the Commonweale, or abroad valiantly fought for the same. Likewise of brass there are twenty three, whereof one is that of Bartholomew Coleon. Also there are twentie seven publique clocks, ten brasen gates, a hundred and fourteene Towers for bels to hang in, ten brasen horses, one hundred fifty wels for the common use of the citizens, one hundred eighty five delectable gardens, ten thousand Gondolaes, foure hundred and fifty bridges partly stony, partly timber, one hundred and twenty Palaces, whereof one hundred are very worthy of that name, one hundred seventy foure courts: and the totall number of soules living in the citie and about the same is thought to be about five hundred thousand, something more or lesse. For sometimes there is a catalogue made of all the persons in the citie of what sexe or age soever they be; as we may reade there was heretofore in Rome in the time of Augustus Cæsar: and at the last view there were found in the whole city as many as I have before spoken.

Thus have I related unto thee as many notable matters of this noble citie, as either I could see with mine eyes, or heare from the report of credible and worthy persons, or derive from the monuments of learned and authenticke writers that I have found in the citie.... And so at length I finish the treatise of this incomparable city, this most beautifull Queene, this untainted virgine, the Paradise, the Tempe, this rich Diademe and most flourishing garland of Christendome: of which the inhabitants may as proudly vaunt, as I have reade the Persians have done of their Ormus, who say that if the world were a ring, then should Ormus be the gemme thereof: the same (I say) may the Venetians speake of their citie, and much more truely. The sight whereof hath yeelded unto me such infinite and unspeakable contentment (I must needes confesse) that even as Albertus Marquesse of Guasto said, were he put to his choice to be Lord of foure of the fairest cities of Italy, or the Arsenall of Venice, he would prefer the Arsenall: In like manner I say, that had there bin an offer made unto me before I took my journey to Venice, eyther that foure of the richest mannors of Somerset-shire (wherein I was borne) should be gratis bestowed upon me if I never saw Venice, or neither of them if I should see it; although certainly those mannors would do me much more good in respect of a state of livelyhood to live in the world, then the sight of Venice: yet notwithstanding, I will ever say while I live, that the sight of Venice and her resplendent beauty, antiquities, and monuments, hath by many degrees more contented my mind, and satisfied my desires, then those foure Lordshippes could possibly have done.

* * * * *

Thus much of the glorious citie of Venice.

THOMAS CORYAT (1611).

VENICE FROM THE SEA

Venus is the fair goddess,
Venice is the fair city;
Sweet star, town enchantress,
Pearls of love and of beauty.
Slumber you the still night through,
Cradled in the briny waters;
For you are sisters, both of you,
Of the ocean-foam were daughters.
IN GEORGE SAND’S ‘THE USCOQUE.’

Fayre Venice, flower of the last world’s delight.
EDW. SPENCER.

Faire Venice, like a spouse in Neptune’s armes.
JOHN HARRINGTON.

To taste in all their fulness his first impressions of
Venice, the traveller should arrive there by sea, at
mid-day, when the sun is high.... He who comes for the
first time to Venice by this route realizes a dream--his
only dream perhaps ever destined to be surpassed by the
reality; and if he knows how to enjoy the things of Nature,
if he can take delight in silver-grey and rose-coloured
reflections in water, if he loves light and colour, the
picturesque life of Italian squares and streets, the good
humour of the people and their gentle speech, which seems
like the twittering of birds, let him only allow himself to
live for a little time under the sky of Venice, and he has
before him a season of happiness without alloy.
CHARLES YRIARTE.

SAILING TOWARDS VENICE

To the sea, the wonderful sea!... To Venice, the strangely floating city, the queen of the Adriatic!... I knew perfectly that the north of Italy would present to me a new style of scenery. Venice itself was really so different to any other Italian city; a richly adorned bride for the mighty sea. The winged Venetian lion waved on the flag above me. The sails swelled in the wind, and concealed the coast from me. I sat upon the right side of the ship, and looked out across the blue, billowy sea; a young lad sat not far from me, and sang a Venetian song about the bliss of love and the shortness of life: ‘Kiss the red lips, on the morrow thou art with the dead; love whilst thy heart is young, and thy blood is fire and flame! Grey hairs are the flowers of death: then is the blood ice; then is the flame extinguished! Come into the light gondola! We sit concealed under its roof, we cover the windows, we close the door, nobody sees thee, love! We are rocked upon the waves; the waves embrace, and so do we. Love whilst youth is in thy blood. Age kills with frost and with snow!’