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themselves. Francis Carrara, the elder, used often to visit Petrarch in his small house at Arquà, and followed him on foot to his grave.

(40) See the Heraclide of Euripides, v. 203, &c.

(41) Originally thus:

My omelet, and a trout, that, as the sun

Shot his last ray through Zanga's leafy grove,
Leaped at a golden fly, had happily

Fled from all eyes;

Zanga is the name of a beautiful villa near Bergamo, in which Tasso finished his tragedy of Torrismondo. It still belongs to his family.

(42) Hist. de Gil Blas, 1. i. c. 2.

After the concluding line in the MS.

That evening, tended on with verse and song,
I closed my eyes in heaven, but not to sleep;
A Columbine, my nearest neighbor there,
In her great bounty, at the midnight hour
Bestowing on the world two Harlequins.

Chapelle and Bachaumont fared no better at Salon, "à cause d'une comédienne, qui s'avisa d'accoucher de deux petits comédiens."

(43) Originally thus:

And shall I sup where JULIET at the masque
First saw and loved, and now, by him who came
That night a stranger, sleeps from age to age?

An old palace of the Cappelletti, with its uncouth balcony and irregular windows, is still standing in a lane near the market-place; and what Englishman can behold it with indifference?

When we enter Verona we forget ourselves, and are almost inclined to say, with Dante,

"Vieni a veder Montecchi, e Cappelletii."

(44) It has been observed that in Italy the memory sees more than the eye. Scarcely a stone is turned up that has not some historical association, ancient or modern; that may not be said to have gold under it.

(45) Fallen as she is, she is still, as in the days of Tassoni,

"La gran donna del Po."

(46) From the sonnet of Filicaja, "Italia! Italia!" &c.

(47) All our travellers, from Addison downward, have diligently explored the monuments of her former existence; while those of her latter have, comparatively speaking, escaped observation. If I cannot supply the deficiency, I will not follow their example; and happy shall I be if by an intermixture of verse and prose I have furnished my countrymen on their travels with a pocket companion.

Though the obscure has its worshippers, as well, indeed, it may, forever changing its aspect, and now and then, if we may believe it, wearing the likeness of the sublime ; I have always endeavored, with what success I cannot say, to express my thoughts and my feelings as naturally and as clearly in verse as in prose, sparing no labor, and remembering the old adage, "Le Temps n'epargne pas ce qu'on fait sans lui."

It was the boast of Boileau- and how much are we indebted to him! — that he had taught Racine to write with difficulty, -to do as others have done who have left what will live forever.

"Weigh well every word, nor publish till many years are gone by," is an injunction which has descended from age to age, the injunction of one* who could publish only in manuscript, and in manuscript hope to survive; though now (such the energy of his genius, such the excellence of his precept and his practice) in every country, every language, and in numbers almost numberless, our constant companion wherever we go.t

What would he have said now, when many a volume, on its release from the closet, wings it way in an instant over the Old World and the New, flying from city to city during the changes of the moon; and when the words which are uttered in our senate at midnight are delivered to thousands at sunrise, and before sunset are travelling to the ends of the earth?

(48) There is a French proverb that must sometimes occur to an observer in the present age: Beaucoup de mal, peu de bruit; Beaucoup de bruit, peu de mal.

To Lord John Russell are we indebted for that admirable definition of a proverb, "The wisdom of many and the wit of one."

(49) A mirror in the sixteenth century is said to have revealed a secret that led to less tragical consequences.

John Galeazzo Visconte, Duke of Milan, becoming enamored in his youth of a daughter of the house of Correggio, his gayety, his cheerfulness left him, as all observed, though none knew why; till some ladies of the court, who had lived with him in great familiarity, and who had sought and sought, but never found, began to rally him on the subject, saying, "Forgive us our presumption, sir, but, as you are in love, for in love you must be, - may we know who she is, that we may render honor to whom honor is due; for it will be our delight no less than our duty to serve her?"

The duke was in dismay, and endeavored to fly, if it were possible, from so unequal a combat. But in flight there is no security when such an enemy is in the field; and, being soon convinced that the more he resisted the more he would be assailed, he resolved at once to capitulate; and, commanding for the purpose a splendid entertainment, such as he was accustomed to give, he invited them, one and all; not forgetting the lovely Correggia, who was as urgent as the rest, though she flattered herself that she knew the secret as well as he did.

When the banquet was over and the table-cloth removed, and every guest, as she sate, served with water for her fair hands and with a tooth-pick from the odoriferous mastic-tree, a cabinet of rich workmanship was placed on the table. “ And now," said he, with a gayety usual to lovers," and now, my dear ladies, as I can deny you nothing, come, one by one, and behold her; for here she is!" As he spoke, he unfolded the doors of the cabinet; and each in her turn beheld the portrait of a beautiful girl.

The last to look and to see was Correggia, for so he had contrived it; but no contrivance was wanted; for, shrinking and agitated, she had hung back behind them all, till to her ear came the intelligence that the portrait was unknown, and with the intelligence came the conviction that her fond heart had deceived her.

But what were her feelings when she looked and saw; for at the touch of a spring the portrait had vanished, and in a mirror she saw herself! - Ricordi di Sabba Castiglione, 1559.

For this story, as indeed for many others, I am indebted to my friend, Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, President of the Royal Academy; and I am happy in this opportunity of acknowledging my obligations to him.

* Horace.

+ Nineteen centuries have passed away, and what scholar has not now his pocket Horace?

(50) Murato was a technical word for this punishment.

(51) An old huntsman of the family met her in the haze of the morning, and never went out again.

She is still known by the name of Madonna Bianca.

(52) Several were painted by Giorgione and Titian; as, for instance, the Ca' Soranzo, the Ca' Grimani, and the Fondaco de' Tedeschi. Great was their emulation, great their rivalry, if we may judge from an anecdote related by Vasari; and with what interest must they have been observed in their progress, as they stood at work on their scaffolds, by those who were passing under them by land and by water ! *

(53) Now an observatory. On the wall there is a long inscription: "Piis carcerem adspergite lacrymis," &c.

Ezzelino is seen by Dante in the river of blood.

(54) Bonatti was the great astrologer of that day; and all the little princes of Italy contended for him. It was from the top of the tower of Forli that he gave his signals to Guido Novello. At the first touch of a bell the count put on his armor; at the second he mounted his horse, and at the third marched out to battle. His victories were ascribed to Bonatti ; and not perhaps without reason. How many triumphs were due to the soothsayers of old Rome!

(55) "Douze personnes, tant acteurs qu' actrices, un souffleur, un machiniste, un garde du magasin, des enfans de tout âge, des chiens, des chats, des singes, des perroquets; c' étoit l'arche de Noé. Ma prédilection pour les soubrettes m'arrêta sur Madame Baccherini." Goldoni.

(56) The passage-boats are drawn up and down the Brenta.

(57) A pleasant instance of his wit and agility was exhibited some years ago on the stage at Venice.

"The stutterer was in an agony; the word was inexorable. It was to no purpose that Harlequin suggested another and another. At length, 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 distant part of the house."-See Moore's View of Society in Italy.

He is well described by Marmontel in the Encyclopédie.

"Personnage de la comédie italienne. Le caractère distinctif de l'ancienne comédie italienne est de jouer des ridicules, non pas personnels, mais nationaux. C'est une imitation grotesque des mœurs des différentes villes d'Italie; et chacune d'elles est représentée par un personnage qui est toujours le même. Pantalon est vénitien, le Docteur est bolonois, Scapin est napolitain, et Arlequin est bergamasque. Celui-ci est d'une singularité qui mérite d'être observée; et il a fait long-temps les plaisirs de Paris, joué par trois acteurs célèbres, Dominique, Thomassin, et Carlin. Il est vraisemblable qu'un esclave africain fut le premier modèle de ce personnage. Son caractère est un mélange d'ignorance, de naïveté, d'esprit, de bêtise et de grâce: c'est un espèce d'homme ébauché, un grand enfant, qui a des lueurs de raison et d'intelligence, et dont toutes les méprises ou les maladresses ont quelque chose de piquant. Le vrai modèle de son jeu est la souplesse, l'agilité, la gentillesse d'un jeune chat, avec une écorce de grossièreté qui rend son action plus plaisante; son rôle est celui d'un valet patient, fidèle, crédule, gourmand, toujours amoureux, toujours dans l'embarras, ou pour son maître, ou pour lui-même ; qui s'afflige,

* Frederic Zucchero, in a drawing which I have seen, has introduced his brother Taddeo as so employed at Romne on the palace of Mattei, and Raphael and Michael Angelo as sitting on horseback among the spectators below.

qui se console avec la facilité d'un enfant, et dont la douleur est aussi amusante que la joie."

(58) Attila.

(59) “I love,” says a traveller, "to contemplate, as I float along, that multitude of palaces and churches, which are congregated and pressed as on a vast raft." And who can forget his walk through the Merceria, where the nightingales give you their melody from shop to shop, so that, shutting your eyes, you would think yourself in some forest-glade, when, indeed, you are all the while in the middle of the sea ? Who can forget his prospect from the great tower, which once, when gilt, and when the sun struck upon it, was to be descried by ships afar off; or his visit to St. Mark's church, where you see nothing, tread on nothing, but what is precious; the floor all agate, jasper; the roof mosaic; the aisle hung with the banners of the subject cities; the front and its five domes affecting you as the work of some unknown people? Yet all this may presently pass away; the waters may close over it; and they that come row about in vain to determine exactly where it stood.

(60) A poet of our own country, Mr. Wordsworth, has written a noble sonnet on the extinction of the Venetian republic.

"Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee," &c.

(61) "Il fallut subsister; ils tirèrent leur subsistance de tout l'univers."— Montesquieu.

(62) A caravan.

(63) There was, in my time, another republic, a place of refuge for the unfortunate, and, not only at its birth, but to the last hour of its existence, which had established itself in like manner among the waters, and which shared the same fate; a republic, the citizens of which, if not more enterprising, were far more virtuous,* and could say also to the great nations of the world, "Your countries were acquired by conquest or by inheritance; but ours in the work of our own hands. We renew it day by day; and, but for us, it might cease to be to-morrow!"— a republic, in its progress, forever warred on by the elements, and how often by men more cruel than they; yet constantly cultivating the arts of peace, and, short as was the course allotted to it (only three times the life of man, according to the Psalmist), producing, amidst all its difficulties, not only the greatest seamen, but the greatest lawyers, the greatest physicians, the most accomplished scholars, the most skilful painters, and statesmen as wise as they were just.†

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* It is related that Spinola and Richardot, when on their way to negotiate a treaty at the Hague in 1608, saw eight or ten persons land from a little boat, and, sitting down on the grass, make a meal of bread and cheese and beer. "Who are these travellers?" said the ambassadors to a peasant. "They are the deputies from the states," he answered, "our sovereign lords and masters.” must make peace," they cried. "These are not men to be conquered." Voltaire.

"We

+ What names, for instance, are more illustrious than those of Barneveldt and De Witt? But when there were such mothers, there might well be such sons.

When Reinier Barneveldt was condemned to die for an attempt to revenge his father's death by assassination, his mother threw herself at the feet of Prince Maurice. "You did not deign," said he, "to ask for your husband's life; and why ask for your son's?"-"My husband," she replied, "was innocent; but my son is guilty."

De Witt was at once a model for the greatest and the least. Careless as he was of his life when in the discharge of his duty, he was always careful of his health; and to the question how he was able to transact such a multiplicity of affairs, he would answer, "By doing only one thing at a time.” A saying which should not soon be forgotten, and which may remind the reader of another, though of less value, by a great English lawyer of the last century, John Dunning. "I do a little; a little does itself; and the rest is undone."

(64) A national game of great antiquity, and most probably the "micare digitis" of the Romans. It is an old observation that few things are so lasting as the games of the young. They go down from one generation to another.

(65) Originally thus:

With Punchinello, crying as in wrath

"Tre! Quattro! Cinque !"-"Tis a game to strike

(66) When we wish to know if a man may be accounted happy, we should perhaps inquire, not whether he is prosperous or unprosperous, but how much he is affected by little things, by such as hourly assail us in the commerce of life, and are no more to be regarded than the buzzings and stingings of a summer fly.

(67) They were placed in the floor as memorials. The brass was engraven with the words addressed by the Pope to the emperor, "Super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis," &c. Thou shalt tread upon the asp and the basilisk: the lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under foot.

(68) Alexander III. IIe fled in disguise to Venice, and is said to have passed the first night on the steps of San Salvatore. The entrance is from the Merceria, near the foot of the Rialto; and it is thus recorded, under his escutcheon, in a small tablet at the door: "Alexandro III. Pont. Max. pernoctanti.”

(69) See Geoffrey de Villehardouin, in Script. Byzant, t. xx.

(70) See Petrarch's description of them and of the tournament, Rer. Senil. 1. iv. ep. 2. (71) Petrarch.

(72) Not less splendid were the tournaments of Florence in the place of Santa Croce. To those which were held there in February and June, 1468, we are indebted for two of the most celebrated poems of that age, the Giostra of Lorenzo de' Medici, by Luca Pulci, and the Giostra of Giuliano de' Medici, by Politian.

(73) "Recenti victoria exultantes," says Petrarch; alluding, no doubt, to the favorable issue of the war in France. This festival began on the 4th of August, 1364.

(74) Among those the most followed, there was always a mask in a magnificent habit, relating marvellous adventures, and calling himself Messer Marco Millioni. Millioni was the name given by his fellow-citizens in his lifetime to the great traveller, Marco Polo. "I have seen him so described," says Ramusio, "in the records of the republic; and his house has, from that time to this, been called La Corte del Millioni," the palace of the rich man, the millionnaire. It is on the canal of S. Giovanni Chrisostomo; and, as long as he lived, was much resorted to by the curious and the learned.

(75) “In atto di dar la benedittione," says Sansovino; and performing the same office as the Triton on the tower of the winds at Athens.

(76) Now called La Scala de' Giganti. The colossal statues were placed there in 1566. (77) "Marin Faliero della bella moglie: altri la gode ed egli la mantiene." "Locus Marini Faletri decapitati pro criminibus.”

(78) Francis Carrara II.

(79) "Il Conte, entrando in prigione, disse: Vedo bene ch' io son morto, e trasse un grande sospiro."- M. Sanuto.

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