through which had passed, in their time, th every clime, had long been unopened, and v age. As we pursued our way, we passed u arches, from which uncouth faces, cut in t down upon us, and grinned our welcome. T the light of a candle, the sound of a millstone It seemed a city of the dead. The inhabitan died ages ago, and had left their palaces to be mermaids and spirits of the deep, for other o see none. Spectral fancies began to haunt my conceived of the canal we were traversing as gondola as the boat of Charon, and ourselves of ghosts, who had passed from earth, and w silent way to the inexorable bar of Rhadaman spectral procession we could not have made, w boat gliding noiselessly through the water, w steersman, and its crowd of spectral passenge fancy, instead of being a fancy, had been a realit around me were sombre, shadowy, silent, as Ha Suddenly our gondola made a rapid sweep corner. Then it was that the Queen of the A her glory, burst upon us,—

"Looking a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,

Rising with her tiara of proud towers."

We were flung right in front of the great square It was like the instantaneous raising of the curtai glorious vision, or like the sudden parting of the c Mont Blanc; or, if I may use such a simile, like t of the gates of a better world to the spirit, after pass the shadows of the tomb. The spacious piazza, all sides with noble structures in every style of

reflected the splendour of a thousand lamps. There was the palace of the Doge, which I knew not as yet; and there, on its lofty column, was the winged lion of St Mark, which it was impossible not to know; and, crowding the piazza, and walking to and fro on its marble floor, was a countless multitude of men in all the costumes of the world. With the deep hum of voices was softly blended the sound of the Italian lute. A few strokes of the oar brought us to the Hotel dell' Europa. I made a spring from the gondola, and alighted on the steps of the hotel.

CHAPTER XV.

CITY OF VENICE.

Sabbath Morning-Beauty of Sunrise on the Adri Mark's-Popish Sabbath-schools-Sale of Indulg Dead-An Astrologer-How the Venetians spend noon and Evening-The Martyrs of Venice-A Y Trouble-The Doge's Palace-The Stone Lions-T -The Venetians Discard their Old God, and adop Tower-The Academy of Fine Arts-The Moral of tions Die?-Common Theory Unsatisfactory-His of ever-recurring Cycles, ending in Barbarism-Ins score and Ten" of Nations-The Solution to be s to the False Religions-The Intellect of the Nat Conscience is Dissolved-Virtue is Lost-Slavery -Christianity only can give Immortality to Natio vilization under Romanism-A Papist foretelling

THE deep boom of the Austrian cannon awo ing at day-break. I remembered that it was S had I seen the Sabbath dawn amidst a si More tranquil could not have been its fir bowers of Eden. In this city of ocean the hurrying feet, no rattle of chariot-wheel, nor titudinous noises that distract the cities of silence on the domes of Venice, silence on 1

of glory on the Lagunes. It would be difficult to describe the grandeur of the scene, which has nothing elsewhere of the kind to equal it, the white marble city, serenely seated on the bosom of the Adriatic, with the Lagunes outspread in the morning sun like a mirror of molten gold. But, alas! it was only a glorious vision; for the power and wealth of Venice are departed.

Thin streets and foreign aspects, such as must

Empty halls,

Too oft remind her who and what enthrals,

Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls."

The gun which had awaked me reminds the Queen of the
Adriatic every morning that the day of her dominion and glory
is over, and that the night has come upon her,-
-a
night, the
deep unbroken shadows of which, even the bright morning
that was now opening on the Adriatic could not dispel.

After breakfast I hurried to the church of S. Mark. Mass was proceeding as usual; and a large crowd of worshippers,— spectators I should rather say,-stood densely packed in the chancel. If I except the Madeleine in Paris, I have nowhere seen in a Roman Catholic church an attendance at all approximating even a tolerable congregation, save here. I remarked, too, that these were not the beggars which usually form the larger proportion of the attendance, such as it is, in Roman churches. The people in S. Mark's were well dressed, though it was not easy to conceive where these fine clothes had come from, seeing the sea has now failed Venice, and land she never possessed. This was the first symptom I saw (I met others in the course of the day) that in Venice the Roman religion has

a stronger hold upon the people than in the re an advantage in this respect to be some lit Rome, and to have an insular position. I that the priests in Venetian Lombardy, an Venice also, are men of more reputable lives ren in other parts of the Peninsula. Ancier Venice was wont to be termed "the par There no pleasure allowable to a man of th bidden to a priest. The Senate, jealous of might abridge its authority, encouraged this Church's discipline, in the hope of lowering its clergy with the people.

S. Mark's is an ancient, quaint-looking p hoar light of history around it. On its Alexander III. met the Emperor Frederick i pride unabated by his enforced flight from F guise of a cook, put his foot upon the monar ing the words of the psalm,-"Thou shalt tr and adder." This high temple of the Adriat rious, but wanting in effect, owing to the gloomy light. The Levant was searched marbles to decorate it; acres of gold-leaf ha in gilding it; and every corner is stuck full vices, some of which are so very ingenious, t yet been read. The priests wore a style of d fitting the finery of the Cathedral; for the bespangled with gold and curious devices. to the simple temple and the plain earnest whom I had passed my former Sabbath a hills! But the God of the Vaudois, unlike the priests, "dwelleth not in temples made v Passing along on the narrow paved footpat