GEORGE.  “I will try, papa, to exercise my patience on the ‘Stanley,’ and be satisfied to read of the men-of-war.  Now, dear papa, I want to know if the Mediterranean has ever been frozen over like the Thames?”

MR. WILTON.  “Not exactly like the Thames, but it has been frozen.  In the year 1823, the Mediterranean was one sheet of ice; the people of the south never experienced so severe a winter, or, if they did, there is no mention made of it in history.”

EMMA.  “Ought not Venice, being nearly or totally surrounded by water, to be included in the islands of the Mediterranean?”

MRS. WILTON.  “It is not in the Mediterranean, my dear, but situated to the north of the Adriatic Sea, which sea is undoubtedly connected with the Mediterranean, as are many other seas and gulfs; for instance, we may include the Archipelago or Egean Sea, the Sea of Marmora, the Gulf of Tarento, and the first-mentioned, the Adriatic Sea, or Gulf of Venice, the mouth of which is also called the Ionian Sea; and I cannot tell you how many smaller gulfs, or, more properly speaking, bays, beside; for in the Archipelago alone there are no fewer than eleven.  However, while we are so near, it may be of some advantage to take a peep at Venice, ’the dream-like city of a hundred isles:’  that expression is a poetical exaggeration, for Venice is built upon seventy-two small islands.  Over the several canals, are laid nearly five hundred bridges, most of them built of stone.  The Rialto was once considered the largest single-arched bridge in the world, and is well known to English readers from the work of our greatest dramatist, Shakspeare,—­the ’Merchant of Venice,’ and from ‘Venice Preserved,’ written by the unhappy poet Otway, who died of starvation.  Although no longer the brilliant and prosperous city, from whose stories Shakspeare selected such abundant subjects for his pen, there is yet much to admire and wonder at.  On the great canal, which has a winding course between the two principal parts of the city, are situated the most magnificent of the great houses, or palaces as they are termed; some of them of a beautiful style of architecture, with fronts of Istrian marble, and containing valuable collections of pictures.  The canals penetrate to every part of the town, so that almost every house has a communication by a landing-stair, leading directly into the house by one way, and on to the water by another.  The place of coaches is supplied by gondolas, which are light skiffs with cabins, in which four or five persons can sit, covered and furnished with a door and glass windows like a carriage.  They are propelled by one man standing near the stern, with a single oar, which he pushes, moving the boat in the same direction as he looks.  Those persons who are not rich enough to possess a gondola of their own, hire them, as we do cabs, when they require to go abroad.  The Venetian territories are as fruitful as any in Italy, abounding with vineyards, and mulberry plantations.  Its chief towns are Venice (which I have described), Padua, Verona, Milan, Cremona, Lodi, and Mantua.  Venice was once at the head of the European naval powers; ’her merchants were princes, and her traffickers the honorable of the earth,’ but now—­