the first stanza, the podesta was doubly angry at the second, which sneered at Venetian pomposity in incomparable style.  But the prior and podesta were equally outvoted, for the roar of the multitude was twice as loud as before.  Then came other touches on the cavalieri serventi, the ladies, the nuns, and the husbands, till every class had its share:  but the satire was so witty, that, keen as it was, the shouts of the people silenced all disapprobation.  He finished by a brilliant stanza, in which he said, that “having been sent by Neptune from the depths of the ocean to visit the earth, he had chosen for his landing-place its most renowned spot, the birthplace of the gayest men and the handsomest women—­the exquisite Vicenza.”  With these words he ascended from the shore, and was received with thunders of applause.

His figure was tall and elegant.  He wore a loose, scarlet cloak thrown over his fine limbs, Greek sandals, and a cap like that of the Italian princes of three centuries before, a kind of low circle of green and vermilion striped silk, clasped by a large rose of topaz.  The men universally said, that there was an atrocious expression in his countenance; but the women, the true judges after all, said, without exception, that this was envy in the men, and that the stranger was the most “delightful looking Diavolo” they had ever set eyes on.

The stranger, on his landing, desired to be led to the principal hotel; but he had not gone a dozen steps from the water-side, when he exclaimed that he had lost his purse.  Such an imputation was never heard before in an Italian city; at least so swore the multitude; and the stranger was on the point of falling several fathoms deep in his popularity.  But he answered the murmur by a laugh; and stopping in front of a beggar, who lay at the corner of an hospital roaring out for alms, demanded the instant loan of fifty sequins.  The beggar lifted up his hands and eyes in speechless wonder, and then shook out his rags, which, whatever else they might show, certainly showed no sequins, “The sequins, or death!” was the demand, in a tremendous voice.  The beggar fell on the ground convulsed, and from his withered hand, which every one had seen empty the moment before, out flew fifty sequins, bright as if they had come that moment from St. Mark’s mint.  The stranger took them from the ground, and, with a smile, flung them up in a golden shower through the crowd.  The shouts were immense, and the mob insisted on carrying him to the door of his hotel.

But the Venetian vigilance was by this time a little awakened, and a patrol of the troops was ordered to bring this singular stranger before the sublime podesta.  The crowd instantly dropped him at the sight of the bayonets, and knowing the value of life in the most delicious climate of the world, took to their heels.  The guard took possession of their prisoner, and were leading him rather roughly to the governor’s house, when he requested them to stop for a moment beside a convent gate, that he might get a cup of wine.  But the Dominicans would not give the satirist of their illustrious order a cup of water.