to visit the great Mistress of the Sea, taking refuge there, ‘in this city, true home of the human race,’ from trouble, war and pestilence outside; and Byron, with his facile enthusiasms and fervent eloquence, made his home for a time in one of the stately, decaying palaces; but with these exceptions no great poet has ever associated himself with the life of Venice.  She had architects, sculptors and painters, but no singer of her own.  The arts through which she gave her message to the world were visible and imitative.  Mrs. Oliphant, in her bright, picturesque style, tells the story of Venice pleasantly and well.  Her account of the two Bellinis is especially charming; and the chapters on Titian and Tintoret are admirably written.  She concludes her interesting and useful history with the following words, which are well worthy of quotation, though I must confess that the ‘alien modernisms’ trouble me not a little: 

The critics of recent days have had much to say as to the deterioration of Venice in her new activity, and the introduction of alien modernisms, in the shape of steamboats and other new industrial agents, into her canals and lagoons.  But in this adoption of every new development of power, Venice is only proving herself the most faithful representative of the vigorous republic of old.  Whatever prejudice or angry love may say, we cannot doubt that the Michiels, the Dandolos, the Foscari, the great rulers who formed Venice, had steamboats existed in their day, serving their purpose better than their barges and peati, would have adopted them without hesitation, without a thought of what any critics might say.  The wonderful new impulse which has made Italy a great power has justly put strength and life before those old traditions of beauty, which made her not only the ‘woman country’ of Europe, but a sort of Odalisque trading upon her charms, rather than the nursing mother of a noble and independent nation.  That in her recoil from that somewhat degrading position, she may here and there have proved too regardless of the claims of antiquity, we need not attempt to deny; the new spring of life in her is too genuine and great to keep her entirely free from this evident danger.  But it is strange that any one who loves Italy, and sincerely rejoices in her amazing resurrection, should fail to recognise how venial is this fault.

Miss Mabel Robinson’s last novel, The Plan of Campaign, is a very powerful study of modern political life.  As a concession to humanity, each of the politicians is made to fall in love, and the charm of their various romances fully atones for the soundness of the author’s theory of rent.  Miss Robinson dissects, describes, and discourses with keen scientific insight and minute observation.  Her style, though somewhat lacking in grace, is, at its best, simple and strong.  Richard Talbot and Elinor Fetherston are admirably conceived and admirably drawn, and the whole account of the murder of Lord Roeglass is most dramatic.