motion since our arrival, except perhaps by climbing the beautiful tower which stands (as every thing else does) in St. Mark’s Place.  And you may drive a garden-chair up that, so easy is the ascent, so broad and luminous the way.  From the top is presented to one’s sight the most striking of all prospects, water bounded by land—­not land by water.—­The curious and elegant islets upon which, and into which, the piles of Venice are driven, exhibiting clusters of houses, churches, palaces, every thing—­started up in the midst of the sea, so as to excite amazement.

But the horses have not been spoken of, though one pair drew Apollo’s car at Delphos.  The other, which we call modern, and laugh while we call them so, were made however before the days of Constantine the Great.  They are of bright yellow brass, not black bronze, as I expected to find them, and grace the glorious church I am never weary of admiring; where I went one day on purpose to find out the red marble on which Pope Alexander III. sate, and placed his foot upon the neck of the Emperor:  the stone has this inscription half legible round it, Super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis[Footnote:  Thou shalt tread on the asp and the basilisk].  How does this lovely Piazza di San Marco render a newly-arrived spectator breathless with delight! while not a span of it is unoccupied by actual beauty; though the whole appears uncrowded, as in the works of nature, not of art.

It was upon the day appointed for making a new chancellor, however, that one ought to have looked at this lovely city; when every shop, adorned with its own peculiar produce, was disposed to hail the passage of its favourite, in a manner so lively, so luxuriant, and at the same time so tasteful—­there’s no telling.  Milliners crowned the new dignitary’s picture with flowers, while columns of gauze, twisted round with ribband, in the most elegant style, supported the figure on each side, and made the prettiest appearance possible.  The furrier formed his skins into representations of the animal they had once belonged to; so the lion was seen dandling the kid at one door, while the fox stood courting a badger out of his hole at the other.  The poulterers and fruiterers were by many thought the most beautiful shops in town, from the variety of fancies displayed in the disposal of their goods; and I admired at the truly Italian ingenuity of a gunsmith, who had found the art of turning his instruments of terror into objects of delight, by his judicious manner of placing and arranging them.  Every shop was illuminated with a large glass chandelier before it, besides the wax candles and coloured lamps interspersed among the ornaments within.  The senators have much the appearance of our lawyers going robed to Westminster Hall, but the gentiluomini, as they are called, wear red dresses, and remind me of the Doctors of the ecclesiastical courts in Doctors Commons.

It is observable that all long robes denote peaceful occupations, and that the short cut coat is the emblem of a military profession, once the disgrace of humanity, now unfortunately become its false and cruel pride.