caution should fail,
    And horrid Lycanthropy’s terrors prevail? 
    Now justice resumes her insignia, we find
    New light breaking in on each nebulous mind;
    While commission’d from Heaven, a parent, a friend
    Sees our swords at his nod into reaping-hooks bend,
    And souls snatch’d from death round the hero attend.

From these verses, written by a native of Brescia, one may see how matters stood there very, very little while ago:  but here at Venice the people are of a particularly sweet and gentle disposition, good-humoured with each other, and kind to strangers; little disposed to public affrays (which would indeed be punished and put a sudden end to in an instant), nor yet to any secret or hidden treachery.  They watch the hour of a Regatta with impatience, to make some merit with the woman of their choice, and boast of their families who have won in the manly contest forty or fifty years ago, perhaps when honoured with the badge and livery of some noble house; for here almost every thing is hereditary, as in England almost every thing is elective; nor had I an idea how much state affairs influence the private life of individuals in a country, till I left trusting to books, and looked a little about me.  The low Venetian, however, knows that he works for the commonwealth, and is happy; for things go round, says he, Il Turco magna St. Marco; St. Marco magna mi, mi magna ti, e ti tu magna un’altro[S].

[Footnote S:  The Turk feeds on St. Mark, St. Mark devours me; I eat thee, neighbour, and thou subsistest on somebody else.]

Apropos to this custom of calling Venice (when they speak of it) San Marco; I heard so comical a story yesterday that I cannot refuse the pleasure of inserting it; and if my readers do not find it as pleasant as I did, they may certainly leave it out, without the smallest prejudice either to the book, the author, or themselves.

The procurator Tron was at Padua, it seems, and had a fancy to drive forward to Vicenza that afternoon, but being particularly fond of a favourite pair of horses which drew his chariot that day, would by no means venture if it happened to rain; and took the trouble to enquire of Abate Toaldo, “Whether he thought such a thing likely to happen, from the appearance of the sky?” The professor, not knowing why the question was asked, said, “he rather thought it would not rain for four hours at most.”  In consequence of this information our senator ordered his equipage directly, got into it, and bid the driver make haste to Vicenza:  but before he was half-way on his journey, such torrents came down from a black cloud that burst directly over their heads, that his horses were drenched in wet, and their mortified master turned immediately back to Padua, that they might suffer no further inconvenience.  To pass away the evening, which he did not mean to have spent there, and to quiet his agitated spirits by thinking on something else, he walked under the