Portico to a neighbouring coffee-house, where fate the Abate Toaldo in company of a few friends; wholly unconscious that he had been the cause of vexing the Procuratore; who, after a short pause, cried out, in a true Venetian spirit of anger and humour oddly blended together, “Mi dica Signor Professore Toaldo, chi e il piu gran minchion di tutti i fanti in Paradiso?” Pray tell me Doctor (we should say), who is the greatest blockhead among all the saints of Heaven?  The Abbe looked astonished, but hearing the question repeated in a more peevish accent still, replied gravely, “Eccelenza non fon fatto io per rispondere a tale dimande”—­My lord, I have no answer ready for such extraordinary questions.  Why then, replies the Procuratore Tron, I will answer this question myself.—­St. Marco ved’ella—­“e’l vero minchion:  mentre mantiene tanti professori per studiare (che so to mi) delle stelle; roba astronomica che non vale un fico; e loro non sanno dirli nemmeno s’ha da piovere o no.”—­“Why it is St. Mark, do you see, that is the true blockhead and dupe, in keeping so many professors to study the stars and stuff; when with all their astronomy they cannot tell him whether it will rain or no.”

Well, pax tibi, Marce! I see that I have said more about Venice, where I have lived five weeks, than about Milan, where I stayed five months; but

    Si placeat varios hominum cognoscere vultus,
    Area longa patet, sancto contermina Marco,
    Celsus ubi Adriacas, Venetus Leo despicit undas,
    Hic circum gentes cunctis e partibus orbis,
    AEthiopes, Turcos, Slavos, Arabesque, Syrosque,
    Inveniesque Cypri, Cretae, Macedumque colonos,
    Innumerosque alios varia regione profectos: 
    Saepe etiam nec visa prius, nec cognita cernes,
    Quae si cuncta velim tenui describere versu,
    Heic omnes citius nautas celeresque Phaselos,
    Et simul Adriaci pisces numerabo profundi.

Imitated loosely.

    If change of faces please your roving sight,
    Or various characters your mind delight,
    To gay St. Mark’s with eagerness repair;
    For curiosity may pasture there. 
    Venetia’s lion bending o’er the waves,
    There sees reflected—­tyrants, freemen, slaves. 
    The swarthy Moor, the soft Circassian dame,
    The British sailor not unknown to fame;
    Innumerous nations crowd the lofty door,
    Innumerous footsteps print the sandy shore;
    While verse might easier name the scaly tribe, }
    That in her seas their nourishment imbibe, }
    Than Venice and her various charms describe. }

It is really pity ever to quit the sweet seducements of a place so pleasing; which attracts the inclination and flatters the vanity of one, who, like myself, has received the most polite attentions, and been diverted with every amusement that could be devised.  Kind, friendly, lovely Venetians! who appear to feel real fondness for the inhabitants of Great Britain, while Cavalier Pindemonte writes such verses in its praise.  Yet must the journey go forward, no staying to pick every flower upon the road.