in the distance, rose before us like a gorgeous exhalation from the bosom of the ocean.  It is farther from the shore than I expected.  As we approached, the splendour faded:  but the interest and wonder grew.  I can conceive nothing more beautiful, more singular, more astonishing, than the first appearance of Venice, and sad indeed will be the hour when she sinks (as the poet prophesies) “into the slime of her own canals.”

The moment we had disembarked our luggage at the inn, we hired gondolas and rowed to the Piazza di San Marco.  Had I seen the church of St. Mark any where else, I should have exclaimed against the bad taste which every where prevails in it:  but Venice is the proper region of the fantastic, and the church of St. Mark—­with its four hundred pillars of every different order, colour, and material, its oriental cupolas, and glittering vanes, and gilding and mosaics—­assimilates with all around it:  and the kind of pleasure it gives is suitable to the place and the people.

After dinner I had a chair placed on the balcony of our inn, and sat for some time contemplating a scene altogether new and delightful.  The arch of the Rialto just gleamed through the deepening twilight; long lines of palaces, at first partially illuminated, faded away at length into gloomy and formless masses of architecture; the gondolas glided to and fro, their glancing lights reflected on the water.  There was a stillness all around me, solemn and strange in the heart of a great city.  No rattling carriages shook the streets, no trampling of horses echoed along the pavement:  the silence was broken only by the melancholy cry of the gondoliers, and the dash of their oars; by the low murmur of human voices, by the chime of the vesper bells, borne over the water, and the sounds of music raised at intervals along the canals.  The poetry, the romance of the scene stole upon me unawares.  I fell into a reverie, in which visionary forms and recollections gave way to dearer and sadder realities, and my mind seemed no longer in my own power.  I called upon the lost, the absent, to share the present with me,—­I called upon past feelings to enhance that moment’s delight.  I did wrong—­and memory avenged herself as usual.  I quitted my seat on the balcony, with despair at my heart, and drawing to the table, took out my books and work.  So passed our first evening at Venice.

Yesterday we visited the Accademia where there are some fine pictures.  The famous assumption by Titian is here, and first made me feel what connoisseurs mean when they talk of the carnations and draperies of Titian.  We were shown two designs for monuments to the memory of Titian, modelled by Canova.  Neither of them has been erected; but the most beautiful, with a little alteration, and the substitution of a lady’s bust for Titian’s venerable head, has been dedicated, I believe, to the memory of the Archduchess Christina of Austria.  I remember also an exquisite Canaletti, quite different in style and subject from any picture of this master I ever saw.