241 
we paid for it pretty well, although not so much as 
I expected, for the price of every thing is nearly 
doubled at that time. The Doge’s marriage with 
the Sea is a most noble and singular sight; we went 
ina gondola among thousands perhaps of other 
vessels accompanying the Bucentaur, which is a 
splendid ugly thing, not much better than our Lord 
Mayor's barge, and heard mass with the Doge, &c. 
at an island about two miles from St. Mark’s-place, 
called Lido. We returned in the Bucentaur itself, 
as all genteel foreigners were permitted to do, with 
the Doge, who sat inathrone at the upper end, 
with the Pope’s Nuncio (a shrewd-looking fellow) 
at his right hand, and the nobles, in crimson gowns 
and great wigs, about him. St. Mark’s fair began 
on Ascension-day ; it lasts three weeks, and is held 
in an elegant temporary building in the back part 
of the Place of St. Mark (not the part that appears 
from the sea) ; there were all kinds of shops, coffee- 
houses, &c. under a circular colonnade, and all the 
world walk there, many in dominos and masks, 
especially in the evening and all night till day-break; 
there is atedious sameness in the amusement, and I 
never had patience to stay very late. We picked up 
much curious Waterza Medica here ; and, in search- 
ing for the various articles, were amazed at the state 
of superstition, ignorance and folly in which physic 
seems to be at Venice. Indeed all science is at a 
low ebb there; we found nothing like a man of lite- 
rature, except those apes of them collectors of old 
useless books. We saw at Venice (what I had long’ 
VOL. I. R 
