f 144 j [Aveusr, 
A NIGHT AT VENICE. 
TuosE who have been at Venice in the month of September, know 
tolerably well that it is not, on many accounts, to be then desired as a 
place of residence The season is changeful and gloomy, the theatres are 
poor, the gaities feebly supported ; but these are not the arguments that 
weigh most with an experienced man. 
I was at the Leone Bianco, in most respects a well-appointed inn, and 
furnished. with comforts not always to be met with by the continental 
traveller. If the “‘ Osservazione” be credible, which one may read in 
monotonous succession in the “ Libro dei Forestieri,” the accommodations: 
are excellent, the waiters attentive, the charges moderate, &c. &¢. &c. ; 
but being a plain man, I had only my English notions about me, and 
found these encomiums rather too broad. It cannot justly be said 
wherein the defect lay: some may imagine the cookery to have been 
meagre ; some will find a flaw in the civility; but I am fanciful, and 
object to other matters. 
I went to my repose on the first night of my arrival, half intoxicated 
with the romance of the place. The music of the gondoliers, and splash- 
ing of their oars, lulled me into a pleasant sleep, and nothing was in my 
head but the glory of her doges, the beauty of her daughters, galleys, 
painters, Tasso, Lord Byron, and Kean’s Shylock. Here were the 
elements of a dozen good dreams at least ; but even one was denied to 
me. I thought that I was gliding along the serpentine canals of this 
great city, which somehow or other were nothing else all the while than 
my own blood vessels. I paddled away, dexterously turning the corners 
of my sharp bones, and wondering, as I went, at the fair edifices of 
muscle in the foreground. Methought mine own left ear was built by 
Palladio, and I construed my “ innocent nose” into the bridge of sighs. 
I heard some music. Was it a stanza of the Gerusalemme? No, ’tis 
too regular ; or a Barcarola? No, ’tis too dull. Still it follows, and 
becomes at. each stroke of the oar shriller and nearer. I cannot escape 
it; the drawling sound sings close beside me; yes, even within my 
reach! I started up, and killed a mosquito just settling on my cheek. 
~ Comforted now, at any rate, with the assurance that my enemy was 
foiled, it was with but a single exclamation of ill-humour that I turned 
myself round, and dosed once more. ’ 
Methought I was Doge Foscari, at the siege of Constantinople. | It 
struck me as particularly odd, that I should find myself there; and I did 
not at all enjoy it. Why I was blind, I could not guess; nor saw I any 
reason for fighting. There was plenty of carnage on all sides, and I was 
quite enthusiastic. I yushed up the wall, halloomg and cheering my 
men; but I could not conceive how it all came about ; and speculating in 
my own proper person, I thought the Venetian senate very weak to put 
me at the head of their affairs. What execution I did with my sabre! 
How I astonished the Moslemites, and myself too, by my intrepidity ! 
I kicked, plunged, and tumbled into the very midst of my enemies, and 
in a particular explosion of my fury, found myself rolling on the ground, _ 
with a dozen of the same winged persecutors buzzing about my nose! 
Now, for the first time, was I struck with the real cause of my afflics 
tions. There was no mosquito-net to my bed. Unused to such pect ak 4 
: 
I had neglected to select one so defended, and thus had the prospect 4 
a long night to be passed in a similar state of suffering. In vain were — 
