UNCLE IN ENGLAND. 87 



and my uncle, who was much pleased with his 

 observations, remarked that few of the changes 

 recorded in history, offered a subject of deeper 

 interest, than the long-continued grandeur and 

 present fall of Venice. " It rose," he said, " as 

 it were, from the waves, when, on the invasion of 

 Italy by the Huns, numbers of people took 

 refuge in that cluster of islands where the city 

 now stands. So early as the year 421, they 

 formed a little state, strong enough to oppose 

 the invaders, or at least to secure themselves 

 from molestation. Commerce soon followed 

 security ; and from this small beginning arose 

 that wealth and power which continued for many 

 centuries, and which extended the influence of 

 Venice over all the states with which she was 

 connected. Her foundations were laid in the 

 darkest ages of Italian misery ; but she soon 

 became the spectator of the dissolution of the 

 Roman Empire. She witnessed the ravages of 

 many continental wars, and the rise and fall of 

 many nations ; till at length she fell in her turn 

 also. Somebody has well remarked, that she 

 was the last surviving witness of antiquity, the 

 common link between the two periods of civili- 

 zation. 



(( Her whole history," continued my uncle, 

 " has a paradoxical and peculiar character. Her 

 romantic achievements in the East ; the noble 

 lead she took in the struggles of Christendom 



i 2 



