252 Travels in Italy 



as he would favour me with his company, and sought no other 

 pleasure but to make my house agreeable. Why I make this 

 minute at Padua I know not; for it has not been peculiar to 

 that place, but to seven-eighths of all I have been at in Italy. 

 I have mistaken the matter through life abundantly, — and find 

 that foreigners understand this point incomparably better than 

 we do. I am, however, afraid that I shall not learn enough of 

 them to adopt their customs, but continue those of our own 

 nation. 



7,0th. I had been so sick of vetturini that I was glad to find 

 there was a covered passage boat that goes regularly to Venice ; 

 I did not expect much from it, and therefore was not disappointed 

 to find a jumble of all sorts of people; except those of fortune. 

 There were churchmen, two or three officers, and some others, 

 better dressed than I should have looked for, for in Italy people 

 are obliged to be economical. At DoUo, the half-way place, T 

 formed for dinner a little party of two Abbati, an officer, and a 

 pretty Venetian girl, who was lively and sensible. We dined by 

 ourselves, with great good humour. After leaving Fusina, there 

 is from the banks of the canal (I walked much of the journey), 

 at the distance of four miles, a beautiful view of the city. On 

 entering the Adriatic a party of us quitted the bark, and to save 

 time hired a la.rge boat which conveyed us to this equally cele- 

 brated and singular place ; it was nearly dark when we entered 

 the grand canal. My attention was alive, all expectancy: there 

 was light enough to show the objects around me to be among the 

 most interesting I had ever seen, and they struck me more than 

 the first entrance of any other place T had been at. To Signore 

 Petrillo's inn. My companions, before the gondola came to the 

 steps, told me that as soon as Petrillo found me to be a Signore 

 Inglesi, there would be three torches lighted to receive me : — it 

 was just so: I was not too much flattered at these three torches, 

 which struck me at once as three pick-pockets. I was conducted 

 to an apartment that looked on to the grand canal, so neat, and 

 everything in it so clean and good, that I almost thought myself 

 in England. To the opera. A Venetian audience, a Paduan, 

 Milanese, Turinese, etc., exactly similar for dancing. What with 

 the stupid length of the ballets, the importance given to them, 

 and the almost exclusive applause they demand, the Italian 

 opera is become much more a school of dancing than of music. 

 I cannot forgive this, for of 40 dances and 400 passages there are 

 not 4 worth a farthing. It is distorted motion and exaggerated 

 agility; if a dancer places his head in the position his heels should 



