Venice 259 



Venice as at London ; and the state is wise enough (for in such 

 cases they are really very moderate and tender) to concern them - 

 selves not at all with what does not tend directly to injure or 

 disturb the established order of things. You have heard much 

 of spies, and executions, and drownings, etc., but believe me there 

 is not one circumstance at Venice that is not changed, and greatly 

 too, even in twenty years." Encouraged by this declaration I 

 ventured to put inquiries on population, revenues, taxes, liberty, 

 etc., and on the government as influencing these; and it gave me 

 no slight satisfaction to find that he was the man he had been 

 represented; — able, keen, and intelligent; who had seen much 

 of the world, and understood those topics perfectly. He was 

 so obliging as to ask me to spend what time I could with him- — 

 said that for some days he should be constantly at home; and 

 whenever it suited me to come he desired me to do it without 

 ceremony. I was not equally fortunate with the other person ; 

 who seemed so little disposed to enter into conversation on any 

 subject but trifles, that I presently saw he was not a man for 

 me to be much the wiser for: in all political topics it was easy 

 to suppose motives for silence; but relative to points of agricul- 

 ture, or rather the produce of estates, etc., perhaps his ignorance 

 was the real cause of his reserve. In regard to cicisbeism, he was 

 ready enough to chat ; he said that foreigners were very illiberal 

 in supposing that the custom was a mere cloak for vice and 

 licentiousness; on the contrary, he contended that at Paris, a 

 city he knew well, there is just as much freedom of manners as at 

 Venice. He said as much for the custom as it will bear; mollify- 

 ing the features of the practice, but not removing them. We 

 may however hope that the ladies do not merit the scandal with 

 which foreigners have loaded them; and that the beauty of some 

 of them is joined with what Petrarch thought it so great an 



enemy to: 



Due gran nemiche insieme erano aggiunte 

 Bellezza ed onest^ 



At night to a new tragedy of Fayel, a translation from the French ; 

 well acted by Signore and Signora Belloni. It is a circumstance 

 of criticism amazing to my ears, that the Italian language should 

 have been represented as wanting force and vigour, and proper 

 only for effeminate subjects. It seems, on the contrary, as 

 powerfully expressive of lofty and vigorous sentiments, of the 

 terrible and the sublime, as it is admirable in breathing the 

 softest notes of love and pity; it has even powers of harsh and 

 rugged expression. There is nothing more striking in the man- 



