78 Bead Manufactory at Venice. 



als, together with medals struck in England, during their late war 

 with us, of all of which copies can be taken. 



2. Bead Manufactoky at Venice. 



Venice ! How much like the impressions of a fair vision are my 

 recollections of that city and of the week I spent in it. Dreamy is 

 the term for it, for its crowded yet noiseless thoroughfares, the con- 

 stant gliding of gondolas, its rich palaces, its dungeons, aud even its 

 history, are in character more like the fancy of a dreamer than a so- 

 ber reality. It was a fiesta when I arrived there, and the three large 

 banners were waving in the piazza of St. Mark's ; while close by it 

 a temporary bridge of boats, some hundreds of yards in length, was 

 filled with crowds in gay dresses hurrying to or from the church 

 whose saint claimed the day. I recollect also particularly, one eve- 

 ning, I was seated under the high arcade that lines three sides of the 

 piazza of St. Mark's ; the gay shops and coffee houses were brill- 

 iantly illuminated, the piazza was filled with company ; in the centre 

 a band of forty musicians were performing ; I had an ice-cream be- 

 fore me and the last number of Gallignani in my hand and 1 thought 

 the situation as luxurious an one as I had ever occupied. Among 

 the objects that help to make up the splendor of this piazza, proba- 

 bly the most magnificent in the world, the bead shops, first attract the 

 stranger's attention ; I was so much interested by them that I deter- 

 mined to visit the Island of Murano where the beads are made, and, 

 as the process was new to me, a notice of it may also be gratifying to 

 some of your readers. Suppose Dr. T., then and myself reclining 

 upon the soft cushions of a gondola, the blinds of its pretty little cham- 

 ber drawn so as to admit just the requisite degree of light and air, 

 and gliding along the canals with a kind of rocking motion, sufficient 

 only to let us know that we were moving. We stopped a iew min- 

 utes to examine the church of St. John, on one way, and soon after 

 found ourselves at the skirts of the city and before and on each side of 

 us a wide expanse of water, dotted in all directions with villages and 

 groves rising apparently from the waves. Among them and distant 

 about a mile and a half, we distinguished the village of Murano, cov- 

 ering an island of that name, or rather islands, for like all others here, 

 it is cut up in all directions by canals. The bead manufactories oc- 

 cupy a range of houses immediately on the left as we entered ; that 

 for mirrors is within an enclosure on the right : but as we were not 

 there on one of the days in which it is in operation we did not visit 



