other; and the cause is to be found in the numerous abuses connived at, both there and in the surrounding districts. For a dollar of five franks-and little else but dollars of different mints are in circulation-no shopkeeper will give you small change, unless you will lay out a third of it in articles; since the small currency bears an agio of no less than nearly five farthings upon a Napoleon crown, worth four shillings and twopence. Either, therefore, three or four livres (I am speaking, of course, of the Venetian livre, in value fivepence) must be spent at a single shop, out of the five-frank piece, or recourse must be had to the moneychanger; who charges you two and a-half per cent. for so doing, more or less, according to the state of the exchange, the quality of the coin, or his own good pleasure.

As for the vast diversity of coins in circulation at Venice, each bearing a separate value, one would think they were brought thither from every corner of the globe, in order still further to annoy and perplex the wretched inhabitants. The different kinds of German dollars would alone form a moderate-sized collection; and the sagacity of Midas himself would be puzzled to ascertain the intrinsic value of each. If, indeed, a plentiful supply of these

coins were seen flowing into the coffers of the Venetians, the mischief would comparatively be trifling; but the reverse of this happens, unfortunately, to be the case. Two prices therefore prevail, with reference to the small coin-the nominal, and the real; and the consequence is, that the poor man almost invariably hies with his dollar to the money-changer, since he is not able to expend three livres, nor even two, at a single shop; and it is not for the interest of the shopkeeper, on account of the said agio, to give change, unless goods to the amount of three livres should be purchased.

I have frequently seen a Chevalier d'Industrie call for his cup of coffee, which costs about twopence, and in payment thereof throw down a five-frank piece. The waiter, of course, cannot give change, as the loss by so doing would amount to more than the cost of the cup of coffee. Upon this, the furbone, after rapping out some half dozen score of oaths at the state of the money-market, repockets his crown-piece, and walks off without paying for his coffee. Others present a zecchino, worth above five-andtwenty livres; by which, however, the loss is not so great, since a couple of five-frank pieces and a livre or two, will about make up the sum. But the coffee-house keeper does not comply,

unless he happens to have Spanish, or some crowns of the same value, to give; having constantly an eye to the agio borne by the smaller coin.

Verily, all this is most distressing work! Fruit-stalls, and such like minor vents for commodities, present similar scenes of anxiety and irritation; and thus are places, which ought to be scenes of cheerfulness and of tranquillity, as was wont to be the case in the happy days of the Republic, converted into so many dens of harpies, feverish, wrathful, and miserable; and mainly through the pecuniary shackles of which I have been speaking. After the emplette, or bargain, has been struck, it is quite common, because the poor salesman cannot afford to give change, to see the articles flung back into the basket, to the loss of his custom, the damage of his wares, and his own bitter mortification!

From the above specimen, my reader will be able to form a pretty correct notion of what is called the Austrian government in Italy. If, in the agony of his spirit, the Venetian should venture upon a remonstrance, the only redress he obtains is some coarse German vulgarism; some common-place rebuke expressed in a tone of bluff asperity; some threat calculated to terrify him. Nor, indeed, is it to be expected

that those, whom the countless drubbings of the French have only served to render more proud and more brutal, should be troubled with any of the "compunctuous visitings" of nature. "Beat out one devil, and you let in ten," is an old saying, which may justly be applied to them. Invariably obstinate, the Germans maintain that they never were beaten by Napoleon; every untoward mischance they attribute to treachery. So true is it, that beings endowed with a certain crassitude of skull, cannot comprehend the power of intellect; nor how it comes to pass, that ability and skill can achieve certain deeds, and the operations of mind prevail over those of gross matter. Treachery may have done a little; but the reader may rest assured, that it was by talent and by spirit that the victory was achieved.

The expenses of the improvements which have recently taken place in the streets of Venice the proprietors of the houses have been compelled to defray. And thus has many a landlord forfeited his inheritance, together with the scanty annuity which he had saved out of the general wreck, and to which he looked up for his support in old age. Capital as well as interest, tenement as well as rent, have alike

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been raked into the gulph of unbounded avarice; and thus has many an honest and humble individual been deprived of his last shilling!

CHAPTER XVI.

VENICE.

Reflections on Architecture generally......Its Origin...... The Grecian Style......Palmyra...... The Egyptian Column...... Necessity of a Petrific Standard of Antiquity......St. Paul's Cathedral...... Of Cupolas......State of Architecture in England compared with that of Italy......The Palace of the Doge.

EVERY one who attempts to describe Italy, must necessarily speak of the magnificence of its buildings, and, par conséquence, of the beauty of its paintings, its sculpture, and its architecture. Those travellers, therefore, who slur over their account of the arts, which adorn and beautify at every step that classic ground, ought at once to confess their incompetency for the task, rather than plead as their excuse the "fine descriptions" which have already been published to the world by former visitors. These