trade of Venice, to the extent of thirty thousand florins per month.

The commercial buildings and warehouses are actually become mere watch-boxes, and barracks for the men, who were once busily employed as porters, to load and unload the merchandize; but who are now chiefly occupied in guarding the bales for transit, or in preventing the hungry rats from gnawing the cordage and packing.

Such is the present degraded condition of the spot which, until the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, was considered the first commercial city of the world!

So celebrated was once the Arsenal of Venice, that it was looked up to as a model for all the dock-yards and other naval establishments throughout Europe. Four-and-twenty ships of war were constantly kept in a state of readiness, either for the use of the republic, or the service of its allies. Thus were thousands upon thousands of skilful and industrious artificers, of every description connected with the maritime department, kept in constant employ, within the 'small circle of three miles. Trees in their unhewn shape, rough from the forests, entered the arsenal, and sailed out of it vessels completely equipped for service, and wanting nothing

but their warlike stores, such as cannon, balls, and powder; which were conveyed to them in small boats, to the mouth of the sea, called il Lido, at the distance of about three miles from Venice; since no vessel drawing more than seven feet water can approach nearer to the city. Over the gateway of the arsenal still stands the winged lion of St. Mark, guarded on either side by colossal lions, taken from the Piræus at Athens. Now, alas, this monument of Venetian skill, and industry, and enterprize, is little more than a receptacle for old lumber, and the choppings up of the logs and staves of decayed vessels for fuel!

To give my reader a correct notion of the amazing sapience of the Austrians in matters appertaining to commerce, I need only state, that on their first taking possession of this once flourishing port, the cockets which they calculated would serve them for six months were not more than sufficient for the demand of ten daysa circumstance which occasioned a total stagnation of trade, until a further supply could be procured from that sanctum sanctorum the Aulic Chamber at Vienna; as they are not suffered to be printed at Venice.

For a Venetian to go to Vienna to demand redress for any injury he may have sustained,

would be almost as difficult as it would be for a man to land in any part of Europe, after a voyage to Turkey, without previously performing quarantine. These "bright jewels," these " valuable gems" of Venetian subjects, as their "paternal" sovereign styles them, are preserved as carefully as diamonds in cotton. They are shut out from the capital of Austria; and the local governors have especial orders not to grant them passports for that purpose. Like crown jewels, they are only to be seen on extraordinary occasions. But then, their native lustre, however they may have been pent up in darkness, is found to outvie whatever is placed in competition with them; nor can even the iron hand of despotism tarnish their intrinsic brilliancy.

In the ears of those who do not intend a remedy, the vibration of the complaints of the injured must ever be discordant and unwelcome. The more remote, therefore, the sufferers are from the authors of their grievances, the less will "the worm of conscience begnaw their souls;" for, assuredly, the delicate nerves of exalted personages ought not to be deprived of their accustomed tension, on account of the miseries of a few thousand poverty-struck and half-starved human beings!

The Venetians are not even permitted to

reprint the newspaper published at Vienna, until it has been carefully examined by the officers of the police; who strike out whatever they may think fit, before they suffer it to be translated into the Italian language. Graziosi, the editor and proprietor of a journal, for not having conformed to this most degrading regulation, was arrested by the police, and threatened with fine, imprisonment, and the total suppression of his paper. In his defence he alleged, that "he had done nothing more than give a verbatim translation of the contents of the German journal, written under the immediate inspection of M. Pilato, the political secretary of Prince Metternich; and that he could not imagine that matters of a treasonable nature would find their way into a publication issuing from such a quarter." Notwithstanding which, he was severely repri manded, and told, that "there was a wide difference between what ought to be allowed to the inhabitants of the capital of the empire, and what ought to be allowed to the natives of a conquered city of a petty province." The tame submission of the present race of Venetians, proves them to be subjects worthy of such a government. The same conduct is to this day rigorously observed. Not a newspaper do the police suffer to make its appearance, until they

have cut out and garbled whatever they may be anxious to keep from the eyes of the enslaved population!

CHAPTER X.

VENICE.

Overthrow of the Monastic Institutions at Venice......Reduced Condition of their former Inmates......Low State of the Ecclesiastical Establishments......Religion of the Venetians ......A Visit to the Greek Church...... And to the Armenian ......The Inquisition.

THROUGHOUT the Venetian territories, as well as in every other part of Italy, the monks and nuns have fallen into the toils of the revolution. Not that I regret the overthrow of the monastic institutions; though. I cannot but deprecate the treatment which some of the noble as well as most worthy members of these and of other peaceable establishments have met with.

These unfortunate beings, of both sexes, were exclusively natives of the Venetian territories. They were most exemplary in the performance of their moral and religious duties, and distinguished for their charity towards the poor of