LETTER XXIV.
As I approached Venice, I was much delighted with its appearance. Its stately steeples and noble buildings seemed as if just emerging from the sea, and floating on the surface of it; and it required no great stretch of fancy to imagine, that it undulated with the agitated waves of its parent the Adriatic. On all the surrounding coasts, nature and art seemed to have vied with each other in pouring the greatest profusion of their gifts, while thousands of masts, scattered like forests over the surrounding bays, denoted that Venice; not content with her own, shared in the wealth and luxuries of other climes.
It is indeed difficult to conceive a more extraordinary and pleasing appearance than this city makes at a distance, whether you approach it from the sea or from the continent. Built not like towns in Holland, where immense moles and walls push the sea forward, and encroach on his dominion, it stands on piles erected in the sea; and the foundations of the houses almost touching the water, gives it the appearance of floating on its surface. The steeples are seen at sea at the distance of thirty miles; and the appearance[appearance] becomes more beautiful the nearer it is approached——presenting in many views the prospect of floating islands.
To erect a city thus upon the water, while so many thousands of acres stand unoccupied, at first sight seems extraordinary——but all those great and strange deviations from the ordinary path presented by Nature, have their source in necessity; and it is not till long after the necessity has been first lamented, and afterwards obviated, that experience comes into aid, and demonstrates, that, from her, security and utility have often arisen. Thus it is with Venice, who, fortified by her local situation (the effort of necessity), sits secure, and bids defiance to the world.
The place where Venice now stands, is supposed to have been formerly a marshy ground, on which the Adriatic Sea had gradually encroached, leaving the more elevated parts of it above water, and thereby forming a vast number of little islands, hence called Lagunes: on those the fishermen of the neighbouring shores built their huts; and when Italy was invaded by the Goths under Alaric, and afterwards by that barbarous race, the Huns, under Attila, both of whom spread ruin and desolation wherever they came, vast numbers of people from the circumjacent shores of the Adriatic, particularly from Padua and Aquileia, fled hither, and brought along with them immense wealth. Here they laid the first foundations on seventy-two distinct little islands, and certainly with huts, of a city which afterwards stood almost foremost in the naval and commercial world: as those islands were built upon, and became over-peopled, they gradually pushed forward their piles, and built upon them again, till the whole became one vast city, extending to many more of those islands beyond the original seventy-two.
As it was indebted, in a great measure, for its rise and importance to the commerce of the East, which then was carried on by way of the Red Sea and Alexandria, when the passage by the Cape of Good Hope was discovered, that trade declined, and Venice declined gradually along with it.
It is amazing, what an extent of territory and accumulation of power the Venetians once possessed. Besides their present possessions, which comprehend the territories of Padua and Verona, the Vincentine, the Brescians, the Bergamases, the Cremasco, the Polesin of Rovigo, Marca Trevigiana, the Patria del Friuli, and Istria, they had under their dominion the islands of Rhodes, Scio, Samos, Mytilene, Andros, Candia, the Morea, and the cities of Gallipoli and Thessalonica: besides which, they, in conjunction with France, took Constantinople, and remained for some time masters of that part of the Empire; and disputed the dominion of Sclavonia, Croatia, Morlachia and Dalmatia, with the Kings of Hungary, and contended with the Genoese for the empire of the sea: but of a great part of these, and their other conquests, they have since been stripped, almost entirely, by the Turks.
As to the government of Venice, I shall not enter into any particulars of its history——It is called a Republic, and was once a Democracy. The name remains, while that which gave it is gone. It is, certainly, now a downright Aristocracy——the privilege of sitting in the great Council being confined to the Nobility; and the Doge, under the name of Head, being no more than a gaudy slave, loaded with fetters: yet, such is the idle fondness of Man for superficial pomp, that this office is sought after with avidity; for though his power be small, his state is very splendid. Hence it is said, that the Doge of Venice is a king in his robes, a senator in council, a prisoner in the city, and a private man out of it; and what is more extraordinary, is, that though he may be deposed, he cannot resign——nor even decline the office, if he be once chosen, without exposing himself to banishment, and his effects to confiscation.
The established religion of this State is the Roman Catholic; but the Venetians are not bigots, and reject the supremacy of the Pope. Jews, Armenians, Greeks, and Protestants, are allowed the exercise of their religion there; and, provided they do not intermeddle with state affairs, of which they are extremely jealous, even their Priests, Monks and Nuns, may take almost any liberties they please——a privilege that you may be assured is not neglected by any of them.
As few places have excited greater admiration and attention than Venice, so none have been more copiously described by travellers, every one of whom may, when he returns to his native country, give a very accurate account of the public buildings, curiosities, paintings, &c. by only translating the book given to him by his Valet de Place, or Cicerone, on his arrival there——It is certain, Venice abounds with all those, particularly paintings; but I had not the time minutely to investigate; nor should I have the inclination, if I did, to describe such things: they are open to you in many well written volumes, which I recommend to your perusal. Such things, however, as strike me for their novelty, or difference from those in other places, I will, as well as I can recollect them, give you an idea of.
To their local situation they owe their security——separated from terra firma by a body of water of five miles in breadth, too deep to be forded, and too shallow for vessels of force to pass; and on the other sides, by scattered shallows, the channels between which are marked out by stakes, which, on the appearance of an enemy, they can take away; they bid defiance to hostile army or navy, and have not been reduced to the necessity of erecting walls or fortifications for their defence.
The first peculiarity that strikes me, as arising immediately from their living, I may say, in the sea, is the total exclusion of all sort of carriages; for those streets that are on firm ground are extremely narrow and crooked; and on most of the canals, so far from having a quay on either side to walk on, the water comes up to the doors of the houses; so that walking is but little known, for they get into a boat off their threshold, and their first step out of it again is, ten to one, on the threshold of another. This circumstance, though in some respects it has its uses, is, in others, extremely disagreeable, as well as injurious; for, though those who have occasion to labour have a sufficiency of exercise, those whose condition exempts them from labour, and who, therefore, in all other countries, resort to artificial labour (exercise) for the promotion of health, are here entirely cut off from all such means of it as we practise, having neither hunting, shooting, riding, bowling, &c. &c. nor can they have them, unless they go to the Continent for them. The chief amusements of the Venetians are reserved for the Carnival time, which commence about a week after Christmas, and which, therefore, I could not see; but, from the concurrent testimony of all travellers and the People themselves, as well as from the evidence of my own observation on the manners of the People, I am well warranted in saying, are festivals of debauchery, riot and licentiousness. This is a subject on which I am, nevertheless, disposed to believe, that more has been said than truth will bear out——yet, a bare statement of the truth would, I fear, bear hard enough upon the moral character, or at least the piety, of the Venetians.
That masquerades are the very worst schools of vice, the private anecdotes of the beau monde even in England might suffice to demonstrate——That courtezans are found lost to all sense of modesty, and common decency, the streets of London afford nightly proofs——Therefore, that masquerading (which is the chief amusement of the Venetians) should cloak many crimes, and that their courtezans should be shameless and their women lewd, is no such wonder, seeing, as we do, those things in this Northern clime; but we may, without any illiberality, suppose, that, from physical causes of the most obvious kind, they are carried to a greater extent there than here: though one of the most enlightened and amiable of all travellers says it would be hard to be proved, yet, with deference to him, I think it may be rationally supposed.
There is an active principle in the mind of Man which will not suffer it to rest; it must have some materials to work upon. Men, enlightened by science, have within themselves a fund, and can never want food for contemplation; but the many, in those hours when a suspension of labour or worldly[worldly] business drives them to expedients for the employment of their time, are but too prone to leave the mind to the guidance of the senses, and to cogitate on vice till they wish to practise it. Hence that homely but true saying, “Idleness is the root of all evil.” In England we have a variety of expedients which the Venetians want, whose minds being besides naturally more vivid, are more prompt to give a loose to the warm illusions of sensual fancy. Thus prepared, they meet the Carnival, when every thing conspires to give circulation to indulgence; and when those operations of the mind which with us have so many channels to discharge themselves, with them, like a vast stream suddenly confined to one narrow channel, burst forth with an irresistible torrent, and carry away before them every bond that religion or morality has laid down as restraints on the exuberance of human passion. The customs and habits of the place and time contribute to it; for, while the severe restrictions of the female sex for the rest of the year sharpen both inclination and invention on the one hand——on the other, the unbounded license, the universal change of habits, customs and laws——the total suspension of all distinction, care, or business which take place at that time, aided by perpetual masquerade——and those most convenient of all receptacles, the gondolas, with those most expert and forward of all pandars, the gondoliers——afford ample scope to their wishes, and form altogether a mass of circumstances in favour of vicious indulgence, not to be found in any other part of Christendom; to resist which, they must be more virtuous than any other people——a point never yet laid to their charge by the best-natured and most extenuating of all those who have written upon that subject.