SOME VENETIAN PHASES
Venice ... is a poetical place; and classical, to us, from Shakespeare and Otway.... Venice pleases me as much as I expected, and I expected much. It is one of those places which I know before I see them, and has always haunted me the most, after the East. I like the gloomy gaiety of their gondolas, and the silence of their canals. I do not even dislike the evident decay of the city, though I regret the singularity of its vanished costume.
LORD BYRON.
All the world repaire to Venice to see the folly and madnesse of the Carnevall; the women, men, and persons of all conditions disguising themselves in antiq dresses, with extravagant musiq and a thousand gambols, traversing the streetes from house to house, all places being there accessible and free to enter. Abroad, they fling eggs fill’d with sweete water.... The youth of the severall wards and parishes contend in other masteries and pastimes, so that ’tis impossible to recount the universal madnesse of this place during this time of licence. The greate banks are set up for those who will play bassett; the comedians have liberty, and the operas are open; witty pasquils are thrown about, and the mountebanks have their stages at every corner.
JOHN EVELYN.