Venice.
I was led, in my last, into a very particular (and I wish you may not have also found it a very tedious) description of St. Mark’s Place. There is no help for what is past, but, for your comfort, you have nothing of the same kind to fear while we remain here; for there is not another square, or place as the French with more propriety call them, in all Venice. To compensate, however, for their being but one, there is a greater variety of objects to be seen at this one, than in any half dozen of the squares, or places, of London or Paris.
After our eyes had been dazzled with looking at pictures, and our legs cramped with sitting in a gondola, it is no small relief, and amusement, to saunter in the Place of St. Mark.
The number and diversity of objects which there present themselves to the eye, naturally create a very rapid succession of ideas. The sight of the churches awakens religious sentiments, and, by an easy transition, the mind is led to contemplate the influence of superstition. In the midst of this reverie, Nero’s four horses appear, and carry the fancy to Rome and Constantinople. While you are forcing your way, sword in hand, with the heroic Henry Dandelo, into the capital of Asia, Adam and Eve stop your progress, and lead you to the garden of Eden. You have not long enjoyed a state of innocence and happiness in that delightful paradise, till Eve
——her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucks, she eats.
After that unfortunate repast, no more comfort being to be found there, you are glad to mount St. Mark’s winged lion, and fly back to the Ducal palace, where you will naturally reflect on the rise and progress of the Venetian state, and the various springs of their government. While you admire the strength of a constitution which has stood firm for so many ages, you are appalled at the sight of the lion’s mouth gaping for accusations; and turning with horror from a place where innocence seems exposed to the attacks of hidden malice, you are regaled with a prospect of the sea, which opens your return to a country of real freedom, where justice rejects the libel of the hidden accuser, and dares to try, condemn, and execute openly, the highest, as well as the lowest, delinquent.
I assure you I have, more than once, made all this tour, standing in the middle of St. Mark’s square; whereas, in the French places, you have nothing before your eyes but monuments of the monarch’s vanity, and the people’s adulation; and in the greater part of the London squares, and streets, what idea can present itself to the imagination, beyond that of the snug neatness and conveniency of substantial brick houses?
I have been speaking hitherto of a morning saunter; for in the evening there generally is, on St. Mark’s Place, such a mixed multitude of Jews, Turks, and Christians; lawyers, knaves, and pickpockets; mountebanks, old women, and physicians; women of quality, with masks; strumpets barefaced; and, in short, such a jumble of senators, citizens, gondoleers, and people of every character and condition, that your ideas are broken, bruised, and dislocated in the crowd, in such a manner, that you can think, or reflect, on nothing; yet this being a state of mind which many people are fond of, the place never fails to be well attended, and, in fine weather, numbers pass a great part of the night there. When the piazza is illuminated, and the shops, in the adjacent streets, lighted up, the whole has a brilliant effect; and as it is the custom for the ladies, as well as the gentlemen, to frequent the cassinos and coffee-houses around, the Place of St. Mark answers all the purposes of either Vauxhall or Ranelagh.