Breathing of love and Venice,—unto men:
And so hath added to her deathless glory
A shining scroll of pure and ageless story.
MACKENZIE BELL.
[3] See ‘In a Gondola,’ p. 136.
BYRON ON THE GRAND CANAL
We started together, Lord Byron and myself, in my little Milanese vehicle, for Fusina,—his portly gondolier, Tito, in a rich livery and most redundant mustachios.... As we proceeded across the lagoon in his gondola, the sun was just setting, and it was an evening such as Romance would have chosen for a first sight of Venice, rising with her ‘tiara of bright towers’ above the wave; while to complete, as might be imagined, the solemn interest of the scene, I beheld it in company with him who had lately given a new life to its glories, and sung of that fair City of the Sea, thus grandly:
‘I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs.’
But, whatever emotions the first sight of such a scene might, under other circumstances, have inspired within me, the mood of the mind in which I now viewed it was altogether the very reverse of what might have been expected. The exuberant gaiety of my companion, and the recollections—anything but romantic—into which our conversation wandered, put at once completely to flight all poetic and historical associations; and our course was, I am almost ashamed to say, one of uninterrupted merriment and laughter, till we found ourselves at the steps of my friend’s palazzo on the Grand Canal.
THOMAS MOORE.