approached the multitude, the louder he laughed. At length, stopping in
front of the spot where the sublime podesta, a little ashamed of his
prostration, was getting the dust shaken out of his gold-embroidered
robe of office, and bathing his burning visage in orange-flower water,
the stranger began a sort of complimentary song to the famous city of
Vicenza.

The stranger found a willing audience; for his first stanza was in
honour of the "most magnificent city of Vicenza;" its "twenty palaces by
the matchless Palladio;" much more "its sixty churches;" and much more
than all "its breed of Dominicans, unrivalled throughout the earth for
the fervour of their piety and the capacity of their stomachs." The last
touch made the grand-prior of the cathedral wince a little, but it was
welcomed with a roar from the multitude. The song proceeded; but if the
prior had frowned at the first stanza, the podesta was doubly angry at
the second, which sneered at Venetian pomposity in incomparable style.
But the prior and podesta were equally outvoted, for the roar of the
multitude was twice as loud as before. Then came other touches on the
_cavalieri serventi_, the ladies, the nuns, and the husbands, till every
class had its share: but the satire was so witty, that, keen as it was,
the shouts of the people silenced all disapprobation. He finished by a
brilliant stanza, in which he said, that "having been sent by Neptune
from the depths of the ocean to visit the earth, he had chosen for his
landing-place its most renowned spot, the birthplace of the gayest men
and the handsomest women--the exquisite Vicenza." With these words he
ascended from the shore, and was received with thunders of applause.

His figure was tall and elegant. He wore a loose, scarlet cloak thrown
over his fine limbs, Greek sandals, and a cap like that of the Italian
princes of three centuries before, a kind of low circle of green and