and form a society so instructive and amusing, so sure to be filled with
the first company in Venice, and so hospitably open to all travellers of
character, that nothing can _now_ be to me a higher intellectual
gratification than my admittance among them; as _in future_ no place
will ever be recollected with more pleasure, no hours with more
gratitude, than those passed most delightfully by me in that most
agreeable apartment.

I expressed to the French lady my admiration of St. Mark's Place.
"_C'est que vous n'avez jamais vue la foire St. Ovide_," said she; "_je
vous assure que cela surpasse beaucoup ces trifles palais qu'on
vantetant_[Q]." And _this could_ only have been arrogance, for she was a
very sensible and a very accomplished woman; and when talked to about
the literary merits of her own countrymen, spoke with great acuteness
and judgment.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote Q: You admire it, says she, only because you never saw the
fair at St. Ovid's in Paris; I assure you there is no comparison between
those gay illuminations and these dismal palaces the Venetians are so
fond of.]

General knowledge, however, it must be confessed (meaning that general
stock that every one recurs to for the common intercourse of
conversation), will be found more frequently in France, than even in
England; where, though all cultivate the arts of table eloquence and
assembly-room rhetoric, few, from mere shyness, venture to gather in the
profits of their plentiful harvest; but rather cloud their countenances
with mock importance, while their hearts feel no hope beat higher in