force here; and I doubt not but the high-born and high-fouled ladies of
this day, would willingly, as did their generous ancestors in 1600, part
with their rings, bracelets, every ornament, to make ropes for those
ships which defend their dearer country.

The perpetual state of warfare maintained by this nation against the
Turks, has never lessened nor cooled: yet have their Mahometan
neighbours and natural enemies no perfidy to charge them with in the
time of peace or of hostility: nor can Venice be charged with the mean
vice of sheltering a desire of depredation, under the hypocritical cant
of protecting that religion which teaches universal benevolence and
charity to all mankind. Their vicinity to Turkey has, however, made them
contract some similarity of manners; for what, except being imbued with
Turkish notions, can account for the people's rage here, young and old,
rich and poor, to pour down such quantities of coffee? I have already
had seven cups to-day, and feel frighted lest we should some of us be
killed with so strange an abuse of it. On the opposite shore, across the
Adriatic, opium is taken to counteract its effects; but these dear
Venetians have no notion of sleep being necessary to their existence I
believe, as some or other of them seem constantly in motion; and there
is really no hour of the four and twenty in which the town seems
perfectly still and quiet; no moment in which it can be said, that

Night! fable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty here stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumb'ring world.

Accordingly I never did meet with any description of Night in the
Venetian poets, so common with other authors; and I am persuaded if one
were to live here (which could not be _long_ I think) he should forget