Sweet repast and soft repose;
And when feast and frolic tire,
Drops asleep upon his lyre.

All the difficulty will be indeed for us _other_ two-legged creatures to
leave the sweet societies of charming Venice; but they begin to grow
fatiguing now, as the weather increases in warmth.

I do think the Turkish sailor gave an admirable account of a carnival,
when he told his Mahometan friends at his return, That those poor
Christians were all disordered in their senses, and nearly in a state of
actual madness, while he remained among them, till one day, on a sudden,
they luckily found out a certain grey powder that cured such symptoms;
and laying it on their heads one Wednesday morning, the wits of all the
inhabitants were happily restored at _a stroke_: the people grew sober,
quiet, and composed; and went about their business just like other
folks. He meant the ashes strewed on the heads of all one meets in the
streets through many a Catholic country; when all masquerading,
money-making, &c. subside for forty days, and give, from the force of
the contrast, a greater appearance of devotion and decorous behaviour in
Venice, than almost any where else during Lent.

I do not for my own part think well of all that violence, that strong
light and shadow in matters of religion; which requires rather an even
tenour of good works, proceeding from sound faith, than any of these
staring testimonials of repentance, as if it were a work to be done
_once a year only_. But neither do I think any Christian has a right to
condemn another for his opinions or practice; when St. Paul expressly
says, that "_One man esteemeth one day above another, another man
esteemeth every day alike; let every man be fully persuaded in his own