No, Brennus, no longer thy sons shall retain
Of their founder ferocious, th'original stain;
It cannot be natural cruelty sure,
The reproaches for which from all men we endure;
Nor climate nor soil shall henceforth bear the blame,
'Tis custom alone, and that custom our shame:
While arm'd at all points men were suffer'd to rove,
And brandish the steel in defence of their love;
What wonder that conduct or caution should fail,
And horrid Lycanthropy's terrors prevail?
Now justice resumes her insignia, we find
New light breaking in on each nebulous mind;
While commission'd from Heaven, a parent, a friend
Sees our swords at his nod into reaping-hooks bend,
And souls snatch'd from death round the hero attend.

From these verses, written by a native of Brescia, one may see how
matters stood there very, _very_ little while ago: but here at Venice
the people are of a particularly sweet and gentle disposition,
good-humoured with each other, and kind to strangers; little disposed to
public affrays (which would indeed be punished and put a sudden end to
in an instant), nor yet to any secret or hidden treachery. They watch
the hour of a Regatta with impatience, to make some merit with the woman
of their choice, and boast of their families who have won in the manly
contest forty or fifty years ago, perhaps when honoured with the badge
and livery of some noble house; for here almost every thing is
hereditary, as in England almost every thing is elective; nor had I an
idea how much state affairs influence the private life of individuals in
a country, till I left trusting to books, and looked a little about me.