especially which one sees at the Queen of England's house in St. James's
Park; to such a degree indeed, that we knew all the famous towers,
steeples, &c. before we reached them. It was wonderfully entertaining to
find thus realized all the pleasures that excellent painter had given us
so many times reason to expect; and I do believe that Venice, like other
Italian beauties, will be observed to possess features so striking, so
prominent, and so discriminated, that her portrait, like theirs, will
not be found difficult to take, nor the impression she has once made
easy to erase. British charms captivate less powerfully, less certainly,
less suddenly: but being of a softer sort increase upon acquaintance;
and after the connexion has continued for some years, will be
relinquished with pain, perhaps even in exchange for warmer colouring
and stronger expression.

St. Mark's Place, after all I had read and all I had heard of it,
exceeded expectation: such a cluster of excellence, such a constellation
of artificial beauties, my mind had never ventured to excite the idea of
within herself; though assisted with all the powers of doing so which
painters can bestow, and with all the advantages derived from verbal and
written description. It was half an hour before I could think of looking
for the bronze horses, of which one has heard so much; and from which
when one has once begun to look, there is no possibility of withdrawing
one's attention. The general effect produced by such architecture, such
painting, such pillars; illuminated as I saw them last night by the moon
at full, rising out of the sea, produced an effect like enchantment; and
indeed the more than magical sweetness of Venetian planners, dialect,
and address, confirms one's notion, and realizes the scenes laid by
Fenelon in their once tributary island of Cyprus. The pole set up as
commemorative of their past dominion over it, grieves one the more, when
every hour shews how congenial that place must have been to them, if