MOORE.


The traveller of to-day who visits Venice sees in that once splendid
city nothing but a mass of mouldering palaces, the melancholy remains
of former grandeur and magnificence; but few tokens to remind him that
she was once the queen of the Adriatic, the emporium of Europe. But at
the period of which we write the "sea Cybele" was in the very zenith
of her brilliancy and power.

It was the season of carnival, and nowhere else in Italy were the
holidays celebrated with such zest and magnificence. By night millions
of lamps burned in the palace windows, rivalling the splendors of the
firmament, and reflected in the still waters of the lagoons like
myriads of stars. Night and day music was resounding. There were
regattas, balls, and festas, and the entire population seemed to have
gone mad with gayety, and to have lost all thought of the Council of
Ten, the Bridge of Signs, and the poniards of the bravoes.

On a bright morning of this holiday season, a group of young
gondoliers, attired in their gayest costume, were sitting at the head
of a flight of marble steps that led up from one of the canals,
waiting for their fares. A cavalier and lady, both gayly attired, and
both masked, had just alighted from a gondola and passed the boatman
on their way to some rendezvous.

The gondolier who had conducted them, an old, gray-headed,
hard-looking fellow, had pocketed his fee, nodded his thanks, and
pushed off again from the landing.