apparently goaded into madness during the interval. They seemed to know of
our approach by instinct, and thrust their heads out, ready for protest,
before we were near enough to speak. The lazy, frowzy women, the worthless
men, and idle, loafing boys of the neighborhood, gathered round to witness
the encounter; but though repeatedly commanded to ring (I was again in
company with ladies), and try to force the place, I refused decidedly to
do so. The garrison were strengthening their position by plastering and
renewed renovation, and I doubt that by this time the original rafters are
no longer to be seen. A plasterer's boy, with a fine sense of humor, stood
clapping his trowel on his board, inside the house, while we debated
retreat, and derisively invited us to enter: _"Suoni pure, O signore!
Questa e la famosa casa del gran pittore, l'immortale Tiziano,--suoni,
signore!_" (Ring, by all means, sir. This is the famous house of the
great painter, the immortal Titian. Ring!) _Da capo_. We retired amid
the scorn of the populace. But indeed I could not blame the inhabitants of
Titian's house; and were I condemned to live in a place so famous as to
attract idle curiosity, flushed and insolent with travel, I should go to
the verge of man-traps and shot-guns to protect myself.

This house, which is now hemmed in by larger buildings of later date, had
in the painter's time an incomparably "lovely and delightful situation."
Standing near the northern boundary of the city, it looked out over the
lagoon,--across the quiet isle of sepulchres, San Michele,--across the
smoking chimneys of the Murano glass-works, and the bell-towers of her
churches,--to the long line of the sea-shore on the right and to the main-
land on the left; and beyond the nearer lagoon islands and the faintly
penciled outlines of Torcello and Burano in front, to the sublime distance
of the Alps, shining in silver and purple, and resting their snowy heads
against the clouds. It had a pleasant garden of flowers and trees, into
which the painter descended by an open stairway, and in which he is said