fascination of its excellent beauty, its peerless picturesqueness, its
sole and wondrous grandeur. It is true that the streets in Venice are
canals; and yet you can walk to any part of the city, and need not take
boat whenever you go out of doors, as I once fondly thought you must. But
after all, though I find dry land enough in it, I do not find the place
less unique, less a mystery, or less a charm. By day, the canals are still
the main thoroughfares; and if these avenues are not so full of light and
color as some would have us believe, they, at least, do not smell so
offensively as others pretend. And by night, they are still as dark and
silent as when the secret vengeance of the Republic plunged its victims
into the ungossiping depths of the Canalazzo!

Did the vengeance of the Republic ever do any such thing?

Possibly. In Venice one learns not quite to question that reputation for
vindictive and gloomy cruelty alien historians have given to a government
which endured so many centuries in the willing obedience of its subjects;
but to think that the careful student of the old Republican system will
condemn it for faults far different from those for which it is chiefly
blamed. At all events, I find it hard to understand why, if the Republic
was an oligarchy utterly selfish and despotic, it has left to all classes
of Venetians so much regret and sorrow for its fall.

So, if the reader care to follow me to my stage-box, I imagine he will
hardly see the curtain rise upon just the Venice of his dreams--the Venice
of Byron, of Rogers, and Cooper; or upon the Venice of his prejudices--the
merciless Venice of Daru, and of the historians who follow him. But I
still hope that he will be pleased with the Venice he sees; and will think
with me that the place loses little in the illusion removed; and--to take
leave of our theatrical metaphor--I promise to fatigue him with no affairs