purport of this was merely that his bark was called the Beautiful
Caroline, and that his fagots were fine; but he so dwelt upon the hidden
beauties of this idea, and so prolonged their effect upon the mind by
artful repetition, and the full, round, and resonant roar with which he
closed his triumphal hymn, that the spirit was taken with the charm, and
held in breathless admiration. By all odds, this woodman's cry was the
most impressive of all the street cries of Venice. There may have been an
exquisite sadness and sweetness in the wail of the chimney-sweep; a
winning pathos in the voice of the vender of roast pumpkin; an oriental
fancy and splendor in the fruiterers who cried "Melons with hearts of
fire!" and "Juicy pears that bathe your beard!"--there may have been
something peculiarly effective in the song of the chestnut-man who shouted
"Fat chestnuts," and added, after a lapse in which you got almost beyond
hearing, "and well cooked!"--I do not deny that there was a seductive
sincerity in the proclamation of one whose peaches could _not_ be
called beautiful to look upon, and were consequently advertised as "Ugly,
but good!"--I say nothing to detract from the merits of harmonious chair-
menders;--to my ears the shout of the melodious fisherman was delectable
music, and all the birds of summer sang in the voices of the countrymen
who sold finches and larks in cages, and roses and pinks in pots;--but I
say, after all, none of these people combined the vocal power, the
sonorous movement, the delicate grace, and the vast compass of our
woodman. Yet this man, as far as virtue went, was _vox et praeterea
nihil_. He was a vagabond of the most abandoned; he was habitually in
drink, and I think his sins had gone near to make him mad--at any rate he
was of a most lunatical deportment. In other lands, the man of whom you
are a regular purchaser, serves you well; in Italy he conceives that his
long service gives him the right to plunder you if possible. I felt in
every fibre that this woodman invariably cheated me in measurement, and,
indeed, he scarcely denied it on accusation. But my single experience of