PARLAB POCHO ET

EGARE PRONTO ET

IN PENSAR AL FINE PUO DARE LA VITA
NOI ALTRI MESCHINI

1605.

EGO 10HN BAPTISTA AD
ECCLESIAM CORTELLABIUS.

3.

8 CHI MI PIDO GUARDAMI DIO

E CHI NON MI FIDO MI GUARDARO 10

we arrived at the island. They gave us, amongst other essays, the death of Clorinda, and the palace of Armida; and did not sing the Venetian, but the Tuscan verses. The carpenter, however, who was the cleverer of the two, and was frequently obliged to prompt his companion, told us that he could translate the original. He added, that he could sing almost three hundred stanzas, but had not spirits (morbin was the word he used), to learn any more, or to sing what he already knew a man must have idle time on his hands to acquire, or to repeat, and, said the poor fellow, "look at my clothes and at me, I am starving." This speech was more affecting than his performance, which habit alone can make attract The copyist has followed, not corrected the ive. The recitative was shrill, screaming, and lecisms; some of which are, however, not quite monotonous, and the gondolier behind assisted decided, since the letters were evidently scratch-his voice by holding his hand to one side of his mouth. The carpenter used a quiet action, which he evidently endeavoured to restrain, but was too much interested in his subject altogether to repress. From these men we learnt that singing is not confined to the gondoliers, and that although the chant is seldom, if ever, voluntary, there are still several amongst the lower classes who are acquainted with a few stanzas.

LA STA.

H
C

R

NA

I in the dark. It only needs to be observed, at Bestemmia and Mangiar may be read in the st inscription, which was probably written by prisoner confined for some act of impiety comitted at a funeral: that Cortellarius is the name a parish on Terra Firma, near the sea: and at the last initials evidently are put for Viva

Santa Chiesa Kattolica Romana.

She looks a sea-Cybele, fresh from ocean
Rising, with her tiara of proud towers.

It does not appear that it is usual for the performers to row and sing at the same time. Although the verses of the Jerusalem are no longer casually heard, there is yet much music upon [p. 38. St. 2. the Venetian canals; and upon holidays, those An old writer, describing the appearance of strangers who are not near or informed enough enice, has made use of the above image, which to distinguish the words, may fancy that many ould not be poetical were it not true. "Quo fit ut qui superne urbem contempletur, Tasso. The writer of some remarks which ap of the gondolas still resound with the strains of irritam telluris imaginem medio Oceano figura-peared in the Curiosities of Literature must exim se putet inspicere." Marci Antonii Sabelli Veneta Urbis situ narratio, edit. Taurin. 527, lib. I. fol. 202.

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more. [p. 38. St. 3. The well known song of the gondoliers, of alernate stanzas, from Tasso's Jerusalem, has died ith the independence of Venice. Editions of e poem, with the original on one column, and e Venetian variations on the other, as sung the boatmen, were once common, and are till to be found. The following extract will erve to show the difference between the Tuscan pie and the "Canta alla Barcariola.

Original.

Canto l'armi pietose, e' l capitano
Che 1 gran Sepolcro liberò di Cristo.
Molto egli oprò col senno, e con la mano
Molto soffri nel glorioso acquisto ;
E in van l'Inferno a lui s' oppose, e in vano
Sarò d' Asia, e di Libia il popol misto,
Che il Ciel gli die favore, e sotto a i Santi
Segni ridusse i suoi compagni erranti.

Venetian.

L'arme pietose de cantar gho vogia,

cuse his being twice quoted; for, with the exception of some phrases a little too ambitious and extravagant, he has furnished a very exact, as well as agreeable, description.

"In Venice the gondoliers know by heart long passages from Ariosto and Tasso, and often chant them with a peculiar melody. But this talent seems at present on the decline:-at least, after taking some pains, I could find no more than two persons who delivered to me in this way a passage from Tasso. I must add, that the late Mr. Berry once chanted to me a passage in Tasso in the manner, as he assured me, of the gondoliers.

"There are always two concerned, who alternately sing the strophes. We know the melody eventually by Rousseau, to whose songs it is printed; it has properly no melodious movement; and is a sort of medium between the canto fermo and the canto figurato; it approaches to the former by recitativical declamation, and to the latter by passages and course, by which one syllable is detained and embellished.

"I entered a gondola by moonlight; one singer placed himself forwards, and the other aft, and thus they proceeded to St. Georgio. One began the song: when he had ended his strophe, the other took up the lay, and so continued the song alternately. Throughout the whole of it, the same notes invariably returned, but, according to the subject matter of the strophe, they laid a greater or a smaller stress, sometimes on one, and sometimes on another note, and indeed changed the enunciation of the whole strophe as the object of the poem altered.

E de Goffredo la immortal braura Che al fin I ha libera co strassia, e dogia Del nostro buon Gesù la Sepoltura De mezo mondo unito, e de quel Bogia Missier Pluton no l' ha bu mai paura: Dio I ha agiutà, e i compagni sparpagnai Tutti 1 ghi ha messi insieme i dì del Dai. and screaming: they seemed, in the manner "On the whole, however, the sounds were hoarse Some of the elder gondoliers will, however, of all rude uncivilized men, to make the exceltake up and continue a stanza of their once falency of their singing in the force of their voice:

miliar bard.

On the 7th of last January, the author of Childe Harold, and another Englishman, the writer of this notice, rowed to the Lido with two singers, one of whom was a carpenter, and the other a gondolier. The former placed himself at the prow, the latter at the stern of the boat. A little after leaving the quay of the Piazzetta, they began to sing, and continued their exercise until

one seemed desirous of conquering the other by the strength of his lungs; and so far from receiving delight from this scene (shut up as I was in the box of the gondola), I found myself in a very unpleasant situation.

"My companion, to whom I communicated this circumstance, being very desirous to keep up the credit of his countrymen, assured me that this singing was very delightful when heard at a dis

tance. Accordingly we got out upon the shore, leaving one of the singers in the gondola, while the other went to the distance of some hundred paces. They now began to sing against one another, and I kept walking up and down between them both, so as always to leave him who was to begin his part. I frequently stood still and hearkened to the one and to the other.

"Here the scene was properly introduced. The strong declamatory, and, as it were, shrieking sound, met the ear from far, and called forth the attention; the quickly succeeding transitions, which necessarily required to be sung in a lower tone, seemed like plaintive strains succeeding the vociferations of emotion. or of pain. The other, who listened attentively, immediately began where the former left off, answering him in milder or more vehement notes, according as the purport of the strophe required. The sleepy canals, the lofty buildings, the splendour of the moon, the deep shadows of the few gondolas, that moved like spirits hither and thither, increased the striking peculiarity of the scene; and amidst all these circumstances it was easy to confess the character of this wonderful harmony.

"It suits perfectly well with an idle solitary mariner, lying at length in his vessel at rest on one of these canals, waiting for his company, or for a fare, the tiresomeness of which situation is somewhat alleviated by the songs and poetical stories he has in memory. He often raises his voice as loud as he can, which extends itself to a vast distance over the tranquil mirror, and as all is still around, he is, as it were, in a solitude in the midst of a large and populous town. Here is no rattling of carriages, no noise of footpassengers: a silent gondola glides now and then by him, of which the splashing of the oars are scarcely to be heard.

"At a distance he hears another, perhaps utterly unknown to him. Melody and verse immcdiately attach the two strangers; he becomes the responsive echo to the former, and exerts himself to be heard as he had heard the other. By a tacit convention they alternate verse for verse; though the song should last the whole night through, they entertain themselves without fatigue; the hearers, who are passing between the two, take part in the amusement.

"This vocal performance sounds best at a great distance, and is then inexpressibly charming, as it only fulfils its design in the sentiment of remoteness. It is plaintive, but not dismal in its sound, and at times it is scarcely possible to refrain from tears. My companion, who otherwise was not a very delicately organized person, said quite unexpectedly:" singolare come quel canto intenerisce, e molto più quando lo cantano meglio.".

"I was told that the women of Libo, the long row of islands that divides the Adriatic from the Lagouns *), particularly the women of the extreme districts of Malamocca and Palestrina, sing in like manner the works of Tasso to these and similar tunes.

"They have the custom, when their husbands are fishing out at sea, to sit along the shore in the evenings and vociferate these songs, and continue to do so with great violence, till each of them can distinguish the responses of her own husband at a distance."

physician or a lawyer take his degree, or a cler
gyman preach his maiden-sermon, has a surges
performed an operation, would a harlequin a
nounce his departure or his benefit, are you t
be congratulated on a marriage, or a birth, a
a lawsuit, the Muses are invoked to furnish the
same number of syllables, and the individual
triumphs blaze abroad in virgin-white or par
coloured placards on half the corners of the a
pital. The last curtsy of a favourite prisa
donna" brings down a shower of these pictis
tributes from those upper regions, from wh
in our theatres, nothing but Cupids and s
storms are accustomed to descend. There sa
poetry in the very life of a Venetian, whis
its common course, is varied with those surum
and changes so recommendable in fiction, i
different from the sober monotony of oran
existence; amusements are raised into dis
duties are softened into amusements, and sy
object being considered as equally making a part
of the business of life, is announced and p
formed with the same earnest indifference and
gay assiduity. The Venetian gazette consand
closes its columns with the following triple ab
vertisement.
Charade.

Exposition of the most Holy Sacramentà the church of St.

Theatres.

St. Moses, opera.

St. Benedict, a comedy of characters.
St. Luke, repose.

When it is recollected what the Catholics be lieve their consecrated wafer to be, we may p haps think it worthy of a more respectable nitis than between poetry and the playhouse.

Sparta hath many a worthier son than be.

(p. 39. St The answer of the mother of Brasidas to th strangers who praised the memory of her sa

St. Mark yet sees his lion where he sti
Stand,-

(p. 39. St. B The lion hast lost nothing by his journey the Invalides but the gospel which support the paw that is now on a level with the foot. The horses also are returned to the li chosen spot whence they set out, and are, before, half hidden under the porch-window St. Mark's church.

Their history, after a desperate struggle. been satisfactorily explored. The decisions a doubts of Erizzo and Zanetti, and lastly, of de Count Leopold Cicognara, would have gives them a Roman extraction, and a pedigree more ancient than the reign of Nero. But M. Schlegel stepped in to teach the Venetianst value of their own treasures, and a Greek dicated, at last and for ever, the pretensiea his countrymen to this noble production. M Mustoxidi has not been left without a reply: as yet, he has received no answer. It sm seem that the horses are irrevocably Chian were transferred to Constantinople by The sius. Lapidary writing is a favourite play of the Italians, and has conferred reputation on than one of their literary characters. e the best specimens of Bodoni's typograph▾ is a

The love of music and of poetry distinguishes all classes of Venetians, even amongst the tuneful sons of Italy. The city itself can occasion-respectable volume of inscriptions, all w ally furnish respectable audiences for two and even three opera-houses at a time; and there are few events in private life that do not call forth a printed and circulated sonnet. Does a

*) The writer meant Lido, which is not a long row of islands, but a long island: littus, the shore.

by his friend Pacciaudi. Several were prepare for the recovered horses. It is to be hoped the be was not selected, when the following words w ranged in gold letters above the cathedral porck

QUATUOR EQUORUM SIGNA A VENETIS BYZANT CAPTA AD TEMP. D. MAR. A. B. S. NOCIV POSITI QUE HOSTILIS CUPIDITAS A. MDCCCII ABSTULEKI FRANC. I. IMP. PACIS ORBI DATE TROPHYUN ▲

MDCCCXV VICTOR REDUXIT.

Nothing shall be said of the Latin, but it may be permitted to observe, that the injustice of the Venetians in transporting the horses from Constantinople was at least equal to that of the French in carrying them to Paris, and that it would have been more prudent to have avoided all allusions to either robbery. An apostolic prince should, perhaps, have objected to affixing over the principal entrance of a metropolitan church an inscription having a reference to any other triumphs than those of religion. Nothing less than the pacification of the world can excuse such a solecism.

ed-"moved by the Holy Spirit, venerating the Almighty in the person of Alexander, laying aside his imperial dignity, and throwing off his mantle, he prostrated himself at full length at the feet of the Pope. Alexander, with tears in his eyes, raised him benignantly from the ground, kissed him, blessed him; and immediately the Germans of the train sang, with a loud voice, "We praise thee, O Lord." The Emperor then taking the Pope by the right hand, led him to the church, and having received his benediction, returned to the ducal palace." The ceremony of humiliation was repeated the next day. The Pope himself, at the request of Frederic, said aside his imperial mantle, and, taking a wand in his hand, officiated as verger, driving the laity from the choir, and preceding the pontiff to the altar. Alexander, after reciting the gospel, preached to the people. The Emperor put himself close to the pulpit in the attitude of listening; and the pontiff, touched by this mark of his attention, for he knew that Frederic did not understand a word he said, commanded the patriarch of Aquileja to translate the Latin discourse into the German tongue. The creed was then chanted. Frederic made his oblation and kissed the Pope's feet, and, mass being over, led him by the hand to his white horse. He held the stirrup, and would have led the horse's rein to the waterside, had not the Pope accepted of the inclination for the performance, and affectionately dismissed him with his benediction. Such is the substance of the account left by the archbishop of Salerno, who was present at the ceremony, and whose It would be not worth so minute a record, were it not the triumph of liberty as well as of superstition. The states of Lombardy owed to it the confirmation of their privileges; and Alexander had reason to thank the Almighty, who had enabled an infirm, unarmed old man to subdue a terrible and potent sovereign *).

The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns—mass at Saint Mark's. The Emperor again laid An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt. [p. 39. St. 12. After many vain efforts on the part of the Italians entirely to throw off the yoke of Frederic Barbarossa, and as fruitless attempts of the Emperor to make himself absolute master through out the whole of his Cisalpine dominions, the bloody struggles of four and twenty years were happily brought to a close in the city of Venice. The articles of a treaty had been previously agreed upon between Pope Alexander III. and Barbarossa, and the former having received a safe conduct, had already arrived at Venice from Ferrara, in company with the ambassadors of the king of Sicily and the consuls of the Lombard league. There still remained, however, many points to adjust, and for several days the peace was believed to be impracticable. At this juncture it was suddenly reported that the Emperor had arrived at Chioza, a town fifteen miles from the capital. The Venetians rose tumult-story is confirmed by every subsequent narration. eously, and insisted upon immediately conducting him to the city. The Lombards took the alarm and departed towards Treviso. The Pope himself was apprehensive of some disaster if Frederic should suddenly advance upon him, but was reassured by the prudence and address of Sebastian Ziani, the Doge Several embassies passed between Chioza and the capital, until, at last, the Emperor relaxing somewhat of his pretensions, "laid aside his leonine ferocity, and put on the mildness of the lamb." ")

On Saturday the 23d of July, in the year 1177, six Venetian galleys transferred Frederic, in great pomp, from Chioza to the island of Lido, a mile from Venice. Early the next morning the Pope, accompanied by the Sicilian ambassadors, and by the envoys of Lombardy, whom he had recalled from the main land, together with a great concourse of people, repaired from the patriarchal palace to Saint Mark's church, and solemnly absolved the Emperor and his partisans from the excommunication pronounced against him. The Chancellor of the Empire, on the part of his master, renounced the anti-popes and their schismatic adherents. Immediately the Doge, with a great suite both of the clergy and laity, got on board the galleys, and waiting on Frederic, rowed him in mighty state from the Lido to the capital. The Emperor descended from the galley at the quay of the Piazzetta. The Doge, the patriarch, his bishops and clergy, and the people of Venice with their crosses and their standards, marched in solemn procession before him to the church of Saint Mark. Alexander was seated before the vestibule of the basilica, attended by his bishops and cardinals, by the patriarch of Aquileja, by the archbishops and bishops of Lombardy, all of them in state, and clothed in their church-robes. Frederic approach

"Quibus anditis, imperator, operante eo, qui corda principum sicut vult et quando vult humiliter inclinat, leonina feritate deposita, ovinam mansuetudinem induit." Romualdi Salernitani Chronicon, apud. Script. Rer. Ital. tom. vii. p. 229.

Oh, for one hour of blind old Dandolo! Th octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquer ing foe. [p. 39. St. 12. The reader will recollect the exclamation of the highlander: Oh for one hour of Dundee! Henry Dandolo, when elected Doge, in 1192, was eighty-five years of age. When he commanded the Venetians at the taking of Constantinople he was consequently ninety-seven years old. At this age he annexed the fourth and a half of the whole empire of Romania **), for so the Roman empire was then called, to the title and to the territories of the Venetian Doge. The threeeighths of this empire were preserved in the diplomas until the Dukedom of Giovanni Dolfino, who made use of the above designation in the year 1357.

⚫) See the above cited Romuald of Salerno. In a second sermon which Alexander preached, on the first day of August, before the Emperor, he compared Frederic to the prodigal son, and himself to the forgiving father.

**) Mr. Gibbon has omitted the important æ, and has written Romani instead of Romaniæ. Decline and Fall, cap. LXI. note 9. But the title acquired by Dandolo runs thus in the Chronicle of his namesake, the Doge Andrew Dandolo: Ducali titulo addidit. "Quartæ partis et dimidiæ totius imperii Romaniæ.” And. Dand. Chronicon. cap. 11. pars XXXVII, ap. Script. Rer. Ital. tom. xII. page 331. And the Romania is observed in the subsequent acts of the Doge. Indeed the continental possessions of the Greek empire in Europe were then generally known by the name of Romania, and that appellation is still seen in the maps of Turkey as applied to Thrace.

Dandolo led the attack on Constantinople in last, they surrendered at discretion; and, on the person: two ships, the Paradise and the Pilgrim, 24th of June, 1380, the Doge Contarini made his were tied together, and a drawbridge or ladder triumphal entry into Chioza. Four thonsuni let down from their higher yards to the walls. prisoners, nineteen galleys, many smaller vessel The Doge was one of the first to rush into the and barks, with all the ammunition and arms city. Then was completed, said the Venetians, and outfit of the expedition, fell into the hands the Prophecy of the Erythræan sybil. "A gather- of the conquerors, who, had it not been for the ing together of the powerful shall be made inexorable answer of Doria, would have gladly amidst the waves of the Adriatic, under a blind reduced their dominion to the city of Vene leader; they shall beset the goat-they shall pro- An acount of these transactions is found in fane Byzantium-they shall blacken her build- work called the War of Chioza, written w Ings-her spoils shall be dispersed; a new goat | Daniel Chinazzo, who was in Venice at the tim shall bleat until they have measured out and run over fifty-four feet, nine inches, and a half." *)

Dandolo died on the first day of June, 1205, having reigned thirteen years, six months, and five days, and was buried in the church of St. Sophia, at Constantinople. Strangely enough it must sound, that the name of the rebel apothecary who received the Doge's sword, and annihilated the ancient government in 1791, was Dandolo.

The "Planter of the Lion." (p. 39. &% Plant the Lion-that is, the Lion of St. Mal the standard of the republic, which is the ga of the word Pantaloon-Pianta-leone, Pantr Pantaloon.

Thin streets and foreign aspects, such as mat
Too oft remind her who and what entkrak.

[p. 39. St.

of his former self, but he is polite and kind. I surely may be pardoned to him if he is q lous. Whatever may have been the vices of the republic, and although the natural term f existence may be thought to foreigners to bave arrived in the due course of mortality, only sentiment can be expected from the Vene themselves. At no time were the subjects of t republic so unanimous in their resolution rally round the standard of St. Mark, as whes it was for the last time unfurled; and the ardice and the treachery of the few patricia who recommended the fatal neutrality, w confined to the persons of the traitors themselves

The population of Venice at the end of the seventeenth century amounted to nearly tw But is not Doria's menace come to pass? hundred thousand souls. At the last census, tan Are they not bridled? [p. 39. St. 13. two years ago, it was no more than about our After the loss of the battle of Pola, and the hundred and three thousand, and it dimine taking of Chioza on the 16th of August, 1379, by daily. The commerce and the official emp the united armament of the Genoese and Fran- ments, which were to be the unexhausted sour cesco da Carrara, Signor of Padua, the Venetians of Venetian grandeur, have both expired.") Met were reduced to the utmost despair. An embassy of the patrician mansions are deserted, uni was sent to the conquerors with a blank sheet would gradually disappear, had not the Rovers of paper, praying them to prescribe what terms ment, alarmed by the demolition of seventy-tw they pleased, and leave to Venice only her in- during the last two years, expressly forbidden dependence. The Prince of Padua was inclined this sad resource of poverty. Many rem to listen to these proposals, but the Genoese, of the Venetian nobility are now scattered and who, after the victory at Pola, had shouted, "to confounded with the wealthier Jews upes Venice, to Venice, and long live St. George!" banks of the Brenta, whose Palladian palace determined to annihilate their rival, and Peter have sunk, or are sinking, in the general decr Doria, their commander in chief, returned this Of the "gentil uomo Veneto," the name is di answer to the suppliants: “On God's faith, gentle-known, and that is all. He is but the shad men of Venice, ye shall have no peace from the signor of Padua, nor from our commune of Genoa, until we have first put a rein upon those unbridled horses of yours, that are upon the Porch of your Evangelist St. Mark. When we have bridled them, we shall keep you quiet. And this is the pleasure of us and of our commune. As for these my brothers of Genoa, that you have brought with you to give up to us, I will not have them: take them back; for in a few days hence I shall come and let them out of prison myself, both these and all the others." In fact, the Genoese did advance as far as Malamocco, within five miles of the capital; but their own danger and the pride of their enemies The present race cannot be thought to regs gave courage to the Venetians, who made pro- the loss of their aristocratical forms, and digious efforts, and many individual sacrifices, despotic government; they think only on their all of them carefully recorded by their historians. vanished independence. They pine away at the Vettor Pisani was put at the head of thirty-four remembrance, and on this subject suspend for a galleys. The Genoese broke up from Malamocco, moment their gay good-humour. Venice may and retired to Chioza in October; but they again said, in the words of the scripture, “to de threatened Venice, which was reduced to extre- daily; and so general and so apparent is the mities. At this time, the 1st of January, 1380, decline, as to become painful to a stranger. arrived Carlo Zeno, who had been cruising on reconciled to the sight of a whole nation the Genoese coast with fourteen galleys. The piring as it were before his eyes. So artificial Venetians were now strong enough to besiege the a creation, having lost that principle which ca Genoese. Doria was killed on the 22d of January it into life and supported its existence. by a stone bullet 195 pounds weight, discharged fall to pieces at once, and sink more rashy from a bombard called the Trevisan. Chioza than it rose. The abhorrence of slavery which was then closely invested: 5000 auxiliaries, amongst whom were some English Condottieri, commanded by one Captain Ceccho, joined the Venetians. The Genoese in their turn, prayed for conditions, but none were granted, until, at

*) "Fiet potentium in aquis Adriaticis congregatio, cæco produce, Hircum ambigent, Byzantium profanabunt, ædificia denigrabunt; spolia dispergentur, Hircus novus balabit usque dum LIV pedes et 1x pollices, et semis præmensurati discurrant." [Cronicon, ibid. pars xXXIV.] |

"

drove the Venetians to the sea, has, since the disaster, forced them to the land, where they may be at least overlooked amongst the cros of dependants, and not present the humiliating