contrasted
favourably with Paris; than the Sabbaths of which, I know of nothing
more terrible on earth. I remarked, too, that if the trade of the
Adriatic is at an end, and beggars crowd the quays which princes once
trod, and gondolas, in funereal black, glide gloomily through those
waters which rich argosies ploughed of old, the spiritual traffic of
Venice flourishes more than ever. I read on the doors of all the
churches, "INDULGENCES SOLD HERE FOR THE LIVING AND THE DEAD, AS IN
ROME." What matters it that the Adriatic is no longer the highway of the
world's merchandise, and that India is now closed to Venice? Is not the
whole of Peter's treasury open to her; and, to facilitate the enriching
commerce, have not the priests obligingly opened a direct road to the
celestial mine, to spare the Venetians the necessity of the more
circuitous path by the Seven Hills? Happy Venice! her children may be
starved now, but paradise is their's hereafter.

After noon each betook himself to what pastime he pleased. Not a few
opened their shops. Others gathered round an astrologer,--a personage no
longer to be seen in the cities of the west,--who had taken his stand on
the _Riva degli Schiavoni_, and there, begirt with zone inscribed with
cabalistic characters, and holding in his hand his wizard's staff, was
setting forth, with stentorian voice, his marvellous power of healing by
the combined help of the stars and his drugs. By the way, why should the
profession of astrology and the cognate arts be permitted to only one
class of men? In the middle ages, two classes of conjurors competed for
the public patronage, but with most unequal success. The one class
professed to be master of spells that were all-powerful over the
elements of the material world,--the air, the earth, the ocean. The
other arrogated an equal power over the invisible and spiritual world.
They were skilled in a mysterious rite, which had power to open the
gates of purgatory, and dismiss to a happier abode, souls there immured
in woe. The pretensions of both were equally well founded: both were
jugglers, and merited to have fared alike; but society, while it
lavished all its credence and all its patronage upon the one, denounced
the other as impostors. One colossal system of necromancy filled Europe;
but the age gave the priest a monopoly; and so jealously did it guard
his rights, that the conjuror who did not wear a cassock was banished or
burned. We can assign no re