et, was placed; and, on a signal given, the gondolas retiring from one
another, he was precipitated into the deep." "We can do nothing against
the truth," says the apostle. Venice is rotting in her Lagunes: the
Reformation, shaking off the chains with which men attempted to bind it,
is starting on a new career of progress.

Next morning, at breakfast in my hotel, formerly the palace of the
Giustiniani, I met a young Englishman, who had just come from Rome. He
had the misfortune to be of the same name with one on the "suspected
list," and for this offence he was arrested on entering the Austrian
territory; and, though allowed to come on to Venice, his passport was
taken from him, and his journey to England, which he meant to make by
way of Trieste and Vienna, stopped. The list to which I have referred,
which is kept at all the continental police offices, and which the eye
of policeman or sbirro only can see, has created a sort of inquisition
for Europe. The poor traveller has no means of knowing who has denounced
him, or why; and wherever he goes, he finds a vague suspicion
surrounding him, which he can neither penetrate nor clear up, and which
exposes him to numberless and by no means petty annoyances. I
accompanied my friend, after breakfast, to the _Prefecture_, to transact
my own passport matters, and was glad to find that the authorities were
now satisfied that he was not the same man who figured on the black
list. Still they had no apology, no reparation, to offer him: on the
contrary, he was informed that he must submit to a detention of two or
three days more, till his passport should be forwarded from the
provincial office where it was lying. His misfortune was my advantage,
for it gave me an intelligent and obliging companion for the rest of the
day; and we immediately set out to visit together all the great objects
in Venice. It would be preposterous to dwell on these, for an hundred
pens have already described them better; and my object is to advert to
one great lesson which this fallen city,--for the sea, which once was
the bulwark and throne of Venice, is now her prison,--teaches.

Betaking ourselves to a gondola, we passed down the Giudecca, Canal. We
much admired--as who would not?--the-noble palaces which on either hand
rose so proudly from the bosom of the deep, yet invested with an air of
silent desolation, which made the heart sad, even while their beauty
delighted the eye. We disembarked at the stair