d, like the successive chapters of a book, in
chronological order, beginning with the infancy of the art, and going on
to its full noon, under the great masters of the Lombard
school,--Titian, Paul Veronese, Tintoretto, and others. The pictures of
the inner saloons were truly magnificent; but on these I do not dwell.

Let us sit down here, in the midst of the seas, and meditate a little on
the great _moral_ of Venice. We shall let the poet state the case:--

"Her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East
Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
In purple was she robed, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increased."

But now, after power, wealth, empire, have come corruption, slavery,
ruin; and Venice,--

"Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done,
Sinks, like a sea-weed, into whence she rose."

But the course which Venice has run is that of all States which have yet
appeared in the world. History is but a roll of defunct empires, whose
career has been alike; and Venice and Rome are but the latest names on
the list. Egypt, Chaldea, Tyre, Greece, Rome,--to all, as if by an
inevitable law, there came, after the day of civilization and empire,
the night of barbarism and slavery. This has been repeated again and
again, till the world has come to accept of it as its established
course. We see States emerging from infancy and weakness slowly and
laboriously, becoming rich, enlightened, powerful; and the moment they
seemed to have perfected their civilization, and consolidated their
power, they begin to fall. The past history of our race is but a history
of efforts, successful up to a certain point, but only to a certain
point; for whenever that point has been reached, all the fruits of past
labour,--all the accumulations of legislators, philosophers, and
warriors,--have been swept away, and the human family have found that
they had to begin the same laborious process over again,--to toil
upwards from the same gulph, to be overtaken by the same disaster.
History has been simply a series of ever-recurring cycles, ending in
barbarism. This is a discouraging aspect of human affairs, and throws a
doubtful shadow upon the future; but it is the aspect in which history
exhibits them. The Etrurian tombs speak of an era of civilization and
power succeeded by barbarism. The mounds of Nineveh speak of a similar
revolution. The day of Gre