ipt of the 'Gerusalemme,' with the alterations
which Tasso made in it while in prison, and the original
manuscript of Guarini's 'Pastor Fido.' The _custode_ told me that
in the morning the library was full of readers, which I did not
believe. There are some illuminated Missals, said to be the
finest in Italy. Though the idea of gaiety seems inconsistent
with Ferrara, they have an opera, corso, and the same round of
festivals and merriment as other Italian towns, but I never saw
so dismal a place.

[Page Head: VENICE]

Venice, June 16th, 1830 {p.405}

We crossed the Po, and afterwards the Adige, in boats. The
country is flat, and reminded me of the Netherlands. I was asleep
all night, but awoke in time to see some of the villas on the
banks of the Brenta. Of Padua I was unconscious. Embarked in a
gondola at Fusina, and arrived at this remarkable city under the
bad auspices of a dark, gloomy, and very cold day. It is Venice,
but living Venice no more. In my progress to the inn I saw
nothing but signs of ruin and blasted grandeur, palaces half
decayed, and the windows boarded up. The approach to the city is
certainly as curious as possible, so totally unlike everything
else, and on entering the Great Canal, and finding

The death-like silence and the dread repose

of a place which was once the gayest and most brilliant in the
world, a little pang shoots across the imagination, recollecting
its strange and romantic history and its poetical associations.

_Two o'clock._--I am just driven in by a regular rainy day, and
have the prospect of shivering through the rest of it in a room
with marble floor and hardly any furniture. However, it is the
only bad day there has been since the beginning of my expedition.
The most striking thing in Venice (at least in such weather as
this) is the unbroken silence. The gondolas glide along without
noise or motion, and, except other gondolas, one may traverse the
city without perceiving a sign of life. I went first to the
Church of Santa Maria dei Frati, which is fine, old, and adorned
with painting and sculpture. At Santa Maria dei Frati Titian was
buried. Canova intended a monument for him, but after his death
his design was executed and put up in this church, but for him,
and not for Titian, the reverse of 'sic vos non vobis.' Here are
tombs of several Doges, of Francis Foscari, with a pompous
inscription. The body of Carmagnola lies here in a wooden coffin;
his hea