effect. He is said to have worked in Thornhill's studio, and his
influence may be suspected in the Blenheim frescoes, and even in touches
in Hogarth's work.

By the eighteenth century Venice had parted with her old nobility of
soul, and enjoyment had become the only aim of life. Yet Venice, among
the States of Italy, alone retained her freedom. The Doge reigned
supreme as in the past. Beneath the ceiling of Veronese the dreaded
Three still sat in secret council. Venice was still the city of subtle
poisons and dangerous mysteries, but the days were gone when she
had held the balance in European affairs, and she had become, in a
superlative degree, the city of pleasure. Nowhere was life more
varied and entertaining, more full of grace and enchantment.

A long period of peace had rocked the Venetian people into calm
security. There was, indeed, a little spasmodic fighting in Corfu,
Dalmatia, and Algiers, but no real share was retained in the
struggles of Europe. The whole policy of the city's life was one of
self-indulgence. Holiday-makers filled her streets; the whole population
lived "in piazza," laughing, gossiping, seeing and being seen. The
very churches had become a rendezvous for fashionable intrigues; the
convents boasted their _salons_, where nuns in low dresses, with pearls
in their hair, received the advances of nobles and gallant abbes.
People came to Venice to waste time; trivialities, the last scandal,
sensational stories, were the only subjects worth discussing. In an age
of parodies and practical jokes, the more absurd any one could be, the
more silly or witty stories he could tell, the more assured was his
success in the joyous, frivolous circle, full of fun and laughter. The
Carnival lasted for six months of the year, and was the occasion for
masques and licence of every description. In the hot weather, the gay
descendants of the Contarini, the Loredan, the Pisani, and other grand
old houses, migrated to villas along the Brenta, where by day and night
the same reckless, irresponsible life went gaily on. The power of such
courtesans as Titian and Paris Bordone had painted was waning. Their
place was adequately supplied by the easy dames of society, no longer
secluded, proud and tranquil, but "stirred by the wild blood of youth
and stooping to the frolic." "They are but faces and smiles, teasing
and trumpery," says one of their critics, yet they are declared to be
wideawake, natural and charming, making th