2}
_Is dying in the echo--it is time_
_To break the spell of this protracted dream_
_And what will be the fate of this my rhyme_
_May not be of my augury_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[ql] _Fatal--and yet it shakes me not--farewell._--[MS. M.]

[qm] _Ye! who have traced my Pilgrim to the scene._--[MS. M.]

[554] {463} At end--

Laus Deo!
Byron.
July 19th, 1817.
La Mira, near Venice.

Laus Deo!
Byron.
La Mira, near Venice,
Sept. 3, 1817.

* * * * *

NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE.

CANTO IV.

1.

I stood in Venice, on the "Bridge of Sighs;"
A Palace and a prison on each hand.
Stanza i. lines 1 and 2.

The communication between the ducal palace and the prisons of Venice is
by a gloomy bridge, or covered gallery, high above the water, and
divided by a stone wall into a passage and a cell. The state dungeons
called _pozzi_, or wells, were sunk in the thick walls of the palace:
and the prisoner, when taken out to die, was conducted across the
gallery to the other side, and being then led back into the other
compartment, or cell, upon the bridge, was there strangled. The low
portal through which the criminal was taken into this cell is now walled
up; but the passage is still open, and is still known by the name of the
"Bridge of Sighs." The _pozzi_ are under the flooring of the chamber at
the foot of the bridge. They were formerly twelve; but on the first
arrival of the French, the Venetians hastily blocked or broke up the
deeper of these dungeons. You may still, however descend by a trap-door,
and crawl down through holes, half choked by rubbish, to the depth of
two stories below the first range. If you are in want of consolation for
the extinction of patrician power, perhaps you may find it there;
scarcely a ray of light glimmers into the narrow gallery which leads to
the cells, and the places of confinement themselves are totally dark. A
small hole in the wall admitted the damp air of the passages, and
served for the introduction of the prisoner's food. A wooden pallet,
raised a foot from the ground, was the only furniture. The conductors
tell you that a light was not allowed. The cells are about five paces in
length, two and a half in width, and seven feet i