he moon reign
supreme; the glittering sky reflected in the waters, and every gondola
gliding with sweet sounds! Around on every side are palaces and
temples, rising from the waves which they shadow with their solemn
forms, their costly fronts rich with the spoils of kingdoms, and
softened with the magic of the midnight beam. The whole city too is
poured forth for festival. The people lounge on the quays and cluster
on the bridges; the light barks skim along in crowds, just touching
the surface of the water, while their bright prows of polished iron
gleam in the moonshine, and glitter in the rippling wave. Not a sound
that is not graceful: the tinkle of guitars, the sighs of serenaders,
and the responsive chorus of gondoliers. Now and then a laugh,
light, joyous, and yet musical, bursts forth from some illuminated
coffee-house, before which a buffo disports, a tumbler stands on his
head, or a juggler mystifies; and all for a sequin!

The Place of St. Marc, at the period of our story, still presented the
most brilliant spectacle of the kind in Europe. Not a spot was more
distinguished for elegance, luxury, and enjoyment. It was indeed the
inner shrine of the temple of pleasure, and very strange and amusing
would be the annals of its picturesque arcades. We must not, however,
step behind their blue awnings, but content ourselves with the
exterior scene; and certainly the Place of St. Marc, with the
variegated splendour of its Christian mosque, the ornate architecture
of its buildings, its diversified population, a tribute from every
shore of the midland sea, and where the noble Venetian, in his robe
of crimson silk, and long white peruque, might be jostled by the
Sclavonian with his target, and the Albanian in his kilt, while the
Turk, sitting cross-legged on his Persian carpet, smoked his long
chibouque with serene gravity, and the mild Armenian glided by him
with a low reverence, presented an aspect under a Venetian moon such
as we shall not easily find again in Christendom, and, in spite of the
dying glory and the neighbouring vice, was pervaded with an air of
romance and refinement, compared with which the glittering dissipation
of Paris, even in its liveliest and most graceful hours, assumes a
character alike coarse and commonplace.

It is the hour of love and of faro; now is the hour to press your suit
and to break a bank; to glide from the apartment of rapture into the
chamber of chance. Thus a noble Venetian cont