Italy to look at buildings,
statues, pictures, people! The ships and guns of England have been such
as supported her greatness, established her dominion, and extended her
commerce in such a manner as to excite the admiration and terror of
Europe, whose kingdoms vainly as perfidiously combined with her own
colonies against that power which _they_ maintained, in spite of the
united efforts of half the globe. I shall hardly see finer ships and
guns till I go home again, though the keeping all together on one island
so--that island walled in too completely with only a single door to come
in and out at--is a construction of peculiar happiness and convenience;
while dock, armoury, rope-walk, all is contained in this space, exactly
two miles round I think.

What pleased me best, besides the _whole_, which is best worth being
pleased with, was the small arms: there are so many Turkish instruments
of destruction among them quite new to me, and the picture commemorating
the cruel death of their noble gallant leader Bragadin, so inhumanly
treated by the Saracens in 1571. With infinite gratitude to his amiable
descendant, who shewed me unmerited civility, dining with us often, and
inviting us to his house, &c. I leave this repository of the Republic's
stores with one observation, That however suspicious the Venetians are
said to be, I found it much more easy for Englishmen to look over
_their_ docks, than for a foreigner to find his way into ours.

Another reflection occurs on examination of this spot; it is, that the
renown attached to it in general conversation, is a proof that the world
prefers convenience to splendour; for here are no superfluous ornaments,
and I am apt to think many go away from it praising beauties by which
they have been but little struck, and utilities they have but little
understood.

From this show you are commonly carried to the glass manufactory at
Murano; once the retreat of piety and freedom, when the Altinati fled
the fury of the Huns: a beautiful spot it is, and delightfully as oddly
situated; but these are _gems which inlay the bosom of the deep_, as
Milton says--and this perhaps, the prettiest among them, is walked over
by travellers with that curiosity which is naturally excited, in one
person by the veneration of religious antiquity; in another, by the
attention justly claimed by human industry and art. Here may be seen a
valuable library of books, and here may be seen glasses of all colours,