e in the spirit of the old Romans, who
thought all nations _barbarous_ except their own.

A woman of quality, near whom I sate at the fine ball Bragadin made two
nights ago in honour of this gay season, enquired how I had passed the
morning. I named several churches I had looked into, particularly that
which they esteem beyond the rest as a favourite work of Palladio, and
called the Redentore. "You do very right," says she, "to look at our
churches, as you have none in England, I know--but then you have so
many other fine things--such charming _steel buttons_ for example;"
pressing my hand to shew that she meant no offence; for, added she, _chi
pensa d'una maniera, chi pensa d'un altra_[Footnote: One person is of
one mind you know, another of another.].

Here are many theatres, the worst infinitely superior to ours; the best,
as far below those of Milan and Turin: but then here are other
diversions, and every one's dependance for pleasure is not placed upon
the opera. They have now thrown up a sort of temporary wall of painted
canvass, in an oval form, within St. Mark's Place, profusely illuminated
round the new-formed walk, which is covered in at top, and adorned with
shops round the right hand side, with pillars to support the canopy; the
lamps, &c. on the left hand. This open Ranelagh, so suited to the
climate, is exceedingly pleasing:--here is room to sit, to chat, to
saunter up and down, from two o'clock in the morning, when the opera
ends, till a hot sun sends us all home to rest--for late hours must be
complied with at Venice, or you can have no diversion at all, as the
earliest Casino belonging to your soberest friends has not a candle
lighted in it till past midnight.

But I am called from my book to see the public library; not a large one
I find, but ornamented with pieces of sculpture, whose eminence has not,
I am sure, waited for my description: the Jupiter and Leda particularly,
said to be the work of Phidias, whose Ganymede in the same collection
they tell us is equally excellent. Having heard that Guarini's
manuscript of the Pastor Fido, written in his own hand, was safely kept
at this place, I asked for it, and was entertained to see his numberless
corrections and variations from the original thought, like those of
Pope's Homer preserved in the British Museum; some of which I copied
over for Doctor Johnson to print, at the time he published his Lives of
the English Poets. My curiosity led me to look in