the Pastor Fido for
the famous passage of _Legge humana_, _inhumana_, _&c._ and it was
observable enough that he had written it three different ways before he
pitched on that peculiar expression which caused his book to be
prohibited. Seeing the manuscript I took notice, however, of the
beautiful penmanship with which it was written: our English hand-writing
cotemporary to his was coarse, if I recollect, and very angular;--but
_Italian hand_ was the first to become elegant, and still retains some
privileges amongst us. Once more, every thing small, and every thing
great, revived after the dark ages--in Italy.

Looking at the Mint was an hour's time spent with less amusement. The
depuration of gold may be performed many ways, and the proofs of its
purity given by various methods: I was gratified well enough upon the
whole however, in watching the neatness of their process, in weighing
the gold, &c. and keeping it more free from alloy than any other coin of
any other state:--a zecchine will bend between your fingers from the
malleability of the metal--we may try in vain at a guinea, or louis
d'or. The operation of separating silver ore from gold by the powers of
aqua fortis, precipitating the first-named metal by suspension of a
copper plate in the liquid, and called _quartation_; was I believe
wholly unknown to the ancients, who got much earlier at the art of
weighing gold in water, testified by the old story of _King Hiero's
crown_.

Talking of kings, and crowns, and gold, reminds me of my regret for not
seeing the treasure kept in St. Mark's church here, with the motto
engraven on the chest which contains it:

Quando questo scrinio s'aprira,
Tutto il mondo tremera[R].

[Footnote R:
When this scrutoire shall open'd be,
The world shall all with wonder flee.
]

Of this it was said in our Charles the First's time, that there was
enough in it to pay six kings' ransoms: when Pacheco, the Spanish
ambassador, hearing so much of it, asked in derision, If the chest had
any _bottom_? and being answered in the affirmative, made reply, That
_there_ was the difference between his master's treasures and those of
the Venetian Republic, for the mines of Mexico and Potosi had _no_
bottom.--Strange! if all these precious stones, metals, &c. have been
all spent since then, and nothing left except a few relics of no
intrinsic value.

It is well enough known, that in the year 1450, one of the natives of
the islan