elves without fatigue; the hearers, who are passing between the
two, take part in the amusement.

This vocal performance sounds best at a great distance, and is then
inexpressibly charming, as it only fulfils its design in the sentiment
of remoteness. It is plaintive, but not dismal in its sound; and at
times it is scarcely possible to refrain from tears. My companion, who
otherwise was not a very delicately organised person, said quite
unexpectedly, "E singolare come quel canto intenerisce, e molto piu
quando la cantano meglio."

I was told that the women of Lido, the long row of islands that divides
the Adriatic from the Lagouns, particularly the women of the extreme
districts of Malamocca and Palestrina, sing in like manner the works of
Tasso to these and similar tunes.

They have the custom, when their husbands are fishing out at sea, to sit
along the shore in the evenings and vociferate these songs, and continue
to do so with great violence, till each of them can distinguish the
responses of her own husband at a distance.

How much more delightful and more appropriate does this song show itself
here, than the call of a solitary person uttered far and wide, till
another equally disposed shall hear and answer him! It is the expression
of a vehement and hearty longing, which yet is every moment nearer to
the happiness of satisfaction.

Lord Byron has told us that with the independence of Venice the song of
the gondolier has died away--

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more.

If this be not more poetical than true, it must have occurred at a
moment when their last political change may have occasioned this silence
on the waters. My servant _Tita_, who was formerly the servant of his
lordship, and whose name has been immortalised in the "Italy" of Mr.
Rogers, was himself a gondolier. He assures me that every night on the
river the chant may be heard. Many who cannot even read have acquired
the whole of Tasso, and some chant the stanzas of Ariosto. It is a sort
of poetical challenge, and he who cannot take up the subject by
continuing it is held as vanquished, and which occasions him no slight
vexation. In a note in Lord Byron's works, this article is quoted by
mistake as written by me, though I had mentioned it as the contribution
of a stranger. We find by that note that there are two kinds of Tasso;
the original, and another called the "_Canta alla Barcarola_," a
spurious Tasso in the Venetian dialect: this