le work of the Gothic periods;
and it becomes, therefore, of the greatest possible importance to
examine into the nature and essence of the Grotesque itself, and to
ascertain in what respect it is that the jesting of art in its highest
flight, differs from its jesting in its utmost degradation.

Sec. III. The place where we may best commence our inquiry is one renowned
in the history of Venice, the space of ground before the Church of Santa
Maria Formosa; a spot which, after the Rialto and St. Mark's Place,
ought to possess a peculiar interest in the mind of the traveller, in
consequence of its connexion with the most touching and true legend of
the Brides of Venice. That legend is related at length in every Venetian
history, and, finally, has been told by the poet Rogers, in a way which
renders it impossible for any one to tell it after him. I have only,
therefore, to remind the reader that the capture of the brides took
place in the cathedral church, St. Pietro di Castello; and that this of
Santa Maria Formosa is connected with the tale, only because it was
yearly visited with prayers by the Venetian maidens, on the anniversary
of their ancestors' deliverance. For that deliverance, their thanks were
to be rendered to the Virgin; and there was no church then dedicated to
the Virgin, in Venice, except this.[27]

Neither of the cathedral church, nor of this dedicated to St. Mary the
Beautiful, is one stone left upon another. But, from that which has been
raised on the site of the latter, we may receive a most important
lesson, introductory to our immediate subject, if first we glance back
to the traditional history of the church which has been destroyed.

Sec. IV. No more honorable epithet than "traditional" can be attached to
what is recorded concerning it, yet I should grieve to lose the legend
of its first erection. The Bishop of Uderzo, driven by the Lombards from
his Bishopric, as he was praying, beheld in a vision the Virgin Mother,
who ordered him to found a church in her honor, in the place where he
should see a white cloud rest. And when he went out, the white cloud
went before him; and on the place where it rested he built a church, and
it was called the Church of St. Mary the Beautiful, from the loveliness
of the form in which she had appeared in the vision.[28]

The first church stood only for about two centuries. It was rebuilt in
864, and enriched with various relics some fifty years later; relics
belong