ble.

As typical a walk as one can take in democratic Venice is that from this
church to the Frari, along the Ruga Vecchia di San Giovanni, parallel
with the Grand Canal. I have been here often both by day and by night,
and it is equally characteristic at either time. Every kind of shop is
here, including two old book-shops, one of which (at the corner of the
Campiello dei Meloni) is well worth rummaging in. A gentle old lady sits
in the corner so quietly as to be invisible, and scattered about are
quite a number of English books among them, when I was last there, a
surprising proportion of American minor verse. Another interesting shop
here supplies Venetians with the small singing birds which they love so
much, a cage by a window being the rule rather than the exception; and
it was hereabouts that an old humorous greengrocer once did his voluble
best to make me buy a couple of grilli, or crickets, in a tiny barred
prison, to make their shrill mysterious music for me. But I resisted.

At night, perhaps, is this walk best, for several very popular wine
shops for gondoliers are hereabouts, one or two quite large, with rows
of barrels along the walls; and it is good to see every seat full, and
an arm round many a waist, and everybody merry. Such a clatter of
tongues as comes from these taverns is not to be beaten; and now and
then a tenor voice or a mandolin adds a grace.

CHAPTER XXII

S. ROCCO AND TINTORETTO

The Scuola di S. Rocco--Defective lighting--A competition of
artists--The life of the Virgin--A dramatic Annunciation--Ruskin's
analysis--S. Mary of Egypt--The upper hall--"The Last Supper"--"Moses
striking the rock"--"The Crucifixion"--A masterpiece--Tintoretto's
career--Titian and Michel Angelo--A dramatist of the Bible--Realistic
carvings--The life of S. Rocco--A humorist in wood--A model council
chamber--A case of reliquaries--The church of S. Rocco--Giorgione or
Titian?

There are Tintorettos everywhere in Venice, in addition to the immense
canvases in the Doges' Palace, but I imagine that were we able to ask
the great man the question, Where would he choose to be judged? he would
reply, "At the Scuola di S. Rocco,"--with perhaps a reservation in
favour of "The Miracle of S. Mark" at the Accademia, and possibly the
"Presentation" (for I feel he must have loved that work) at the Madonna
dell'Orto, and "The Marriage in Cana," that fascinating scene, in the
Salute. In the superb building of the S.