noble lions' heads, and massive
ornamentations.

I don't know for certain, but I should guess that the Royal Palace in
Venice is the only abode of a European King that has shops underneath
it. Wisely the sleeping apartments face the Grand Canal, with a garden
intervening; were they on the Piazza side sleep would be very
difficult. But all the great State rooms overlook the Piazza. The Palace
is open on fixed days and shown by a demure flunkey in an English bowler
hat, but it should be the last place to be visited by the sightseer. Its
only real treasures--the Tintorettos illustrating the life of S.
Mark--were not visible on the only occasion on which I ventured in.

Beneath these three buildings--the two Procuratie and the Fabbrica
Nuova--runs an arcade where the Venetians congregate in wet weather and
where the snares for tourists are chiefly laid by the dealers in
jewellery, coral, statuary, lace, glass, and mosaic. But the Venetian
shopkeepers are not clever: they have not the sense to leave the nibbler
alone. One has not been looking in the window for more than two seconds
before a silky-voiced youth appears at the door and begins to recommend
his wares and invite custom; and then of course one moves away in
terror.

Here, too, under the arcade, are the head-quarters of the cafes, which
do most of their business on the pavement of the Square. Of these
Florian's is the oldest and best. At certain hours, however, one must
cross the Square to either the Ortes Rosa or Quadri, or be roasted. The
original Florian was wise in his choice of site, for he has more shady
hours than his rivals opposite. In an advertisement of the cafe in the
musical programme it is stated that, "the oldest and most aristocratic
establishment of its kind in Venice, it can count among its clients,
since 1720, Byron, Goethe, Rousseau, Canova, Dumas, and Moor," meaning
by Moor not Othello but Byron's friend and biographer, the Anacreon of
Erin. How Florian's early patrons looked one can see in a brilliant
little picture by Guardi in the National Gallery, No. 2099. The cafe
boasts that its doors are never shut, day or night; and I have no doubt
that this is true, but I have never tested it in the small hours.

Oddly enough there are no restaurants in the Piazza, but many about its
borders on the north and west. The visitor to Venice, as a rule, eats in
his hotel; and I think he is wise. But wishing to be in Venice rather
more thoroughly than th