Some years ago then, perhaps a hundred, one of the many spies who ply this town by night, ran to the state inquisitor, with information that such a nobleman (naming him) had connections with the French ambassador, and went privately to his house every night at a certain hour.  The messergrando, as they call him, could not believe, nor would proceed, without better and stronger proof, against a man for whom he had an intimate personal friendship, and on whose virtue he counted with very particular reliance.  Another spy was therefore set, and brought back the same intelligence, adding the description of his disguise; on which the worthy magistrate put on his mask and bauta, and went out himself; when his eyes confirming the report of his informants, and the reflection on his duty stifling all remorse, he sent publicly for Foscarini in the morning, whom the populace attended all weeping to his door.

Nothing but resolute denial of the crime alleged could however be forced from the firm-minded citizen, who, sensible of the discovery, prepared for that punishment he knew to be inevitable, and submitted to the fate his friend was obliged to inflict:  no less than a dungeon for life, that dungeon so horrible that I have heard Mr. Howard was not permitted to see it.

The people lamented, but their lamentations were vain.  The magistrate who condemned him never recovered the shock:  but Foscarini was heard of no more, till an old lady died forty years after in Paris, whose last confession declared she was visited with amorous intentions by a nobleman of Venice whose name she never knew, while she resided there as companion to the ambassadress.  So was Foscarini lost! so died he a martyr to love, and tenderness for female reputation!  Is it not therefore a story fit to be celebrated by that lady’s pen, who has chosen it as the basis of her future tragedy?—­But I will anticipate no further.

Well! this is the first place I have seen which has been capable in any degree of obliterating the idea of Genoa la superba, which has till now pursued me, nor could the gloomy dignity of the cathedral at Milan, or the striking view of the arena at Verona, nor the Sala de Giustizia at lettered Padua, banish her beautiful image from my mind:  nor can I now acknowledge without shame, that I have ceased to regret the mountains, the chesnut groves, and slanting orange trees, which climbed my chamber window there, and at this time too! when

    Young-ey’d Spring profusely throws
    From her green lap the pink and rose.

But whoever sees St. Mark’s Place lighted up of an evening, adorned with every excellence of human art, and pregnant with pleasure, expressed by intelligent countenances sparkling with every grace of nature; the sea washing its walls, the moon-beams dancing on its subjugated waves, sport and laughter resounding from the coffee-houses, girls with guitars skipping about the square, masks and merry-makers singing as they pass you, unless a barge with a band of music is heard at some distance upon the water, and calls attention to sounds made sweeter by the element over which they are brought—­whoever is led suddenly I say to this scene of seemingly perennial gaiety, will be apt to cry out of Venice, as Eve says to Adam in Milton,