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saint gave his benediction to the fish and dismissed them.

Several other the like stories of St. Anthony are represented about his monument, in a very fine basso relievo.

I could not forbear setting down the titles given to St. Anthony in one of the tables that hangs up to him, as a token of gratitude from a poor peasant, who fancied the saint had saved him from breaking his neck.

Sacratissimi pusionis Bethlehemitici

Lilio candidiori delicio,
Seraphidum soli fulgidissimo,

Celsissimo sacræ sapientiæ tholo,

Prodigiorum patratori potentissimo,

Mortis, erroris, calamitatis, lepræ, dæmonis,

Dispensatori, correctori, liberatori, curatori, fugatori,

Sancto, sapienti, pio, potenti, tremendo,

Egrotorum et naufragantium salvatori

Præsentissimo, tutissimo.

Membrorum restitutori, vinculorum confractori,

Rerum perditarum inventori stupendo,

Periculorum omnium profligatori

Magno, mirabili,

Ter Sancto,

Antonio Paduano,

Pientissimo post Deum ejusque Virgineam matrem
Protectori et sospitatori suo, &c.

The custom of hanging up limbs in wax, as well as pictures, is certainly derived from the old heathens, who used, upon their recovery to make an offering in wood, metal, or clay, of the part that had been afflicted with a distemper, to the deity that delivered them. I have seen, I believe, every limb of a human body figured in iron or clay, which were formerly made on this occasion, among the several collections of antiquities that have been shown me in Italy. The church of St. Justina, designed by Palladio, is the most handsome, luminous, disencumbered building in the inside that I have ever seen, and is esteemed by many artists one of the finest works in Italy. The long nef consists of a row of five cupolas, the cross-one has on each side a single cupola deeper and broader than the others. The martyrdom of St. Justina hangs over the altar, and is a

piece of Paul Veronese. In the great town-hall of Padua stands a stone superscribed Lapis Vituperii. Any debtor that will swear himself not worth five pound, and is set by the bailiffs thrice with his bare buttocks on this stone in a full hall, clears himself of any farther prosecution from his creditors; but this is a punishment that nobody has submitted to, these four and twenty years. The university of Padua is of late much more regular than it was formerly, though it is not yet safe walking the streets after sun-set. There is at Padua a manufacture of cloth, which has brought very great revenues into the republic. At present the English have not only gained upon the Venetians in the Levant, which used chiefly to be supplied from this manufacture, but have great quantities of their cloth in Venice itself; few of the nobility wearing any other sort, notwithstanding the magistrate of the pomps is obliged by his office to see that nobody wears the cloth of a foreign country. Our merchants, indeed, are forced to make use of some artifice to get these prohibited goods into port. What they here show for the ashes of Livy and Antenor is disregarded by the best of their own antiquaries.

The pretended tomb of Antenor put me in mind of the latter part of Virgil's description, which gives us the original of Padua.

Antenor potuit mediis elapsus Achivis

Illyricos penetrare sinus, atque intima tutus
Regna Liburnorum, et fontem superare Timavi :
Unde per ora novem vasto cum murmure montis
It mare præruptum, et pelago premit arva sonanti;
Hic tamen ille urbem Patavi, sedesque locavit
Teucrorum, et genti nomen dedit, armaque fixit
Troia: nunc placidâ compostus pace quiescit.

Antenor, from the midst of Grecian hosts,
Could pass secure; and pierce th' Illyrian coasts,
Where rolling down the steep, Timavus raves,
And through nine channels disembogues his waves.
At length he founded Padua's happy seat,

And gave his Trojans a secure retreat :

Æn. 1.

There fix'd their arms, and there renew'd their names;
And there in quiet lies,-

From Padua I went down to the river Brent in the ordinary ferry, which brought me in a day's time to Venice.

VENICE.

Having often heard Venice represented as one of the most defencible cities in the world, I took care to inform myself of the particulars in which its strength consists. And these I find are chiefly owing to its advantageous situation; for it has neither rocks nor fortifications near it, and yet is, perhaps, the most im pregnable town in Europe. It stands at least four miles from any part of the terra firma, nor are the shallows that lie about it ever frozen hard enough to bring over an army from the land-side; the constant flux or reflux of the sea, or the natural mildness of the climate, hindering the ice from gathering to any thickness; which is an advantage the Hollanders want, when they have laid all their country under water. On the side that is exposed to the Adriatic, the entrance is so difficult to hit, that they have marked it out with several stakes driven into the ground, which they would not fail to cut upon the first approach of an enemy's fleet. For this reason they have not fortified the little islands that lie at the entrance, to the best advantage, which might otherwise very easily command all the passes that lead to the city from the Adriatic. Nor could an ordinary fleet, with bomb-vessels, hope to succeed against a place that has always in its arsenal a considerable number of gallies and men of war ready to put to sea on a very short warning. If we could therefore suppose them blocked up on all sides, by a power too strong for them, both by sea and land, they would be able to defend themselves against every thing but famine; and this would not be a little mitigated by the great quantities of fish that their seas abound with, and that may be taken up in the midst of their very streets, which is such a natural magazine as few other places can boast of.

Our voyage-writers will needs have this city in great

danger of being left, within an age or two, on the terra firma; and represent it in such a manner, as if the sea was insensibly shrinking from it, and retiring into its channel. I asked several, and among the rest Father Coronelli, the state's geographer, of the truth of this particular, and they all assured me that the sea rises as high as ever, though the great heaps of dirt it brings along with it are apt to choke up the shallows, but that they are in no danger of losing the benefit of their situation, so long as they are at the charge of removing these banks of mud and sand. One may see abundance of them above the surface of the water, scattered up and down like so many little islands, when the tide is low; and they are these that make the entrance for ships difficult to such as are not used to them, for the deep canals run between them, which the Venetians are at a great expence to keep free and open.

This city stands very convenient for commerce. It has several navigable rivers that run up into the body of Italy, by which they might supply a great many countries with fish and other commodities; not to mention their opportunities for the Levant, and each side of the Adriatic. But, notwithstanding these conveniences, their trade is far from being in a flourishing condition, for many reasons. The duties are great that are laid on merchandizes. Their nobles think it below their quality to engage in traffic. The merchants who are grown rich, and able to manage great dealings, buy their nobility, and generally give over trade. Their manufactures of cloth, glass and silk, formerly the best in Europe, are now excelled by those of other countries. They are tenacious of old laws and customs to their great prejudice, whereas a trading nation must be still for new changes and expedients, as different junctures and emergencies arise. The state is at present very sensible of this decay in their trade, and as a noble Venetian, who is still a merchant, told me, they will

* New changes] Every change is new. The VOL. II.

D

proper

word is measures.

speedily find out some method to redress it; possibly by making a free port, for they look with an evil eye upon Leghorn, which draws to it most of the vessels bound for Italy. They have hitherto been so negligent in this particular, that many think the great duke's gold has had no small influence in their councils.

Venice has several particulars which are not to be found in other cities, and is therefore very entertaining to a traveller. It looks, at a distance, like a great town half floated by a deluge. There are canals every where crossing it, so that one may go to most houses either by land or water. This is a very great convenience to the inhabitants; for a gondola with two oars at Venice, is as magnificent as a coach and six horses with a large equipage in another country; besides that it makes all carriages extremely cheap. The streets are generally paved with brick or free-stone, and always kept very neat, for there is no carriage, not so much as a chair, that passes through them. There is an innumerable multitude of very handsome bridges, all of a single arch, and without any fence on either side, which would be a great inconvenience to a city less sober than Venice. One would, indeed, wonder that drinking is so little in vogue among the Venetians, who are in a moist air and a moderate climate, and have no such diversions as bowling, hunting, walking, riding, and the like exercises to employ them without doors. But as the nobles are not to converse too much with strangers, they are in no danger of learning it; and they are generally too distrustful of one another for the freedoms that are used in such kind of conversations. There are many noble palaces in Venice. Their furniture is not commonly very rich, if we except the pictures, which are here in greater plenty than in any other place in Europe, from the hands of the best masters of the Lom

All carriages] Carriages, in the plural, means, the instruments of carriage; as coaches, &c. The act of carrying, or transportation, is always expressed in the singular number. He should have said, "Makes carriage," or " carriage of all sorts extremely cheap."

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