Byron's merry poem of "Beppo:"

"Of all the places where the Carnival
Was most facetious in the days of yore,
For dance, and song, and serenade, and ball,
And masque, and mime, and mystery, and more
Than I have time to tell now, or at all,
Venice the bell from every city bore."

* * * * *

"And there are dresses splendid, but fantastical,
Masks of all times, and nations, Turks and Jews,
And harlequins and clowns, with feats gymnastical,
Greeks, Romans, Yankee-doodles, and Hindoos
All kinds of dress, except the ecclesiastical,
All people, as their fancies hit, may choose,
But no one in these parts may quiz the clergy,
Therefore take heed, ye Freethinkers! I charge ye."

The Bridge of Sighs (to return to prose) is a long covered
gallery, leading from the ducal palace to the old State prisons
of Venice. It was frequently traversed, we may be sure, in the
days of some of the Doges, to one of whom, our old friend, and
Byron's--Marino Faliero--the erection of the ducal palace is
sometimes falsely ascribed. Founded in the year 800, A.D., the
ducal palace was afterwards destroyed five times, and each time
arose from its ruins with increasing splendor until it became,
what it is now, a stately marble building of the Saracenic style
of architecture, with a grand staircase and noble halls, adorned
with pictures by Titian, Tintoretto, Paul Veronese, and other
famous masters.

It would be difficult to find gloomier dungeons, even in the
worst strongholds of despotism, than those in which the State
prisoners of Venice were confined. These "pozzi," or wells, were
sunk in the thick walls, under the flooring of the chamber at the
foot of the Bridge of Sighs. There were twelve of them formerly,
and they ran down three or four stories. The Venetian of old time
abhorred them as deeply as his descendants, who, on the first
arrival of the conquering French, attempted to block or break up
the lowest of them, but were not entirely successful; for, when
Byron was in Venice, it was not uncommon for adventurous tourists
to descend by a trap-door, and crawl through holes, half choked
by rubbish, to the depth of two stories below the first range.
So says the writer of the _Notes_ to the fourth canto of "Childe
Harolde" (Byron's friend Hobhouse, if our memory serves), who
adds, "If you are in want of consolation for the extinction of
patrician power, perhaps you ma