r power dissolved. Once
and again has she risen to her feet, with noble courage and indomitable
energy; but every time, as all expected to see her take a rapid flight
upward, fate has sent her, as a curse from God, a revolution to paralyze
her efforts, and make her miserably fall back. Unquestionably, since
1789 the balance of power between Catholic civilization and non-Catholic
civilization has been reversed."

CHAPTER XVI.

PADUA.

Doves of Venice--Re-cross the Lagunes--Padua--Wretchedness of
Interior--Misery of its Inhabitants--Splendour of its Churches--The
Shrine of St Antony--His Sermon to a Congregation of Fishes--A
Restaurant in Padua--Reach the Po at Day-break--Enter Peter's
Patrimony--Find the Apostles again become Fishermen and
Tax-Gatherers--Arrest--Liberty.

Contenting myself with a hasty perusal of the great work on painting
which the academy forms, and which it had taken so many ages and so many
various masters to produce, I returned again to the square of St Mark.
Doves in thousands were assembled on the spot, hovering on wing at the
windows of the houses, or covering the pavement below, at the risk, as
it seemed, of being trodden upon by the passengers. I inquired at my
companion what this meant. He told me that a rich old gentleman by last
will and testament had bequeathed a certain sum to be expended in
feeding these fowls, and that, duly as the great clock in the Gothic
tower struck two, a certain quantity of corn was every day thrown from a
window in the piazza. Every dove in the "Republic" is punctual to a
minute. There doves have come to acquire a sort of sacred character,
and it would be about as hazardous to kill a dove in Venice, as of old a
cat in Egypt. We wish some one would do as much for the beggars, which
are yet more numerous, and who know no more, when they get up in the
morning, where they are to be fed, than do the fowls of heaven. Trade
there is none; "to dig," they have no land, and, even if they had, they
are too indolent; they want, too, the dove's wing to fly away to some
happier country. Their seas have shut them in; their marble city is but
a splendid prison. The story of Venice is that of Tyre over again,--her
wealth, her glory, her luxuriousness, and now her doom. But we must
leave her. Bidding adieu, on the stairs of St Mark, to the partner of
the day's explorations, with a regret which those only can understand
who have had the goo