n 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,

With thee conversing I _forget all time_,
All _seasons_, and their _change_--all please _alike_.

For it is sure there are in this town many astonishing privations of all
that are used to make other places delightful: and as poor Omai the
savage said, when about to return to Otaheite--_No horse there! no ass!
no cow, no golden pippins, no dish of tea!--Ah, missey! I go without
every thing--I always so content there though_.

It is really just so one lives at this lovely Venice: one has heard of a
horse being exhibited for a show there, and yesterday I watched the poor
people paying a penny a piece for the sight of a _stuffed one_, and am
more than persuaded of the truth of what I am told here, That
numberless inhabitants live and die in this great capital, nor ever find
out or think of enquiring how the milk brought from Terra Firma is
originally produced. When such fancies cross me I wish to exclaim, Ah,
happy England! whence ignorance is banished by the diffusion of
literature, and narrowness of notions is ridiculed even in the lowest
class of life. Candour must however confess, that while the possessor of
a Northern coal-mine riots in that variety of adulation which talents
deserve and riches contrive to obtain, those who labour in it are often
natives of the dismal region; where many have been known to be born, and
work, and die, without having ever seen the sun, or other light than
such as a candle can bestow. Let such dark recollections give place to
more cheerful imagery.

We have just now been carried to see the so justly-renowned arsenal, and
unluckily missed the ship-launch we went thither chiefly to see. It is
no great matter though! one comes to