did not mean to have
spent there, and to quiet his agitated spirits by thinking on something
else, he walked under the Portico to a neighbouring coffee-house, where
fate the Abate Toaldo in company of a few friends; wholly unconscious
that he had been the cause of vexing the Procuratore; who, after a short
pause, cried out, in a true Venetian spirit of anger and humour oddly
blended together, "_Mi dica Signor Professore Toaldo, chi e il piu gran
minchion di tutti i fanti in Paradiso?_" Pray tell me Doctor (we should
say), who is the greatest blockhead among all the saints of Heaven? The
Abbe looked astonished, but hearing the question repeated in a more
peevish accent still, replied gravely, "_Eccelenza non fon fatto io per
rispondere a tale dimande_"--My lord, I have no answer ready for such
extraordinary questions. Why then, replies the Procuratore Tron, I will
answer this question myself.--_St. Marco ved'ella--"e'l vero minchion:
mentre mantiene tanti professori per studiare (che so to mi) delle
stelle; roba astronomica che non vale un fico; e loro non sanno dirli
nemmeno s'ha da piovere o no._"--"Why it is St. Mark, do you see, that
is the true blockhead and dupe, in keeping so many professors to study
the stars and stuff; when with all their astronomy they cannot tell him
whether it will rain or no."

Well, _pax tibi, Marce!_ I see that I have said more about Venice, where
I have lived five weeks, than about Milan, where I stayed five months;
but

Si placeat varios hominum cognoscere vultus,
Area longa patet, sancto contermina Marco,
Celsus ubi Adriacas, Venetus Leo despicit undas,
Hic circum gentes cunctis e partibus orbis,
AEthiopes, Turcos, Slavos, Arabesque, Syrosque,
Inveniesque Cypri, Cretae, Macedumque colonos,
Innumerosque alios varia regione profectos:
Saepe etiam nec visa prius, nec cognita cernes,
Quae si cuncta velim tenui describere versu,
Heic omnes citius nautas celeresque Phaselos,
Et simul Adriaci pisces numerabo profundi.

_Imitated loosely_.

If change of faces please your roving sight,
Or various characters your mind delight,
To gay St. Mark's with eagerness repair;
For curiosity may pasture there.
Venetia's lion bending o'er the waves,
There sees reflected--tyrants, freemen, slaves.
The swarthy Moor, the soft Circassian dame,
The British sailor not unknown to fame;
Innumerous nations crowd the lofty door,