rs_, 1900, iv. 226.]

[204] ["An English abbreviation. Rialto is the name, not of the bridge,
but of the island from which it is called; and the Venetians say, _Il
ponti di Rialto_, as we say Westminster Bridge. In that island is the
Exchange; and I have often walked there as on classic ground.... 'I
Sopportichi,' says Sansovino, writing in 1580 [_Venetia_, 1581, p. 134],
'sono ogni giorno frequentati da i mercatanti Fiorentini, Genovesi,
Milanesi, Spagnuoli, Turchi, e d'altre nationi diverse del mondo, i
quali vi concorrono in tanta copia, che questa piazza e annoverata fra
le prime dell' universo.' It was there that the Christian held discourse
with the Jew; and Shylock refers to it when he says--

"'Signer Antonio, many a time and oft,
In the Rialto you have rated me.'

'Andiamo a Rialto,'--' L'ora di Rialto,' were on every tongue; and
continue so to the present day, as we learn from the Comedies of
Goldoni, and particularly from his _Mercanti_."--Note to the _Brides of
Venice_, Poems, by Samuel Rogers, 1852, ii. 88, 89. See, too, _Childe
Harold_, Canto IV. stanza iv. line 6, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 331.]

[205] {166}[Compare "At the epoch called a certain age she found herself
an old maid."--Jane Porter, _Thaddeus of Warsaw_ (1803), cap. xxxviii.
(See _N. Eng. Dict_., art. "Certain.")

Ugo Foscolo, in his article in the _Quarterly Review_, April, 1819, vol.
xxi. pp. 486-556, quotes these lines in illustration of a stanza from
Forteguerri's _Ricciardetto_, iv. 2--

Quando si giugne ad una certa eta,
Ch'io non voglio descrivervi qual e," etc.]

[206] {167}[A clean bill of health after quarantine. Howell spells the
word "pratic," and Milton "pratticke."]

[207] Beppo is the "Joe" of the Italian Joseph.

[208] {168}["The general state of morals here is much the same as in the
Doges' time; a woman is virtuous (according to the code) who limits
herself to her husband and one lover; those who have two, three, or
more, are a little wild; but it is only those who are indiscriminately
diffuse, and form a low connection ... who are considered as
over-stepping the modesty of marriage.... There is no convincing a woman
here, that she is in the smallest degree deviating from the rule of
right, or the fitness of things, in having an _Amoroso._"--Letter to
Murray, January 2, 1817, _Letters,_ 1900, iv. 40, 41.]

[bk] {169}

_A Count of wealth inferior to his quality,_
_Which somewhat limited