would like to see on a
boat once more. Room XII has glass and porcelain; Room XIII has ivories
and caskets; and Room XIV has illuminated manuscripts, in one of which,
No. 158, is a very attractive tiny little Annunciation; and so we come
again to the pictures, in Rooms XV and XVI of which the second contains
the pick. But there is little to cause the heart to beat any faster.

A quaint and ugly but fascinating thing, attributed to Carpaccio and
said to represent two courtesans at home, is the most memorable. Why it
should not equally represent two ladies of unimpeachable character, I
cannot see. Ruskin went beyond everything in his praises, in _St. Mark's
Rest_, of this picture. He suggests that it is the best picture in the
world. But read his amazing words. "I know," he says, "no other which
unites every nameable quality of painter's art in so intense a
degree--breadth with tenderness, brilliancy with quietness, decision
with minuteness, colour with light and shade: all that is faithfullest
in Holland, fancifullest in Venice, severest in Florence, naturalest in
England. Whatever de Hooghe could do in shade, Van Eyck in detail,
Giorgione in mass, Titian in colour, Bewick and Landseer in animal life,
is here at once; and I know no other picture in the world which can be
compared with it."

In the same room is a figure of Christ mourned by two little angels,
ascribed to Giovanni Bellini, but bearing Durer's monogram.

On the stairs are historical Venetian scenes of fires, fights, and
ceremonials which we shall find in more abundance at the Querini
Stampalia. The top floor is given to Canova, Canaletto, Guardi, and
Tiepolo, and is very rich in their drawings and studies. In Canova I
find it impossible to be much interested, but the pencil work of the
others is often exquisite. From some of Canaletto's exact architectural
drawings the Venice of his day could be reconstructed almost stone by
stone.

Before leaving the Museo Civico let me warn the reader that it is by no
means easy of access except in a gondola. Two steamboat stations pretend
to deposit you there, but neither does so: S. Stae, from which it is a
tortuous walk, and S. Marcuola, on the other side of the Canal, which
means a ferry boat.

There is a calle and a traghetto next the museum, and then a
disreputable but picturesque brown house with a fondamenta, and then the
home of the Teodoro Correr who formed the nucleus of the museum which we
have just see