arble mosaic. The floors of Torcello and of St. Mark's are executed
in the same manner; but what remains at Murano is finer than either, in
the extraordinary play of color obtained by the use of variegated
marbles. At St. Mark's the patterns are more intricate, and the pieces
far more skilfully set together; but each piece is there commonly of one
color: at Murano every fragment is itself variegated, and all are
arranged with a skill and feeling not to be caught, and to be observed
with deep reverence, for that pavement is not dateless, like the rest of
the church; it bears its date on one of its central circles, 1140, and
is, in my mind, one of the most precious monuments in Italy, showing thus
early, and in those rude chequers which the bared knee of the Murano
fisher wears in its daily bending, the beginning of that mighty spirit of
Venetian color, which was to be consummated in Titian.

Sec. XXXVIII. But we must quit the church for the present, for its
garnishings are completed; the candles are all upright in their sockets,
and the curtains drawn into festoons, and a paste-board crescent, gay
with artificial flowers, has been attached to the capital of every
pillar, in order, together with the gilt angels, to make the place look
as much like Paradise as possible. If we return to-morrow, we shall find
it filled with woful groups of aged men and women, wasted and
fever-struck, fixed in paralytic supplication, half-kneeling,
half-couched upon the pavement; bowed down, partly in feebleness, partly
in a fearful devotion, with their grey clothes cast far over their
faces, ghastly and settled into a gloomy animal misery, all but the
glittering eyes and muttering lips.

Fit inhabitants, these, for what was once the Garden of Venice, "a
terrestrial paradise,--a place of nymphs and demi-gods!"[16]

Sec. XXXIX. We return, yet once again, on the following day. Worshippers
and objects of worship, the sickly crowd and gilded angels, all are
gone; and there, far in the apse, is seen the sad Madonna standing in
her folded robe, lifting her hands in vanity of blessing. There is
little else to draw away our thoughts from the solitary image. An old
wooden tablet, carved into a rude effigy of San Donato, which occupies
the central niche in the lower part of the tribune, has an interest of
its own, but is unconnected with the history of the older church. The
faded frescoes of saints, which cover the upper tier of the wall of the
apse,