peculiar feature, which may be fairly accepted as partly solving this problem, at once meets us in the total absence of all female influence, whether domestic or political. And though the sex was in like manner without influence in the chief countries of Europe for many centuries, yet there were circumstances in the local position of Venice which especially account for this want of influence. She faced the East, she trafficked mainly with Oriental peoples, she learned their languages, coined their money, and adopted their habits; and her women, though surrounded with the observances of the Church, and living in so-called Christian homes, were almost as much secluded as if they had been inmates of a harem. To this total suppression of the sex may be partly attributed the phenomenon that, in spite of having furnished modern fiction with some of its most romantic features, the Government of Venice was the most matter-of-fact, worldly-wise, and unromantic that ever existed. It is on her imaginary history that poets and novelists have fastened. No Bravo' would have been written, nor hardly the immortal words of Childe Harold,' had the real history of Venice been as current as the false one. Even in her palmy days, it may safely be said, the city never inspired that sense of the romantic and the picturesque which she does now. Considered, however, as a field for antiquarian research, it would be strange if Englishmen had not been forward to cultivate it. The late Mr. Rawdon Brown, visiting Venice in his youth, with the intention of remaining a few weeks, found the place so fascinating, and the materials so fertile, that he remained above fifty years, and ended his days there. He is succeeded for the present by a namesake, Mr. Horatio Brown, to whom we are indebted for the interesting and important works we have placed at the head of this article.

Meanwhile, it is hard that the elaborate work by Count Daru-written and published under the protection of Napoleon, but drawn up literally upon the most impudently false lines, though at once testified and protested against by many a Venetian publication, too obscure and unheeded to serve as its antidoteshould have been the one most studied by the modern European public, and most used in the compilation of school books. Of all the states in the world, Venice has best insured the veracity of her own history. Both publicly and privately nothing was allowed to transpire within her canals unnoted; nor, when noted, uncopied. No city ever possessed such a host of scribes and transcribers. The copying of the public records constituted part of the education of the young. The plunder by the French and Austrians of State papers-of Marino Sanudo's Diaries, for

example—

example was neutralized by the ample copies that remained behind. It was one of their forms of precaution to keep notes of occurrences even comparatively private. Every great house had its diary; some of them, as bearing upon public history, have found their way to the British Museum; and few marriages of importance took place without the compilation by a competent pen of some incident of public or family interest, which was printed in honour of the pair.

The early history of a part of Europe subsequently so famous is very indistinct. A Venetia, peopled by a distinct race, existed, there is no doubt, on the mainland long before there was one on the Lagoons; and these Veneti are identified by some with the Veneti on the western coast of Gaul. But the similarity of the name is probably accidental; and there is good reason for believing that the Italian Veneti were not of Celtic origin. After conquering and absorbing the neighbouring Gallic and Etrurian tribes, they were themselves in turn absorbed by the great conquerors of the world, who founded in their territory the powerful colony of Aquileia (B.C. 181). Of their close amalgamation with their Roman conquerors evidence survives in the durable tokens-coins, ornaments, and utensils -so plentiful wherever Romans lived. These were not left behind by the refugees in their flight, but, on the contrary, strewing the historical foreground of the new colonists, point straight in descent to the amphitheatre and other imperial buildings on the opposite coast. Nor are these outward evidences all, for from whom but from Rome did the new Republic derive that activity and energy, which grasped the sceptre just falling from the paralysed hand on the Tiber, and which for centuries wielded it with new power and purpose?

For a people, even of such strong fibre, flying from their homes, a less promising refuge than a region which neither afforded firm land nor deep water could hardly be imagined. It had its fish, its salt, and its tides-what an old chronicler designates as the right and left hand of the early settlers. It might not therefore be difficult to foretell, that the trade arising from the immemorial nets and salt pans, would quickly, under the needs of the new-comers, expand to larger dimensions. Still, it would have been a bold prophecy to predict that these humble industries would be succeeded by those of silk, of satin, of cloth of gold and silver, and of lace of exquisite texture; that the neutral contrast offered by the surrounding lagoons would develop the finest colouring that Art has known; and a still bolder one to foresee those masses of proud buildings which to this day cast their reflections on the same quivering

waters.

waters. Not, however, without bitter conflicts, both among themselves and with the peculiar nature around them, were the foundations laid of an era of power and prosperity unequalled in contemporary history. As soon, it would appear, as the terror of the Barbarians began to subside, those jealousies and dissensions arose which frequently crimsoned the waters of the Canale Orfano.' The Venetian mud and sand banks had, however, been peopled before; and the different groups of islands had been held under the domination of different cities on the mainland. In the confusion of the escape, burdened with the old, the sick, the women and the children, many a fugitive from Aquileia, for instance, found himself landed on some halfsubmerged shoal belonging nominally to Padua, or vice versâ, which gave scant footing even to those who claimed it as their right, but for which they were ready to fight.

The researches of modern times find no trustworthy evidence in support of the tradition, that the island of Rialto was, probably on account of a spring of fresh water that once existed there, the earliest place of refuge. Not till these conflicts were over, and the rising generations had been taught to merge their interests in the common good of the colony-and that, a full century after the flight from the mainland does it appear that the island of Rialto was formally recognized as the seat of government. So entirely is 'Rialto' considered by commentators the seat of government, that Mr. Horatio Brown, in his Venetian Studies,' applies the name Venice' to the whole lagoon, and that of Rialto to the city only. With the letter of Cassiodorus we emerge into the light of history. In the sixth century, Cassiodorus, himself a curious link in this historical crisis, between the old and new-for the man of Roman stock was now so-called Minister to Theodoric, King of the Ostro-Goths -addresses a letter to The Maritime Tribunes' of the Venetians, inviting them with their numerous vessels' to transport stores of food from the shores of Istria to Theodoric's seat at Ravenna. Adding also this significant sentence, whether in a literal or figurative sense, With your hard-earned salt, you coin money.' Thus, in Signor Molmenti's words, While the plebeians were still living in bondage and degradation in the plains of Lombardy and beneath the feudal castles of Tuscany, and while Romans, high and low, were groaning under the yoke of the Barbarians, the new Venice had started on her course; her vessels were scouring the Adriatic, and pushing their way to the East. A great people, rescued from the ruins trampled by the Huns, were reviving the forms of antique civilization, and applying them to new uses.' In other words, Venice rose as

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Rome

Rome sank; the spirit of the old State being continued in the new.

To the lagoons, formed by the washings down of the Po and the other rivers, Venice owes not only her existence but her safety. The intricacy of the channels was a natural defence. No vessel of war of any importance could approach the infant colony without getting aground, while the deeper channels through the ports, which for the purpose of traffic have been outlined by the well-known Venetian piles, could be concealed from view by merely sawing the piles to a certain level below the water. These were the defences which defied the advance of Pepin for six months (809-10). He had seized Brondolo, Chioggia, and Pelestrina; but Rialto, the capital, which fired cannon-balls of bread in derision into the enemy's camp, remained untouched.

Thus far the peculiar conditions of the site may be allowed to have helped the inhabitants; in other respects the people have been compelled to help themselves. It was comparatively easy for them to profit by a position which placed them, neutral, between the two worlds of East and West, and to evolve a new State, politically, morally, and commercially, from the attraction and resistance offered by each. But there were strange and peculiar conditions within the State, arising from its very position, which required that quality which, above all others, it fell to the Venetians to develop, the quality of adaptiveness, which may be justly said to have been one of the Makers of Venice. The colonists had not been cast on a desert island; nevertheless they experienced some of the difficulties incidental to such a condition. There was food enough of one sort to be had on all sides; but with no river nearer than the mainland, and but one natural well in the city, where was fresh water sufficient for their growing numbers to come from? and at one time the city numbered a population of 190,000. The method of the requisite supply is simple enough. Every drop of rain that falls upon the city is caught upon the roofs, and led down by pipes into wells lined with cement, passing through a filtering substance, called a 'sponge,' which, acting like the natural process, supplies the water, cool and pure, as if from a natural spring. Of these pozzi, peculiar to Venice, seen in every campo and in every courtyard, no less than 6782 exist in the city; a few, devoted to the use of the poor, the rest belonging to private houses. These suffice for the main household needs; while for commoner purposes a service of wherries has for centuries taken out empty casks to the mainland, chiefly to the river Brenta, and brought them

back

back full. Still, occasions may occur when both roofs and casks may fail. What if there were a siege of the city-and there has been one in our day-and a drought at the same time; no water from the skies, and all intercepted from the land! The possibility of such a contingency led, about forty years ago, to curious experiments and results. There was a tradition that a lake of fresh water existed under the Adriatic. The bed of the lagoon was accordingly perforated in more than one spot by an artesian screw.. Water followed in abundance; bursting, with no small violence, the bonds that had confined it for ages; but it was not water that could be utilized for the everyday needs of man and beast. In one spot, thus tapped, it was so strongly impregnated with iron, as to be used medicinally; in another, so permeated with gas-both peculiarities owing to a forest of submarine vegetation-that it blazes, on the application of a lighted match. The question, therefore, what Venice would do under the combined forces of siege and drought, remains unsolved, and, it is to be hoped, may never require solution.

The gondola is another instance of local adaptation to peculiar conditions. A boat of common build can for common purposes make its way in awkward fashion up and down the larger canals, as on any other expanse of water. But it would soon be found out that a man with two oars would, even in the larger canals be very awkward; and in the smaller canals rowing would be impossible. What Venice required, as its water streets multiplied, was a form of vessel that should Occupy no more space than its own width, that could be managed by one man only, combining in himself the twofold offices of propelling and steering. This man should stand, where he is in no one's way, and where he can see all that is before him, and he should be ready at a moment's notice with his one oar, either to turn or to stop his craft; a motion which he executes, according to Mr. Horatio Brown, with a skill which takes rank as a fine art. The gondola is the most charming carriage in the world, and so thoroughly Venetian, that Venice would hardly be Venice without it. There is a sentiment and flavour of antiquity about the gondola,' he continues, which it owes, like Venice herself, to its leisurely natural development. It is in no sense an invention-it is a growth; directed by the needs of its native place, bearing on its structure the impress of Venetian life and history.' At the same time, history tells us that it has been for centuries as perfect as it is now.

6

And as with the chief need of life, and the one form of conweyanee, so with every other condition of this strange place.

There