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CHAPTER V.

Thou too shalt fall by time or barb'rous foes,
Whose circling walls the seven famed hills enclose;
And thou, whose rival towers invade the skies,
And from amidst the waves in equal glory rise.

Italia! Italia o tu cui feo la sorte
Dono infelice di bellezza ond' hai
Funesta dote d'infiniti' guai

: ADDISON.

Che scritti in fronte per gran doglia porte
Deh! fossi tu men bella, o almen pui forte.

VINCENZO DA FILICAJA.

The Tour.

PHILOSOPHY does very well for schools and colleges; but when a man mingles with the world, and plays for any stake in society, he finds events jostle one another too closely, to admit all the longwinded finesse of logic; nor would it be

of

of any use to him, even if he could enter into it. Before we can reason upon any circumstance, it is gone, and another presses for immediate attention; and while we are regarding minutely a past event, the present also soon becomes irrevocable. Theories for the future are as vain as retrospections of the gone; for the slightest accidental variation in the occurrence on which we have calculated, renders our most perfect schemes of no avail, and without we could be prophets, as well as philosophers, none of us can say—" Thus will I do.". To act upon what is, to prepare for what may be, and never to regret what has been, is all that remains for us.

They say that the impetus of light will depress a finely-balanced lever; and they say also that experience makes fools wise; but it is general experience only which is serviceable. Man succeeds by taking advantage of passing events, which he can neither cause nor avoid; there is but one moment

moment his own, and that he must employ.

There never was any one perhaps less inclined to philosophize on what he saw than Charles Melville, for he was inclined to enjoy; he had made up his mind to be pleased, and he was pleased. If he saw faults, (and there are some we cannot help seeing,) he laughed at them, and thus turned them to his own advantage. He thought that there were far too many real sorrows destined for every one, for us to be angry with half a dozen fleas in a Piedmontese blanket, or to be grieved at sour wine and an over-done pullet; and so he got on very well, and was very well contented wherever he went.

It was the advice of Mr. Wilmot that they should proceed by the Venetian side of Italy in the first instance, and return by the Neapolitan and Genoese coast; and Charles, who had found his judgment a very certain guide, readily agreed, only stipulating that they should proceed to Florence

VOL. II.

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Florence at the time he supposed lady Mary would be there, of which he had made a very exact calculation, proposing only to remain a few days, and revisit it in their return.

From Milan they proceeded direct to Venice, and much as Charles had heard of it, highly as his expectations had been raised, the sight of such a city, floating on the clear bosom of the Adriatic, the towers, the spires, the palaces, reflected from the bright and glassy plain on which it appeared to stand, the beauty, the grandeur of many of the buildings themselves, with the unruffled water coming fondly to their very foundations, like some mother that clings in delight to the side of her child who has grown up in surpassing beauty or greatness, all struck him with pleasure, surprise, and admiration. For the first few days he was there, he saw nothing, he would see nothing, but beauty; fine pictures, paladian architec ture, winged lions, long hearse-like gon

dolas,

dolas, and all the other picturesque peculiarities of Venice, surrounded him in bewildering profusion. He peopled it once again with all the bright creations of fancy to which it has given rise; he filled it with all the characters that have really distinguished it in history; he thought of it as the Venice that had been the free city, the queen of oceans; and looking round at all the objects which had then been, and which still were, he pictured to himself the pride with which the Venetian

wrote

"Viderat Hadriacis Venetam Neptunus in undis
Stare urbem et toti ponere jura mari

Nunc mihi Tarpeias quantumvis Jupiter arces
Objice, et illa tui moniæ Martis, ait:

Si Pelago Tibrim præfers urbem aspicite utramque
Illam homines dices, hanc posuisse Deos."

But he soon found that it was no more
the same, and saw how heavily the yoke
of slavery weighed upon her. As the first
gloss of novelty wore away,
disgusting particulars of an

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many of the

Italian city,

under

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