The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 476, February 12, 1831

Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine, Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot, Thy choral memory of the Bard divine, Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot Which ties thee to thy tyrants; and thy lot Is shameful to the nations,--most of all, Albion! to thee; the Ocean queen should not Abandon Ocean's children; in the fall Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall.

I loved her from my boyhood--she to me Was as a fairy city of the heart, Rising like water-columns from the sea, Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart; And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakspeare's art Had stamp'd her image in me, and even so, Although I found her thus, we did not part, Perchance even dearer in her day of woe Than when she was a boast, a marvel and a show.

I can repeople with the past--and of The present there is still for eye, and thought, And meditation chasten'd down, enough; And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought; And of the happiest moments which were wrought Within the web of my existence, some From thee, fair Venice! have their colours caught: There are some feelings Time can not benumb, Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb.

Again, in the notes to Childe Harold, where these spirit-breathing lines occur:

"The population of Venice, at the end of the 17th century amounted to nearly two hundred thousand souls. At the last census, taken two years ago, it was no more than about one hundred and three thousand, and it diminishes daily. The commerce and the official employments, which were to be the unexhausted source of Venetian grandeur, have both expired. Most of the patrician mansions are deserted, and would gradually disappear, had not the government, alarmed by the demolition of seventy-two, during the last two years, expressly forbidden this sad resource of poverty. Many remnants of the Venetian nobility are now scattered and confounded with the wealthier Jews upon the banks of the Brenta, whose palladian palaces, have sunk, or are sinking, in the general decay. Of the 'gentil uomo Veneto,' the name is still known, and that is all. He is but the shadow of his former self, but he is polite and kind. The present race cannot be thought to regret the loss of their aristocratical forms, and too despotic government--they think only on their vanished independence. They pine away at the remembrance, and on this subject suspend for a moment their gay good humour. Venice may be said, in the words of the scripture, 'to die daily;' and so general and so apparent is the decline, as to become painful to a stranger, not reconciled to the sight of a whole nation, expiring as it were before his eyes. So artificial a creation having lost that principle which called it into life and supported its existence, must fall to pieces at once, and sink more rapidly than it rose."

Captain Medwin relates Lord Byron's detestation of Venice in unmeasured terms. He likewise tells of his Lordship performing here one of those aquatic feats in which he greatly prided himself; and the Countess Albrizzi mentions a similar incident: "He was seen, on leaving a palace situated on the grand canal, instead of entering his gondola, to throw himself, with his clothes on, into the water, and swim to his house."

The Countess, who became acquainted with his Lordship at Venice, also narrates a few particulars of the mode in which he passed his time in that city: Amongst his peculiar habits was that of never showing himself on foot. "He was never seen to walk through the streets of Venice, nor along the pleasant banks of the Brenta, where he spent some weeks of the summer; and there are some who assert that he has never seen, excepting from a window, the wonders of the Piazza di San Marco,[2] so powerful in him was the desire of not showing himself to be deformed in any part of his person. I, however," continues the Countess, "believe that he often gazed on those wonders, but in the late and solitary hour, when the stupendous edifices which surrounded him, illuminated by the soft and placid light of the moon, appeared a thousand times more lovely." "During an entire winter, he went out every morning alone, to row himself to the island of the Armenians (a small island, distant from Venice about half a league), to enjoy the society of those learned and hospitable monks, and to learn their difficult language." During the summer, Lord Byron enjoyed the exercise of riding in the evening. "No sunsets," said he, "are to be compared with those of Venice--they are too gorgeous for any painter, and defy any poet."

[1] Letter-press of the superb "Landscape Annual" for the present year, whence our Engraving is transferred. The Life of the noble Poet at Venice cannot be better described than in his own Letters, for which see pages 43-82 of the present volume.

[2] From some passages in his Lordship's Letters, this would not appear correct.