I have thus hastily run through what struck me as most select in fine art in this celebrated city. To enumerate every thing would be endless. There are other objects for the curious. The Mosaics of the church of St. Mark, the Brazen Horses, the belfry or Campanile, the arsenal, and the theatres, which are wretched both as it relates to the actors and the audience. The shops are exceedingly neat and well-stocked, and the people gay and spirited. The harbour does not present an appearance of much traffic. In the times of the Republic, 30,000 people are said to have slept every night in the vessels in the bay. Daniell’s Hotel, at which we were, and to which I would recommend every English traveller, commands a superb view of it, and the scene (particularly by moonlight) is delicious. I heard no music at Venice, neither voice nor lute; saw no group of dancers or maskers, and the gondolas appear to me to resemble hearses more than pleasure-boats. I saw the Rialto, which is no longer an Exchange. The Bridge of Sighs, of which Lord Byron speaks, is not a thoroughfare, but an arch suspended at a considerable height over one of the canals, and connecting the Doge’s palace with the prison.
Coffee Review
The Collected Works of William Hazlitt — Part 185
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