FROM IMMINENT DANGER.

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with a couple of sticks for paddles, Cyclops placed himself in a tub composed of one half of the cask, and to their great joy it floated with him very well. With a little spirits to comfort him, he launched out to sea in this novel bark, and rolled along at a tolerable rate for an hour, when, getting into a current of great rapidity, he was hurried out of sight. As the current set in for the main land, they doubted not that he would be able to get assistance, and they were right; for on the following morning, before day, Cyclops returned, to their inexpressible joy, in a six-oared galley, with ample store of fruits and wine to recruit their drooping and exhausted natures. He had been carried in his tub beyond the island of Sabioncello, and landed at the town of Macarlisa, not far from Ragusa; having made a voyage of thirty miles in six hours, in such a vehicle as never man before floated so far in. Lord Byron paid Cyclops liberally, and when they returned to Venice, purchased him a new gondola, and called her The Tub, in memory of his exploit, of which he was justly proud and vain-glorious. The boat which had drifted from the rock was picked up four leagues off at sea, by a Venetian trader, and carried to Venice. The papers on board, and other things, were all known to belong to Lord Byron; the boat was recognised by the gondoliers' wives and families, and most alarming reports were in circulation relative to the fate of the whole

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ANECDOTE OF A GONDOLIER.

party. His Lordship's friends sent out boats on the search, and the general opinion was, that they had been taken by pirates, who, knowing the value of their prisoners, had abandoned the boat as of no consequence. His Lordship had never told any one whither he was going, as was usual with him on such excursions, or much trouble and anxiety might have been spared to all his friends at Venice on this occasion. The party proceeded to Ragusa, where a second boat and supplies being obtained, they all landed, as originally intended, at Sabioncello. Lord Byron did not even think of writing to Venice, not having any idea of the consternation that prevailed there concerning them; for they had not a thought of their boat having been preserved, and carried into its port of destination.

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Apropos de bottes, parlons de raves "-as the French proverb says. Talking of gondoliers, as one of that fraternity was one day rowing an English gentleman along one of the canals of Venice, Lord Byron and his party passed in another gondola. "There goes your great countryman," said the gondolier to his passenger. "What great countryman ?"-" Lord Byron, the great poet." "He is a most eccentric character, I have heard." "He is so, Signor; but as good a bit of stuff as ever was put together. Heaven knows best, to be sure, why it made him a lord and a poet; but, by Santa Maria! it spoiled a good gondolier by so doing."

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CHAPTER XIII.

Venice, pro and con.-Lord Byron's list of eminent Persons there. Extract of Letter from an English Traveller, giving an account of Lord Byron's residence in Venice, also of his visit to Juliet's Tomb, at Verona.-Extract from another Letter of a French Traveller, respecting Lord Byron.-The charge of Misanthropy refuted.-Another singular instance of Lord Byron's humanity and generosity.-Extract from another Letter respecting Lord Byron at Venice, confirming his charity and kindness. Excursion to Ithaca and Corfu. —Remarkable adventures, and anecdotes of the benevolence of Lord Byron.-Horrible state of the Grecian Islands.

THE manners of the Rome of the Ocean, as Lord Byron, more poetically than truly, calls Venice, are not by any means exaggerated or caricatured in his poem of " Beppo." Like Rome, it has fallen from its majestic height, and, like Rome, too, its inhabitants are sunk in sensuality. The following is a pretty faithful picture of its present state and system of morality:

"Freedom of manners, which has long been boasted of as the principal charm of Venetian society, has degenerated into scandalous licentiousness; the tie of marriage is less sacred in that Catholic country than among those nations where the laws and religion admit of its being dissolved.

376

CORRUPT MANNERS

Because they could not break the contract, they feigned that it had not existed; and the ground of nullity, immodestly alleged by the married pair, was admitted with equal facility by priests and magistrates, alike corrupt. These divorces, veiled under another name, became so frequent, that the most important act of civil society was discovered to be amenable to a tribunal of exceptions; and to restrain the open scandal of such proceedings became the office of the police. In 1782, the Council of Ten decreed, that every woman who should sue for a dissolution of her marriage, should be compelled to await the decision of the judges in some convent, to be named by the Court. Soon afterwards the same Council summoned all causes of that nature before itself. This infringement on ecclesiastical jurisdiction having occasioned some remonstrance from Rome, the Council retained only the right of rejecting the petitions of the married persons, and consented to refer such causes to the Holy Office, as it should not previously have rejected.

"There was a moment in which, doubtless, the destruction of private fortunes, the ruin of youth, the domestic discord occasioned by these abuses, determined the Government to depart from its established maxims concerning the freedom of manners allowed the subject. All the courtesans were banished from Venice; but their absence was not enough to reclaim and bring back good

morals to a whole people brought up in the most scandalous licentiousness. Depravity reached the very bosoms of private families, and even into the very cloister; and they found themselves obliged to recal, and even to indemnify women, who sometimes gained possession of important secrets, and might be usefully employed in the ruin of men whose fortunes might have rendered them dangeSince that time licentiousness has gone on increasing, and we have seen mothers, not only selling the innocence of their daughters, but selling it by a contract, authenticated by the signature of a public officer, and the performance of which was secured by the protection of the law.

rous.

"The parlours of the convents of noble ladies, and the houses of the courtesans, though the police carefully kept up a number of spies about them, were the only assemblies for society in Venice; and in these two places, so different from each other, there was equal freedom. Music, collations, gallantry, were not more forbidden in the parlours than at the casinos. There were a number of casinos for the purpose of public assemblies, where gaming was the principal pursuit of the company. It was a strange sight to see persons of either sex masked, or grave in their magisterial robes, round a table, invoking chance, and giving way at one instant to the agonies of despair, at the next to the illusions of hope, and that without uttering a single word.