VENICE. See Venice rise with endless beauties crown'd, And as a world within herself is found: SANNAZARO. To the eye of the stranger the aspect of Venice first presents itself like some vision of the deep, while her history fills the mind with awe and wonder at the stern and fearful realities and heroic recollections with which it abounds. She stands alone and unparalleled in the annals of Italy's tempestuous republics,-those hypocrites of liberty, which recoiled from foreign despotism only the more effectually to exalt themselves, by harassing and oppressing each other. While torn by internal factions and successive revolutions, the rest of Italy wielded at will their fierce democracies, Venice preserved unshaken her "high and palmy state," based on the deep, invisible foundations of her more than Machiavellian system,-the combination of petty tyrants, which, unlike that of slaves, seldom fails to accomplish the objects it has in view. The splendour and the power of aristocracy were never more terribly developed than when the noon-tide of Venetian prosperity brought into serpent vigour and activity the policy of her secret tribunals, and carried terror into the hearts at once of her children and her foes. To the inquiring and philosophic reader no government supplies B more singular materials for speculation: a government in which poets, painters, orators, and historians, vied with its statesmen and its warriors in carrying patriotism to the loftiest mark of ambition and renown. In youth she was all glory,-a new Tyre,— Thus, distinct alike in its political as in its natural features from all other cities of the earth, Venice-the "Rome of the Ocean"-might well awaken the admiration and enthusiasm of England's noble poet. Its devoted love to Tasso, and its having afforded a sanctuary to the great Dante, were sufficient in his eyes to make it hallowed ground. He gazed upon her lofty towers, her spires, her palaces, with those splendid cupolas, seen rising from the bosom of the waves, with a degree of veneration that seems to have been early inspired: I loved her from my boyhood-she to me Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show. Nor was the actual grandeur of her edifices, or the imposing effect of their pictorial embellishment, less in unison with the associations which history and romance had conferred upon her in Byron's eyes. All that is most magnificent, heroic, or appalling; the Rialto, St. Mark's, and its brazen steeds, and the Bridge of Sighs, have been commemorated in his immortal verse. But these are familiar to our readers; and we now proceed to present them with a rapid view of some of the most memorable events and achievements in Venetian story. The Venetians arrived at their highest national glory when the capital of the eastern empire acknowledged them its conquerors. The wealth which that event poured into their treasuries made them the richest people in Europe the fame which they acquired by it made them the most respected and renowned. But it is doubtful whether it was not the forerunner of the worst disasters which the republic was destined to suffer. In less than a century after this triumph, which rendered it in the eyes of Europe the great barrier against the power of the infidel, it had to support three sharp and bloody contests with the increasing strength of the Turks, and had suffered a disheartening defeat in all. The celebrated Selim the First, and his son, Soliman the Second, carried on successful wars with both native and foreign enemies; and the Ottoman power, every year acquiring fresh force, began more imminently to threaten the proud republicans. After forcing them to pay tribute for Cyprus, Selim the Second conceived the project of regaining entire possession of that rich and valuable island. While he was carrying on preparations for this enterprise, the Venetians were still further discomfited |