his suffering that we have many of the works, perhaps we may go further and say that without suffering he never would have risen to the elevation of tone which distinguishes him. It is a noteworthy fact that many of the greatest works known to the world have been produced by suffering; your evenly prosperous man may be pretty and after a manner grand, but he cannot rise to sublimity, he cannot fathom the heart's depths; he has never been in those regions himself, how then can he show them to us? The great writers-Homer, Danté, Tasso, Shakespeare, Milton, Schiller-did not lead lives of unbroken prosperity. They knew the dark valleys of sorrow and woe as well as the sunlit mountains of joy and success. Remember Danté wandering from place to place and answering those who inquired what he sought, in one word, "Pace." The truly great writers knew life in all its forms; and they have brought forth accordingly; they have written for all time and will be loved to all time. On these three grounds we rest our defence of De Quincey-the work brought forth by suffering, the circumstances by which he was surrounded, and the good done by the noble and Christian tone of his writings. And, as when from the top of some lofty mountain we let our eye wander over the prospect spread out before us, we are unable to see the low hovels, the sluggish pools, the ditches, the muddy roads, the mire, the bog; because we are occupied in observing the noble hills, the far-reaching valleys, the rugged grandeur of the rocks, the dashing spray of the cataract or, if in the distance appear a city with magnificent temples and shining roofs, the mighty work of civilization, standing side by side with the work of nature each heightening the effect of the other, so, in regarding a great writer, his foibles, his faults, his errors, nay, even his crimes, should sink into insignificance, and we should delight to behold only his glories and excellences. VENICE. (A lecture delivered at St. Mary's Hall, March 18th, 1898.) With the exception of Rome, the eternal city, around which clusters so much that has influenced for all time the history of the world, and which is so intimately connected with the beginnings of our religion, there is, probably, no European city which is more interesting than Venice; there is certainly no one which is more picturesque. As you pass along its canals and tread its little narrow streets, or calli, or as lying in a gondola upon a lagoon or approaching in a steamer from the sea, you see it, apparently without foundation, floating, as it were, upon the waters, the associations connected with the name of Venice crowd upon your mind in such number and with such rapidity that they press one upon another, all claiming attention at once, so that in their multitude there is danger of confusion. Poets have sung of Venice -dramatists of all lands have laid the scenes of many of their great plays upon her plazzas and within her palaces, and have taken their characters from amongst her citizens and heroes-how they come thronging as we contemplate the city! Shylock and Bassanio, Iago and Cassio, the lovely Desdemona, Marino Faliero, the unhappy Foscari, Pierre and Jaffier, the gallant group of friends in Lucrezia Borgia. Novelists have written of Venice with a peculiar love. Musicians have delighted to set Venetian scenes, Venetian stories to their exquisite tones, while painters have found in the quaint and grand buildings, in the associations of the past, in the rich costume of a bygone age, and in the clear, beauteous atmosphere, common to both past and present, for it is God's gift and passes not like towers and halls and the insignia of earthly grandeur, that upon which they most gladly employ their pencils. But it is not only of art that Venice speaks to us as we look upon her now, in what we may almost call her ruin, her power gone, her commerce gone. There she lies, she who once dictated to Kings and Emperors-what is snow: Yet she represents to us many an idea which is or has been of potence in the world's history—and presents to us many conflicting, contradictory ideas. She speaks to us of courage and love of freedom in her foundation, when the band of flying, defeated Italians "reared 'gainst Attila a bulwark," and through the lion's mouth she speaks to us of a tyranny, most terrible in its character, because wielded by an oligarchy in the name of a Republic; she speaks to us of religion in the pious emblems that we see everywhere; of commerce, first under her exalted to the position of a political power; of gayety in the bright carnival and regatta; of splendor; of heroism; of patriotic devotion; of the deepest sorrow and despair; of misery; of treachery. But let us for the present exclude from our minds these thronging crowds, although with them before us, and the thoughts they suggest, we might well long "Sit in reverie and watch The changing color of the waves that break Let us imagine ourselves transported to the old world, and that, having left Verona, we are on a railway train approaching Venice-the city is in sight; we see the tall campaniles, or bell towers, of the churches, lifting themselves above the waters, as we speed on; we are now on the long railway bridge-and now take your farewell of the ordinary world, for, once in Venice, your life will not seem real-the work-a-day world will have disappeared-you will be in a dream. When we reach the station, the first thing we notice is that there are no coaches in waiting. No hackmen strive to carry you off to their vehicles-for there are no streets in Venice which would accommodate horses and carriages. It used to be said that there were but four horses in Venice, the bronze ones over the door of the Church of S. Mark; but I can testify that there is now at least one more, namely, the horse which is bestridden by the stout soldier of fortune, Colleoni, in the Piazza St. Giovanni e Paolo. Instead, therefore, of getting into a coach, we get into a low, long, black boat, with a metal plow and a curtained box of a cabin, rowed by one or two men, standing and using but one oar apiece. If there is but one oarsman, he stands astern, although he rows on the side; if there are two, the second oarsman stands near the bow. This boat is the far-famed gondola about which so much romance clusters; it is always black, and the reason that it is of this color is that formerly the wealthy Venetians were wont to squander great sums of money in the decoration of their gondolas, and, of course, their poorer neighbors attempted to vie with them or at least to follow within hailing distance, and to prevent this needless extravagance the great council of the sixteenth century passed a sumptuary law that no color but black should be used upon the gondola. Our gondola entered, we glide along the canal, turning from one to the other of the beautiful lanes of water with which the city is intersected. Notice, as we go, the grace and skill of the boatman. We have many sharp corners to turn. As we approach one the gondolier sends forth a peculiar cry, which is answered from an invisible source, our course is slightly deflected, and, as we pass the corner, there glides by us another gondola, the cry and answer having determined the course that each should take to avoid collision; and so we move gently along until we come to our hotel, which, if it please you, shall not be the famed Hotel Danielli, but one upon the grand canal, from whose windows we can have a more pleasing view than from the more famed house. Let us enter,—and, looking from our window, we see that we are opposite that beautiful church Santa Maria della Saluta, a pious memorial of the cessation of the great plague in 1630, and, our eye stretching over the lower houses near the church, we see the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, with its tall campanile, built, like most of the Italian campaniles, distinct from the church to which it belongs, and, beyond it, the blue waters and the little beach of Lido, lighted up with a glorious beauty by the setting sun. Let the day pass —and now as we linger still upon the balcony-the night comes on, the moon, rising, silvers the domes of Santa Maria, and throws a great beam of silver upon the waters, and the stars shine forth with that brilliancy which the clearness of an Italian atmosphere imparts to them-oh, how beautiful it is-and then, as we look down, we see in the night little lights hurrying hither and thither, the lights of the gondolas as in the soft summer night they speed from place to place, freighted with happy souls in the enjoyment of an Italian, a Venetian night—and hark, from the boats rising clear and sweet the gondolier's song-the song that centuries ago Torquato Tasso wrote, that generation after generation has since listened to, that has been heard doubtless from the very balcony in which we sit, by Venetians of high degree, brave men, lovely women, for the hotel in which we are was, like so many of the hotels in the Italians towns, in its day a palace. And now as we sit, thinking over the fact that we are in Venice and purposing on the morrow to explore its wonders-it may be well to think what Venice is. It is at present a city built on 117 islands, separated by 150 canals and united by 380 bridges, most of them very small, the main communication is by water, and by the little foot streets, called calli. They are very narrow, the merest footways, and yet in their way as interesting as the canals. It is at present a city of the Kingdom of Italy-and is said now to be recovering some of its com |