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almost to flabbiness,-but rich and voluptuous.

In the palace Pisani there is Paul Veronese's picture of the Family of Darius presented to Alexander.There is little internal strength in -this artist's characters; but there is much external grace. The Alexander of this painting is an elegant young Italian nobleman, who would never have done the mischief committed by the Alexander of Macedon. The artist's own portrait is introduced in a corner-looking elegance, -fashion, and gallantry. He is fond of painting beautiful dogs, of the graceful kinds-such as greyhounds, spaniels, pointers,—and here is one, a chef d'œuvre. The costumes represent the Italian dress of his time, and we see them here to as much advantage as in a ball-room. As the French have what they call vers de societé, so the works of Paul Veronese seem to me tableaux de societé, in the best meaning of such a phrase. There is more of fashion in them than of internal sentiment or deep feeling, but there is a spirit of real gentility in them; they are not affected or fantastic in their airs and graces.

The school of San Rocco contains almost as splendid a proof of what the talents of one man can effect, as the Luxembourgh lately did. The former is enriched with the paintings of Tintoretto, as the latter was with the works of Rubens. This hall, and the chapel attached to it, are splendid beyond description; the staircases and floors are of prodigious pieces of marble, and all that art can do to ornament the roofs and walls has been done. The collection of pictures is a wonderful one; and the effect, altogether, of decoration and architecture, stupendous. It must, indeed, be a country of art and magmificence where such a thing is to be seen! Over the altar in the chapel is the famous Crucifixion, by Tintoretto: his finest large picture, I suppose, beyond a doubt. The effect of the figures is that of shadows rather than men; but this does not take off either from the awfulness or vigour of the representation. The scene thus appears altogether supernatural and lowering; it is as if the graves had supplied the actors of so tremendous an outrage. The painting, on the roof, of San Rocco talking to

the Eternal, is one of the finest in Tintoretto's sweeping style. His manner, in many of the other pictures, appeared to me like that of Bassano. This building, with its contents, is altogether one of the most surprising to a stranger that Venice contains.

The palace Manfrini contains the pictures that gave me the most delight of any I saw at Venice. In the first room there is a Lady, by Giorgione, elegant, pearly, clearblooded, and noble; a Madona and child, by Bellino,-the child again singing, and most beautiful; the three Ages of Human Life, by Titian, in which the youth and maiden have looks that, once seen, settle for ever in the soul; three fine pictures by Julio Romano; a Lucretia, by Guido; a small Cartoon, by Raphaël, in which is a figure of Noah, that "ancient mariner," who is here represented so sublimely, that we think of him as Admiral of the Deluge! There is also a small, but indescribably delicious Madona, (I believe,) by Corregio.-These are what struck me the most; but the palace is full of pictures.

Of the paintings in the Dogal palace I shall say but little: the rooms contain a great number of the works of the most eminent Venetian masters, but nothing like a regular account of the works of Fine Art in Venice is here attempted. In the Sala delle Quattro Porte, is the fine picture by Titian, representing Faith, and the thanksgiving of the Doge Grimani, which was taken to Paris, and has been returned. The Doge, before his election, had been calumniated and disgraced; but his innocence appearing, he was recalled with honour, and elevated to the dignity of Doge. He is on his knees in this picture, expressing his gratitude to heaven: nothing can be finer, or more elevated than his head; nothing more vulgar than the female figure of Faith. How inferior this to Titian's poetical portraits of women! In the mere ideal he is often as coarse, as in the representation of real nature he is refined. In the hall called the college, there is a fine picture, by Tintoretto, of the Doge Moncenigo returning thanks for the delivery of the city from a pestilence: it is a splendid performance, without

made use of it to inflame the vivacity of his mental impulses, as the high mettle of a gallant steed is inflamed by exercise in a limited ring, Lord Byron's palace, on the grand canal, has not been one of the least interesting objects of regard in Venice during the last few years. Whether he be,

or be not, the "wandering outlaw of his own mind," he is lord over the minds of thousands, a pilgrim to many shrines of fame, a representative of his country's present ability to rival the past glory even of the lands which she most delighteth to honour.

On a harvest afternoon, when the ripe grain, which clothed the western slope of the Cumberland hills, had partly submitted to the sickle, a party of reapers were seated on a small green knoll, enjoying the brief luxury of the dinner hour. The young men lay stretched on the grass; the maidens sat plaiting and arranging their locks into more graceful and seducing ringlets; while three hoary old men sat abreast and upright, looking on the Sea of Solway, which was spread out, with all its romantic variety of headland, and rock, and bay, below them. The mid-day sun had been unusually sultry, accompanied with hot and suffocating rushings of wind; and the appearance of a huge and dark cloud, which hung, like a canopy of smoke and flame over a burning city,-betokened, to an experienced swain, an approaching storm. One of the old reapers shook his head, and combing the remainder snow over his forehead with his fingers, said,"Woes me! one token comes, and another token arises, of tempest and wrath on that darkening water. It

Old Ballad.

comes to my memory like a dream;

for I was but a boy then groping trouts in Ellenwater-that it was on such a day, some fifty years ago, that the Bonnie Babie Allan, of Saint Bees, was wrecked on that rock, o'er the top of which the tide is whirling and boiling,—and the father and three brethern of Richard Faulder were drowned. How can I forget such a sea!-It leaped on the shore, among these shells and pebbles, as high as the mast of a brig; and threw its foam as far as the corn ricks of Walter Selby's stackyard,and that's a good half-mile.”

"Ise warrant," interrupted a squat and demure old man, whose speech was a singular mixture of Cumbrian English and Border Scotch,-" Ise warrant, Willie, your memory will be rifer o' the loss of the lovely lass of Annanwater, who whomel'd, keel upward, on the hip of the Mermaid rock, and spilt her rare wameful of rare brandy into the thankless Solway. Faith mickle good liquor has been thrown into that punch-bowl; but fiend a drop of grog was ever made out of such a thriftless bason.

It will aiblens be long afore such a gude-send comes to our coast again. There was Saunders Macmichael was drunk between yule and yule-for by

"Waes me, well may I remember that duleful day," interrupted the third bandsman: "it cost me a fair son-my youngest, and my best -I had seven once-alas, what have I now-three were devoured by that false and unstable water-three perished by the sharp swords of those highland invaders, who slew so many of the gallant Dacres and Selbys at Clifton and Carlisle-but the Cumberland Ravens had their revenge!-I mind the head and lang yellow hair of him who slew my Forster Selby, hanging over the Scottish gate of Carlisle. Aye, I was avenged no doubt. But the son I have left, has disgraced, for ever, the pure blood of the Selbys, by wedding a border Gordon, with as mickle Gypsey blood in her veins as would make plebeians of all the Howards and the Percies. I would rather have stretched him in the church-ground of Allanbay, with the mark of a Hielandman's brand on his brow, as was the lot of his brave brothers or gathered his body from among these rocks, as I did those of my other children!-But oh, Sirs, when did man witness so fearful a coming-on as yon dark sky forebodes."

While this conversation went on, the clouds had assembled on the summits of the Scottish and Cumbrian mountains, and a thick canopy of them, which hung over the Isle of Man, waxed more ominous and vast. A light, as of a fierce fireburning, dropped frequent from its bosom,-throwing a sort of supernatural flame along the surface of the water, and she wing distinctly the haven, and houses, and shipping, and haunted castle of the Isle. The old men sat silently gazing on the scene, while cloud succeeded cloud, till the whole congregating vapour, unable to sustain itself longer, stooped suddenly down from the opposing peaks of Criffel and Skiddaw, filling up the mighty space between the mountains, and approaching so close to the bosom of the ocean, as to leave room alone for the visible flight of the seamew and cormorant.

The water-fowl, starting from the

sea, flew landward in a flock, fanning the waves with their wings, and uttering that wild and piercing scream, which distinguishes them from all other fowls, when their haunts are disturbed. The clouds.. and darkness encreased, and the bird on the rock, the cattle in the fold,. and the reapers in the field, all looked upward, and seaward, expecting the coming of the storm.

"Benjamin Forster," said an old reaper to me, as I approached his... side, and stood gazing on the sea"I counsel thee youth to go home, and shelter these young hairs beneath thy mother's roof. The mountains have covered their heads-and hearken, too, that hollow moan running among the cliffs! There is a voice of mourning, my child, goes along the seacliffs of Solway before she swallows up the seafaring man... Seven times have I heard that warning voice in one season-and it cries, woe to the wives and the maids of Cumberland!"

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On the summit of a knoll, which swelled gently from the margin of a small beck or rivulet, and which, was about a dozen yards apart from the main body of the reapers,-sate a young Cumbrian maiden, who seem. ed wholly intent on the arrangement of a profusion of nut-brown locks, which descended, in clustering masses, upon her back and shoulders. This wilderness of ringlets owed,. apparently, as much of its curling elegance to nature as to.. art, and flowed down on all sides with a profusion rivalling the luxuriant tresses of the madonas of the Roman painters. Half in coquetry, and half in willingness to restrain her tresses under a small fillet of green silk, her fingers, long, round, and white, continued shedding and disposing of this beautiful fleece. At length, the locks were fastened under the fillet a band denoting maidenhood-and her lily-looking hands, dropping across each other in repose. from their toil, allowed the eye to admire a smooth and swan-white neck, which presented one of those natural and elegant sinuous lines, that sculptors desire so much to communicate to marble. Amid all this sweetness and simplicity, there.. appeared something of rustic archness and coquetry; but it was a

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kind of natural and born vanity, of which a little gives a grace and joyousness to beauty. Those pure creations of female simplicity, which shine in pastoral speculations, are unknown among the ruddy and buxom damsels of Cumberland. The maritime nymphs of Allanbay are not unconscious of their charms, or careless about their preservation; and to this sweet maiden, nature had given so much female tact, as enabled her to know, that a beautiful face, and large dark hazel eyes, have some influence among men.When she had wreathed up her tresses to her own satisfaction, she began to cast around her such glances-suddenly shot and as suddenly withdrawn—as would have been dangerous, concentrated on one object, but which, divided with care, even to the fractional part of a glance, among several hinds, infused a sort of limited joy, without exciting hope. Indeed, this was the work of the maiden's eyes alone, for her heart was employed about its own peculiar care, and its concern was fixed on a distant and different object. She pulled from her bosom a silken case, curiously wrought with the needle: A youth sat on the figured prow of a bark, and beneath him a mermaid swam on the green silken sea, waving back her long tresses with one hand, and supplicating the young seaman with the other. This singular production seemed the sanctuary of her triumphs over the hearts of men. She began to empty out its contents in her lap, and the jealousy of many a Cumbrian maiden, from Allanbay to Saint Bees'head, would have been excited by learning whose loves these emblems represented. There were letters expressing the ardour of rustic affection-locks of hair, both black and brown, tied up in shreds of silk, and keepsakes, from the magnitude of a simple brass pin, watered with gold, to a massy brooch of price and beauty. She arranged these primitive treasures, and seemed to ponder over the vicissitudes of her youthful affections. Her eyes, after lending a brief scrutiny to each keepsake and symbol, finally fixed their attention upon a brooch of pure gold: as she gazed on it, she gave a sigh, and looked seaward, with a glance which

showed that her eye was following in the train of her affections. The maiden's brow saddened at once, as she beheld the thick gathering of the clouds; and, depositing her treasure in her bosom, she continued to gaze on the darkening sea, with a look of increasing emotion.

The experienced mariners on the Scottish and Cumbrian coasts, appeared busy mooring, and double mooring their vessels. Some sought a securer haven, and those who allowed their barks to remain, prepared them, with all their skill, for the encounter of a storm, which no one reckoned distant. Something now appeared in the space between the sea and the cloud, and emerging more fully, and keeping the centre of the sea, it was soon known to be a heavily laden ship, apparently making for the haven of Allanbay. When the cry of " A ship! a ship!" arose among the reapers,-one of the old men, whose eyes were something faded, after gazing intently, said, with a tone of sympathy,"It is a ship indeed-and woes me, but the path it is in be perilous in a moment like this!"

"She'll never pass the sunken rocks of Saint Bees'-head,” said one old man: "nor weather the headland of Barnhourie, and the caverns of Colven," said another:-" And should she pass both," said a third, "the coming tempest, which now heaves up the sea within a cable's length of her stern, will devour her ere she finds shelter in kindly Allanbay!"

"Gude send," said he of the mixed brood of Cumberland and Caledonia,-" since she maun be wrecked, that she spills nae her treasure on the thankless shores of Galloway! These northerns be a keen people, with a ready hand, and a clutch like steel: besides, she seems Cumberland bark, and its meet that we have our ain fish-guts to our ain sea-maws."

"Oh see, see!" said the old man, three of whose children had perished when the Bonie Babie Allan sank

see how the waves are beginning to be lifted up! Hearken how deep calls to deep; and hear, and see, how the winds and the windows of heaven are loosened! Save thy servants-even those seafaring men