Of tortured man, from caverns foul and dank,
Join with the ringing bolt and fetter's clank.
Insensate! here your nightly vigils keep;
I turn to him who only wakes to weep.

Within the lowest dungeon's darkest shade,
Upon a rushy mattress squalid laid,

Where slime-engender'd reptiles slowly crawl,
And the thick damps hang clotted on the wall,
His manly limbs to shreds of sinew shrunk,
His hollow eye within its socket sunk,
Behold the captive-he for twenty years

Has bathed that dungeon's pavement with his tears,
Torn from the world in manhood's early prime,
Unseen, unknown the accuser and the crime;
Doom'd in this charnel-house to draw his breath,
And hour by hour to feel a living death,
When rush in visions on his madd’ning brain
Those forms of love he ne'er must see again,
Wife, children, all that made him feel it bliss
To live, the infant grasp, the matron kiss
Still fresh in memory on his lips, still press'd
With aching recollection to his breast.
Long did he hope, and when the door unbarr'd
Upon its rusty hinges hoarsely jarr'd,
He sprang with trembling eagerness to drink
The Hood of day, that quiver'd round the brink
Of his lone vault; and turn'd his upward eye
To catch once more the beam of liberty;
And clasp'd his supplicating hands to know
If vengeance yet were sated with his woe.
In vain-the mournful day succeeded day,
Sad years of bitter anguish roll'd away,
Till all that high disdain and generous pride
That steel'd his breast to bear, within him died.
He hoped, he fear'd no more; the joyous past,
Love, friendship, peace, were all effac'd at last,
Sear'd from his blighted bosom ;-now to scrawl
Unmeaning lines upon his prison-wall,

To play with straws, or trace the spider's thread
Hanging its long festoons around his bed,
Or o'er his brows his tatter'd robe to bind,
Betray the wanderings of a ruin'd mind;
And that sad smile which furrows his pale cheek,
Is the heart's last faint effort ere it break.

And dost thou boast, amidst such woes as these,
Thy painted halls, thy gorgeous palaces,
Tyrannic Venice! Can all these atone
For this one guiltless captive's secret groan-
For the long pangs of him, who, born as free
As mountain-air, was spurn'd to dust by thee!
I mourn thee not in thy misfortune's hour;
No-perish, I exclaim, insatiate Pow'r !
Perish all those who at the bloody shrine
Of mad ambition offer'd crimes like thine;
Who strain'd each thought to conquer and oppress,

But left undone the nobler task, to bless;

Strove not the applause of virtuous minds to gain,
And in the hearts of grateful thousand reign,

But fellow-man like herds of cattle sold,
And barter'd sacred liberty for gold.

Proud city! I will read the lesson here,
Which speaks to ages: on thy massive pier,
Where met the nations of the world and spread
Its wealth into thy bosom, the lone tread
Sounds fearfully; within thy port the reed
Clusters unstirr'd, and round thy keels the weed
Shelters the gnawing worm; because thy sway
Taught calumny to whisper life away,
On every thought of cruelty refined,

And with the Keenest tortures rack'd the mind
(That heavenly particle which man defies
And soars exulting whilst the body dies),
Lent to suspicion's breath the ready ear,
And shew'd thy slaves the danger e'en to fear,
When looks and sighs were summon'd forth to plead
'Gainst bloodless hands, the foul imputed deed."
Hadst thou not thus each generous wish suppress'd,
Hadst thou from the oppressor snatch'd the oppress'd,
This storm of desolation would have pass'd

Thy children would have rallied to the last,

And thou wouldst still have shone the Ocean's gem,

Firm 'mid thy subject isles, unchanged, unmoved like them.

Whilst other celebrated cities derive in part their interest from their civil and military history, Venice is attractive chiefly by her local peculiarities. A romantic feeling is awakened at the sight of her, which may be attributed more to the singularity of her situation than to the genius or achievements of her natives. Her magnificent edifices rest upon the waves, and are approached only along the silent bosom of the waters. Even the busy operations of commerce were performed in her streets with comparative tranquillity. She received the treasures of the East upon her quays and in her warehouses, not with the tumultuous crash of overloaded wains and sledges, but from the peaceful felucca, which having deposited its burthen, spread again its canvass to the breeze and sailed in search of richer offerings to the pride of its sea-wreathed mistress. When we recline in our gondolas and impelled by an invisible hand glide along her broad canals-when at every turn we perceive new objects of architectural splendour rising before us in rapid succession, palaces receding beyond palaces, domes clustering behind domes, the long perspective of arcades, the broad expanse of piazzas, the tapering points of towers and pinnacles-when we survey all these reflecting their façades in the watery mirror beneath them, which, far from seeming to supply the place of a foundation, continues their images to another heaven and another sky, the whole appears like a magnificent pageant with the immateriality of which the sea and the air mingle, but to which the earth affords no support. This unsubstantial character of Venice forms a singular contrast with the extent and duration of her political power. It seems as if a breath could at any time have annihilated, and yet it required the lapse of ages to shake and to subvert the fabric of her empire. Mistress in the days of her greatness of so large a portion of the civilized world, she fixed the seat of her power, not on the land which she possessed, but on the waters which flowed by her. She grasped with insatiable ambition distant possessions, and contended with mighty empires, but still her

* From Tacitus-id ipsum paventes quod timuissent.

existence was on the waves; her ships conveyed to her port the produce of the Eastern world, or bore the sound of her vengeance to remote countries, whilst she, unprotected by bulwarks, unconfined by ramparts, and defended only by the singularity of her situation and the terror of her name, seemed to exist as much at least in imagination as in reality. The extent and greatness of her power appeared to her opponents as undefined as the walls of her capital. A shadowy uncertainty overspread her actions as well as her habitations. She was felt before she was seen. She was present every where, and as occasion required could condense to a point, or expand to a long line of attack, the numerous population which she commanded. The genius of her government partook of this secresy and indistinctness. Its designs were conceived in darkness, and its mandates issued in silence: there was no preparatory notice by debate and discussion, no attempt to ascertain the state of popular feeling by hints and surmises; the decree and the execution were simultaneous, the flash was seen and the bolt felt at the same instant. Obscurity is a source of power as well as of sublimity, and the long existence of the Venetian government may, perhaps, be ascribed in part to that cause. Of the wisdom of its institutions, on which it was, during so long a period, the fashion for political writers to descant, we may now be allowed to entertain considerable doubts. If to sacrifice individual rights to public security--if to consolidate into a morbid mass of suspicion, treachery, and fear, the mental energies of the people-if to stifle Nature's most honourable feelings at their birth, and form the infant reason by artificial compression, to that passive character which assents when it should inquire, and complies when it should object--if to call off, by the open sanction of unbounded profligacy, the observer's attention from the crimes of the state, to the vices of the citizen, and thus, under the mask of private licentiousness, to advance with security to the perpetration of the most atrocious actions, be wisdom, Venice may claim and enjoy the reputation of political sagacity. The reward, however, of such sagacity has been the fate which Venice has experienced. She fell with ignominy, as she existed by oppression. The objects of her ambition were wealth and power: these she possessed, and these have passed away; nor will the Muse of Italy, whom she despised in her prosperity, and who could alone have ensured her immortality, now awaken along the waters which receive into their stagnant depths the falling fragments of her ruined halls and palaces, one strain to celebrate her former grandeur, or bewail her present desolation. H.

LETTERS ON ENGLAND.

LETTER XII.

London, Oct. 11, 1817.

THE most remarkable public buildings in London are certainly the Royal Palaces. Nothing can give one a more striking idea of the comparatively little respect in which kings are held in this country, than the external aspect of their residences. And they shew, also, the state of total barbarism in which the arts remained in England, at a period when they had reached the highest state of perfection that they have hitherto arrived at in other countries, her immediate neighbours.

The best and handsomest of the town palaces is Buckingham-House; and this would hardly serve for the residence of a wealthy private gentleman in France. Think of the monarch of a great nation having for his town palace a brick house two stories high, with four pilasters stuck on the front of it, and nine windows on a floor! Yet such is Buckingham-house, situated in one of the parks. To be sure it was not intended for a royal palace; but was built by a nobleman, the Duke of Buckingham. But this, you will think, does not mend the matter.

There are two other palaces, which are of brick also. They are even inferior to the one I have described; and are remarkable only for that perverse skill which could contrive to put together such a mass of materials, without by any accident, or in any particular, making an approach to either grandeur or beauty.

Carlton-House, the present town residence of the Regent, but which was erected expressly for him as heir-apparent to the throne, is in much better style. It is built of stone; and though extremely small, is in very good taste. It has a highly ornamented Corinthian portico, which, combining, and yet contrasting, with the simple style of the wings of the building, gives an elegant and somewhat classical air to the whole. The small court-yard before the house is entered by two handsome Ionic gateways, which, had they been connected together by a low screen, surmounted by an appropriate iron railing, would have rendered the effect of the whole building elegant and complete. But in this country they contrive, in matters of taste, to spoil every thing. They have done so in this instance most effectually, by connecting the gateways to each other by a high screen surmounted by couples of Ionic columns, reaching to the same height as the gateways themselves, which is more than half the height of the whole building. The effect of this is totally bad; for the columns have nothing to support but themselves; and from the novel predicament in which they are placed, they are not able to do even that with anything like grace or dignity.

There are two other palaces about four leagues from London, and one about seven. These I have not yet seen.

Next to the palaces, I have inquired for the public offices of the Government; but I find most of them are built in such a strange and disorderly style, that it would be impossible for me to give you any distinct idea of them by a description. Indeed I cannot get one myself by looking at them. I here speak of the War-Office, the Admiralty, the Treasury, &c. all of which are joined to each other, and form part of the side of a long street.

These buildings, for the same expense which they must have cost, might have been made a splendid ornament to this fine part of the metropolis; but, as it is, from their total want of uniformity or apparent design, they produce no continuity or singleness of effect whatever. The back-fronts of these buildings, which look towards the Park, though comparatively small and insignificant, are much more uniform and pleasing.

In the same street there is a very good specimen of modern architecture, called Whitehall-out of one of the windows of which Charles the First was led to the scaffold. I could not learn to what purpose this edifice is now appropriated.

Most of the other government offices are situated in Somerset-House. This is the only public building in London which can be said to have any pretensions to the character of grandeur and magnificence; the only one in which there appears any evidence of a comprehensive and well-digested plan; the only one which for extent, variety, and yet completeness, is worthy of the largest city in the world. SomersetHouse is a modern building of Portland stone. It is situated on the

banks of the Thames; over which the grand front looks. This front is elevated on arches; and at high tide it appears to rise-and, indeed, does rise-out of the water. It extends four hundred feet along the banks of the river. The arches, which rise directly from the bed of the river, support a balustraded terrace fifty feet wide; immediately behind which the grand front rises. This front is by no means sufficiently elevated to form a corresponding whole with the immense substructures on which it stands :--a defect that is especially remarkable at low water, when the whole basement is exposed to view, and, from its disproportionate size, gives the appearance of smallness to what is intended to be the most striking part of the building. This front is not yet finished; but the architecture of it, though more varied in its details, corresponds in style with those parts which I shall describe more particularly. The north front, looking towards the Strand, is an elegant and complete piece of architecture. It consists of a basement of nine arches, of which the three centre ones form the principal entrance to the whole building. On the key-stones of the arches are sculptured masks, representing Ocean, and the eight principal rivers of England. On this basement rises an elegant Corinthian order of ten columns, which support an entablature and balustrade; and over the three centre intercolumniations is an attic, ornamented with four statues, and surmounted by a sculptured allegorical group. The arches of the basement, and the intercolumniations of the second order, are filled by Doric windows, with pilasters, pediments, &c. The shafts of the Corinthian columns are not fluted: a peculiarity which is, I believe, not authorized by ancient examples. On passing through a very beautiful vestibule, formed by the three centre arches of this front, you enter a fine quadrangle, considerably more than 300 feet long and 200 wide, formed by the back-fronts of the two principal elevations which I have described, and by two side-fronts to correspond. The style of the architecture of this quadrangle, though varied in parts, yet corresponds generally with the principal fronts-excepting, however, a dome which rises over the south front, and a cupola over each of the sides which join it: These are small and insignificant in themselves, and