we lived through some of the terrible sieges which the city, so near the dividing line between the two countries, has experienced. We heard the cannon thundering at the gates, and we shivered with fear as we imagined ourselves shut in by warlike hosts. But we were soon assured that peace reigned, and in security we walked the streets of this very old city, crossed and recrossed the Adige, and looked with intense interest upon the labor of centuries so long passed away.

First of all the old, old amphitheatre, so old that history fails to record with certainty its origin, claimed attention. With wonder and curiosity we walked around this interesting work of the ancient Romans, which in size ranks next the Colosseum, and which has withstood the shocks of time even better than the structure of the same kind at Rome. But it could not withstand the shocks of the earthquake; its huge walls were shaken so that only four of the twenty-two arches rise in their places to show what they were. We went to the topmost one of the forty rows of seats, and tried to imagine the twenty-five thousand descendants of Romulus rejoicing over the contests of men and beasts. Had we not fallen asleep over Livy, or Virgil, or Cicero as we prepared the lessons for Cortland Academy, and should we not soon find that the arena was what it had been so many years—a story and a dream? But day after day it continued to raise its blackened walls on the Piazza del Bra, and to face the old gate which has been standing sixteen hundred years, and which presents a double arch-way over the broad Corso Victor Emanuel; so the past and the present join hands in this land of the East.

When we extended our walks through the narrow streets and came suddenly upon the Piazza del Erbe, we could not with certainty say upon what times we had fallen, past or present, ancient or modern, barbarous or civilized, the abode of the living or the dead; here were indications of all times and of all kinds—most elegant palaces of marble blackened by age, but ornamented by art, statues of Catallus, Cornelius Nepos, Pliny

the elder, and others of the loved sons of Verona, frescoes upon the outer walls, the column which once was proud enough to bear the famous Libra of St. Mark, the statue of Verona over the fountain, the tribune in the center from which criminals once received their sentence, and beside all these, cabbages, potatoes, apples, oranges, pomegranates, in short, a modern market place in the ancient forum of the Republic—all the way from the sublime to the ridiculous. And close at hand in the public streets, above the heads of the living, were the sarcophagi of the illustrious dead, the princely monuments of a family of princes the Scaligeri. Verona claims the honor of being the birth-place of one of the three celebrated painters of this vicinity whose works adorn church and palace everywhere in this land-Paul Cagliari, better known as Paul Veronese.

Again, as fast as steam will bear us, we go toward the shores of the sea. Time, too, is hurrying us away, and as the mountains rise in the distance, dim and shadowy, still suggestive of untold grandeur, fast going out of sight, so the days and the months of 1873 glide into the past, and soon their memory only will light up the journey of life.

VENICE.

CHAPTER XIV.

even

LL brides are lovely, and all queens are beautiful, but where shall the words be found with which to describe the Bride of the Sea, the Queen of the Adriatic! The orator should be golden-mouthed, the writer should dip his pen in sunset hues, the reader should look with the eyes of bright fancy then Venice would not appear in a robe which is not her own. The presentation took place in the last days of the year, when hearts were softened by passing time, minds were brightened by imagination's touch, the senses were enkindled by the fires of memory, and the whole being was alive to beauty and art. It was just at the sunset hour that we entered the realms of fair Venice. Never did gossamer and pearl more fittingly adorn bridal tresses; never did diamond glitter with more brilliant lustre in the bridal veil; never was the face of youth and beauty more brightly illuminated at. the bridal altar, than the Italian skies on that eve of the declining year, by the rays of the setting sun. The colors of the rainbow encircled the horizon, shading from crimson through gold and green, and the bow was set with many a gem of light, such as earth fails to produce. All the brilliancy of color and light was repeated and

ILLUSTRATIONS.-1. General view of the Islands with the Grand Canal passing between them at the left. 2. Cathedral of St. Mark. 3. Square of St. Mark's, the column bearing the Lion of St. Mark and the Statue of St. Theodore; Palace of the Doges at the right; Palace of Victor Emanuel at the left; Clock Tower in front. The Campanile-Bell-Tower,