Milan, Wednesday, July 9, 1851.

Venice! Queen of the Adriatic! "City of the Heart!" how can I ever forget thee? Brief, too brief was my halt amid thy glorious structures, but such eras are measured not by hours, but by sensations, and my first day in Venice must ever hold its place among the most cherished recollections of my life.

Venice lies so absolutely and wholly on the water's bosom that the landward approach to her is not imposing and scarcely impressive. The view from the sea-side may be somewhat better, but not much—not comparable to that of Genoa from the Mediterranean. No part of the islets upon and around which Venice was built having been ever ten feet above the surface of the Adriatic, while the adjacent mainland for miles is also just above the water level, you do not see the city from any point of observation outside of it—only the distant outline of a low mass of buildings perhaps two miles long, but which may not be three blocks wide, for aught you can see. Formerly two miles of shallow lagoon separated the city from the land; but this has been overcome by the heavy piling and filling required for the Railroad which now connects Venice with Verona, via Vicenza, and is to reach this city via Brescia whenever the Austrian Government shall be able to complete it. At present a noble enterprise, through one of the richest, most populous and most productive Agricultural regions of the earth, and connecting the Political with the Commercial metropolis of Austrian Italy, is arrested when half-finished, entailing a heavy annual charge on the Treasury for the interest of the sum already expended, yet yielding little or no net revenue in return, because of its imperfect condition. The wisdom of this would be just equal to that of our ten years' halt with the Erie Canal Enlargement, except for the fact that the Austrians would borrow and complete if they could, while New York has had no such excuse for her slothful blunder.

The approach to Venice across the Lagoon is like that of Boston across the Charles River marshes from the West, though of course on a much grander scale. The embankment or road-bed was commenced by gigantic piling, and is very broad and substantial. You reach the station just in the edge of the city, run the Passport gauntlet, and are let out on the brink of a wide canal, where dozens of gondoliers are soliciting your custom. I engaged one, and directed him (at a venture) to row me to the Hotel l'Europe. This proved (like nearly or quite all the other great Hotels) to be located on the same line or water-front with the Ducal Palace, Church of St. Mark, and most of the notabilities of modern Venice, with the inner harbor and shipping just on the left and the Adriatic in plain sight before us, only two or three little islets covered with buildings partially intervening. Of course, my first row was a long one, quite through the city from west to east, including innumerable turnings and windings. After this, whomsoever may assert that the streets of Venice are dusty or not well watered, I shall be able to contradict from personal observation.

After outward renovation and breakfast, I hired a boat for the day, and went in search of American friends—a pursuit in which I was ultimately successful. With these I visited the various council-rooms and galleries in the Ducal Palace, saw the "Lion's Mouth," descended into the ancient dungeons, now tenantless, and crossed the "Bridge of Sighs." These last are not open to the public, but a silver key gives access to them. Thence we visited the famous picture-gallery of the Manfrini Palace, and after that the Academy, thus consuming the better part of the day.

The works of Art in the Grand Palace did not, as a whole, impress me strongly. Most of the larger ones are historical illustrations of the glories of Venice; the battle of Lepanto; the taking of Zara; the Pope and Venice uniting against or triumphing over the Emperor, &c., &c. Some of the most honorable achievements of Venice, including her long and memorable defense of Candia (or Crete) against the desperate and finally successful attacks of the Turks, are not even hinted at. But these galleries are palpably in a state of dilapidation and decay, which implies that the Austrian masters of Venice, though they cannot stoop to the meanness of demolishing or mutilating the memorials of her ancient glories, will be glad to see them silently and gradually perish. The whole Palace has a dreary and by-gone aspect, seeming conscious that either itself or the Austrian soldiers drilling in front of it must be an anachronism—that both cannot belong to the same place and time.

"The traitor clock forsakes the hours,
And points to times, O far away!"

The paintings in the Manfrini Palace seem to me by no means equal to those in the Orsini, Doria, and some other private collections of Rome; even of those extravagantly praised by Lord Byron, I failed to perceive the admirable qualities apparent to his more cultivated taste. The collection in the Academy I thought much better, but still far enough behind similar galleries in Rome. The fact is, modern Italy is poverty-stricken in Art and Genius as well as in Industry, and lives upon the trophies and the memory of her past greatness. I have not heard in all this land the name of one living Italian mentioned as likely to attain eminence in Painting, nor even in Sculpture.

Toward evening, my friend and I ascended the Campanile or Bell-Tower of St. Mark's, some 330 feet high, and had thence a glorious view of the city and its neighborhood. From this tower, the houses might almost be counted, though of the Canals which separate them only a few of the largest are discerned. But the port, the shipping outside, the gardens (naturally few and contracted), the adjacent main-land, the Railroad embankment across the Lagoon, the blue Euganian hills in the distance, &c., &c., are all as palpable as Boston Harbor from Bunker Hill Monument. Immediately beneath is the Place of St. Mark, the Wall-street of Venice; just beside you is the old Palace and the famous Cathedral Church of St. Mark; to the north is the Armory, one of the largest and most interesting in Europe; while the dome of every Church in Venice and all the windings of the Grand Canal are distinctly visible. An Austrian steamship in the harbor and an Austrian regiment marching from the north end of the city into the grand square to take post there, completed the panorama. The sun setting in mild radiance after a most lovely summer day, and the full moon shining forth in all her luster, gave it a wondrous richness and beauty of light and shadow. I was loth indeed to tear myself away from its contemplation and commence the tedious descent of the now darkened circular way up and down the inside of the tower.

In the evening, we improved our gondoliers' time in rowing leisurely from one point of interest to another. Together we stood on the true Rialto—a magnificent (and the only) bridge over the Grand Canal, in good part covered with shops of one kind or another. Here a boy was industriously and vociferously trying to sell a lot of cucumbers, which he had arranged in piles of three or four each, and was crying "any pile for" some piece of money, which I was informed was about half a Yankee cent. Vegetables, and indeed provisions of all kinds, are very cheap in Venice. I said this bridge is a grand one, as it is; but Venice is full of bridges across its innumerable canals, and nearly all are of the best construction. Arches more graceful in form, or better fitted to defy the assaults of time, I have never seen.

We passed from the true to Shakspeare's Rialto—the ancient Exchange of Venice, where its large Commercial and Moneyed transactions took place prior to the last three centuries. Here is seen the ancient Bank of Venice—the first, I believe, established in the world; here also the "stone of shame"—an elevated post which each bankrupt was compelled to take and hold for a certain time, exposed to the derision of the confronting thousands. (Now-a-days it is the bankrupt who flouts, and his too confiding creditors who are jeered and laughed at.) This ancient focus of the world's commerce is now abandoned to the sellers of market vegetables, who were busily arranging their cabbages, &c., for the next morning's trade when we visited it.

Venice is full of deserted Palaces, which, though of spacious dimensions and of the finest marble, may be bought for less than the cost of an average brick house in the upper part of New-York. The Duchess de Berri, mother of the Bourbon Pretender to the throne of France, has bought one of these and generally inhabits it; the Rothschilds own another; the dancer Taglioni, it is said, owns four, and so on. Cheap as they are, they are a poorer speculation than even corner lots in a lithographic city of Nebraska or Oregon.

That evening in the gondola, with one old and two newer friends, is marked with a white stone in my recollection. To bones aching with rough riding in Diligences by night as well as day, the soft cushions and gliding motion of the boat were soothing and grateful as "spicy gales from Araby the blest." The breeze from the Adriatic was strong and refreshing after the fervid but not excessive heat of the day, and the clear, mild moon seemed to invest the mossy and crumbling palaces with a softened radiance and spiritual beauty. Boats were passing on every side, some with gay parties of three to six, others with but two passengers, who did not seem to need the presence of more, nor indeed to be conscious that any others existed. The hum of earnest or glad voices here contrasted strongly with silence and meditation there. Venice is a City of the Past, and wears her faded yet queenly robes more gracefully by night than by day.

Yes, the Venice of to-day is only a reminiscence of glories that were, but shall be never again. Wealth, Luxury, Aristocracy ate out her soul; then Bonaparte, perfidious despot that he ever was, robbed her of her independence; finally the Holy Alliance of conquerors of Bonaparte made his wrong the pretext for another, and wholly gave her to her ancient enemy Austria, who greedily snatched at the prey, though it was her assistance rendered or proffered to Austria in 1798-9 which gave Napoleon his pretext for crushing her. Her recent struggle for independence, though fruitless, was respectable, and protracted beyond the verge of Hope; and not even Royalist mendacity has yet pretended that her revolt from Austria, or her prolonged defence under bombardment and severe privation was the work of foreigners. But the Croat again lords it in her halls; Trieste is stealing away her remnant of trade; and the Railroads which should regain or replace it are postponed from year to year, and may never be completed, or at least not until it is utterly too late. Weeds gather around the marble steps of her palaces; her towers are all swerving from their original uprightness, and there is neither energy nor means to arrest their fall. Nobody builds a new edifice within her precincts, and the old ones, though of the most enduring materials and construction, cannot eternally resist the relentless tooth of Time. Full of interest as is everything in Venice, I do not remember to have detected there the effectual working of a single idea of the last century, save in the Railroad, which barely touches without enlivening her, the solitary steamboat belonging to Trieste, and two or three larger gondolas marked "Omnibus" this or that, which appeared to be conveying good loads of passengers from one end of the city to the other for one-sixth or eighth of the price which the same journey solus cost me. The Omnibus typifies Association—the simple but grandly fruitful idea which is destined to renovate the world of Industry and Production, substituting Abundance and Comfort for Penury and Misery. For Man, I trust, this quickening word is yet seasonable; for Venice it is too late. It is far easier to found two new cities than to restore one dead one. Fallen Queen of the Adriatic! a long and mournful Adieu!