Page:Mrs Shelley (Rossetti 1890).djvu/239

Rh pictures in the Academia ; and she had the good fortune of seeing St. Peter Martyr, which she misnames St. Peter the Hermit, out of its dark niche in the Church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. She gives a very good description of Venetian life at the time, and much commends its family affection and family life as being of a much less selfish nature than in England; as she remarks truly, if a traveller gets into a vicious or unpleasant set in any country, it would not do to judge all the rest of the nation by that standard as she considered Shelley did when staying in Venice with Byron. The want of good education in Italy at that time she considers the cause of the ruling indolence, love-making with the young and money-keeping with the elder being the chief occupation. She gives a very good description of the noble families and their descent. Many of the Italian palaces preserved their pictures, and in the Palazzo Pisani Mary saw the Paul Veronese, now in the National Gallery, of "The family of Darius at the feet of Alexander." Mary's love of Venice grew, and she seems to have entertained serious ideas of taking a palace and settling there; but all the fancies of travellers are not realised. One moonlit evening she heard an old gondoliere challenge a younger one to alternate with him the stanzas of the Gerusalemme. The men stood on the Piazzetta beside the Laguna, surrounded by other gondolieri in the moonlight. They chanted "The death of Clorinda" and other favourite passages; and though, owing to Venetian dialect Mary could not follow every word, she was much impressed by the dignity and beauty of the scene. The Pigeons of St. Mark's existed then as now. Mary ended her stay in Venice by a visit to the Opera, and joined a party, by invitation, to accom-