Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 2.djvu/141

 Latin with them, and that it is a remnant of the vernacular of Roman Italy. Nine centuries later, the lingua Toscana could scarcely be said to exist; the language of Brunetto Latini, Dante’s master, being very scant and inefficient. I am told that Dante himself hesitated whether to write his “Divina Comedia” in Latin or Venetian, till fortunately he became aware that the talk of the common people of Tuscany possessed all the elements of expression; and he, collecting them with that life-giving power proper to genius, “created a language, in itself heroic and persuasive, out of a chaos of inharmonious barbarisms.” There is, I believe, even at this day, greater scope for wit and airy grace in Venetian than in Tuscan.

The gondolieri often sing at their oars; nor are the verses of Tasso quite forgotten. One delicious calm moonlight evening, as we were walking on the Piazzetta, an old gondoliere challenged a younger one to alternate with him the stanzas of the “Gerusalemme.” I have often wished to hear them. It was a double pleasure that I did not do so by command, but in the true old Venetian way, two challenging each other voluntarily, and taking up alternate stanzas, till one can remember no more, and the other comes off conqueror. We are told