From Ferrara we proceeded through Rovigo to Padua _the Learned_, where we were more fortunate in our inn, and where, in the fine open square at the entrance, I first perceived the rage for vulgar and flaunting statuary, which distinguishes the Lombardo-Venetian States. The traveller to Venice (who goes there to see the masterpieces of Titian or Palladio’s admired designs), runs the gauntlet all the way along at every town or villa he passes, of the most clumsy, affected, paltry, sprawling figures, cut in stone, that ever disgraced the chisel. Even their crucifixes and common Madonnas are in bad taste and proportion. This inaptitude for the representation of forms in a people, whose eye for colours transcended that of all the world besides, is striking as it is curious: and it would be worth the study of a man’s whole life to give a true and satisfactory solution of the mystery. Padua, though one of the oldest towns in Italy, is still a place of some resort and bustle; among other causes, from the number of Venetian families who are in the habit of spending the summer months there. Soon after leaving it, you begin to cross the canals and rivers which intersect this part of the country bordering upon the sea, and for some miles you follow the course of the Brenta along a flat, dusty, and unprofitable road. This is a period of considerable and painful suspense, till you arrive at Fusina, where you are put into a boat and rowed down one of the _Lagunes_, where over banks of high rank grass and reeds, and between solitary sentry-boxes at different intervals, you see Venice rising from the sea. For an hour and a half, that it takes you to cross from the last point of land to this Spouse of the Adriatic, its long line of spires, towers, churches, wharfs is stretched along the water’s edge, and you view it with a mixture of awe and incredulity. A city built in the air would be something still more wonderful; but any other must yield the palm to this for singularity and imposing effect. If it were on the firm land, it would rank as one of the first cities in Europe for magnificence, size, and beauty; as it is, it is without a rival. I do not know what Lord Byron and Lady Morgan could mean by quarrelling about the question who first called Venice ‘the Rome of the sea’—since it is perfectly unique in its kind. If a parallel must be found for it, it is more like Genoa shoved into the sea. Genoa stands _on_ the sea, this _in_ it. The effect is certainly magical, dazzling, perplexing. You feel at first a little giddy: you are not quite sure of your footing as on the deck of a vessel. You enter its narrow, cheerful canals, and find that instead of their being scooped out of the earth, you are gliding amidst rows of palaces and under broad-arched bridges, piled on the sea-green wave. You begin to think that you must cut your liquid way in this manner through the whole city, and use oars instead of feet. You land, and visit quays, squares, market-places, theatres, churches, halls, palaces; ascend tall towers, and stroll through shady gardens, without being once reminded that you are not on _terra firma_. The early inhabitants of this side of Italy, driven by Attila and his hordes of Huns from the land, sought shelter in the sea, built there for safety and liberty, laid the first foundations of Venice in the rippling wave, and commerce, wealth, luxury, arts, and crimson conquest crowned the growing Republic;—