Next morning, at breakfast in my hotel, formerly the palace of the Giustiniani, I met a young Englishman, who had just come from Rome. He had the misfortune to be of the same name with one on the "suspected list," and for this offence he was arrested on entering the Austrian territory; and, though allowed to come on to Venice, his passport was taken from him, and his journey to England, which he meant to make by way of Trieste and Vienna, stopped. The list to which I have referred, which is kept at all the continental police offices, and which the eye of policeman or sbirro only can see, has created a sort of inquisition for Europe. The poor traveller has no means of knowing who has denounced him, or why; and wherever he goes, he finds a vague suspicion surrounding him, which he can neither penetrate nor clear up, and which exposes him to numberless and by no means petty annoyances. I accompanied my friend, after breakfast, to the _Prefecture_, to transact my own passport matters, and was glad to find that the authorities were now satisfied that he was not the same man who figured on the black list. Still they had no apology, no reparation, to offer him: on the contrary, he was informed that he must submit to a detention of two or three days more, till his passport should be forwarded from the provincial office where it was lying. His misfortune was my advantage, for it gave me an intelligent and obliging companion for the rest of the day; and we immediately set out to visit together all the great objects in Venice. It would be preposterous to dwell on these, for an hundred pens have already described them better; and my object is to advert to one great lesson which this fallen city,--for the sea, which once was the bulwark and throne of Venice, is now her prison,--teaches.
Betaking ourselves to a gondola, we passed down the Giudecca, Canal. We much admired--as who would not?--the-noble palaces which on either hand rose so proudly from the bosom of the deep, yet invested with an air of silent desolation, which made the heart sad, even while their beauty delighted the eye. We disembarked at the stairs of the _piazzetta_ of S. Mark, and repaired to the Doge's palace,--the dwelling of a line of rulers haughtier than kings, and the throne of a republic more oppressive than tyrannies. We walked through its truly majestic halls, glowing with great paintings from Venetian history; and visited its senatorial chamber, and saw the vacant places of its nobles, and the empty chair of its Doge. There was here no lack of materials for moralizing, had time permitted. She that sat as a Queen upon the waves,--that said, "I am of perfect beauty,"--that sent her fleets to the ends of the earth, and gathered to her the riches and glory of all nations,--alas! how is she fallen! "The princes of the sea" have "come down from their thrones, and" laid "away their robes, and put off their broidered garments." "What city is like" Venice,--"like the destroyed in the midst of the sea!"