especially on cold days, when we have been chilled at home; but Lido has a heat of its own—its sands receiving and retaining the sun’s rays—which we do not enjoy among the marbles and pavements of Venice.
As the sun sinks behind the Euganean hills, we recross the lagune. Every Monday of this month is a holiday for the Venetian shopkeepers and common people; they repair in a multitude of gondolas to Lido, to refresh themselves at the little inn—to meet in holiday trim, and make merry on the sea-sands. We pass them in crowds as we return on that day. Our way is, sometimes (according as the tide serves,) under the walls of the madhouse, celebrated in Shelley’s poem of Julian and Maddalo—
“A windowless, deformed, and dreary pile.”
Yet not quite windowless; for there are grated, unglazed apertures—against which the madmen cling—and gaze sullenly, or shout, or laugh, or sing, as their wild mood dictates.
We often allow our gondolier to take us where he will; and we see a church, and we say, what is that? and make him seek the sacristan, and get out to look at something strange and unexpected. Thus we viewed the church of St. Sebastian, which contains the chef-d’œuvre of Paul Veronese, the Martyrdom of
