"We are moulded, though faintly, in an angel's form. Endow us with an angel's principles. For ever hush the impure swellings of passion! lull the stormy tide of contending emotions! let not circumstances overwhelm! "Receive our past griefs: the griefs of manhood, engrafted on youth; accept these tears, falling fast and bitterly! take them as past atonement,--as mute witnesses that we feel:--that reason slumbers not, although passion may mislead:--that gilded temptation may overcome, and gorgeous pleasure intoxicate:--but that sincere repentance, and bitter remorse, are visitants too. "Oh guide and pity us!" A cheerless dawn was breaking, and a thick damp mist was lazily hanging on the water's surface, as our travellers waved the hand to Venice. "Fare thee well!" said George, as he rose in the gondola to catch a last glimpse of the Piazzetta, "sea girt city! decayed memorial of patrician splendour, and plebeian debasement! of national glory, blended with individual degradation!--fallen art thou, but fair! It was not with freshness of heart, I reached thee:--I dwelt not in thee, with that jocund spirit, whose every working or gives the lip a smile, or moistens the eye of feeling with a tear. "Sad were my emotions! but sadder still, as I recede from thy shores, bound on a distant pilgrimage. Acmé! dear Acmé! would I were with thee!" Passing through Treviso, they stopped at Castel Franco, which presents one of the best specimens of an Italian town, and Italian peasantry, that a stranger can meet with. At Bassano, they failed not to visit the Municipal Hall, where are the principal pictures of Giacomo da Ponte, called after his native town. His style is peculiar. His pictures are dark to an excess, with here and there a vivid light, introduced with wonderful effect. From this town, the ascent of the mountains towards Ospedale is commenced; and the route is one full of interest. On the right, lay a low range of country, adorned with vineyards; beyond which, the mountains rose in a precipitous ridge, and closed the scene magnificently. The Brenta was then reached, and continued to flow parallel with the road, as far as eye could extend. Farther advanced, the mountains presented a landscape more varied:--_here_ chequered with hamlets, whose church hells re-echoed in mellow harmony: there--the only break to their majesty, being the rush of the river, as it formed rolling cascades in its rapid route; or beat in sparkling foam, against the large jagged rocks, which opposed its progress.