The view of Venice, at some little distance from the town, is mentioned by many travellers in terms of the highest admiration. I had been so often forewarned of the amazement with which I should be struck at first sight of this city, that when I actually did see it, I felt little or no amazement at all. You will behold, said those anticipators, a magnificent town,—or more frequently, to make the deeper impression, they gave it in detail—You will behold, said they, magnificent palaces, churches, towers and steeples, all standing in the middle of the sea. Well; this, unquestionably, is an uncommon scene; and there is no manner of doubt that a town, surrounded by water, is a very fine sight; but all the travellers that have existed since the days of Cain, will not convince me, that a town, surrounded by land, is not a much finer. Can there be any comparison, in point of beauty, between the dull monotony of a watery surface, and the delightful variety of gardens, meadows, hills, and woods? If the situation of Venice renders it less agreeable than another city, to behold at a distance, it must render it, in a much stronger degree, less agreeable to inhabit. For you will please to recollect, that, instead of walking or riding in the fields, and enjoying the fragrance of herbs, and the melody of birds; when you wish to take the air here, you must submit to be paddled about, from morning to night, in a narrow boat, along dirty canals; or, if you don’t like this, you have one resource more, which is, that of walking in St. Mark’s Place. These are the disadvantages which Venice labours under, with regard to situation; but it has other peculiarities, which, in the opinion of many, overbalance them, and render it, on the whole, an agreeable town. Venice is said to be built in the sea; that is, it is built in the midst of shallows, which stretch some miles from the shore, at the bottom of the Adriatic Gulph. Though those shallows, being now all covered with water, have the appearance of one great lake, yet they are called Lagune, or lakes, because formerly, as it is imagined, there were several. On sailing on the Laguna, and looking to the bottom, many large hollows are to be seen, which, at some former period, have, very possibly, been distinct lakes, though now, being all covered with a common surface of water, they form one large lake, of unequal depth. The intervals between those hollows, it is supposed, were little islands, and are now shallows, which, at ebb, are all within reach of a pole.