Having travelled with you through the splendid æras of the Venetian story, and presented their statesmen and heroes to your view, let us now return to the present race, in whose life and conversation, I forewarn you, there is nothing heroic. The truth is, that in every country, as well as Venice, we can only _read_ of heroes; they are seldom to be _seen_: for this plain reason, that while they are to be seen we do not think them heroes. The historian dwells upon what is vast and extraordinary; what is common and trivial finds no place in his records. When we hear the names of Epaminondas, Themistocles, Camillus, Scipio, and other great men of Greece and Rome, we think of their great actions, we know nothing else about them;—but when we see the worthies of our own times, we unfortunately recollect their whole history. The citizens of Athens and Rome, who lived in the days of the heroes above mentioned, very probably had not the same admiration of them that we have; and our posterity, some eight or ten centuries hence, will, it is to be hoped, have a higher veneration for the great men of the present age, than their intimate acquaintance are known to have, or than those can be supposed to form, who daily behold them lounging in gaming-houses. All this, you perceive, is little more than a commentary on the old observation, That no man is a hero to his Valet de Chambre. The number of playhouses in Venice is very extraordinary, considering the size of the town, which is not thought to contain above one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, yet there are eight or nine theatres here, including the opera-houses. You pay a trifle at the door for admittance; this entitles you to go into the pit, where you may look about, and determine what part of the house you will sit in. There are rows of chairs placed in the front of the pit, next the orchestra; the seats of these chairs are folded to their backs, and fastened by a lock. Those who choose to take them, pay a little more money to the door-keeper, who immediately unlocks the seat. Very decent-looking people occupy these chairs; but the back part of the pit is filled with footmen and gondoleers, in their common working clothes. The nobility, and better sort of citizens, have boxes retained for the year; but there are always a sufficient number to be let to strangers: the price of those varies every night, according to the season of the year, and the piece acted.